Noam Chomsky: Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff “Impeached by a Gang of Thieves”
Noam Chomsky: Brazils President Dilma Rousseff Impeached by a Gang of Thieves
Interview With Noam Chomsky
Interview by Amy Goodman Democracy Now!, May 17, 2016.
AMY GOODMAN: What about whats happening right now in Brazil, where protests are continuing over the Legislatures vote to suspend President Dilma Rousseff and put her on trial? Now El Salvador has refused to recognize the new Brazilian government. The Brazilianthe Salvadoran president, Cerén, said Rousseffs ouster had, quote, the appearance of a coup détat. Whats happening there? And what about the difference betweenit looked like perhaps Bush saved Latin America simply by not focusing on it, totally wrapped up in Iraq and Afghanistan. It looks like the Obama administration is paying a bit more attention.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I dont think its just a matter of not paying attention. Latin America has, to a significant extent, liberated itself from foreignmeaning mostly U.S.domination in the past 10 or 15 years. Thats a dramatic development in world affairs. Its the first time in 500 years. Its a big change. So the so-called lack of attention is partly the fact that the U.S. is kind of being driven out of the hemisphere, less that it can do. It used to be able to overthrow governments, carry out coups at will and so on. It tries. There have been threemaybe it depends how you count themcoups, coup attempts this century. One in Venezuela in 2002 succeeded for a couple of days, backed by the U.S., overthrown by popular reaction. A second in Haiti, 2004, succeeded. The U.S. and FranceCanada helpedkidnapped the president, sent him off to Central Africa, wont permit his party to run in elections. That was a successful coup. Honduras, under Obama, there was a military coup, overthrew a reformist president. The United States was almost alone in pretty much legitimizing the coup, you know, claiming that the elections under the coup regime were legitimate. Honduras, always a very poor, repressed society, became a total horror chamber. Huge flow of refugees, we throw them back in the border, back to the violence, which we helped create. Paraguay, there was a kind of a semi-coup. Whats happeningalso to get rid of a progressive priest who was running the country briefly.
More:
https://chomsky.info/05172016-5/