Modern office buildings and stores, all empty, are among the “white elephants” in the city of Itaboraí, near Rio de Janeiro, left by an aborted petrochemical and oil refinery complex in southeast Brazil. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO , Aug 3 2016 (IPS)

An era of mega-events and mega-projects is coming to a close in Brazil with the Olympic Games to be hosted Aug. 5-21 by Rio de Janeiro. But the country’s taste for massive construction undertakings helped fuel the economic and political crisis that has it in its grip.

It is no mere coincidence that President Dilma Rousseff, suspended during her ongoing impeachment trial over charges of breaking budgetary regulations, will face the final vote in the Senate this same month.

Over the past decade, large-scale investment projects and public works, some not yet finished, others even abandoned, have driven the economy, triggered controversies, and fed the dreams and frustrations of Brazilians, mirroring and accelerating the rise and fall from power of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT).

The country’s economic growth and the international prestige of then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) played a decisive role in the 2007 choice of Brazil as host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Two years later, Rio de Janeiro was selected as the venue for the 2016 Olympic Games.

In 2007 Rio hosted the Pan American Games, which kicked off the string of sports mega-events in Brazil, including the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2013.

The wave of mega-infrastructure projects also began at the same time, in response to the needs of the energy and transportation industries, mainly for the export of mining and agricultural commodities.

Large hydropower dams, railways, ports, the paving of roads and the diversion of the São Francisco River to ease drought in the arid Northeast, as well as numerous public works in cities, formed part of the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC), which included tax breaks and credit facilities.

Rousseff, who also belongs to the PT, succeeded Lula in the presidency after an election campaign in which she was referred to as “the mother of PAC” – an allusion to her skill in implementing and managing the programme that involved thousands of construction projects around the country, as Lula’s chief of staff.

In the oil industry, the 2006 discovery of enormous offshore petroleum deposits below a two-kilometre thick salt layer under rock, sand and deep water in the Atlantic prompted the launch of another major wave of construction, including four large refineries, two petrochemical complexes, and dozens of shipyards to produce oil drilling rigs, offshore platforms and tankers.

The two biggest refineries, in the Northeast, were cancelled in 2015, resulting in some 800 million dollars in losses. Another is partially operating.

Work on the last one – and on the petrochemical complex of which it forms part, near Rio de Janeiro – was interrupted, leaving empty a number of office buildings and hotels that were built in surrounding towns and cities to service an industrial boom and prosperity that never arrived.

The Belo Monte hydroelectric plant’s turbine room in the northern Brazilian state of Pará, under construction in 2015. The mega-project is to be finished in 2019. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Most of the shipyards went under or shrunk to a minimum. In Niterói, Rio de Janeiro’s sister city, half of the 10 shipyards closed and over 80 percent of their 15,000 workers were laid off.

Possibly the house of cards of this fast-track development would have come tumbling down regardless, but several destructive factors compounded the problem and accelerated the approach of the disaster.

Oil prices plunged in 2014, simultaneously with the outbreak of the Petrobras bribery scandal that has ensnared hundreds of legislators and business executives.

In addition, the governments of Lula and Rousseff attempted to curb inflation by blocking domestic fuel price increases – another blow to the finances of Petrobras, the state oil company, which almost collapsed under the weight of so many difficulties.

The railways did not fare any better. Construction of two railroads – one private and another public – designed to cross the impoverished but fast-growing Northeast at different latitudes ground to a halt and are candidates to become white elephants due to the suspension of mining industry projects, whose output they were to transport.

As a result, the construction of a new seaport and the expansion of two others were also suspended. 

At least the hydroelectric plants are in the process of being completed. But they are suffering the ups and downs of the power industry. There are delays in the installation of power lines and electricity consumption has slumped as a result of the economic recession that broke out in 2014, expanding spare capacity and driving up losses in power generation and distribution plants.

The four largest hydropower plants, built on fragile rivers in the Amazon rainforest, are facing accusations of causing environmental damage and violating the rights of local populations: indigenous people, riverbank dwellers and fishing communities.

Belo Monte, the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam, with a capacity to generate 11,233 MW, was accused of “ethnocidal actions” against indigenous people by the public prosecutor’s office and is facing 23 lawsuits on charges of failing to live up to legal requirements.

At the same time, it is also criticised by proponents of hydropower, because it will generate, on average, only 40 percent of its potential. With a relatively small reservoir, an alternative that was chosen to reduce the environmental impact, it will be at the mercy of the marked seasonal variations in water flow in the Xingú River, where the flow is 20 times lower in the dry season than the rainy season.

Roads have not formed part of the recent wave of mega-projects. Although they are being paved and widened, they were originally built in earlier waves of construction projects, in the 1950s and 1970s.

Brazil’s addiction to massive construction projects was probably born with the emergence of Brasilia, built in a remote, inhospitable location over 1,500 km from the biggest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in just five years, during the administration of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961).

This bold feat was completed with the construction of roads running from the new capital in all directions.

But these long roads that cut across the country didn’t become paved highways, with proper bridges, until decades later.

Seen as a success story, Brasilia has prompted politicians to seek to make their mark with major construction projects, although the city was only part of the broader plan of Kubitschek, who pushed forward the development of Brazil’s steel industry by spurring the growth of the automotive industry.

The widespread belief that Brasilia was the big driver of settlement and development of the west and north of the country ignores the role played by the expansion of agriculture.

The 1964-1985 military dictatorship later fed the ambition of turning Brazil into a great power, with a nuclear programme that took three decades to build two power plants, the construction of two of the world’s five biggest hydroelectric plants, and roads to settle the Amazon.

The Trans-Amazonian highway, which was designed to cut across northern Brazil to the Colombian border but is incomplete and impassable for large stretches during the rainy season, is a symbol of failed lavish projects that helped bring down the dictatorship.

The origins of the megalomania can also be traced to the 1950 FIFA World Cup, for which the Maracana Stadium was built in Rio de Janeiro – for decades the largest in the world – holding held up to 180,000 spectators back then, more than double its current capacity.

The historic defeat that Brazil suffered at the hands of Uruguay in the final match in 1950, a devastating blow never forgotten by Brazilians, did not keep this country from hosting the 2014 World Cup, building new stadiums to suffer yet another shattering defeat, this time to Germany, which beat them 7-1 in the semi-finals.

Now, in the grip of an economic crisis expected to last for years, Brazil is unlikely to embark on new megaprojects. And the hope that they can drive development will have been dampened after so many failed projects and the heavy environmental, social and economic criticism and resistance.

The fans of the Brazilian team Fluminense during an exhibition game with the Italian team on the eve of the FIFA World Cup. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO , Jun 14 2014 (IPS)

The seven-year-old got bored after running here and there for five minutes, amidst a group of a dozen classmates. He eventually stomped off the field because he hadn’t managed to kick the ball even once.

“Football is like that, you have to be patient,” he was told by the phys ed teacher who was introducing the group of young students to the sport. Although it might not seem like the most necessary character trait for practicing sports.

So how to explain the passion ignited by football in the most varied regions and cultures of the world? Why does the FIFA World Cup, which opened Thursday in Brazil, awaken so much enthusiasm on all of the world’s continents?

Romario de Souza Faria, one of the greatest Brazilian footballers, whose five goals in the 1994 World Cup in the United States ensured Brazil’s victory, actually spent very little time with the ball in any particular 90-minute game. He became a national hero with his lightning fast strikes.

In 2007, when he tried to convert the thousandth goal of his career, a reporter noted that Romario held the ball for only 16 seconds in the entire game. At one point he went 30 minutes without touching it.

