www.charlotte.com Posted on Sat, Feb. 08, 2003 KEVIN G. HALL Knight Ridder

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - At an entrance to Rio's infamous Cidade Alta slum, a skinny teen stands sentry, scarcely taller than his AR-15 assault rifle. He's a soldier for Comando Vermelho, the city's top drug gang.

As a taxi eases past, driver and passengers look away. Eye contact is a bad idea in Cidade Alta. So are visits by outsiders. Even police enter only in large, heavily armed, military-style raids.

New President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is promising nutrition programs, enhanced education and even some urban land reform to millions of impoverished Brazilians. But first he, too, must get past the teen sentries and the drug gangs they serve.

If the experience of charity groups is any indication, da Silva wouldn't be welcome. Aid workers in favelas, as Rio's slums are called, say they operate in unremitting fear of the gangs.

"What they want is that everyone knows THEY are in charge," said a worker for the well-known Brazilian charity Cruzada do Menor ("Crusade for Minors"), who spoke on condition of anonymity. It shuttered its operations in Pavaozinho, a hillside slum in Copacabana, after traffickers invaded one of its day-care centers and threatened to kill any child who returned. For many kids, the center had provided the only nutritious meal of the day.

Another group, Acao Comunitaria ("Community Action"), provides after-school activities in Rio's Mare slums and brings in professionals to assess learning disabilities and counsel children. Agency officials will talk to reporters only if trafficker-imposed conditions are met: No questions about drug gangs. No photos outside the agency's walls. All outsiders must be gone by nightfall.

Favela drug gangs, like the U.S. mob, controlled illegal gambling and vice for generations before they took over the drug trade. They, too, have a generous side, but the motive tends to include an assertion of power.

"They can impose their law with arms, but they can also use the power of money," said Brazilian criminologist Geraldo Tadeu. "They finance samba schools, homeowners associations, sponsor parties and even provide food baskets. They create a scheme of economic dependence for those who live in slums."

In slums where most residents are squatters, Rio state investigators say drug gangs control many traditional homeowners groups, set up to resolve disputes among neighbors and confer unofficial home ownership documents.

More legitimate forms of government barely penetrate the favelas, a water-by-the-pail world where PVC pipes jut from houses to carry raw sewage at least a few feet away. Garbage simply rots. On a hot day, the stench can dizzy a visitor.

"The vulnerability (to organized crime) has been brewing over time. There has been an abandonment by the government," said Marcelo Rasga Moreira, the author of a new book on drug trafficking, "Neither Soldiers Nor Innocents."

In March, da Silva's government will offer slum dwellers what sounds like a sweet deal: the chance to legitimize with land titles tens of thousands of homes built on federally owned land.

Theoretically, land titles will enhance the homes' value, enable banks to make home mortgage loans and end fears that the government will relocate residents.

Homeowners associations will be the link between residents and the federal government, however, and since drug traffickers control so many of them, da Silva may find the negotiations awkward.

