Brazilians protest Bush visit

SAO PAULO – Landless farmers invaded a mine, a bank and other corporate property in Brazil on Wednesday to protest the impact of big companies on the poor and US President George W Bush’s upcoming visit to Latin America’s largest nation.

Protesters, most of them women from the Via Campesina farmworkers movement, briefly shut down an iron ore mine, invaded an ethanol distillery and took over the Rio de Janeiro offices of Brazil’s National Development Bank on the eve of Bush’s visit. Fresh graffiti reading “Get Out, Bush! Assassin!” in bright red letters popped up along busy highways near the locations in Sao Paulo where Bush will appear as he begins a Latin American tour that also includes stops in Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.Bush says the United States does not get much credit for its generosity in the poverty-ridden Latin American region and plans during his tour to emphasise US programmes of health care, housing aid and job creation for the poor.On Wednesday, Bush said US aid to Latin America has gone from US$800 million to US$1,6 billion – “and yet we don’t get much credit for it” – during an interview with CNN en Espanol.Protest leaders in Brazil plan to draw as many as 15 000 people for a three-kilometre march today before Bush arrives in South America’s largest city to forge an ethanol energy alliance with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.Bush has spoken approvingly of Brazil’s ethanol programme, which converts sugar cane to fuel and powers eight out of every 10 new Brazilian cars.The proposed accord would develop standards to help turn ethanol into an internationally traded commodity, and to promote sugar cane-based ethanol production in Central America and the Caribbean to meet rising international demand.Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the powerful Landless Rural Workers’ Movement that helped organise Wednesday’s protests, condemned the ethanol pact.”Bush is coming to Brazil as a messenger boy for the multinational companies, the agribusiness companies, the oil companies and the automobile companies that want to control the biofuels,” Stedile said.Organisers denounced foreign investment in the vast sugarcane fields that are used to produce Brazil’s ethanol.Nampa-APFresh graffiti reading “Get Out, Bush! Assassin!” in bright red letters popped up along busy highways near the locations in Sao Paulo where Bush will appear as he begins a Latin American tour that also includes stops in Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.Bush says the United States does not get much credit for its generosity in the poverty-ridden Latin American region and plans during his tour to emphasise US programmes of health care, housing aid and job creation for the poor.On Wednesday, Bush said US aid to Latin America has gone from US$800 million to US$1,6 billion – “and yet we don’t get much credit for it” – during an interview with CNN en Espanol.Protest leaders in Brazil plan to draw as many as 15 000 people for a three-kilometre march today before Bush arrives in South America’s largest city to forge an ethanol energy alliance with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.Bush has spoken approvingly of Brazil’s ethanol programme, which converts sugar cane to fuel and powers eight out of every 10 new Brazilian cars.The proposed accord would develop standards to help turn ethanol into an internationally traded commodity, and to promote sugar cane-based ethanol production in Central America and the Caribbean to meet rising international demand.Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the powerful Landless Rural Workers’ Movement that helped organise Wednesday’s protests, condemned the ethanol pact.”Bush is coming to Brazil as a messenger boy for the multinational companies, the agribusiness companies, the oil companies and the automobile companies that want to control the biofuels,” Stedile said.Organisers denounced foreign investment in the vast sugarcane fields that are used to produce Brazil’s ethanol.Nampa-AP