Veja, Brazil's leading news magazine, associated with organized crime
Yesterday I posted a news story published by The Guardian about the latest corruption scandal in Brazil. It involves the chief of the Brazilian gambling mafia, Carlinhos Cachoeira, or "Charlie Waterfall", policymakers, police officers, public employees and business leaders in several states of Brazil. Charlie Waterfall has built an impressive criminal network both in the public and private spheres to run his illegal business without being caught. But one of names connected to Charlie Waterfall deserves particular attention: the editor-in-chief of Brazil's leading newsmagazine Veja in Brasília: Policarpo Jr.
Veja magazine is a right-wing publication, the favourite of the Brazilian elite (2/3 of its readers belong to social classes A and B). It's well known for its moralist approach and claims to be some kind of paladin of journalism ethics. Veja used to be one of the most influential outlets of the Brazilian press, and was respected among its peers. Nowadays, it's used in journalism courses as an example of what shouldn't be done. There are several reasons why Veja is continually losing its credibility, but all of them started after the left-wing Worker's Party came to power and Lula became president in 2002. After that the magazine became a pamphlet of the opposition parties and a propaganda outlet of conservative ideologies. You think Fox News is bad enough? You haven't read Veja.
Since 2002, Veja's mission is to find a way of defeating Lula, Dilma and the Worker's Party and bringing the righ-wing back to the Planalto Palace. They tried everything, from accusing Lula of having bank accounts is tax havens (based on falsified documents) to accusing Fidel Castro and FARC of financing the Worker's Party. But the documents accumulated by the federal prosecutors during Charlie Waterfall's affair (40,000 pages of evidence and over 11,000 hours of phone taps) show that Veja did not limit itself to the practice of yellow journalism in their consecutive attempts to overthrow the Worker's Party: they crossed the line of crime, becoming associated to Charlie Waterfall - who's accused of kidnapping, forced confinement, sexual exploitation, illegal gambling, tax evasion, unlawful concealment, influence peddling, money-laundering and corruption.
The investigation conducted by the federal prosecutors found out that Charlie Waterfall made more than 200 phone calls to the editor-in-chief of Veja magazine, Policarpo Jr. They discovered through the phone taps that Charlie Waterfall was using Veja magazine as his personal publication, ordering what the magazine should publish, where it should publish and what it shouldn't publish. He used the magazine as a channel to launch political persecutions, disseminate intimidation of opponents, blackmail, corruption and recruiting of public employees. In exchange, Veja received from Charlie informations, documents and phone taps, illegally obtained, (Charlie ran a clandestine group of spies and had a very influent network) that could be useful in their holy war against the Worker's Party, viewed by both the criminal and the magazine as an opponent (Lula forbade gambling in Brazil and his government was engaged in an active campaign to arrest illegal gambling chiefs).
The alliance between the magazine and the organized crime allowed Veja to publish reports that helped Charlie Waterfall, his criminal organization and his friends in politics to make huge profits. At the same time, they became tools for pressuring and intimidating publich authorities. Thus, Veja and Charlie consolidate a millionaire criminal scheme, with ramifications in the private and publich spheres, in the entire country. In 2011, for example, Policarpo Jr. wrote a report published by Veja denouncing a bribery scheme in the Federal Transport Department. After the publication, Dilma fired the minister of transports and several of the departament's officers. Phone taps broadcasted two weeks ago reveal that the evidences of the "bribery scheme" were false (Charlie comments on the tape to one of his employees that he fabricated the evidences published by Veja to get rid of the transport minister). One of the companies involved in the false bribery scheme had its contract for infrastructure projects with the government broken. That cleared the way for Delta, a company owned by a member of Charlie's gang, to get new contracts with the government. The magazine knew of the plan and just agreed to put it in action.
Charlie also had a great lobbyst in the Parliament: senator Demostenes Torres, of the right-wing party DEM, one of the most relevant opposition parties to Lula's and Dilma's governments. Senator Torres is now suspected of negotiating public works contracts for companies belonging to Charlie and his gangs in exchange for kickbacks. As a senator, Torres also tried, several times, to make laws that would make Charlie's life easier. The phone taps reveal that Veja knew that senator Torres was directly involved with Charlie and his criminal organization. But, instead of denouncing him, the magazine transformed Torres into a symbol of incorruptible politician. He was labeled, by the magazine, of "warrior of ethics":
The text reads: "There are few of them. But in the Congress they are everything that the Brazilian people can count on to avoid private interests of completely dominating politics."
