SO LIFE IS NOT A BED OF ROSES

It is more than a month since widespread protests were held in Brazil's larger towns, that all started when public transport fares were increased by 20 per cent. However, deeper reasons for the unrest were later revealed, such as corruption in high places, the brutal suppression of demonstrations, and so on. Some quarters of society also believe that the country's leaders were spending irresponsible amounts on sports competitions, such as the FIFA Football Confederations Cup, which coincided with the demonstrations, and the 2014 World Cup.  However, according to official figures, in 2012 alone the government spent several times more on health and education than the planned expenditure on soccer competitions. At the same time, the country's president, the socialist Dilma Rousseff, said that the main investments on the 2014 championship are on the infrastructure and have been made from private capital, not out of the budget.

Despite this, the protests have been taken up by more and more of the country's population. The number of people taking to the streets has already reached a million. The government has been forced to send troops to the largest towns and cities to maintain control and public order. Dozens of people from both sides have been hurt in clashes and hundreds have been arrested.

The authorities are worried that the World Cup, which is due to take place in exactly a year's time, could cause the same stormy public reaction. But experts say that protests of this kind are very untypical for Brazil. And, indeed, the apparent aggressive nature of the demonstrators, who usually prefer other ways of protesting, seems strange, to say the least. It is also strange that economy-motivated protests are taking place in a country which in a short period of time has become the world's sixth largest economy and continues to develop much faster than the EU. For example, in terms of level of GDP in 2011 Brazil was ahead of Great Britain, and by 2016 is due to leave France behind, too. And although, in the opinion of some experts, the country's economic leap is not being reflected in the lives of the ordinary people, a simple comparison of the state of affairs ten years ago (not to mention the mid 1990s) shows the illogical nature of the purely economic reasons of the protesters. What are also strange are the claims about another "colour revolution" (the events in Brazil are already being called the "vinegar revolution" or the "20-per cent revolution" because of the 20% public transport fare increase), that these actions were not instigated by external forces but were of a spontaneous nature, that the world powers are not interested in it and the reasons lie only in the actions of the authorities against their own people.

The same remarks were made about Ukraine which is still trying to rehabilitate itself after the activities of the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko tandem and about the fragmented Libya and Egypt, which once again stands on the brink of a civil war, and Syria where the civil war has already claimed the lives of over 100,000 people. Each time the news agencies try to convince people of the spontaneity of the events and the sincerity of the people's expression of will. In other words, in cynically ignoring the obvious dramatic nature of the events, they are trying to assure the people that "revolutionary conditions gathered head some time ago and all this was anticipated". At the same time, it is being very conveniently forgotten that such "revolutionary conditions" are evident in any country. But in the modern world, where a large number of countries are directly financially independent on the trans-national companies and super-national financial structures, which are nothing more than an appendage of them, and the rural elite are often isolated from the masses and support the aforementioned forces in plundering them, the revolutionary conditions were created from the outset. All that is required is to light the touch-paper at the right moment. And that moment comes either when the national elite become less amenable and try to start playing their own game or when all their powers have been drained like a common domestic battery.

But let us return to Brazil in order to analyze the aforementioned theory on the example of the "vinegar revolution". The disturbances increased after social networks were full of stories about "billions being spent from the state purse" on the construction of sports stadia for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The Brazilian "human rights" community distributed on Facebook a photograph of the head of this popular social network, Mark Zuckerberg, with support for the protesters and calls for a revolution. Incidentally, according to the notorious former employee of the American special services E. Snowden, Zuckerberg was closely linked with the CIA at the start of his business career and also later with the US National Security Agency (NSA).  Snowden claims that the US, by means of social networks, can control popular unrest. Thus, the support for the actions by Zuckerberg, who has suddenly started to be worried by the increase in fares on Brazilian public transport, is very interesting.

Since there are 80 million Internet users in Brazil and roughly double the number of mobile phone users, the attempts to influence social processes are not encountering any particular obstacles. It would also be timely to mention the activities of the NGOs which maintain links with US diplomatic missions via the local USAID (the US Agency for International Development). The attention of analysts was drawn by the fact that the protests were particularly strong in those towns where there were headquarters of American diplomatic missions. So there are many answers to the question as to why Brazil might not find favour in American eyes.

The point is that for a long time Brazil has been a supplier of raw material from the "back garden", which Latin America is regarded by the US. But for 20 years the country has been able to develop rapidly without fuss and its ambitions in foreign policy have grown accordingly. During the rule of its recent presidents - Lula Da Silva and Dilma Rousseff - one can detect a complete disparity between Brazil and the USA on key questions of foreign policy. In not supporting the US intervention in Iraq and Libya, Brazil also criticized official Washington's position on Syria and Iran, demonstrably selling low-grade uranium to the latter in 2010. One of the deep-rooted antagonisms between the two countries is Brazil's desire to develop its own nuclear arsenal.  The country's leaders have based this desire on the fact that states with huge territories and possessing rich supplies of energy resources and other natural wealth need nuclear weapons as an element of self-defence. Bearing in mind that on the American continent the production and use of nuclear missiles is in the hands of a monopoly of NATO countries (US and Canada), it was not difficult to foresee official Washington's reaction to such an intention. It was not long in coming: in an interview for the American public radio station PBS, former US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta described Brazil, along with China and India, as a country that presents a challenge to the USA, calling on them to make sure they do not undermine stability in the world. Bearing in mind the fact that for the US the concept of "stability in the world" means its own hegemony, the prospect of an increase in Brazil's military and strategic might does not meet with the US' interests and causes it to take reciprocal steps. One of these steps could be the creation of a Pacific Alliance, including such countries as Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, under US' patronage. According to America's plan, such an alliance would stand against another group of countries headed by Brazil and in opposition to US' policy. Among such countries one would include Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Also included in measures undertaken by the US in Latin America against "self-willed countries" are the rebuilding of the Navy's Fourth Fleet which patrols areas of the Atlantic close to Brazil's oil fields, the development of a military base in Colombia despite protests by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry and the construction of a military base in neighbouring Paraguay following the overthrow of the country's president, Fernando Lugo. Following Brazil's refusal to sign a treaty on an all-American Free Trade Zone (ALCA), put forward by the US, the project has proved to be ineffective.

Quite often the leaderships of both countries are critical of the other's economic policy.  No sooner does the US accuse Brazil of protecting its own market against American goods than the latter responds with a condemnation of US monetary policy, saying that the Federal Reserve System is provoking "currency wars" against developing markets.

Bearing in mind what has been said up to now, the interest of geopolitical rivals in the preparation of "spontaneous" acts of protest in Brazil is perfectly possible. The country's slide into "manageable chaos", a disruption of the rate of development of strategic programmes and the paralysis of management structures are, of course, of advantage to Brazil's geopolitical rival.

The widespread protest actions are continuing. The detailed and at times embellished coverage events by the western media may also be regarded as a pre-arranged operation to discredit Brazil's image. Today one needs to cast doubt on the organization of international sports tournaments in 2014, and this may be assessed as pressure on the country on questions which are very much divorced from sport. It is worth pointing out that 2014 is also the year of presidential elections in the country. And for the moment it will be interesting to see whether Mrs Rousseff, who has herself recovered from an oncological illness and who has become so "popular" recently among the "undesirable" leaders of Latin American countries, will be able to fight the "illnesses" that have become deep-rooted in her own society.