BRAZIL: Lula Caught Between Davos and Porto Alegre Forums

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 13 (IPS) - Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will disappoint a large swath of the world's leftist movements if he accepts the invitation to attend the World Economic Forum, to be held Jan 23-28 in the Swiss mountain resort city of Davos.

Such is the opinion of the organisers of the World Social Forum (WSF), begun three years ago in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre as a sort of counterweight to the Davos Forum.

The WSF annual gathering draws tens of thousands of intellectuals and representatives of leftist parties, social movements and non-governmental organisations under the slogan ”another world is possible”.

A statement Monday by Brazil's minister of Culture, popular singer and composer Gilberto Gil, seems to indicate that Lula will indeed make the trip to Davos. Gil said the president could serve as a WSF ”spokesman” at the Davos Forum and defend Brazil's social programmes and its stances on international issues.

By participating in the two Forums, Lula would strengthen the potential for dialogue, especially because Davos and other international organisations are increasingly attentive to social issues, commented Gil.

The Porto Alegre event coincides with the World Economic Forum, which has met every year since 1971 to debate global financial and business issues, with the participation of corporate executives, financiers and heads of state, mostly from the industrialised world.

”Lula is a symbol” of the struggle of the Porto Alegre Forum and his participation in Davos would be ”a big disappointment”, Cándido Grzybowski, one of the eight members of the WSF organising committee and director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses, told IPS.

The support of the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT), founded and headed by Lula, was decisive for the success of the WSF in its first two years.

The backing of the PT has also been financial and material, coming from the government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which was in the hands of the PT until December, and from the municipal government of the capital, Porto Alegre, which will have PT leaders until 2004.

”We will not be able to guarantee that Lula won't be heckled in Porto Alegre” if he decides to make an appearance at both Forums, noted Grzybowski, who met in Brasilia last week with the advisers of the president, who took office Jan 1.

”We did not criticise Lula when, as president-elect, he met in Washington with U.S. President George W. Bush” last month, but that was ”a duty of his office”, unlike his potential presence at the Davos Forum, which is his own choice, said the WSF leader.

”There are no 'reasons of state'” for Lula to provide his prestige as a political leader for a meeting like the Davos Forum, which is ”falling into decadence” and which Brazil's previous president, centrist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, never attended in his eight years in office.

This year, none of the leaders of the world's superpowers are planning to participate in the World Economic Forum, Grzybowski noted. ”Can it be worth it?” he wonders.

Even the ostensible goal of dialogue to negotiate changes in the world order that are coherent with the ”social pact” Lula is promoting in Brazil would not justify his trip to Davos, because the people of the World Economic Forum ”don't want dialogue,” commented the activist.

Other WSF personalities, like Brazilian sociologist Emir Sader, say that Davos, where bank presidents, corporate executives and political and economic leaders meet, has lost relevance as a result of the failure of ”neoliberalism” and the recessions afflicting the world's major economies.

That is probably why the Davos Forum organisers are so keen on inviting the Brazilian president, praised for his electoral victory in October and the policies marking the beginning of his administration, he said.

As far as domestic policy, Lula has apparently isolated the radical wing of his party, who protested when he named Henrique Meirelles, former world president of Bank Boston, as head of Brazil's Central Bank.

Working side by side in the new Brazilian administration are one of the Davos leaders, Luiz Furlán, Minister of Development, Industry and Trade, and WSF ideologue Oded Grajew, president of the Ethos Institute for Corporate Social Responsibility.

The new president has been able to balance the continuation of agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and ”orthodox” macroeconomic policies, as well as inflation reduction goals and fiscal adjustments, with his social pact aimed at ”zero hunger”, staving off heavy criticism from the political left.

But that tolerance does not extend to the two Forums because ambiguity in the case of this rivalry is not seen as acceptable pragmatism for a PT government.

The WSF attracts individuals and groups from a broad range of social movements, some radically opposed to the existing world order, and others focussed on specific issues, such as debt forgiveness for poor countries, defence of water as a common good of all humanity, economic solidarity and indigenous rights.

But the common denominators for those who will meet in Porto Alegre next week is the criticism of continued inequitable international relations, particularly in the trade and financial arenas, and the search for just alternatives. That is the ”other possible world” the WSF participants are trying to build.

The Davos leaders assert that their Forum is open to dialogue and that its intention is to serve as a centre for debate in which many non-governmental organisations participate and which Lula could use as a venue to present his criticisms and proposals for resolving international problems.

”In principle, there is no incompatibility” in Lula participating in both Forums, or in any international meeting, as long as he upholds Brazil's national sovereignty, Sonia Camargo, director of international relations at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, said in a conversation with IPS.

”The team working on the new government's foreign policy deserves our trust,” she said, referring to Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, presidential adviser Marco Aurelio García and the president himself, all recognised defenders of national interests.

But WSF organiser Grzybowski commented that Lula's presence in Davos would damage that credibility. He added that the president does not seem to be considering the risks entailed in going to the ”concentration camp”, referring to the high security of the exclusive Swiss mountain gathering aimed at limiting the protests against the ideas the World Economic Forum represents. (END/2003)