The few goals in any given football match – there are even games that end 0-0 – are tedious for many who prefer the faster pace of basketball or volleyball, where games end with dozens, and generally more than 100, points.

Other people think some of football’s rules are irrational, such as offside, which interrupts the play at a peak moment, when the forward is in an ideal position to score – and drive the fans wild.

There are others who complain that football is too violent. Broken bones and other injuries are all too common as players kick and elbow and crash into each other – sometimes without even being penalised. The opposite of volleyball, where excessive physical contact is avoided.

But despite everything, football has won over huge majorities of the population in much of the world, and is still growing in popularity, overcoming traditional preferences and resistance, like in the United States and Japan.

Still, it can’t be described as a completely universal sport, because it has yet to win significant support in some large countries like China and India.

The secret of football’s overwhelming popularity and consequent success on the business front does not appear to lie in the fields, the players or the ball, but in the minds of the spectators. It is as a show, more than as a sport to be practiced, that it became the champion.

Many sports, especially team sports, have managed to draw enormous audiences in person and on TV. For example, there is baseball in the United States and Japan, basketball in many countries, or cricket in India, Australia and other former British colonies.

But football has singular aspects that make it the most popular sport, capable of attracting an estimated 3.6 million stadium-goers during the 20th World Cup, which is being hosted by 12 Brazilian cities from Jun. 12 through Jul. 13.

Several children, one of them wearing the Brazilian team’s colours, in the street where football legend and now legislator Romario was born in Jacarezinho, a poor neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. All three boys were sure Brazil would win the 2014 World Cup being hosted by their country. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

One fundamental element is that fans feel powerful, by supporting their team or analysing the players’ moves.

More than spectators, fans feel like participants and designers of alternatives in the games, because football is an open work of art, a stimulus for creativity. Their collective support tends to influence the results more than in any other sport.

The fans have a big picture of the game; they can see the entire field and follow all the moves, unlike the players, who are in the thick of things, surrounded – and harassed – by their rivals, and have a more narrow view of what is going on.

As the saying goes, every Brazilian is a coach. Fans reach their own conclusions about tactics, plays, the best use and combination of the players’ skills – infinite details that can be decisive.

The discussions and arguments are endless, as is news about the sport. Perhaps there is no journalism so exhaustive and widely read as football coverage.

Two decades ago, Brazilian João Havelange, former president of FIFA (1974-1998), said offside should not be eliminated since the “imperfection” of football is one of the reasons it is so popular, because it generates so much debate.

Football in its extreme complexity makes it possible for anyone to feel expert or knowledgeable enough to evaluate, analyse, have their own ideas about games, teams, referees, coaches and players.

The fact that it basically involves the feet, running counter to human evolution that concentrated people’s skills in their hands, adds uncertainties that bring it close to chaos theory. Secondary factors can be decisive, all of the actors count, and – another essential aspect – it is a team game.

The best teams tend to win more, but every king has his plebeian days; no one is invincible. Because of all this, the support of the fans has a much greater influence than in other sports – which is recognised in many tournaments, where a goal scored on the rival’s field is worth more than one in their own stadium.

The frequency with which fortuitous events end up determining an outcome encourages fans as well as the practice of football. The most mediocre players, no matter how few chances they get, can score a goal at some point or make a good play. Like in the lottery, that hope or faith moves athletes and fans.

The success of football as a spectacle grows with each World Cup and is reflected in the more than 18,000 journalists accredited for the current edition in Brazil as well as the thousands of non-accredited reporters.

The result is excessive commercialisation, according to many Brazilians who have complained about and protested the concessions that the Brazilian government made to FIFA as conditions for hosting the World Cup, including nearly 12 billion dollars in investment in stadiums, airports and urban infrastructure.

The hero of 1994, Romario, now a Socialist Party legislator, said in January that FIFA is “the real president of the country” until the Cup ends. Brazil has become the “slave” of an institution that is “100 percent corrupt,” he said on another occasion.

The suspicions grew in the last week, after the British press alleged that corrupt payments were made to Asian and African officials with influence in FIFA to secure the choice of Qatar as host of the 2022 tournament.

What sporting or market criteria would justify that choice? That question is hanging in the air as the world’s largest sporting event is in full stride.

Kids from a poor neighbourhood in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, kick around a football. They are excited ahead of the the FIFA World Cup, for which Cameroon has qualified a record seven times. Courtesy: Ngala Killian Chimtom

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDE, Jun 11 2014 (IPS)

It is almost 6pm. A group of kids are plying their craft in a dusty, dirty courtyard in a poor neighbourhood in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital. That craft is football.  They kick the once-white-but-now-brown, aged football around. One child is barefoot, the other wears worn shoes and is dressed in the kit of the national team. 

“I want to play like [Lionel] Messi,” one of kids called Jack tells IPS as his voice rises above the rest of the excited crowd. “I am Eto’o…I am Ronaldo…Pepe…Rooney…,” the kids start shouting, each one of them giving the name of his dream football star.

Samuel Eto’o is Cameroon’s football star, he plays forward for English club Chelsea, and will be leading the national team, known worldwide as the Indomitable Lions, in this year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil.Football is more than just a game here “it is a religion,” -- sports journalist Fon Echeckiye.

Cristiano Ronaldo, is the famous Portuguese footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Real Madrid, and Pepe is the nickname for his fellow club member, Képler Laveran Lima Ferreira. Wayne Rooney is an English football star who punters predict will take the upcoming football world cup by storm.

With just a day to go before the proposed start of the world cup from the Jun. 12 – Jul. 13, Brazilians have begun protests and strikes in demand of higher wages. There have been numerous reports of corruption and rights violations during the public works to prepare for the event.

But here in this Central African nation, the kids are oblivious to this and have big dreams and big ambitions. And this reflects the deeper passions that drive football in Cameroon — a country that will be participating in this year’s World Cup for a record seven times — more than any other African team.

Football is more than just a game here “it is a religion,” sports journalist Fon Echeckiye tells IPS.

A fan of the Indomitable Lions, Cameroon’s national team. This central African nation has qualified for the FIFA World Cup a record seven time. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

Cameroon for all its football glory has only two standard football stadiums, one in Yaounde and the other in Garoua in the country’s Far North Region. Despite the poor infrastructure here, the love for football runs really deep in Cameroon.

According to the African Economic Outlook, although Cameroon has abundant natural resources “revenues obtained from the exploitation of these resources, and from oil in particular, have not been sufficiently channelled into structural investments in infrastructure and the productive sectors.”

“In our day, each time we were faced with an opponent, we thought about nothing else than the national flag,” Thomas Nkono, the retired ace Cameroon keeper who was once nick-named “the Black Spider,” because of his acrobatic saves, tells IPS.

Of Cameroon’s estimated 20 million people, some 39.9 percent are affected by poverty.

“It was always a good feeling to know that millions of Cameroonians — poor and wretched alike — could abandon their daily bread and butter concerns to support the team. It always gave us an added motivation,” he muses.

That feeling amongst players hasn’t changed much. On the sidelines of the Lions’ last preparatory match for the 2014 FIFA World Cup against Moldova on Saturday, Jun. 7, striker, Achille Webo told IPS “it’s true some of us who play professional football earn a lot of money, but to see crowds like this is not something money can buy. It is highly motivating.”

Ngando Picket, a Lions’ supporter who accompanies the team everywhere, says over the years he’s composed more than three hundred songs in support of the team.

He speaks breathlessly as he strains to sing and dance. Ngando tells IPS: “The boys always need to know that the nation, the people stand behind them and I work daily to fulfil that role. I believe the singing and dancing we put on from the stands fires the boys up and that alone keeps them up to steam.

