Manifesto to the Brazilian People
The Frente Brasil Popular* (Brazil Popular Front/FBP) denounces the persecution and injustice against Lula and defends his right as a candidate in free and democratic elections
1. A man is being unjustly persecuted because, together with the Brazilian people, he proved that it is possible to build a free, just, fraternal and solidarity society. They want to annul the political rights of this man: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the first President who was a child of the people and defender of the workers and the poor. They want to annul the peoples’ right to vote freely for a man who represents the millions of Brazilians who suffer today with unemployment, salary reductions, the revocation of historic rights and the dismantlement of policies that promoted hunger eradication and inequality reduction in our Country.
2. The persecution against Lula is motivated by sectors of the justice system, notably the Federal Judiciary, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Lava Jato group within the Federal Police and the 4th Regional Federal Court, associated with the most powerful and oppressive media groups in the country led by Rede Globo. The goal of this arbitrary, oppressive and illegal persecution is to prevent the people from electing Lula President again.
3. They do not only want to imprison Lula the citizen. They want to ban the cause that he represents and defends: social inclusion, the promotion of the people’s rights, rights for women, children, blacks, indigenous, LGBT, people with special needs. The want to bar salary increases and job generation. They want to block support for small and medium sized businesses, family agriculture and agrarian reform, the defense of national sovereignty and the construction of a more equal and just Nation.
4. In order to bar Lula from the presidential elections, they created lies and enacted an arbitrary process. They attributed crimes to him which were never proven because Lula always acted within the law, before, during and after he was President of Brazil. In condemning him without a crime or proof, they had no scruples about violating the most elementary constitutional guarantees and overriding the most fundamental democratic values.
5. Lula is innocent and he continues to challenge the Lava Jato team to prove that he ever illicitly received even 10 cents from anyone. They seized his and his children’s bank records, invaded the Lula Institute, tapped his telephones, illegally took him by force to testify, restricted his defense, and negotiated plea bargains with criminals in exchange for financial and penal benefits, but during all of this they did not find any proof of the crimes that they are accusing him of committing. Lula has proven his innocence and continues to challenge them to prove that he is guilty.
6. April 7, 2018, Lula obeyed his illegal and arbitrary prison mandate because he has a historic commitment to this Nation and our people. Even though he was invited to go into exile in other democratic countries, he preferred to stay here and face his lying accusers. He awaits his judgment on the basis of the merit of his resources and defense because he believes that justice can still be made in this Nation.
7. Even though he is incarcerated, Lula continues as candidate for the Presidency of the Republic because he does not accept watching passively as the country is managed with economic, political and social incompetence. He does not accept the delivery of the national patrimony to private interests or for Brazil to let go of the sovereignty which was courageously conquered. The Powerful, the coup makers and Rede Globo want to maintain Lula prisoner and remove him from the elections so that they can maintain the suffering of the people and the ruin of the country. But the people, the law and the Constitution are all on Lula’s side.
8. Electoral Law guarantees that Lula’s party can choose him as presidential candidate and that his candidacy can be registered by August 15, with his name and photograph inscribed in the electronic ballot boxes and the right to appear in radio and TV electoral advertising. Only after this can the Electoral Courts decide on his eligibility, with the right, if necessary, to appeal to the Federal Supreme Court. These are the facts, whether the pundits at Globo like them or not. They don’t make the laws or represent the real Brazil, they merely repeat the voice of their owner.
9. Lula maintains his faith that Brazil can return to being one of the world’s largest economies, that it can grow and create jobs, and he believes that the Brazilian people can rebuild their self esteem, national sovereignty and make decisions based on their own interests, overcoming the stray dog complex, as happened during his previous government.
10. For this to happen, we have to recuperate national industry, rescue the strategic role of Petrobrás, and preserve Electrobras and the public banks such as the Banco do Brasil, the BNDES, and Caixa. We need to invest more and more in eduction, science, technology and research, so that Brazil can become internationally competitive again. We need to recuperate the social programs that guarantee transfer of income, support family agriculture, agrarian reform, popular housing as well as increasing salaries, so that the people can participate in the harvest of the fruits of economic growth.
11. Brazil will only overcome the deep crisis that it finds itself in through free and democratic elections, with the participation of all of the political forces and all of the candidates, including Lula, respecting the parties autonomy, the legitimacy of the existing pre-candidates and preserving the power for political and programmatic convergence in the democratic field. Only in this manner will we have a government with the legitimacy to make Brazil, once again, a more just and better country. It is only in this way that we can debate and create a new communications order, without monopolies, democratizing access to information and the means of expression.
12. Brazil wants to return to be a country in which everyone has their rights recognized, in which there is no hate, prejudice and violence, such as that which assassinated Marielle and Anderson and that massacres the poor, blacks women, peasants and indigenous peoples on a daily basis.
13. Brazil wants to return to be a country that is the size of its dreams. It wants to return to be a country that cultivates fraternity, respects differences and the international dialogue for peace, as it was when Lula was President. It wants to return to have confidence in the present and hope for the future, without fear of being happy.
For Free and Democratic Elections!
Free Lula! Marielle Presente!
For the Right for Lula to be a Candidate!
For the Right to Vote Freely!
May 24, 2018
Frente Brasil Popular
* The Frente Brasil Popular, or Popular Brazil Front, is a popular (working class and poor) coalition of social movements, unions and union federations which was formed to counter and revert the 2016 Coup in Brazil. With over 15 million members, its 71 member organizations include: the CUT labor union federation, the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), Via Campesina, The World Women’s March, AGBLT ( the national GLBT Association), CONEN (the national confederation of black organizations), CONAQ (the national Quilombola Movement), The CMP and the UNMP (urban social movements), the Catholic Church social and land pastorals, and the CTB union federation.
[qpp]