washingtontimes.com By Carmen Gentile UPI Latin America Correspondent

     SAO PAULO, Brazil, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Brazil set in motion this week its much-vaunted effort to eradicate hunger among the nation's poor.            Dubbed "Fome Zero" (Zero Hunger), the brainchild of Brazil's new, leftist leader has won praise both here and abroad as a noble humanitarian effort of epic proportions.            After winning a landslide victory in late October, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva used his first official news conference to introduce an idea that was surely years, if not decades, in the making.            Then and there, the former metalworker and union leader, who is no stranger to poverty himself, introduced the world to Fome Zero's goal of providing three square meals to an estimated 45 million Brazilians who don't get enough to eat.            The man Brazilians call "Lula," without the pretensions of a "president" to proceed him, appeared worn by months of campaigning -- his fourth try at the presidency -- yet galvanized by the opportunity to bring his vision of full bellies across the board to South America's largest nation.            Since then, the everyman president who grew up in a Sao Paulo slum and dropped out of school after the fifth grade to shine shoes has been stumping for food and funds to make his vision a reality.            Between winning the presidency and assuming office on Jan. 1, Lula has been busily setting up a strategy for conquering hunger, while urging every Brazilian to join in the fight by donating food so that it could be distributed in federal food centers throughout the country.            The Lula administration put the challenge to Brazilian business to also do its part, searching for 1,000 companies that could chip in to help bring the program to their respective neighborhoods.            After much planning and a few pitfalls along the way, the Fome Zero finally got off the ground this week. Though the beginning was an inauspicious one -- a single ill-funded distribution center -- the gesture signified the beginning of a magnanimous gesture.            So naturally, some people hate it.            Critics say the program is overly reactionary, that poverty and starvation aren't nearly as bad as Lula make them out to be and that the project is ill-conceived and poorly managed. Fome Zero has also come under some fire for indulging in the type of populist ideals that prompted the military to seize power in 1964.            While it's true that Lula's numbers on poverty don't agree with other estimates -- one government agency sets the number of starving Brazilians at around 23 million -- that surely doesn't mean all is well.            Even if only 13 percent of 175 million go to bed writhing with hunger pangs every night, populist or not, it's time to do something about it.            And in doing so, Lula answers his critics with his trademark smile backed up by a labor activist's determination to balance the scales of justice.            Instead of railing against those who have condemned the project as a government-sponsored charity, he has been busily reminding folks that Fome Zero is more than just about handouts.            Indulging in the adage "teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry," he has attempted to assure cantankerous critics that food distribution is just the first step of a greater goal of asserting Brazil's presence in the region and the world.            Food first, then the lessons in self-reliance, Lula assures his detractors.            Meanwhile, as the world's ninth-largest economy and a nation its neighbors often look to for guidance, Lula has put Brazil on the world stage by first playing a role in assisting neighboring Venezuela thrash out its labor strike woes.            Then last month, as the only world leader to attend both the Economic and World Social forums, Lula called on world leaders mired in talk of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to follow Brazil's example and focus their efforts on ending hunger worldwide.            While the message may have fallen on deaf ears in the Saddam Hussein-obsessed Bush administration, it struck a chord with some European officials who called for the EU to form its own hunger eradication program.            Now, with a handful of successful international appearances under his belt and widespread support around the globe for Fome Zero, Lula is getting set for a showdown with the United States over its proposed hemispheric trade bloc.            The Brazilian leader has condemned the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement as annexation politics by the United States rather than an attempt to eliminate barriers to trade and investment among 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere by 2005.            The bloc won't become a reality without Lula's OK, even despite a snide suggestion by one Bush administration official that Brazil could always form trade relations with Antarctica if it won't join the FTAA.            With popularity at home and a positive image abroad, Lula appears to have an upper hand on a White House that hasn't spent much time following up on promises to pay more attention to Latin America than previous administrations.            In a matter of months, Brazil went from being just another Third World nation with a blue-collar president to regional powerbroker capable of calling the shots when it comes to negotiating trade with the United States.            And it all started with the idea of getting people enough to eat.

www.nytimes.com By TONY SMITH

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Feb. 4 — It was one thing when the last Miss Brazil admitted she had shaped her perfect figure under the plastic surgeon's knife, but this year's incumbent lost her crown and sash today after confessing that she was, in fact, Mrs. Brazil.

Pageant organizers dethroned Joseane de Oliveira, 21, after she confirmed weekend newspaper reports that she had been married before winning last year's contest. Advertisement

The 21-year-old model from the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul had already upset organizers by agreeing to appear in a prime-time reality show and posing seminude for a steamy photo Web site.

The revelation that she had walked down the aisle in 1998 before taking to the catwalk was the final straw.

"Joseane has passed on her crown and sash for the simple reason that she is a married woman," said Nayla Micheris, contest organizer and herself a former Miss Brazil. "Our contract is quite explicit. Contestants cannot be married or have ever been married."

Ms. Oliveira insisted on television Sunday night that organizers had known she had been married, but recanted publicly at a news conference Monday in Rio de Janeiro.

The faith of some pageant aficionados was shaken in 2001 when that year's winner, Juliana Borges, confessed to having had 19 surgical procedures, including silicon implants in her breasts, cheeks and chin and collagen injections in her lips.

Back then, the organizers kept mum. After all, everybody was doing it. About 400,000 Brazilians got tucks, implants or some sort of lifting done in 2000, making them second only to Americans in vanity procedures.