“We are travelling to Brazil to do so, and I believe Cameroon will create a lot of surprises.”

Across the board, supporters, initially sceptical about the team’s form ahead of the tournament, now seem to have gained in hope, after the tie with Germany in a warm up game.

“That match reminds me of 1990 when the Lions stunned the world with a 1-0 win over Argentina [then holders of the World Cup title] in the opening match of that year’s world cup,” says Benjamin Ngah, a taxi driver in Yaounde. The team eventually became the first African nation to qualify for the quarter final of a world cup tournament.

“I believe we have got the quality to accomplish the same exploit this year, or perhaps go further,” he tells IPS.

By Ignacio Ramonet
PARIS, Jun 7 2014 (IPS)

It is unlikely that Brazilians will listen to the audacious call made by Michel Platini – a great player in his time and now the politicking president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) – on Apr. 26: “Brazil, make an effort for a month, calm down!”

The FIFA World Cup opens in Sao Paulo on Jun. 12 and comes to a close on Jul. 13 in Rio de Janeiro. And there is concern that the current protests could escalate during the global sports event.

Opposition to Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup has been expressed in demonstrations and protests since June 2013, when it all began with the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Why so much opposition to the biggest global celebration of football in the country considered the sport’s Mecca?

For the past year, sociologists and political scientists have been trying to answer that question, especially given the fact that in the last 11 years – in other words, since the Workers’ Party (PT) started to govern the country – the living standards of Brazilians have improved considerably.

Successive minimum wage hikes have managed to significantly boost the incomes of the poor. Thanks to programmes like ‘Bolsa Familia’ (Family Grant) or ‘Brasil Sem Miséria’ (Brazil Without Poverty), the quality of life of the lowest-income segments has improved. Twenty million people have left poverty behind.

The middle classes have also progressed. But Brazil still has a long way to go to become a less unequal country that offers decent material conditions for all, because the inequality remains abysmal.

Since the PT does not have a majority in either house of Congress, its maneuvering room has been very limited. To move towards more equal distribution of income, PT leaders – former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva first and foremost – had no choice but to forge alliances with conservative parties.

This created a vacuum of representation and political paralysis in the sense that the PT, in exchange, had to promise to put a damper on the protests.

That led the demonstrators to question the functioning of Brazil’s democracy. Especially when the government’s social policies began to show their limits. Because at the same time, society was experiencing a “crisis of maturity”.

When they were lifted out of poverty, many Brazilians moved on from “quantitative” demands (more jobs, more schools, more hospitals) to “qualitative” ones (better jobs, better schools, better care in hospitals).

In the 2013 wave of protests, the demonstrators were often young people from lower-income segments of society who had benefited from the social programmes implemented by the administrations of Lula and his successor, President Dilma Rousseff.

Young people in that category number in the millions, and earn low wages. But they have access to the Internet now and are connected enough online to find out about the new global forms of protests. In this new Brazil, they also want to “get on board”.

But then they find out that society is not very willing to change and to accept them. As a result, they feel frustrated, and are expressing their discontent.

The catalyst for that anger was the World Cup. Obviously, the protests aren’t against football, but against some shady practices that have emerged in the organisation of the event.

The World Cup has involved an enormous investment estimated at 8.2 billion euros. Brazilians believe that, with that budget, more and better schools, more and better housing, and more and better hospitals could have been built for the people.

The World Cup has also revealed less than transparent ways of doing business with public funds. For example, in the construction of the stadiums alone, the final cost went 300 percent over budget.

Demonstrators are protesting the cost overruns paid at the detriment to the already poorly functioning public services offered in areas like education, health and public transport.

Protesters are also demonstrating, in several of the 12 cities that will host the World Cup matches, against the eviction of thousands of families from their neighbourhoods to free up the property for the construction and expansion of airports, freeways and stadiums. An estimated 250,000 people have been evicted from their homes in this country of nearly 200 million people.

Others are protesting the commercial exploitation of football, which FIFA fuels.

Several protest movements express five demands (for the five World Cups won by Brazil): housing, public health, public transport, education and justice (an end to state violence in the favelas or shantytowns and a demilitarisation of the military police).

The social movements that are leading the demonstrations are divided into two broad groups. A radical fraction, under the slogan “no rights, no World Cup”, has struck up alliances with the most violent sectors, even the Black Block with its extreme tactics.

The other group, organised in “World Cup people’s committees”, protest the sporting event but do not take part in violent demonstrations.

Nevertheless, the current protests do not seem to be taking on the magnitude of the June 2013 demonstrations. The radical groups have helped fragment the movements, which have no single unified leadership.

The result: according to a recent survey, two-thirds of Brazilians are opposed to protests being held during the World Cup. And they especially disapprove of violent protests.

What will the political cost of all this be for the Rousseff administration? Last year’s protests dealt a major blow to the president, who, in the first three weeks after they broke out, saw her popularity drop more than 25 percent.

Later, she said she was “listening to the voices from the streets” and proposed political reforms in Congress. That vigorous response enabled her to recover some of her lost popularity.

This time, the challenge will be at the polls, because the presidential elections are scheduled for Oct. 5.

Dilma – as she is popularly referred to in Brazil – is the favourite. But she will be facing an opposition grouped in two alliances: the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), whose candidate is Aécio Neves, and the much more worrisome social democratic Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), made up of the union between Eduardo Campos (a former science and technology minister under Lula) and environmental activist Marina Silva (a former environment minister under Lula).

For these elections, which will be decisive not only for Brazil but for all of Latin America, what happens this month during the World Cup could be critical.

Excerpt:

A football game in Jacarezinho, one of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. For children from these poor neighbourhoods, the pomp surrounding the World Cup is a distant echo. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 6 2014 (IPS)

It seemed like “a good deal” at the time, but then things changed. That description of the 2006 purchase of a U.S. refinery, one of the oil industry scandals hanging over the Brazilian government’s head, could also apply to attitudes towards the FIFA World Cup.

In 2007, the fact that Brazil was chosen to host the 2014 International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) global championship triggered a sense of national euphoria. The mega sporting event would crown the economic ascent of this emerging power, which has won the most World Cups – five out of 18.

But now, instead of planning welcome parties for the Jun. 12-Jul. 13 tournament, Brazilians are taking to the streets in protests that are blocking traffic and bringing cities to a halt, holding strikes to demand wage hikes, and complaining about corruption and rights violations during the public works to prepare for the global event.

The country of football and joy is turning its back on its stereotype.

In Rio de Janeiro, the few streets decorated in green and yellow – the colours of the national team – contrast with the celebrations and sense of anticipation ahead of previous World Cups. The enthusiasm has been dampened just when Brazil is hosting the world’s biggest single-sport event.

The indignation of Brazilians erupted in June 2013, with surprising and often violent protests against the poor performance of the health and education systems, chaotic traffic, corruption, and the enormous amounts being spent on preparations for the World Cup.

Worried about further unrest, the government has ordered the deployment of 157,000 police and military troops to guarantee security during the games that will be held in 12 cities in this enormous country of nearly 200 million people.

But the declining excitement over football “is a tendency that has been seen in the last three World Cups,” said Paulo Santos, who has worked as a barber for 40 years in a lower middle-class Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood and hears the views of hundreds of clients, in a kind of ongoing informal opinion poll.

Hosting the World Cup should have revived the passion of fans.

But “they’re holding the party with other people’s money – ours,” complained Santos, reflecting the widespread sensation that the whole exercise has been marked by corruption, the squandering of public funds and FIFA’s greed.

