US involved in Rousseff impeachment trial: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed John Steppling, an author and commentator from Norway do discuss the impeachment trial of Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff.

Press TV: Considering how the opponents of Dilma Rousseff are confident that they already have the 54 votes needed to convict her, one has to wonder then what is the point of this trial, what is the point of bringing witnesses for and against her?

Steppling: Having show trials is nothing new. She will get convicted, and in one sense she is guilty, but her corruption was driven by a survival and a desire for that party to survive.

I mean Michel Temer is a return to the far-right fascist ruling class in Brazil, all white, all male. He dismantled the ministry for women, I believe. He stocked the cabinet with other wealthy, agricultural and industrial interests and so forth. And Temer is of course Washington’s man in Brazil; I mean there are WikiLeaks pages where Temer was criticizing [former Brazilian President] Lula for having an excessive interest in the poor.

So, Rousseff, for all of her faults, was still incrementally helping the workers in Brazil. Whatever success and progress was made since 2006 is going to be quickly rolled back by Temer, that’s for certain, and this is a lot of the unrest in Brazil came from foreign-funded student organizations and so forth. I remeber the University of Brasília. The Koch brothers funded some of it; the US State Department funded some of it. These are strategies that the United States employed in Venezuela, too.  

This is Obama’s legacy to return South America to an era when it was the playground for US corporate interests.  This is kind of a final act of this drama over the past seven or eight years, but also remember that Petrobras is the 4th largest company in the entire world and their interests are paramount in all of this, certainly to Temer they are.

And that company casts a gigantic shadow over not just Brazil, but South America. So, all of this is complex and one has to take a perspective that at least goes back to 2006 and really before that of course to an earlier era of America funded dictators and so forth. Yes, she will be convicted and that’s a foregone conclusion. Temer will remain in power, and further roll back any progressive moves that have taken place.

Press TV: Will the people in Brazil let Temer continue in this way without a fight. One has to factor in the social strife that this might give rise to. Right?

Steppling: Yes, sure. If you took an approval poll for Temer, his approval rating would be about 1%. His approval rating is just his close friends. No, he is widely unpopular and there will be social unrest and this is part of the strategy, though I think with the infiltration of student groups and so forth, the turn to the right among these groups, people also are very frustrated with the corruption in government and it was corrupt, it has been corrupt, so there is a lot of ambivalence and I’m not sure people are going to ... the people of Brazil will coalesce into a uniform resistance against Temer, because a lot of them are very frustrated with Rousseff, but we shall see, it depends certainly on what actions Temer takes.

He’s not the most prudent or measured guy in the world, so if he oversteps in terms of repression and so forth which is certainly possible then yes, the reaction could be quite great. It is a hugely populous country.

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