"I think Juliana exaggerated as to the number of operations she had, but she did it with the intention of improving herself," Ms. Micheris said. "We all know that contestants from Venezuela or Puerto Rico also have operations, otherwise they know they won't reach the final."

Ms. Oliveira passed the title on to last year's runner-up, Taíza Thomsen, who will reign just three months, until the next contest in April.

Despite her very public apology, Ms. Oliveira showed little or no contrition over her lucrative sidelines, like the reality show and sensual photo shoots. She is said to be negotiating a deal to pose nude — totally, this time — for the Brazilian edition of Playboy.

www.greenleft.org.au BY ORLANDO SEPULVEDA

PORTO ALEGRE — Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva spoke to tens of thousands of people at the World Social Forum (WSF) on January 25. It was the first time that Lula, a former factory worker and union leader, addressed a mass audience of the left as leader of the biggest nation in Latin America.

There was a great deal of expectation about the speech — particularly after the announcement that Lula would then go on to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to meet the world's top political officials and corporate chiefs.

But in his speech at the WSF, a very cautious Lula explained to his followers that the times are tough — and that it would be practically impossible to comply with every one of the demands of the Brazilian people. “We have four long years to work”, Lula said. He claimed that he was going to Davos “to bring the voice of Porto Alegre to them".

Despite the fact that the WSF showed very clearly the widespread opposition to neoliberalism, the Washington-backed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and George Bush's war on Iraq, Lula followed the same script in Davos as all new presidents who want to gain the favour of the big moneylenders. In his speech to the wealthy and powerful, he spoke of fiscal responsibility and greater openness to imports and foreign investment.

Two days later, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez came to Porto Alegre for an indoor rally at the city hall and a press conference. News of Chavez's visit spread like wildfire, with people attending the WSF anxious to demonstrate their solidarity with the people of Venezuela.

Delegates understand that the workers and poor of Venezuela are suffering from a disruption of the oil industry by a bosses' “strike" backed the Bush administration. Many have organised solidarity activities, such as a Brazilian youth group that issued a statement opposing the bosses' strike and denouncing US imperialism.

Unfortunately, the WSF authorities didn't provide space for Chavez to speak to a mass demonstration. This would have been a great opportunity to show support for the Venezuelan people.

The close relationship between the organisers of the WSF and the Brazilian Workers Party, Lula's party, is responsible for this missed opportunity.

Lula was given the chance to speak to a mass meeting of the Latin American left to crown his career from trade union organiser to Brazilian president — and by extension, the new leader of Latin America. But now, as president, Lula wants to be seen as the leader of all Brazilians — including Brazilian capitalists. So he didn't make the kind of fiery speech that he's famous for — and WSF organisers apparently didn't want Chavez to upstage him.

Lula did provide emergency oil shipments to Venezuela during the bosses' strike. But he also tried to broker a deal with an international “group of friends" of Venezuela that included the US — even though Washington openly backed a coup attempt last April.

Chavez and Lula don't have fundamental differences in their approach to issues like the FTAA, the International Monetary Fund and neoliberalism. Chavez was unacceptable to the WSF organisers, who were afraid of giving away Lula's leadership. This approach deprived the Venezuelan people of a great opportunity to gain the kind of international solidarity that they urgently need.

[From Socialist Worker, weekly paper of the US International Socialist Organization. Visit www.socialistworker.org.]

From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

www.greenleft.org.au BY FEDERICO FUENTES

PORTO ALEGRE — This year's World Social Forum (WSF), a countersummit to the corporate elite's World Economic Forum, held in this southern Brazilian city, January 23-28, attracted 100,000 participants, including 20,763 delegates, representing 5717 organisations from 156 countries.

The third WSF had two central themes — the growing resistance to the US-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and opposition to the impending US-led war on Iraq. These two themes predominated on the banners and placards carried by participants at the WSF's opening march through the streets of Porto Alegre and on the march which concluded the official agenda of the WSF. They were also the main themes reflected in the panels and 1700 workshops held during the forum.

In the opening panel, entitled “Against Militarisation and War” renowned Marxist scholar Istvan Meszaros, noted that in the context of this current US war drive, Rosa Luxemburg's famous saying had to be modified to read “socialism or barbarism … if we are lucky”. The panelists each stressed the point that war was an integral part of the neoliberal drive for “free markets” and global “free trade” and therefore had to be seen as an integral part of the anti-neoliberal movement around the world.