Surveys reflect this view. In February, only 52 percent of those interviewed by the Datafolha polling institute were in favour of organising the World Cup, down from 79 percent in 2008.

The most recent poll, limited to the southern city of São Paulo, found that 45 percent of respondents were in favour and 43 percent were against, while the rest said they didn’t care. But worse than that was the fact that an overwhelming majority, 76 percent, said they thought the country wasn’t prepared to host the marathon of 64 games among 32 national teams.

Many of the projects planned, especially the urban transport works, were not carried out or were left incomplete. Some of the 12 stadiums were not finished until the last minute, without the finishing touches and without being tested. Half of them lack wireless Internet connection.

Delays in infrastructure works are a tradition in Brazil. The same thing happened in the first World Cup, held in Brazil in 1950. The main stadium, Maracaná in Rio de Janeiro, was inaugurated only a few days before the event, in the midst of a muddy construction site littered with left-over materials.

It was the world’s largest stadium. Designed for 155,250 spectators, it held a crowd of over 200,000 in the final match. Now, remodelled and sumptuous, it holds just under 74,700 people.

But the current megalomania is different. Since the last decade, Brazil has been caught up in a frenzy of building hydropower dams, railways, ports, highways and freeways, in an attempt to overcome the infrastructure deficit accumulated over the preceding two decades.

Most of the major projects are years behind. The main railway, a 4,155-km north-south route, has been under construction for 27 years, with only one-third of the rails installed.

Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium, remodelled for the World Cup. Excessive spending on the installations is one of the complaints being voiced by protesters in Brazil. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

But no delays are possible in the case of the preparations for the World Cup in 12 cities and for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The looming deadlines may have been a factor in some of the accidents that have caused the deaths of nine workers in the World Cup stadiums, seven of them employed by subcontractors.

The rise in the number of workers concentrated in large construction sites all around the country has empowered construction workers. After a number of strikes, they secured wage hikes and benefits such as more frequent visits home for those who are working in distant regions.

But working conditions are still unsafe and accidents have been frequent, almost always due to lack of protection measures such as safe scaffolding, said Vitor Filgueiras, an economist investigating the phenomenon in his postdoctoral research.

Outsourcing is “a way of transferring risks,” and it makes working conditions even more unsafe and can even give rise to slave-like labour, he argued.

The World Cup has been a common focus for the recent protests and strikes by students, teachers, bus drivers and other groups. But popular support for the street demonstrations and battles has dropped sharply, according to opinion polls – luckily for the government of Dilma Rousseff.

A year ago, 54 percent of those surveyed by the Vox Populi Institute supported the protests, compared to just 18 percent today.

That reduces the risk of massive demonstrations during the World Cup itself. But groups made up of a few dozen activists are now paralysing cities, in a kind of guerrilla warfare benefited by the constant traffic jams.

The October presidential and legislative elections are also politicising football. The World Cup and the government are linked in the public’s mind. A failure for Brazil, in the stadiums or in the organisation of the event, would drive up the number of votes for the opposition.

The president is still the clear front-runner, but football has taken on growing influence in the elections, added to other government initiatives that also sounded like a good idea at the time – but don’t any longer.

For example, the purchase of a refinery in Pasadena, Texas by Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras was supposed to boost the firm’s international expansion and enable it to refine heavy crude in the U.S. market.

But it cost three times the initial contract for 360 million dollars, and became less important because Brazil increased its production of light crude oil. The case is under investigation by oversight bodies and amplified other scandals involving Petrobras.

Measures to reduce the cost of electricity in 2012 and benefit both industry and households also turned out to be a disaster. They encouraged consumption at a time when a lengthy drought reduced hydropower generation, unleashing an energy crisis, with the threat of power outages.

The discontent, also fuelled by a high inflation rate and a sluggish economy, infected the World Cup, which was already affected by specific factors of its own. FIFA’s demands for extraordinary terms and conditions created “a state of emergency,” wrote labour judge Lygia Cavalcanti in the magazine published by the Judges for Democracy Association.

Brazil agreed to “a temporary suspension” of certain laws guaranteeing citizens’ freedom of movement and workers’ right to strike in order to hold the World Cup, she said.

In addition, FIFA was given exclusive rights to advertise, sell and distribute products within a two-kilometre radius around the stadiums, local residents were evicted and relocated, and 18,000 volunteers have been organised to work during the World Cup, even though under Brazilian law volunteer work can only be used by non-profit cultural, civic or welfare institutions.

In addition, FIFA was given the right to file and fast-track registration of any trademark it wanted relating to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil’s patent office, including around 200 commonly used words, expressions and symbols such as names using “2014”, like “Brazil 2014” or “Natal 2014”, which can only be used commercially this year if fees are paid to FIFA.

FIFA even charged the Alzirão Recreational and Cultural Association 28,000 reals (12,500 dollars) to organise the popular street party it has held since 1978 in Rio de Janeiro, where the Brazil matches are shown on a giant screen

Alzirão was going to have to pay broadcasting rights, because more than 30,000 people a day watch the games on the big screen.

But Mayor Eduardo Paes managed to convince FIFA to exempt the non-profit event, said Ricardo Ferreira, president of the cultural association.

Ferreira told IPS that the excitement for the World Cup “was lukewarm but is growing.” A triumph by Brazil in the opening game in the São Paulo’s Corinthians stadium could cheer people up and bring back the passion, he added.

Three-banded armadillos. Credit: Caatinga Association

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO , Jun 2 2014 (IPS)

The FIFA World Cup 2014 mascot was inspired by the three-banded armadillo, which is unique in its ability to roll up in a tight ball. The species is endangered in Brazil, which is hosting the upcoming global sporting event.

The idea emerged in 2012 from an online social networking campaign by the Caatinga Association, an environmental group that proposed the three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus) – known in Brazil as tatú-bola, or ball armadillo – as the symbol of the championship whose matches will be played from Jun. 12 to Jul. 13 in 12 cities in Brazil.

FIFA, the international football federation, accepted the proposal and named the mascot Fuleco – a portmanteau of the words “futebol” (football) and “ecologia” (ecology).

The three-banded armadillo is an exclusively Brazilian species, which is threatened with extinction, Rodrigo Castro, executive secretary of the Caatinga Association, a non-profit organisation that works in the preservation of the caatinga biome in Brazil’s semiarid northeast, told Tierramérica.

“It lives in a little-known and poorly protected ecosystem [the caatinga] and has an incredible ability to roll up into a ball when it feels threatened, due to its flexible bands of skin,” he added.“Our question for FIFA is simple: the tatú-bola gave life to Fuleco – but Fuleco isn’t doing anything for the tatú-bola. Why not?” – Environmentalist Rodrigo Castro

The semiarid caatinga covers nearly 10 percent of Brazil’s national territory, encompassing an area between 700,000 and one million square km.

Millions of Fuleco plastic dolls, plush toys and other products carrying his image have generated a huge revenue inflow for FIFA, and have become a common part of the landscape in Brazil – unlike the small armadillo, which is increasingly rare in its habitat.

On the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the Tolypeutes tricinctus is listed as vulnerable.

But the Brazilian government plans to announce a change in the animal’s status next year, from “vulnerable” to “at risk of extinction.”

“This means that if nothing is done, the animal could be extinct in the next 50 years,” Flávia Miranda, a biologist and veterinarian with Projeto Tamanduá, a conservationist project, told Tierramérica.

The Tolypeutes tricinctus, endemic to Brazil, is one of two species of armadillo that can roll up in a ball. The other is the southern three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes matacus), found in northern Argentina, southwestern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.

