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One million march across Brazil in biggest protests yet
By Paulo Prada and Maria Carolina Marcello
RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA | Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:22pm EDT
Demonstrators take over one side of the Rodovia Dutra, one of the country's main highways, during a protest in Sao Jose dos Campos, June 20, 2013. REUTERS/Roosevelt Cassio
(Reuters) - An estimated 1 million people took to the streets in cities across Brazil on Thursday as the country's biggest protests in two decades intensified despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations.
Undeterred by the reversal of transport fare hikes that sparked the protests, and promises of better public services, demonstrators marched around two international soccer matches and in locales as diverse as the Amazon capital of Manaus and the prosperous southern city of Florianopolis.
While the protests remained mostly peaceful, the growing number of participants led to occasional outbursts of violence and vandalism in some cities. In central Rio de Janeiro, where 300,000 people marched, police afterwards chased looters and dispersed people crowding into surrounding areas.
"Twenty cents was just the start," read signs held by many converging along the Avenida Paulista, the broad avenue in central São Paulo, referring to the bus fare reductions. Police there said 110,000 people lined the avenue.
In the capital, Brasilia, tens of thousands of protesters marched around the landmark modernist buildings that house Congress and the Supreme Court and briefly set fire to the outside of the Foreign Ministry. Police said about 80 of the protesters, some with homemade explosives, made it into the ministry building before they were repelled.
In Ribeirão Preto, near São Paulo, a 20-year-old demonstrator died after a driver plowed a jeep into a crowd. Brazilian media reported hundreds of minor injuries across the country, including a Rio television reporter who recounted being hit by a rubber bullet fired by police.
The swelling tide of protests prompted President Dilma Rousseff to cancel a trip next week to Japan, her office said. The president, whose administration was caught off-guard by the rapid growth of the demonstrations, also planned an emergency meeting for Friday, a government source said.
The targets of the protests, now in their second week, have broadened to include high taxes, inflation, corruption and poor public services ranging from hospitals and schools to roads and police forces.
With an international soccer tournament as a backdrop, demonstrators are also denouncing the more than $26 billion of public money that will be spent on the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, two events meant to showcase a modern, developed Brazil.
"This is fair play," read a banner among the hordes in Brasilia, a twist on the slogan used to promote sportsmanship by FIFA, world soccer's governing body.
MULTIPLE GRIEVANCES
After the concession on transport fares on Wednesday, activist groups differed over what their next priority should be. On Facebook, Twitter and other social media, some Brazilians expressed disgust for the scattered violence and vandalism that marred some of the marches.
The competing demands of demonstrators appeared to add to the intensity of Thursday's protests.
"What am I protesting for?" asked Savina Santos, a 29-year-old civil servant in Sao Paulo. "You should ask what I'm not protesting for! We need political reform, tax reform, an end to corruption, better schools, better transportation. We are not in a position to be hosting the World Cup."
Inside Rio's iconic Maracanã stadium, soccer fans sang protest songs and showed support for the throngs of demonstrators gathering in the city. In Salvador, a northeastern city hosting another game of the soccer tournament that serves as a World Cup test run, protesters pelted a FIFA bus with rocks.
Police in Salvador, Rio, Brasilia and other cities used tear gas, pepper spray and other tools to disperse crowds. They donned riot gear and used horses, trucks and barricades to help channel the crowds and protect buildings.
The unrest comes six months before an election year and just as Brazil, after nearly a decade-long economic boom in which the country's profile soared on the global stage, enters a period of uncertainty. Economic growth of less than 1 percent last year, annual inflation of 6.5 percent and a loss of appetite for Brazilian assets among international investors have clouded what had been a feel-good era for Brazil, a country of nearly 200 million people.
Brazil's currency, the real, dropped to a four-year low on Thursday, trading as weak as 2.275 per U.S. dollar. The country's benchmark stock market index, the Bovespa, also hit a four-year low.
CHANGING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
The protests have shaken the once solid ground under Rousseff and her ruling Workers' Party, a bloc that grew out of convulsive demonstrations by Brazil's labor movement 30 years ago. Until inflation and other economic woes began eroding her poll numbers in recent weeks, Rousseff enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings of any elected leader worldwide.
The demonstrations have been comprised of mostly middle-class, well-educated voters who do not form the bulk of Rousseff's electoral base. The president and her party have sought to get ahead of the complaints and embrace them as their own - a shift that contrasts sharply with a playbook that long relied on telling Brazilians that they had never had it so good.
With little more than a year to go before presidential and gubernatorial elections, the unrest is forcing incumbents and traditional political parties to reconsider their strategies.
