By Felipe Camara
In the last couple of years, some men have stepped up to bring to the light information they believed was of public interest. Names like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are now well-known. With both critics and supporters, their actions strongly affect governments.
“Such leaks were very interesting from the world political point of view,” says the political scientist Anelise Gondar, “In a way, they showed that the governments still spy in a classic way. The governments are interested in knowing what the other governments do,” she adds.
Since 2013, Brazil has been in a turmoil. Part of the population went to the streets to protest against corruption, the World Cup, the Olympic Games… and the government. The Car Wash Operation, led by the Judge Sergio Moro, investigated money laundering and corruption in Petrobras, state-controlled oil company. The investigation led to giant repercussions in the Brazilian politics when the police started to arrest politicians. This led to Judge Moro becoming some kind of a national hero among government opponents. The arrested politicians started to denounce their colleagues in a snowball that reached the major names of Brazilian government like the former President Lula. At the same time, President Rousseff started to face an impeachment process; the President was accused of manipulating the government budget.
Beware of the Ides of March
The crucial week in this whole story was in the middle of March. Former President Lula woke up with a Federal Police task force in his house to take him for questioning about an ongoing investigation on him, and the government party didn’t like that. Two days later, more than 3 million people took the streets to protest against Lula, Rousseff, and the corruption. The following day, President announced that the former President Lula, who was under investigation, would become her Chief of Staff. According to then President Rousseff, that was a political move, so she could have more ways to talk with the congress. For others, however, it was a clear move to give Lula protection from justice because under Brazilian law, cabinet members can only be tried by the Supreme Court.
Things got worse when Moro made public a conversation recorded on the same day between Rousseff and Lula. That sparkled riots all over the country asking for Rousseff’s resignation.
“What Moro did was to break up with the passivity of Brazilian people,” says Raquel Guerra, a Brazilian lawyer, “We (the Brazilians – FC) were always uninterested about the political situation, and he made society concerned with politics.”
“From the juridical point of view, he crossed the line. But like I said before, he put the public interest higher than the fundamental rights. So, that was the idea, he purposely offended the fundamental rights, the privacy rights, to think in a bigger plan for society as a whole,” Guerra adds.
The political party and the government said that this “leak” was illegal and a threat to national security. “It’s a conversation that, for some people, is very strong, and for others, is interpreted as just a conversation between colleagues.” says the Brazilian journalist Paulo Garritano, “We need to discuss if what Sergio Moro did was ethical or not, if he could or couldn’t do what he did. At least he had the dignity to take this material and make it available for all the communications vehicles of Brazil.”
“It’s evident that when you bring to public a conversation between the former president and the president of the country, breaking any kind of secrecy of investigation, and worst, when this is released in a conversation recorded in time, when justice couldn’t record anymore, and it was recorded because of the system flaw, you imagine: “what a bomb!”… and you think how to solve that,” Garritano adds.
“This specific audio caused a great fury in the population,” Gondar says.
The continuing fight against corruption
Almost two months after the events, President Dilma was withdrawn from the presidency and has to wait for the impeachment process to reach an end to see whether her presidency is over. Former President Lula is still under investigation. Many other politicians are either being arrested or under investigation, and each week, a new conversation between politicians under investigation reaches the press, with similar discussions as the one between Rousseff and Lula. And this fight against corruption is reaching every level of Brazilian society.
“For the first time, we have a process of investigation against corruption, that is having results. In the last years, we are getting used to see the big figures responding criminally for actions, that lead to corruption. So, without a doubt, fighting corruption is something positive,” Gondar adds.
Garritano also commented on the investigations: “In a long term, this movement against corruption, which made people protest on the street and imprisoned people we never imagined could be caught, can become a new page in Brazilian political history.”