A three-banded armadillo rolled into a ball – the position that gave it the name “tatú-bola” in Portuguese – can fit in the palm of a hand. Credit: Marco A. Freitas

The three-banded armadillo has a combined head and body length of 45 cm and weighs approximately 1.5 kg. The armour is composed of three ossified dermal scutes connected by flexible bands of skin. Its diet consists mainly of insects.

The species has suffered a 30 percent decline in population in the last 10 years. “We estimate that it has lost 50 percent of its habitat over the past 15 years,” said Miranda, who is also a consultant to the Caatinga Association.

The main threat to the species, said Castro, is shrinking habitat, caused by deforestation in the caatinga and the neighbouring cerrado savanna ecosystem, which is characterised by low-growing bushes and scattered twisted short trees, where the armadillo also lives.

But hunting is a factor that cannot be ignored. “Hunting armadillos is a traditional cultural practice in rural communities,” Castro said.

“The meat is very popular,” Miranda said. “Many hunt it to sell the meat, because it fetches around 50 reals [23 dollars] a kilo.”

On the eve of the World Cup, Brazil’s Environment Ministry launched a five-year National Action Plan for the Conservation of the Tatú-Bola, drawn up together with the Caatinga Association.

The national action plan is a public commitment to preserve the species. “We are going to work together with universities and public and private institutions to reduce deforestation and hunting,” Miranda said.

The plan will also lead to the creation of conservation and reforestation units.

Ugo Eichler Vercillo, general coordinator of the government’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, told Tierramérica that under the plan, a task force would be created to combat hunting of the armadillo.

In addition, actions will be promoted to compensate the loss of protein in poor communities where the armadillo is a target of subsistence hunting, he said.

One initiative will be “green grants” – monthly economic payments of 100 reals (45 dollars) for residents of poor rural communities, who will also be signed up to other social programmes and cash transfer schemes that target the extreme poor.

“These are populations who live on what they gather, plant and hunt,” in the remote hinterland of the states of Bahia, Pernambuco, Piauí, Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, Vercillo explained.

These low-income residents of isolated rural areas value the armadillo “because they don’t have other sources of protein,” he said.

In 2013 the Caatinga Association, the IUCN and The Nature Conservancy launched the programme “I protect the tatú-bola”, aimed at curbing the risk of extinction.

“Our project, which should last about 10 years, will map the areas where the species is found, and we will collect information on threats, to work on them,” Miranda said.

Making the Brazilian armadillo the mascot of the FIFA games is aimed at turning it into “a kind of symbol for the preservation of the caatinga, and of other species of fauna and flora that inhabits this ecosystem,” she pointed out.

With its decision, FIFA says it hopes to increase awareness of the threat of extinction faced by the three-banded armadillo.

But Castro hopes for something more from FIFA. “Our question for FIFA is simple: the tatú-bola gave life to Fuleco – but Fuleco isn’t doing anything for the tatú-bola. Why not?”

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Professors and public employees of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, a state in northeast Brazil, in a demonstration during the strike they have been holding since March. The state capital, Natal, is one of the 12 cities hosting the FIFA World Cup. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 26 2014 (IPS)

As the FIFA World Cup approaches, the streets of Brazil are heating up with strikes and demonstrations, and there are worries that the social unrest could escalate into a wave of protests similar to the ones that shook the country in June 2013.

Groups of public and private sector workers have been on strike for days, creating a hectic backdrop for the Jun. 12-Jul. 13 global football championship.

In the southern city of São Paulo a strike by bus drivers last week generated the worst traffic jams in the history of the city. And on May 21, some 8,000 police marched to the esplanade of ministries in the capital Brasilia, in a protest supported by the federal and military police forces.

In the 12 cities that will host the World Cup matches, at least 15 protests are scheduled for the event’s opening day.

Trade unions are taking advantage of the spotlight on Brazil to pressure the centre-left government of Dilma Rousseff to meet their demands.

Even workers in over a dozen Brazilian consulates in the United States and Europe, responsible for issuing visas to those interested in flying to Brazil for the sporting event, went on strike last week.

And staff at LATAM airlines – the region’s largest carrier, formed by the merger of Brazil’s Tam and Chile’s Lan – threatened a strike or slowdown that could bring airports to a halt and disrupt hundreds of international flights during the World Cup.

Professors at 90 percent of the country’s federal and state universities and teachers at state and municipal primary schools across the country have also gone on strike, while many public cultural foundations and museums have closed their doors.

“A general strike hasn’t been ruled out,” Sergio Ronaldo da Silva, secretary general of the main federal workers’ union, CONDSEF, told IPS.

“This isn’t all happening because of the World Cup,” he said. “We had been talking for a long time about going on strike. Our complaints aren’t connected to the championship – they are demands we have been voicing for years.”

If the situation remains unchanged, this country of 200 million people could grind to a halt during the World Cup, Ronaldo da Silva admitted, after pointing out that the authorities have not set a date for negotiations. He added that as the opening match approaches, relations could become even more tense.

“The federal government should have foreseen this scenario,” the trade unionist said. “They want to show the image of Brazil as a first world country, but our health system is almost broken down, and the same thing is true of education and public transport.”

CONDSEF represents around 80 percent of Brazil’s 1.3 million federal public employees.

“On May 30 we’re going to discuss the possibility of a general strike, in our confederation. The government has been hearing the message since last June’s protests,” Ronaldo da Silva said.“The government generated an exaggerated sense of expectation among the public, which has fallen flat. It promised a lot and has delivered very little. The outlook has changed and the protests are a reflection of those changes.” -- Pedro Trengrouse

In late 2013, the government signed more than 140 labour agreements with a number of different trade unions, pledging – among other things – a 15.8 percent raise, to be paid in three annual quotas.

But at that time, the projected inflation rate was much lower than today’s rate of 26 percent, the unions complain. “Of the agreements that were signed, 70 percent are not being fulfilled,” said Ronaldo da Silva.

Another problem facing the public sector is the exodus of public employees. In the latest recruitment process, in 2011, 240,000 were hired – and nearly half have already left their jobs, according to CONDSEF.

Since February 2012, legislators have been discussing proposals for preventing strikes during the World Cup. Draft law 728/2011, currently under debate in the Senate, would limit strikes ahead of and during the global sporting event.

Under the bill, unions organising a strike would have to announce it 15 days ahead of time, and 70 percent of workers would have to remain on the job.

And in February the government introduced a bill to limit protests and strikes, but there are doubts that it will be approved in the next few days.

Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo said strikes, demonstrations or other measures should not create chaos and disorder or generate economic damage or violence.

“The police, who serve the constitution, know that strikes are prohibited by Supreme Court rulings,” he said. “We can use the national security forces and the armed forces to guarantee law and order,” he added, to reassure the public.

On May 13, Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo predicted that the World Cup would be a peaceful time of public celebration.

“If protests occur, they’ll be isolated incidents,” he said. “I believe the country is ready because Brazil’s legislation protects peaceful demonstrations and prevents violent protests. I don’t think there are many people interested in seeing the World Cup turn chaotic because of violent protests.”

“I think we’re prepared, that public security is going to work. The safety of visitors and guests is assured. There is no risk,” he maintained.

But Pedro Trengrouse, a member of the Brazilian Lawyers Institute who specialises in sports law, said there is a climate of frustration that is very different from the initial enthusiastic reception of the 2009 announcement that Brazil would host the World Cup.

“The government generated an exaggerated sense of expectation among the public, which has fallen flat. It promised a lot and has delivered very little. The outlook has changed and the protests are a reflection of those changes,” Trengrouse told IPS.

When Brazil was selected as the host of the 2014 World Cup, no one was thinking about protests, he pointed out, because 80 percent of the population at the time supported Brazil’s bid for hosting the event, according to opinion polls.

