Brazil's Lula goes north to confront misery

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.10.03, 11:34 AM ET  By Raquel Stenzel

TERESINA, Brazil, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Making good on a campaign promise to confront misery head on, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took 30 of his top aides back home to Brazil's hardscrabble northeast on Friday to visit some of the nation's worst pockets of poverty.

Dubbed "the caravan of hunger," the two-day tour is intended to highlight Lula's anti-hunger program called "Fome Zero," or "Zero Hunger," that he has made his center-left administration's top priority.

Lula, Brazil's first elected leftist leader, kicked off the trip at the Irma Dulce shantytown in the city of Teresina, where he was greeted by thousands of residents, many bearing written requests on sheets of paper. One dweller, Lula said, asked for a soccer field. Another wanted a septic tank.

"A poor person is a poor person anywhere, but the truth is that you have poverty here that is worse than any other," said the former metalworker, his shirt soaked from the sweltering heat.

"You have a situation in which poverty stops being just poverty, and turns into misery."

Lula introduced his cabinet one by one like a rock star presenting his backup band before a short speech focusing on hunger and the rights of Brazilians to basic services like health and education.

Although in a better state than many other Brazilian shantytowns, or favelas, Irma Dulce is home to some 30,000 people who like nearly one in three people in Brazil are poor and have only limited access to basic sanitation, health and education.

Lula had originally planned to launch the Zero Hunger program during the trip but delays in putting it together have postponed its unveiling until later this month.

The details are still sketchy, but it will reportedly involve new measures such as food coupons and existing programs Lula says will be made more efficient.

LULA AT HOME The trip was Lula's first since taking office on New Year's Day. Although he has made a strong effort to put forth a statesman-like appearance, the 57-year-old of humble origins is at his most comfortable on the streets with the working class.

Even with a presidential security detail and bow-tied waiters with cups of water behind him, Lula still showed the common touch that gave him a landslide victory in October. He peppered his speech with words and phrases common in the northeast, where he was born, and stopped to talk to people and sign autographs.

"I really liked his simplicity. If it were a campaign, it would be another thing, but he's already been elected," said Joselino Rodrigues de Souza, a 29-year-old unemployed construction worker.

Lula was scheduled to fly to the city of Recife in his home-state of Pernambuco, where he will spend the night. On Saturday, he will visit a poor area in the state of Minas Gerais he dubbed the Valley of Misery during the campaign.