Was There a Military Coup in Brazil?

Does Brazil already have a new “acting President”?

It is being reported that, under pressure from the Army, Walter Braga Netto is now the “operational president” of Brazil, with Jair Bolsonaro effectively stripped of his decision making powers. According to veteran Argentine investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky, this has already been communicated informally to the Argentine authorities. There has been as yet no official confirmation.

By Lucas Rocha. Revista Forúm

President Jair Bolsonaro’s excesses in the face of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Brazil have irritated the Armed Forces’ high command, which now appears to have “elected” Chief Minister of the Casa Civil, Walter Braga Netto, as the country’s new “operational president”.

According to the Argentine investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky, a high ranking official of the Brazilian Army communicated to their Argentine counterpart that President Jair Bolsonaro is not being heard by the authorities when making decisions.

“There was a telephone communication from a high ranking Brazilian army official with one from Argentina, in which the Brazilian informed them that they had taken the decision to circumvent President Bolsonaro in all important decisions,” said the journalist on the program “Habrá Consecuencias”, from Radio El Destape .

Verbitsky affirms that Bolsonaro is acting as a “monarch without effective power” and who now commands the country is General Walter Braga Netto.

In recent days, Braga Netto’s stance at press conferences has caught the attention of the media. The general has tried to control the responses of those present and even overruled other ministers .

Braga Netto, who was the commander of the military intervention in Rio de Janeiro in 2018, was appointed to the Federal Government’s coronavirus committee as coordinator. According to the DefenseNet portal, in reality, he now acts as “Chief of Staff of the Planalto”, corroborating the Argentine journalist’s claims.

According to the website, “The new ‘informal mission’ was the product of a deal involving ministers and military commanders and the President of the Republic himself,”

“His ‘mission’ is to reduce the president’s exposure, leaving him in position ‘democratically’, to behave as if he does not belong to his own government. The general will begin to shape the executive’s actions in the (Coronavirus) crisis. He may even contradict Bolsonaro’s statements,” placing Bolsonaro in the same position as “a monarch without effective power ”.

Migrants, Protests & Aid Cuts: Legacy of US-Backed 2009 Coup in Honduras

As with Europe in Africa, the USA in Central America literally raped the countries of their natural resources leaving them in poverty and with dictators who are cruel and brutal. Then America builds walls to keep them from migrating. I know they can't all come to America, but America needs to be working to improve conditions in Central America giving the people hope and a reason to stay.

FILE PHOTO: A migrant holds flags of Honduras and the United States next to US-Mexican border

© Reuters / Kim Kyung-Hoon

As caravans of migrants stream toward the US border and protesters in Honduras demand the president’s resignation, a coup in Tegucigalpa exactly 10 years ago is now making for strange political allies in Washington.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) thus found herself on the same wavelength as US President Donald Trump when she advocated cutting off the aid to the government of President Juan Orlando Hernandez in March, and tweeted out a photo with the daughter of the slain Honduran activist Berta Caceres on Friday.

Ilhan Omar✔
@IlhanMN

 In 2016, Honduran activist Berta Cáceres was murdered by US-trained Honduran special forces.

The next year, I had the honor of meeting her daughter, Bertha.

Today marks 10 years since the coup in Honduras. We in the US must stop funding its brutality.

Trump also wants to cut US funding to Honduras, but for a completely different reason: along with Guatemala and El Salvador, the country is a major source of migrant “caravans” that have been streaming across the US border over the past year. All three Central American nations have experienced Washington’s meddling throughout their history.

On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military raided the home of President Manuel Zelaya and led him away at gunpoint. He was replaced by Porfirio Lobo Sosa, leader of the National Party, who held the office until 2014, when he handed it over to Hernandez.

The administration of Barack Obama – specifically, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – was involved in planning and executing the coup, it later emerged. Clinton herself admitted it in her memoir “Hard Choices,” first published in 2014. After public scrutiny, however, the part of the book detailing her involvement in Honduras was removed from the paperback edition. 

In the decade since, Honduras has become a human rights nightmare, according to organizations such as Amnesty International, which accused state security forces of routinely engaging in torture and extrajudicial killings. 

Caceres, for instance, was murdered in 2016 in attack widely believed to have been in retaliation for her activism against the construction of the Aguas Zarca dam in the Gualcarque river.

Over the last several months, public anger at Hernandez’s rule has turned into widespread unrest. Riots first began in April, in protest over his plans to privatize the education, healthcare and pension systems of Honduras. In May, demonstrators set fire to the US embassy in Tegucigalpa, and later attacked containers belonging to the Dole Fruit Company. 

