By Telma Monteiro

 

Lula was in Altamira to "launch" Belo Monte. He was accompanied by officials and campaigning politicians. Politicians adore grand projects. Election campaigns in Brazil customarily receive financial support from public service contractors. In particular the energy sector, where one sees the development of powerful national and international groups united with political parties for mutual benefit.

For Lula we are nothing more than mediocre and a half dozen uninformed youths because we are not familiar with the Belo Monte hydroelectric project. Comparing experiences, he said that as a youth he protested against the Itaipu power plant. At the time he believed Itaipu would change the climate of the region, cause an earthquake, that the weight of the water would change the Earth’s axis and that Argentina would be inundated.  Clarification is aided by removal of the idiotic story of changing the axis of the Earth, the other impacts do [however] occur in the case of large hydroelectric dams. If he considers these fantasies it is due to sheer lack of knowledge and not of a lack of available information.

 
In calling us a half dozen well-intentioned, poorly informed youths, he forgot that among these [youths] are the IBAMA technical staff that examined the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of Belo Monte, the technicians and prosecutors from the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) who had worked for months on the tomes of information in the process; the academic experts who issued their opinions; the judge of the Court in Altamira, Antonio Carlos  Campelo, who followed the case from the first suit that was filed; the civil society organizations that have personnel trained in environmental issues; social movements in the Xingu region who live on the river; the indigenous peoples who have profound knowledge of the behavior of the ecosystem on which their lives depend.

Once again Lula’s lack of knowledge overrides his discernment. It is Lula who is ignorant about the Belo Monte project and has no patience to listen, despite all that has been published and discussed. In Altamira he boasted. He boasted of stories, pseudo-experiences and statements that excite an audience composed of his ward heelers, sycophants and the Governor of Pará. The rhetoric is his old, worn out artifice used when he needs to be the face on the political landscape.

In dealing with a president’s vainglory in having arrived without it having been necessary to study, it is not surprising that he disdains the conclusions of scholars and experts. In retrospect, when Lula calls us uninformed he may be referring to another lack of information about Belo Monte: that which is not made available.

In that case we might be uninformed. Between the information that Lula says he has, and claims that we do not have, there could be the strategy of energy resource utilization to increase his influence in regional politics. Or perhaps the intent to be remembered in the future as a statesman who found the ideal energy policy in exploitation of the Amazon. Another possibility would be that he has the latest information on specific areas of importance for the goal of transforming Brazil into the fifth global economy.

Dialogue and debate are not important to Lula and the proof is in his speech that completely ignored the rest of society. Although Lula’s engagement in the construction of Belo Monte is startling, he has an explanation. A country like Brazil, rich in natural resources, has everything to offer today’s world to attract the greed of the great powers.

On the other hand, the Brazilian private sector does not want to invest in projects of dubious economic viability, envisioned by hypertrophic states, as seen in the imbroglio of the Belo Monte auction. It is not possible to obtain rates of return commensurate with high social and environmental costs, leaving investment, financing and risks for the State, that appears to be rich, as sufficient.

Lula’s engagement in the campaign for exploitation of energy potential in the Amazon is a type of specter hovering between two extremes: one of no government and the other of a dictatorship. Clearly this president is providing incentive for false public-private partnerships, as in the case of Belo Monte, where it is only the State that bankrolls and takes risks in order to achieve specific and hegemonic political goals. Lula wants to return in 2015 to continue his work. Nothing more.