Today, however, 55 percent of respondents say the World Cup is likely to bring the country more problems than benefits.

In 2008 and 2009, Trengrouse worked as a United Nations consultant in the service of the Brazilian government for legislative affairs related to sports, especially the World Cup.

The lawyer said the government associated the World Cup with the major structural transformations that Brazil needed, but that they would have had to be carried out with or without the mega sports event.

And in two years time, Rio de Janeiro will also host the 2016 summer Olympics.

“A balance must be struck,” Trengrouse said. “The workers’ right to strike for better conditions is inalienable. But strikes must not hurt the public. There is opportunism in some sectors. Protests cannot be allowed to give rise to criminal activities, vandalism and fascist rallies.”

The Andrade Gutierrez construction company is responsible for the works at the Arena da Amazônia stadium in the northern Brazilian city of Manaus, where four workers have died. Credit: Glauber Queiroz – Portal da Copa, Gobierno de Brasil

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 11 2014 (IPS)

The pressure to complete 12 football stadiums in Brazil in time for the FIFA World Cup in June has meant long, exhausting workdays of up to 18 hours, which has increased the risk of accidents and deaths.

Nine workers have already died on the work sites – seven in accidents and two from heart attacks.

The last fatal accident happened on Mar. 29 at the Arena Corinthians in the southern city of São Paulo, when 23-year-old Fábio Hamilton da Cruz fell to his death from scaffolding, eight metres up.

His death led to a partial suspension of the works by the justice authorities, who required proof from the company that it had corrected the safety violations.

But on Monday Apr. 7, the Labour Ministry authorised a resumption of the work, because the stadium has to be ready for the World Cup opening match on Jun. 12.

On Feb. 7, Portuguese worker Antônio José Pita Martins, 55, died after being struck on the head while dismantling a crane in the Arena da Amazônia stadium in the northern city of Manaus.

Marcleudo de Melo Ferreira, 22, was killed at the same construction site at 4 AM on Dec. 14 after falling from a height of 35 metres when a rope broke.

That same day, 49-year-old José Antônio da Silva Nascimento died of a heart attack while working on the site’s convention centre. The family complained about the harsh working conditions and the long workdays “from Sunday to Sunday”.

Another worker, Raimundo Nonato Lima da Costa, 49, had died from severe head injuries after falling from a height of five metres at the Arena da Amazônia construction site on Mar. 28, 2013.

In São Paulo, two workers – 42-year-old Fábio Luiz Pereira and 44-year-old Ronaldo Oliveira dos Santos – were killed when a crane collapsed Nov. 27, 2013 at the Corinthians club stadium, better known as “Itaquerão”.

And Abel de Oliveira, 55, died of heart failure on Jul. 19, 2012 while working at the Minas Arena, popularly known as “Mineirão”, in the south-central Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte.

The first fatal accident in the preparations for the FIFA World Cup happened on Jun. 11, 2012, when 21-year-old José Afonso de Oliveira Rodrigues fell from a height of 30 metres at the Brasilia National Stadium.

Click on the image to enlarge.

“The government puts pressure on the companies, and they take it out on the workers, who are paying with their lives,” Antônio de Souza Ramalho, president of the Sintracon-SP civil construction workers union of São Paulo and a state legislator for the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, told IPS.

“It was irresponsible to delay the works and then, with the deadline looming, kill workers with exhausting workdays of up to 18 hours,” he said.

“The sins of the World Cup are going to have repercussions for years. We can’t accept accidents, they are criminal,” he said.More than 60 workers died in the construction works for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, according to the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI). By contrast, no one was killed in the preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

According to the trade unionist, workers had already warned of the danger of a collapse of the crane that killed two labourers in São Paulo.

At the Corinthians stadium construction site, a quarry was hastily filled to hold a crane, instead of building a solid cement base, Ramalho said.

“The workers themselves and the safety engineers warned that it was unsafe. We know it was done hastily, because making a cement base takes 60 days, and would have cost more money. They preferred to improvise,” he said.

The results of the investigation into the deaths have not yet been made public.

In December, the Labour Ministry and Odebrecht, the contractor, signed an agreement stipulating that crane workers cannot do overtime or work at night.

And under the agreement, the workday for the rest of the workers must be seven and a half hours, with a one hour lunch break, and they can only work two hours overtime per day.

But according to Ramalho, the agreement is not being respected. “I filed a complaint for the police to investigate. But we have very little legal protection,” he said.

One of the biggest irregularities at the São Paulo work sites are contracts where the worker is paid for a specific job within a designated timeframe. “By paying for a completed task, labour laws that include the cost of social benefits are evaded. Everyone knows this, but there’s no way to prove it,” Ramalho complained.

The president of the Sinduscon-AM civil construction workers union in the northern state of Amazonas, Eduardo Lopes, told IPS that “risk is inherent in construction, but the race to complete projects quickly generates greater danger, without a doubt.”

However, “in the two fatal accidents [on the Arena da Amazônia] work site, the men were using safety equipment,” he said. “The problem was carelessness by the workers who failed to respect safety norms and went into restricted areas.”

What is clear is that when deadlines approach and time starts running out, prevention is pushed to the backburner, admitted mechanical engineer and workplace safety expert Jaques Sherique with the Rio de Janeiro engineering council.

In the remodelling of the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, completed in April 2013, no one was killed, but several were injured, mainly due to inadequate disposal of materials, cuts from mishandling materials, and lengthy working days, including working nights.

“The work ends and the worker gets sick afterwards. When the stadium is shining and ready, the workers end up overwhelmed, exhausted and stressed out,” Sherique said.

Civil construction is the industry that generates the most jobs in Brazil: 3.12 million new jobs in 2013. But it is also the area where the number of work-related accidents is growing the most: from 55,000 in 2010 to 62,000 in 2012 – a 12 percent increase, according to the Labour Ministry.

In São Paulo, the number of workplace accidents in the construction industry rose fivefold in the last two years: from 1,386 in 2012 to 7,133 in 2013, according to statistics compiled by Sintracon-SP.

More than 60 workers died in the construction works for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, according to the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI).

By contrast, no one was killed in the preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

“Workers are often glad when they have accidents because they are sent home to rest. And those who refuse to rest will develop injuries and ailments later on,” said Sherique.

He said it is strange but the labour-related ailments that are gaining ground in the construction industry are mental and psychological problems.

“It is a perverse and under-registered problem,” the invisible base of the “iceberg” of workplace safety, he said.

But this does not worry industry, especially in the construction of sports infrastructure, which involves an intense pace of work, heavy pressure and tight deadlines.

Under Brazilian law, workers exposed to unsafe, hazardous or unsanitary conditions must receive extra compensation amounting to six percent of their wages.

“This isn’t reasonable or right, but most of the time these health problems aren’t even reported,” said Sherique.

In 2011, the Superior Labour Court launched a national programme for the prevention of workplace accidents. But “it hasn’t provided concrete results,” the expert said.

Batman, a familiar character in demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, supports the “rolezinho” in front of Shopping Leblon with a placard reading “We are all equal.” Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 7 2014 (IPS)

They poured into shopping malls en masse to have some fun. But the reaction, a mixture of fear, admiration and heavy-handed repression, brought a new youth movement into being in Brazil: the “rolezinhos.”

In Brazilian youth slang, “rolar” means to go out with friends on a leisurely stroll, and the call to join these mass outings has become, in the view of some, a revolutionary movement, while for others it mirrors the consumerist longings of the emerging middle class.