Egyptian-born political economist Samir Amin added that without stopping the current US drive for permanent war, “no progressive change would be possible”. New Left Review editor Tariq Ali pointed out the key role that the anti-war movements in the US and Britain had to play in order to stop the war against Iraq. Ali noted that opinion polls in the US showed support for a war against Iraq dropped from 60-70% to 30-35% if the war was to be carried out unilaterally, which meant that pressure on other governments to withdraw their support for such a war could politically isolate the US government.

Noam Chomsky, who spoke on the final panel, “How do we confront empire”, noted that “if we do not make them [the US rulers] pay a high cost for going to war, then they will already be planning their next”. He stressed that there was hope, pointing to the hundreds of thousands who turned out in the US on January 18 to protest the war. The US movement against war was “unprecedented”.

Chomsky reminded the audience that it was just over 40 years since the then US president John Kennedy announced the first deployment of US combat troops to Vietnam, but that it took years before there was any significant opposition to that war. Today, however, even before US combat troops have invaded Iraq there is a mass movement in the US opposing the war.

Another theme running through this year's WSF was discussion of the growing social movements in Latin America. A number of workshops looked at the political situation in Argentina one year after the popular uprising against neoliberalism, the developing process of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela and the situation in Brazil under the newly elected government of Workers Party (PT) leader Luis (“Lula”) Inacio de Silva.

A common thread among these presentations was that the social struggles taking place in these countries were not just limited to local demands but had incorporated opposition to the FTAA, defence of human dignity and national sovereignty.

The planned protests against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September were highlighted as a common focus for the social movements in Latin America and the rest of the world, as was the February 15-16 international day of action against the war on Iraq.

Two of the figures around which much of the discussion focused, not only in the context of Latin American resistance, but more broadly at the WSF, were present in Porto Alegre but not officially part of the WSF. Both Lula and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were excluded from the official agenda of the WSF due to its secretariat's ban on official participation of government representatives and political parties.

Despite the ban, more than 100,000 people turned out on January 24 to hear Lula speak, many wanting to know what he would say about the fact that the following day he would be flying to Davos, Switzerland, to participate in the World Economic Forum. In his speech, Lula pledged to take the issues of the WSF to the WEF. He said he wanted to make clear at the WEF that “an economic order in which a few eat five meals a day while many go five days without eating is unacceptable” and that “we need peace, not war”.

While most of those present seemed to accept Lula's explanation for attending the WEF, a considerable minority at the WSF continued to oppose his decision, fearing it would give unwarranted credibility to the WEF, fostering the false idea that the corporate elite represented at the WEF could be persuaded to reform their profit-before-people's needs outlook and agenda.

Chavez, whose presence in Porto Alegre was only confirmed a few days before he arrived on January 26, spoke for two hours to a packed room in the local Legislative Assembly building. Thousands showed up to hear him but could not fit into the room, and the local police used batons and pepper spray to move the crowd away from the doors.

During his visit to Porto Alegre, Chavez announced that his government would be introducing currency and price controls to block the rich exporting their capital from Venezuela and to protect the poor from price rises.

As at the two previous WSFs, participants at this year's meeting discussed a wide range of issues from Third World debt to the plight of women in war, to HIV/AIDS and pharmaceutical companies. In conjunction with the WSF, a World Children's Forum, the World Parliamentary Forum and an Assembly of the World Social Movements were held, as were a diverse range of cultural and musical events.

The third Intercontinental Youth Camp also took place with its own agenda of political debates, discussion, cultural events and video presentations. Some 25,000 young people attended.

Many of the members of the WSF organising committee and many delegates noted the lack of representation of the diverse social movements from, for example, Africa and Asia. Developments in Africa received only 2% of the official agenda time.

In order to help the process of further internationalising the “Porto Alegre process”, the WSF international council (IC) decided to hold the next WSF in India in 2004. The IC also resolved that due to the feeling that the WSF had overtaken the WEF in political importance, the dates of its meeting would not necessarily have to coincide with those of the WEF. The IC decided to call for an annual international day of action under the banner of “Against neoliberalism and war, another world is possible”, which would be organised on one of the days of the WEF.

From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.