Several of the phone taps also reveal that Charlie wanted senator Torres to become a judge in the Supreme Court, so that the senator could help him in keeping his illegal activities without risks. Charlie ordered, Veja obeyed: the magazine published several reports lobbying in favor of Torres going to the Supreme Court:
Interview with senator Torres, published by Veja. The text reads: "The Supreme Court is everything we have now" (pointing to a supposed lack of representation of the right wing in congress).
Veja's affront to democracy came to the level of becoming an ally of organized crime and corrupted politicians in order to plan the destabilization of the democratically elected presidents Lula and Dilma Rousseff. Now, they are trying to defend themselves, counting, of course, with the help of mainstream media. So, if you guys see news about Dilma or the Worker's Party in Brazil trying to destroy democracy, press freedom or any bullshit like that, don't worry. It's just a group of thugs trying to get by unpunished.
*You can find the official documents produced by the federal prosecutors about the association of Veja and the organized crime in the link below. According to them, another media outlet, the newspaper "Correio Braziliense" is also connected to the gang:
http://dilmapresidente.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/revista-veja-o-crime-organizado-e-tentativa-de-desestabilizar-o-governo-dilma-rousseff/
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'm thinking of our New York Slimes, after the WMDs that weren't in Iraq, their suppression of Bush Junta illegal wiretapping to help Junior give the illusion of "winning" the 2004 (s)election and, more recently, the slimebag reporting of Simon Romero on Chavez, Venezuela and the LatAm Left in general.
The New York Times used to be a decent, reliable newspaper, vaunted as the U.S. "paper of record." But they have earned their new name, the New York Slimes, as have the Associated Pukes, the Wall Street Urinal, the Washington Pciast, the Miami Hairball, Rotters and all the rest, and the alphabet soup of lies and disinformation on TV. All have disgraced their status as the "4th Estate," time and again, recently and over the last decade and more. It ain't just Murdoch.
I am so glad to see one of their brethren corporate crap rags in LatAm get exposed for its explicit ties to gangsters, and I am waiting for the day that our corporate crap rags get exposed and driven out of business for similar corruption, which I think runs very deep, indeed.
As I watched their lies about Chavez unfold around his de-licensing of RCTV in Venezuela--a media corporation that had actively participated in the 2002 coup attempt--and their nauseating use of "free speech" and a "free press" to condemn, not RCTV for its coup attempt, but Chavez for not permitting them to use the public's airwaves for more coup attempts--it became clearer to me than ever how disgusting and disreputable these corporate 'news' organizations have become.
It is to them that we owe Reaganism, Bushitism and war. If they had been doing their jobs, Reagan could not have begun destroying the "New Deal," by re-writing the tax code and de-regulating the savings & loans, among other traitorous acts, Kenneth Starr could not have diverted the country with Clinton's private sex life while Glass-Steagall was repealed--the most important plank of the "New Deal," regulating banks--and Bush could not have finished the wreckage of our country, with unjust war, utter lawlessness and vast, almost inconceivable looting.
If they had been doing their jobs, we wouldn't have 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, all over the U.S., owned and largely controlled by one, private, far rightwing corporation--ES&S, which bought out Diebold--with virtually no audit/recount controls. We would be able to right this "ship of state." But by their silence, by their deliberate silence, we are crippled in what we can do to save our country. We don't even have the right to vote any more--not with ES&S 'counting' the votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code--but, by God, they still have the right to vote in Venezuela--in an election system that puts ours to shame--and they used it to vote themselves a "New Deal." THAT's why these corporate traitors and their media hate and revile Chavez!
I should also point out that THAT--transparent vote counting, vote counting in the PUBLIC venue--is the main difference between us and LatAm right now, and why Latin Americans in the many countries that have voted in Leftist governments are all getting a "New Deal" and have recovered quickly, and, in some cases, spectacularly, from the Bushwhack-induced Depression that has hit Europe and the U.S. They have even worse corporate media than we do. So how do they elect Leftist governments? Look to the actual vote counting systems. That's how. With grass roots efforts at organizing and education, the voters can see through the media crapola from the rich and the corporate, and leftist candidates--REAL representatives of the people--have a chance in a REAL vote counting system. Here, we get fascists as governors and congresspeople--enough to tip the balance toward dismemberment of our country--or a hogtied president like Obama to help us forget what these fascists just did to us for eight years during their junta. The bad guys can manipulate our system to any end they desire, in any way that they desire--blunt force or subtle.