It started in December 2013, when a group of young people used Facebook to plan a rolezinho (little outing) at a shopping centre in the southern city of São Paulo, “to have a bit of fun” in a country where entertainment and cultural events are expensive. Six thousand youngsters showed up. For social organisations and those on the left, rolezinhos express popular discontent or the fight against discrimination.

Police repression and the Brazilian government’s fears for the FIFA World Cup it will be hosting in June and July 2014 have only caused rolezinhos to spread to other cities.

“We came to prove that poor young people are consumers too,” Iata Anderson, a geography student, told IPS when a rolezinho took place Jan. 19 in front of the upmarket Shopping Leblon in Rio de Janeiro, leading to its preventive closure, in spite of the low numbers who came.

Anderson, like many other rolezinhos (a participant in a rolezinho is also called a rolezinho), is under 20. Although he lives in a “favela” (shanty town), he represents the new Brazilian middle class, who are studying at public universities and have access to the internet, credit and purchasing power, thanks to a decade of leftwing governments under former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) and current president Dilma Rousseff.

“I came to support the rolezinhos in São Paulo, which are being met with tear gas and police beatings. This only happens because the participants are Afro-Brazilians from the periphery, who are seen as out of place in the luxurious sophistication of the shopping malls,” he said.

On Jan.11 militarised police used rubber bullets and pepper spray against some 1,000 young people engaged in a rolezinho at a shopping centre on the periphery of the city. There were 60 arrests.

The Brazilian Association of Shopping Centres (ABRASCE) says the malls are “democratic spaces catering to people of all social profiles and different ages” and that they “welcome diversity and social inclusion, frequently in areas with few entertainment options.”

They are also “meeting places for the majority of young people,” it said.

In the view of sociologist Ignacio Cano, of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Violence at the University of Rio de Janeiro, the police reaction “was disproportionate”, as was the closure of shopping centres in order to thwart rolezinhos.

This episode was “in contradiction to the historical tendency of shopping malls, which are temples of consumerism and now also entertainment centres, which increasingly attract ever more diverse people, whether or not they make purchases, and recently are also providing public services,” he told IPS.

Cano says it will be disappointing if shopping centres lose their “universalist” vocation and become “more elitist” instead.

However, for many people that is already the case.

“A dark-skinned person at a shopping centre is immediately targeted for close watching by the security staff, who think we are probably going to steal something,” cargo assistant Diego Meier told IPS, adding that he regards these malls as “palaces of the bourgeoisie and capitalism.”

“At times I am badly served by staff and I notice that it is dark-skinned Afro-Brazilians who work the security shifts or clean toilets. We must have the same rights, independently of skin colour, social class and purchasing power,” said Anderson, an Afro-Brazilian like Meier.

Rousseff herself criticised the harsh police response and prejudice against poor young people.

Minister for Racial Equality Policies Luiza Bairros said that rolezinhos were “peaceful demonstrations” and that black people should not automatically be associated with the idea of crime, as is customary.

“The problems arise when white people are afraid of young black people,” she said.

“The shopping centre is a novelty. We want to get to know a place that used to be only for the upper classes,” information technology student Waldei Teixeira told IPS.

Brazil’s middle and upper classes associate the presence of overwhelming numbers of poor black youngsters in public spaces like the beaches, with the danger of “dragnet” attacks by mobs of thieves.

But rolezinhos do not loot or steal or destroy.

“There are much larger crowds in the shopping malls during the Christmas shopping season. Is that a threat to the security of the shopping centre?” asked Anderson.

What started out as a collective way to have some fun evolved largely because of the way it was repressed, which “creates a political goal, because when young people feel challenged they try to overcome the prohibitions against them,” Cano said.

The upcoming world football championship and the presidential elections next October make the rolezinhos a political instrument, Fernando Gabeira, a journalist and former member of Congress for the Green Party (Partido Verde), told IPS.

“Small movements can grow into big movements, as happened in June 2013, with the outbreak of large protests against fare increases in public transport and corruption, and demands for better health care and education,” he said.

At first, the reason for the rolezinhos was “to democratise the space for whoever wanted to enjoy the beauty of the shopping centres,” said Gabeira. Now, in his view, everyone tags the phenomenon with “his or her own political and ideological aims.”

For social organisations and those on the left, rolezinhos express popular discontent or the fight against discrimination.

The government, on the other hand, views them as “an expression of dynamism, social mobility and the changes that have occurred in Brazilian society in recent years.”

This mobility is expressed in the consumerism of this new “niche market”, which paradoxically, is being catered to by the shopping centres themselves, consisting of a new middle class avid for cellular phones, computers, the latest televisions or stylish clothes.

In Gabeira’s view, rolezinhos are clamouring for their right to consume, as part of the consumer society.

The transformation from a social class that up until recently had no future, into another that has dreams, is expressed in the music that young people taking part in rolezinhos listen to at top volume in the shopping centres.

The lyrics and videos of “ostentation funk” proclaim that the road to happiness involves climbing the social ladder, marked by the possession of luxury goods and, afterwards, going out with blondes.

“This kind of funk was a preview of the rolezinho phenomenon. It shows a desire, conscious or unconscious, for social integration. But it’s also part of the culture,” film student Gonzalo Gaudenzi, who studied the history and origins of the genre, told IPS.

Brazilian funk (inspired by U.S. rap music) was born in the urban peripheries with lyrics on everyday topics such as drug trafficking, narcotics, police repression or sex.

But with the spread of social welfare, it began to reflect the aspirations of many of the 30 million people, in this country of nearly 200 million people, who were lifted out of poverty thanks to an economic model based on domestic consumption as the springboard for growth.

“If the music they listen to all day is telling them that to get the best girls and the highest social status they have to have the best cars, clothes and watches, even if they can’t buy them they will want to get close to that world and feel its presence. And where can they do that? At the shopping malls,” said Gaudenzi.

A Metrobus stop on 9 de Julio avenue in Buenos Aires, with the famous Obelisk in the background. Credit: Juan Moseinco/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jan 6 2014 (IPS)

Sustainable transport grew in the Latin American cities of Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro in 2013.

The left-wing government of the Mexican capital inaugurated the fifth Metrobús bus rapid transit (BRT) system route and extended the Ecobici Individual Transport System.

It also expanded the Ecoparq parking meter system – a new parking management scheme – into new areas on the west side of the city and opened up a new pedestrian-only street in the old city.

In the Argentine capital, meanwhile, the third Metrobús line began to operate with great success on Avenida 9 de Julio, and the government expanded its “Buenos Aires, mejor en bici” (Buenos Aires, Better by Bike) programme.

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the centre-right city government forged ahead with the construction of the Transcarioca and Transbrasil BRT corridors, while the second stage of the Transoeste BRT project got underway.

The network of bicycle paths was also enlarged, as part of the infrastructure planned for the FIFA World Cup, to be held in Brazil from Jun. 12 to Jul. 13, and the 2016 Olympic summer games in Rio de Janeiro.

In Mexico City, “there have been interesting projects, but they haven’t been carried out at the desired speed,” Bernardo Baranda, Latin America director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), told IPS.

He called for more initiatives and said they should be more rapidly implemented, aimed at “a further reduction of the use of automobiles” in greater Mexico City, home to more than 20 million people.

As part of that objective, he said it was important to expand Ecobici, which includes exclusive and non-exclusive bike lanes as well as a bike-share system.

What is happening in greater Rio de Janeiro, population 11.7 million, “is very exciting,” he said. “A great deal has been invested in infrastructure. Bicycle use has expanded. The centre has great potential for better transport conditions.”

The ITDP Latin America director said that in greater Buenos Aires, home to some 13 million people, “the use of public bicycles has been fomented, along with the idea of turning several streets in the microcenter into pedestrian-only.”

