Interview with Former World Bank Staff – Brazil And The Parliamentary Coup

This is a slightly expanded transcript of a Skype Interview with Sputnik and Peter Koenig, an economist, geopolitical analyst and also a former World Bank staff.

Sputnik
What is your view on the parliamentary impeachment of Dilma Rousseff?

PK
What happened in Brazil is just the most horrifying and flagrant illegal foreign-led parliamentary coup that has happened in Latin America since a similar coup, also foreign-led, deposed José Mujica of Uruguay in June 2009.

Why foreign-led?
Washington was behind it then – and Washington is behind the coup in Brazil today.

What amazes me most though is that the so-called ‘progressive’ media do hardly mention the long and bloody hand of Washington in this coup. This reality is conveniently left out.

Just a year ago, international legal authorities were clear about the unlawfulness and baselessness of impeachment. They all saw the illegitimacy of launching an impeachment procedure.

Nevertheless – the local ultra-corrupt and ultra-neo-Nazi oligarchy succeeded – with the help of the US. What the so-called ‘progressive media’ tell us today, is that a group of corrupt right-wing parliamentarians, led by Eduardo Cunha, former speaker of Brazil’s lower house, who is himself prosecuted for corruption in the so-called “Car-Wash” scandal, drove the move to impeachment. Cunha was – maybe still is – a client of Washington. Not only the mainstream but also the ‘progressive media’ shun this fact. Cunha is accused of perjury, money laundering and receipt of at least $5m in bribes.

The former Vice-President and now President, Michel Temer, who has alleged crimes of high corruption on his shoulders -in excess of US$ 40million – is likely to escape criminal prosecution, and so is his pal Cunha – under Temer’s new leadership.

Dilma was never accused of corruption. They would have liked to, but couldn’t find anything. All they could find is that she may have ‘embellished’ government accounts, a common habit, done throughout the world, no criminal offense and especially no impeachable offense. However, some media still say she was found guilty of corruption. What a lie! – She wasn’t even accused of corruption.

So the real criminals are escaping justice and stay in power. That’s precisely what Washington wants; free access to all the countries riches, hydrocarbons, tropical forests – and not least, almost endless resources of fresh surface water in the Amazon Basin and huge underground water reserves. Let’s not even talk about the countless quantities of Brazil’s mineral resources.

Privatization on a massive scale is what will take place in the coming two years – perhaps comparable to Greece, or what Macri is proposing for Argentina, or worse. Temer has already said so. This may include privatization of all kinds of public assets, the Amazon waters, as the US has already once attempted to put them under UN auspices – so that Washington could control them, as they do with whatever is linked to the UN system. Lula at that time has said firmly NO WAY.

Privatization will be accompanied by equally massive austerity programs, cutting of health and education benefits, of pensions and other social safety nets – leaving behind masses of unemployed people, abject misery – one just has to look at IMF-ECB-EU/EC devastated Greece; and at what Washington-directed Macri has already done to Argentina, i.e. increased the countries poverty level from about 12% in November 2015, before his ‘election’, to close to 40% in July 2016, with soaring unemployment. Temer has two years to complete his neonazi manifesto. And he will get all the help he needs from Washington and the financial institutions that will soon call the shots in Brazil – IMF, World Bank, Wall Street, all of them the extended fist of the FED, US Treasury and the secretive Rothschild controlled BIS (Bank for International Settlement) in Basel, Switzerland – also called the central bank of central banks.

Why is Washington and its financial institutions behind the coup? – Already more than a year ago secret talks between the IMF, WB and the current coup-makers have taken place. Brazil is going to be handed over first to the IMF, which makes sure that the austerity programs are implemented – à la Greece – then to Wall Street which will make sure that the debt level is so that privatization of public assets is “justified and unavoidable”. The newly Temer appointed head of Brazil’s Central Bank, ‎Ilan Goldfajn, who also has a history with the IMF, will make sure that Brazil follows the financial oligarchy’s prescribed line.

By controlling Brazil, Washington has its claws again firmly on Latin America, almost as if the renowned Latin America democratic revolutions towards independence never took place.

And thirdly, also a key for sub-doing Brazil is that Brazil is an important member of the BRICS – crucial for its economic strength and potential as well as for its geographic equilibrium it will bring to the BRICS. The BRICS are led by Russia and China – countries which have already largely detached their economies from the western dollar-based system, and are developing their own, linked to economic output and to gold – yes, gold. Both Russia’s and China’s currencies are gold backed. While the western fiat money is made of thin air.

In the western world, it’s the fake dollar-euro based monetary system that makes the economy, it’s not the economy that makes the monetary system, as it should be, since the economy should serve as the base for any monetary system that is supposed to reflect a healthy, honest, and fair economy within and between countries. That is what the BRICS would promote. Therefore, the BRICS have to be eliminated – one by one. They are a danger for the US-led western financial hegemony over the world.

With foreign intervention proven in the coup, the case could even be taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague – perhaps as a test case to see how independent the ICC still is.

Sputnik
Brazil’s Senate decided that former President Dilma Rousseff, who was removed from office earlier on Wednesday, should not be barred from holding public office. What will be her next steps?

PK
Yes, after Dilma was remorselessly removed from the Presidency, most everybody believed that she would also be barred from holding public office for the next 8 years. This was not the case. The Senate had ‘mercy’, so to speak. As if it recognized the blunder it produced – I repeat – on orders from abroad, they spared her this humiliation.

What Ms. Rousseff will do next – I have no idea. In any case she has already declared that she will take the case to Brazil’s Supreme Court. How successful this will be, is questionable. Especially since Mr. Temer now is clearly a US puppet, at the command of Washington. He will direct Brazil’s Supreme Court to follows orders from above.

Where I see a better chance is taking the case to The Hague. Even though it is well known how dependent on the White House’s wishes the ICC is, it would be interesting to see the arguments the Court uses to uphold Brazil’s Senate verdict. – In any case the world at large might learn something about (in)justice imposed on the ‘unaligned’ by the empire and their masters, the masters of globalized finance.

Whatever Dilma decides to do, however she decides to proceed, I hope she will not give in, that she stays the course, her course of integrity for which she is known and that she stays in politics. Brazil needs her. My guess is that she would have massive, but I mean massive, like in tens of millions of people’s support throughout Brazil, perhaps enough to bring about a revolution; to send a firm message to her Latin American neighbors – and to the rest of the world.

 

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

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