Fruit companies are a symbol of US military and political meddling in Central America, which gave rise to the term “banana republic.”

On Tuesday, state security forces opened fire on a group of student protesters, injuring four people. Activists are no longer calling for merely reversing the privatization, but also for  Hernandez to step down.

While Hernandez’s economic policies have created a favorable environment for US multinational corporations, they brought ruin to the small farmers of Honduras, who are fleeing to the US in droves in search of work. 

The political establishment in Washington, however, has considerable interest in keeping Hernandez in power, as he has promised to keep open the US military base at Soto Cano. 

Good grief! How cheaply we sell our soul!

Peru Declares Emergency over Influx of Venezuelan Migrants

At least this massive migration is not a cultural assault like Islam migrating into Europe. But it is a lot for a relatively small and poor country to deal with. Venezuela's Maduro is almost completely to blame for his people deserting the country. The US is not without some fault here.

By Danielle Haynes

Venezuelan citizens arrive at the border with Peru, in Huaquillas, Ecuador, on Sunday.

Photo by José Jácome/EPA-EFE

(UPI) -- Peru declared a 60-day health emergency Tuesday as the country deals with an influx of thousands of Venezuelan migrants fleeing an economic crisis back home.

Health officials in Peru are worried about the spread of communicable diseases in the north as Venezuelans crossed the border ahead of new immigration rules. The two countries don't share a common border, but Peruvian authorities say more than 300,000 Venezuelans have immigrated to the country this year.

There are 400,000 Venezuelans living in Peru, 178,000 of which have permission to be there, Voice of America reported.

Peru started requiring passports for Venezuelans entering the country as of Aug. 25.

The International Organization for Migration and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said last week that more than 2.3 million Venezuelans are living abroad and more than 1.6 million have left the country since 2015. The U.N. agencies expressed concerns over Peru's new passport requirement.

"We recognize the growing challenges associated with the large scale arrival of Venezuelans. It remains critical that any new measures continue to allow those in need of international protection to access safety and seek asylum," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Nestor Popolizio told Radio Programas the government has asked the United Nations for assistance with the influx of Venezuelan migrants, Bloomberg reported.

Venezuela's economic crisis, exacerbated by a fall in oil prices, has caused basic goods, including food and medicine, to be in short supply, unavailable or unaffordable.

U.N. Report Cites Deaths, Abuses in Nicaraguan Human Rights Crisis

A reporter from NPR spoke to protestors who explained that while the initial issue was about the pension reform, the uprisings that spread across the country reflected many grievances about the government's time in office, and that the fight is for President Ortega and his Vice President wife to step down. - Wikipedia

Ortega is serving his 4th term as President and 3rd consecutive term, which required an act of parliament to enable. Outside observers are not allowed in Nicaraguan elections.

By Ed Adamczyk

Protesters participate in an anti-government demonstration Managua, Nicaragua, on July 12, 2018. A United Nations report released on Wednesday said there have been 300 killings and numerous human rights violations in a four-month crackdown. File Photo by Jorge Torres/EPA-EFE

(UPI) -- A United Nations report, released Wednesday, condemned Nicaragua's human rights record and urged action and accountability in the Central American nation.

The 41-page report by the U.N. Human Rights Office covers the period from April, when protests in Nicaragua against planned social security cuts began, to August. It identifies a disproportionate use of force by police, sometimes resulting in deaths; killings, disappearances and widespread arbitrary detentions; torture and violations of the right to freedom of opinion and peaceful assembly.

At least 300 people have been killed and at least 2,000 injured, mostly men under 30, the U.N. said. The casualty count reflects the protesters, who included university students and young professionals, the report said. At least 22 police officers died as well.

"The level of brutality in some of these episodes, including burning, amputations and desecration of corpses illustrates the serious degeneration of the crisis," the report said.

At least 300 civilians have been prosecuted on charges of terrorism and organized crime in courts that do not observe due process, the U.N. report said citing data from non-governmental organizations. Teachers, doctors and civil servants have been fired from jobs for criticizing the government, and authorities have harassed or stigmatized protesters and defenders of human rights, the U.N. report said.

"Repression and retaliation against demonstrators continue in Nicaragua as the world looks away. The violence and impunity of these past four months have exposed the fragility of the country's institutions and the rule of law, and created a climate of fear and mistrust," said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.

The report urges the Nicaraguan government to guarantee the independence of the country's judiciary and resume a dialogue with its adversaries.