Roberto Remes, an independent Mexican expert in public policies on the environment and transportation, also pointed to interesting developments in the three cities.

He explained to IPS that in Buenos Aires, right-wing Mayor Mauricio Macri “is trying to build an alternative system to the subway,” which turned 100 years old in December.

Meanwhile, “in Mexico we see mainly plans. Apparently we’ll do ok, we’ll have an integrated system with policies focused on mobility and a person-oriented, rather than car-oriented, perspective.”

With respect to Rio de Janeiro, he said “they want their prepaid public fare cards and their institutional image to be the same across the entire country – something that not many countries have achieved.”

The three cities face similar challenges, such as heavy dependence on private vehicles, the proliferation of parking garage buildings, and virtually no progress on road safety, except in the case of Buenos Aires.

In addition, there have been social protests against the infrastructure work accompanying the development of sustainable, multimodal transportation systems.

Baranda said “the bicycle must be better integrated with mass transit, and more integrated transport is needed in order to make it easier to get around.”

On Jan. 15, the ITDP and eight other organisations will grant the Sustainable Transport Award in Washington, DC. This year’s nominees include Buenos Aires, Lanzhou, China and Suwon, South Korea. Mexico City won the award in 2013.

The prize, granted since 2005 to cities of more than 500,000 people, awards accomplishments such as improving public transportation and public spaces, reducing transport-related air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and improving safety and access for cyclists and pedestrians.

This year, the Mexico City government will build another Metrobús line and will expand segregated and non-segregated bike paths.

For its part, the ITDP will focus on reducing the number of parking garages, and drew up a study on the viability of a Metrobús line on the central Avenida Reforma.

For the 2013-2016 period, the Rio de Janeiro city administration plans to build 150 km of bike paths, as well as bicycle parking stations, to reach a total network of 450 km by 2016.

Buenos Aires projects the creation of another four Metrobús routes for 2014-2015.

The December report on “Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts of BRT Systems” stresses the benefits of bus rapid transit in Bogotá, Colombia; Mexico City; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Istanbul, Turkey.

The report was produced by EMBARQ, the sustainable urban transport and planning programme of the World Resources Institute (WRI).

The study shows that BRT systems have led to travel time savings, a reduction in vehicle operating costs, improvements in health due to reduced pollution, and improved road safety.

But it also identifies challenges such as declining quality of service, the exclusion of the poorest residents from the system, limited integration with other transport systems, and competition with subways.

Remes warned that it was not enough to focus transport strategies on merely establishing BRT systems without addressing other possibilities, such as urban trains.

“The existing models of financing, management and planning only allow for the expansion of these systems. If we create BRT corridors, we can cover the cities in a decade, but there is still a problem: transfers and switches from one system to another. There’s something that’s not working in the long-term vision,” he said.

In the 1970s, nations like Japan, South Korea or Singapore began to build railway networks to foment a mix of transport, employment, financing and economic development in big cities.

In Latin America, “we are a millennium behind,” Remes lamented.

"There will be no Cup," chanted thousands of demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro, referring to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 3 2013 (IPS)

The Brazilian national football team made a glorious comeback with its victory in the FIFA Confederations Cup, but the sport has lost its tight grip on society. While millions celebrated, the tournament was also another source of anger for the protesters that have filled the streets in the last few weeks.

“There will be no Cup,” chanted thousands of demonstrators, referring to the FIFA World Cup due to be held here in 2014, as they marched near Maracaná stadium in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil defeated Spain 3-0 on Sunday, winning the tournament for the fourth time between the champions of the seven regional FIFA confederations.

The stadiums that were built or renovated for the Confederations Cup and World Cup matches were transformed into fortresses, besieged by protesters and the site of pitched battles between police and demonstrators over the past two weeks.

Rubber bullets and tear gas were the main weapons used by the police against demonstrators, some of whom threw stones, Molotov cocktails and fire crackers.

The sporting events inside the stadiums were also affected. At the inauguration of the Confederations Cup on Jun. 15 when Brazil played Japan, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was roundly booed.

At subsequent matches involving their team, Brazilian fans sang the national anthem at the top of their voices, and rebelled against the FIFA rule limiting the playing of anthems to 90 seconds by continuing to sing beyond the set time limit.

A banner calling for the “immediate annulment of the privatisation of Maracaná” was displayed in the centre of the stadium by a couple of volunteer dancers at the closing ceremony on Sunday. Similar actions broke the rules banning political demonstrations at FIFA events.

Stadiums are among the main targets of the protests that have brought more than two million people out on the streets throughout Brazil since Jun. 6.

Corruption and the use of resources that the demonstrators say should be spent on health, education and public transport were the main reasons why people have rejected the international tournaments.

The general belief is that some stadiums will be “white elephants” after the FIFA World Cup in 2014. One example is Mané Garrincha, in Brasilia, a stadium that was demolished and rebuilt with a seating capacity for 70,000 spectators.

According to observers, the country’s capital, which lacks a football tradition and has no important football clubs, will not be able to use such a large stadium, which is second only to the historic Maracaná, with capacity for 76,800 fans.

Matches between the eight national teams that participated in the Confederations Cup in June were played at six stadiums, while 12 stadiums will host the World Cup between Jun. 13 and Jul. 13, 2014.

The cost of construction, which is already seen as exorbitant by Brazilians, is still rising. The initial budget of 2.4 billion dollars for the 12 stadiums has already increased by 30 percent, according to the Comptroller General’s Office (CGU).

But costs may continue to rise, because the projects are a long way from completion and are experiencing considerable delays. Moreover, works to improve urban passenger transport for the crowds of visitors expected next year are needed. Many are convinced that corruption is the main reason for inflated costs.

The luxuriousness of the new temples of football is another complaint. Poor people are being excluded from the sport that they have for so long supported, due to the high cost of entrance tickets.

The level of quality insisted on has become a satirical reference in the protests raging in the streets of the country’s largest cities. “We want FIFA standards” for education, health and other services, like public transport, demonstrators are demanding.

FIFA has become “a state within our state,” and is today “the country’s real president,” said former football player Romário de Souza Faria on a video uploaded on the internet in support of the protests and criticising the impositions of the world football organisation.

Romário, the hero of the Brazilian triumph in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, is now a congressman for the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB).

The only country that has ever renounced hosting a World Cup was Colombia in 1986. The tournament was transferred to Mexico.

The then Colombian government rejected FIFA’s conditions on the grounds that the resources would be better spent on education, health and other areas of social development. However, these promises were apparently not kept.

In recent years, People’s Committees have been formed in the 12 state capitals that will host the official matches, to denounce the impacts of the 2014 World Cup and mobilise the population against it, especially those people who are affected by the construction works.

In Rio de Janeiro, in particular, the protests are aggravated by the Olympic Games to be held there in 2016, and the lesson learnt from the 2007 Pan American Games, which cost four times the original budget and left a legacy of next to nothing.

The committees headed demonstrations that, together with the marches against bus fare hikes – later cancelled – in São Paulo, unleashed an unprecedented wave of protests that shook Brazil´s political institutions and highlighted the crisis of representation by parties and the legislative and executive branches.

The Confederations Cup and the bus fare increases acted as detonators of a generalised uprising when they coincided in June.

The protest is not against football, but against corruption and the use made of public resources that are needed in key social sectors, the demonstrators´ placards explain.

But the stereotypical view of Brazil as “the land of football” is gone.

More important than winning the World Cup is having better public services and government, and less corruption, said the protesters, while President Rousseff’s popularity plunged from 57 to 30 percent in June.