PRESS RELEASE
Rousseff Speaks in Her Own Defense at Impeachment Trial
Aug. 29, 2016 (EIRNS)—An unbowed Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff this morning delivered a forceful 45-minute speech before the Senate of Brazil, gathered to try her in the phoney impeachment proceedings that the international bankers are using to carry out a coup d’etat in that country. For the remainder of today and tomorrow, she faces "questioning" by some 50 or so Senators who have signed up to deliver five-minute speeches before the cameras. Both sides pretty much agree that the vote itself is a foregone conclusion, and that Rousseff will be impeached either late Tuesday or Wednesday.
Rousseff’s speech was less an attempt to sway votes, than an uncompromising charge that what is underway is a coup d'etat, and that she has absolutely not committed any crimes, let alone impeachable ones. But what Rousseff failed to do in her speech, as she has throughout the months of political battle leading up to it, was to identify the international authors of the attempted coup, nor the international strategic purpose of it: to remove the "B" from the BRICS.
Sitting in the visitors’ gallery as Rousseff spoke, were about 20 observers invited by the defense, including former President Lula and many former cabinet ministers; and a number of special invited guests of the prosecution, including none other than Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Braganca, one of the royal pretenders to the (non-existent) Brazilian throne! Present with Luiz Philippe, who is a leader of the Mont Pelerinite "Movimiento Liberal Acorda Brasil" (Wake Up Brazil Liberal Movement) and an open advocate of a return to a monarchical system, were a whole gaggle of followers of the fascist economist Friedrich von Mises.
Rousseff began by recalling her own role as a young woman in taking up arms against the 1964 military coup in Brazil, and that she had been tortured and even sentenced to death.
"In the fight against the dictatorship, I received on my body the marks of torture.... But I did not change sides.... I am also proud of that. Those who believe, fight.... That is why, as in the past, I resist. Do not expect from me the obsequious silence of cowards."
She continued:
"I did not commit any crime of responsibility. I did not the crimes of which I am unjustly and arbitrarily accused.... These are pretexts to justify a coup against the Constitution. A coup which, if it is consummated, will result in the indirect election of a usurping government.... We are one step from the consummation of a serious institutional rupture. We are one step from the realization of a true coup d’etat."
Rousseff went on to charge that the purpose of the coup being carried out by "conservative and authoritarian elites" is to stop investment in public works, seize Brazil’s huge "pre-salt" oil deposits, and impose austerity.
"The most frightening threat of this impeachment process without any crime of responsibility, is the freezing for 20 years of all spending on health, education, sanitation, housing."
And she pronounced her continuing commitment to
"defending and obeying our Constitution, whether in the observation of our laws, the promotion of the general welfare of the Brazilian people, or maintaining the unity, integrity, and independence of Brazil."