Take a lesson from Latin America! Transparent vote counting MATTERS. It is not the only thing wrong with our system, but it is--and was intended to be--the final method of control--direct, private, corporate, far rightwing-connected, 'TRADE SECRET' power over the very counting of our votes.
You see any editorials in the New York Slimes about this? Not on your life. They and all their brethren are a disgrace to journalism.
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Ocpagu, thanks for this detailed report on "Veja." You gotta wonder if the Bush Junta was helping them illegally wiretap their targets, as the Bush Junta was apparently doing for their 'mafia' boss 'president' of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, who was wiretapping judges and prosecutors and other "enemies," in addition to targets of their rightwing death squads (trade unionists, for instance). Recent report out of Colombia reveals witness testimony that the U.S. embassy had a direct American go-between to DAS, Uribe's spy agency, now disbanded, with prosecutors investigating Uribe and issuing an arrest warrant for the head of DAS, who has fled the country. Also, a Wikileaks cable revealed that the rightwing president of Panama, a Uribe crony, demanded, of the U.S. ambassador, the same help that Uribe was getting from the U.S. to spy on his "enemies." Guess where Colombia's DAS head fled to and got instant, overnight, political asylum from? (No, not Miami.) Panama.
So my suspicion that the Bush Junta might have been aiding the fascists in Brazil as well, in their spying operations, is not off the wall. It's a genuine question in my mind. I'm sure they hated Lula da Silva for many things, including his close alliance with Chavez and the solidarity of LatAm's Leftist leaders that that alliance epitomizes. I think the U.S. (Obama administration) has aided the flight of witnesses against Uribe from Colombia and may have effectively squelched that part of the Uribe investigation that leads to Bush Jr and his junta and crimes of theirs in Colombia. (I think that's why Leon Panetta's first visible action as CiA Director was to go to Bogota. Panetta is a Bush Senior pal--member of Bush Sr.'s "Iraq Study Group."
But if there is a connection--U.S./Bush Junta aid to fascist spying or other crimes--I would think that it has more of a chance of being revealed in Brazil than in the U.S. client state of Colombia.
But whether the Brazilian fascists needed or got Bush Junta help at all, it warms my heart to see LatAm fascists get their dark little world overturned. Rousseff must be feeling a bit "burned" by them but I'm sure she will make things right with the Transport Department personnel and private companies who were harmed, and will emerge more popular than ever, and even more savvy.
Now that the right has disgraced itself so completely in Brazil, do you think that the Corporate Press here will start yammering about "one party rule" and "dictatorship" in Brazil? Who will say it first--some months hence--do you think? The Miami Hairball? Then the Slimes, next? Ha-ha! They are so predictable.
...predicting that Brazil will become a giant Cuba, in an article probably written by Andrés Oppenheimer.
I also wouldn't be suprised to see the Bush junta in action behind the curtains in this case. Veja is published by Editora Abril, one of the biggest media holdings in Latin America. They are well connected to the facists worldwide. Especially after May 2006, when 30% of the Brazilian company was sold to Naspers, the South African multinational media conglomerate that supported and financed during decades the National Party and apartheid regime. Naspers is forbidden to have business in several countries nowadays and they were investigated for possible violation of the Brazilian corporate law when they bought part of Editora Abril. Veja has become increasingly aggressive since then.
There's no doubt that Veja repeats the same arguments of the Bush junta worldwide. It's the same editorial line of its facists peers
in other countries.
1 - They incite hate and fear against Muslims, treating all of them as terrorists and trying to make their readers believe in a direct association between the religion and extremism. They support any war, happening anywhere, practiced by any reasons.:
The cover title reads: "Lethal and blind faith". The topics: "the siege of the cavemen in Afghanistan; Osama bin Laden has terrorists cells in more than 40 countries; Fundamentalists want to dominate the world in the name of Allah; the routine of submission and torture of women in Islamic countries".
2 - They incite racism, social prejudice and hate from Southern Brazilians against Norhteastern Brazilians, blaming the later for the success of the leftist governments:
The text reads: "She may decide the election. Northeastern, 27 years, middle education, salary of 450 reais per month. Gilmara Siqueira is the portrait of the voters who will be decisive next October."
3 - They are disgusting:
"The candidate and the cancer". Including Dilma, the word cancer and the detail of communist flag in the same picture is really not a coincidence.
Their edition accusing the FARC of financing the Workers Party.
Their edition accusing Fidel of financing Lula's 2006 campaign.
Last week, after we were informed about their connections with organized crime, they were on the cover of the leftist magazine, Carta Capital.
"Our Murdoch. Veja & [Charlie] Waterfall. Journalism on demand."