(Additional reporting by Eduardo Simões, Caroline Stauffer, Pedro Fonseca and Jeferson Ribeiro; Editing by Todd Benson and Stacey Joyce)
Demonstrators protest against the government of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff in front of the National Congress in Brasilia June 20, 2013.
REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
Demonstrators participate in an anti-government protest in Sao Jose dos Campos, June 20, 2013.
The signs read, "Brazil shows its face" and "It's not difficult to fight for what we want, it is to give up what we love, Brazil."
REUTERS/Roosevelt Cassio
Police protect themselves against stone-throwing demonstrators during an anti-government protest in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, June 20, 2013.
REUTERS/Ney Macondes
A demonstrator offers flowers to the riot police during an anti-government protest in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, June 20, 2013.
REUTERS/Gustavo Vara
Demonstrators carry a banner made of Brazilian national flags during a protest against the Confederations Cup and President Dilma Rousseff's government, in Recife City June 20, 2013. TBrazil's biggest protests in two decades intensified on Thursday despite government concessions meant to quell the demonstrations. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
One killed as more than a million protest in Brazil
AFP Updated June 21, 2013, 8:04 pm
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called for an emergency cabinet meeting Friday, one day after a protester was killed and an estimated 1.25 million people rallied nationwide demanding better public services.
The mass demonstrations, which have sometimes turned violent, are taking place as football-mad Brazil is hosting teams from around the world for the Confederations Cup, a dry run for next year's World Cup tournament.
Many Brazilians are angry over the expensive preparations for the World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Several of the demonstrations have been held outside stadiums, and a mammoth march is scheduled for June 30 to Rio's iconic Maracana stadium on the day of the Confederations Cup final.
In Rio, riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, then charged a large crowd of protesters after a smaller group hurled rocks at the officers.
One demonstrator stood his ground and challenged police while thousands fled in panic. "No violence!" he cried, just as he received a blast of rubber bullets in his chest.
"If you want to be safe, don't come to Rio de Janeiro, don't come to the World Cub, because if you do you'll be helping this government that shoots at us," said Rodrigo Neves, 20, one of the protesters.
The mounting pressure on Rousseff's government in the face Brazil's biggest street protests in 20 years prompted her to also cancel a trip to Japan planned for next week.
More than 1.25 million people marched Thursday in more than 100 cities across this country of 194 million people, according to police and experts quoted by the local media.
The marches began as a protest two weeks ago against a raise in bus fares, but quickly expanded into a wider call for an end to corruption in the world's seventh largest economy, a call fueled by resentment over the $15 billion cost of hosting the Confederations Cup and the World Cup.
The movement has no political hue and no clearly identified leadership.
The announcement Wednesday that the controversial fare hikes would be canceled in Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil's two most populous cities, did nothing to placate the protesters.
Some 300,000 protesters marched to City Hall in Rio de Janeiro to vent their anger.
In Brasilia, where 30,000 people protested, one group broke through the police barrier surrounding Brazil's foreign ministry and hurled home-made firebombs at the building.
At least 35 people were wounded, three seriously, as law enforcement struggled to keep the crowd at bay, police said.
The first fatality of the protest was an 18 year-old man who was struck by a car while he protested in the southeastern city of Ribeirao Preto, police said.
Most of the protesters are middle-class, educated youths marching to express their outrage at the high cost of living and the poor quality of public services.
Demonstrators also set ablaze a vehicle owned by the SBT television station -- many protesters believe the mainstream media is downplaying the size and intensity of the protests.
Mobs even hurled stones at vehicles driven by members of FIFA, football's governing body, in northeastern Salvador, where 20,000 people protested just two kilometers from a stadium where a Confederations Cup game was being played.
Riot police battled the crowd by using tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray.
In Sao Paulo, an estimated 110,000 people flooded the main Paulista Avenue to celebrate the fare rollback and keep the pressure on Rousseff's leftist government to increase social spending.
"Victory, this is just the beginning," one huge banner read.
"Miracles happen when people unite," another read, while several protesters called for Rousseff, Sao Paulo State Governor Geraldo Alckmin and Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad to be impeached.
The protest was largely peaceful except for clashes between a group of leftists marching behind their red banners and a majority of demonstrators who objected to the presence of political parties.
"This is a social movement, not a political movement. This has nothing to do with ideology," 28-year-old protester Maria Vidal told AFP. "We don't want parties in the demonstration."
Protesters say they want higher funding for education, health and housing. They are also railing against what they view as rampant corruption within the political class.
Social media networks have been key to the organization of the mass protests, with demonstrators using the slogan "It's more than just 20 cents" -- a reference to the bus fare hikes -- to rally people to their cause.
