The investigation of an elite police unit in Brazil for allegedly trying to cover up the disappearance of a Rio de Janeiro man may represent an opportunity to restore the public’s trust in the rule of law, and perhaps repair the reputation of a controversial program to pacify favelas. The disappearance of Amarildo da Souza, a 47-year-old bricklayer who was last seen by witnesses in July 2013 being led into a local police base in Rio’s Rocinha favela, provoked immediate outrage. Residents and civil society groups demanded justice; prosecutors soon launched an investigation that ultimately resulted in charges of murder, [...]
Last week, prosecutors in Brazil formally opened an investigation into alleged influence-peddling by former President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva. The popular Brazilian leader is accused of using his position to benefit the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, Latin America’s largest engineering firm, between 2011, when he left office, and 2014. The corruption probe is only the latest headache for Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, and a Brazilian political class shaken to the core by the ongoing Petrobras scandal, in which dozens of politicians and businessmen are under investigation for taking over $2.1 billion in kickbacks from the state-owned oil giant. Odebrecht’s [...]
Both the Brazilian and U.S. governments billed President Dilma Rousseff’s late June meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in Washington as a reset of relations between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest democracies. Revelations in 2013 by NSA contractor Edward Snowden of U.S. eavesdropping on Brazilian officials, including Rousseff herself, caused her to cancel her state visit scheduled for that October, putting bilateral relations on ice for almost two years. Arguably, Brazil and the United States had already been on separate tracks for some time prior to that, given Brasilia’s more assertively independent foreign policy under the [...]
