
Leaked documents show Brazil’s Bolsonaro has grave plans for Amazon rainforest - iron0013
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/leaked-documents-show-brazil-bolsonaro-has-grave-plans-for-amazon-rainforest/
======
privateSFacct
Excerpt:

"Leaked documents show that Jair Bolsonaro's government intends to use the
Brazilian president's hate speech to isolate minorities living in the Amazon
region. The PowerPoint slides, which democraciaAbierta has seen, also reveal
plans to implement predatory projects that could have a devastating
environmental impact."

My question is why would the government even put slides like this together.
Who writes things like "We will use hate speech to implement predatory
projects to devastate the environment".

Normally govts focus on things like we want to develop X area and give two
shxxts about the environment. But they don't go out of there way to come up
with evil powerpoints.

~~~
yellowapple
Yeah, that part seems fishy to me. Like, I guess I've seen weirder things in
the real world, but that just seems _way_ too cartoonishly evil to be real.

~~~
jimmux
Yeah, what's next? A Bond villain running Russia? A racist blow-hard
capitalist running America? Please...

~~~
yellowapple
Alright, fair point.

Makes me wonder if the world really did end in 2012 and we're living in a
very-poorly-written video game attempting to preserve it.

~~~
ginvok
Or something equivalent of Game of thrones 8th season

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omosubi
Regardless of whether this particular article is fake news or not Western
countries should join together and pay Brazil not to burn down the rainforest.
Models show that reductions to the Amazon would lower rainfall in the western
United states, a place with a growing population and already bad water usage
problems nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-cutting-the-amazon-
forest-could-affect-weather

~~~
ChuckNorris89
_> Western countries should join together and pay Brazil not to burn down the
rainforest_

I'm sorry, but, WHAT?! I agree we should preserve the rainforest but why
should the West pay? That's like asking my neighbors to pay me to not burn
down my flat.

~~~
bingerman
Many countries in Europe, for example, have already destroyed majority of
their forests. Not saying that destroying forests is good, quite the opposite,
but unfortunately that's how it seems to go if you can't monetize the forests
in some way and that's where western (and other) money could help.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
_> Many countries in Europe, for example, have already destroyed majority of
their forests._

You have a source for that? Last I recall, countries like Finland have more
trees now than ever before.

~~~
frankbreetz
They replaced forest that were destroyed. Planting new forest is great,but not
as great if we had the old forest were still there. Once you lose
biodiversity, it is gone forever.

------
dictum
This long form article goes into way more detail than anyone not related to
Brazil might care.

It's gaslighting as a political strategy:

[https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/the-environment-as-
an...](https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/the-environment-as-an-obstacle)

------
wtdata
I don't particularly trust Bolsonaro, his constant twisting of the truth and
his ignorance should put us all on alert.

But seriously, this is an article about an agency that is openly anti-
bolsonaro and pro PT [1] (his opposing party) claming to have seen a supposed
PowerPoint with incriminating evidence (with no source to the PowerPoint and
much less any proof of its origin). We can't allow ourselves to drop to this
level, it is no better than a witch-hunt this way.

[1] [https://nocaute.blog.br/2018/10/15/democracia-abierta-
adere-...](https://nocaute.blog.br/2018/10/15/democracia-abierta-adere-ao-
elenao/)

EDIT: It's really interesting to see I am being downvoted for stating an
inconvenient truth. Got to love ideological blindness.

~~~
catacombs
> I don't particularly trust Bolsonaro, his constant twisting of the truth and
> his ignorance should put us all on alert.

The same can certainly be said about the United States.

~~~
BubRoss
This article is about Brazil.

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tempw
where is the "PowerPoint" though?

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throwaway5752
While it's good to question things, everything alleged in there squares with
Bonsonaro's public statements and actions since taking office.

~~~
catacombs
Bonsonaro is Brazil's Trump, the worst thing that could possibly happen to
that country.

------
yellowapple
As a disclaimer, I don't speak Portuguese, like at all, so my half-assed
attempt at translating these is based on my limited understanding of Spanish
and the cognates between Portuguese and Spanish+English.

\----

First, the slide:

> 3\. Context

> Globalist campaign: relative to [something] of the Amazon Basin

> Strategy: PsyOps (external and internal) + International Pressure

> Arms [?]: ambientalist[?] / indigenist NGOs, media, diplomatic and economic
> pressures; (something) of indigenous minorities and quilombolas; and
> [something] of public institutions

> Result: restriction of the government's freedom to act

This looks like one of the slides mentioned in the article (paragraph right
above the document), but not the one about the Brazilian government using
"hate speech" as a strategy.

\----

Next, the document:

> CONFIDENTIAL

> Strategic Agenda

> (Presidential Directive)

> For prioritized consideration for government strategies.

> 1\. Aerospace Technology - Revitalization of VLS [Space Launch Vehicle?]
> project, [something] of national satellite and vehicular property [?],
> [something about Bolsonaro]

> 2\. Nuclear Technology

> a. Industrialization of a uranium enrichment process [something something]
> to make Brazil self-sufficient and a potential enriched uranium exporter

> b. [something about politics and nuclear power; I suppose I could Google
> Translate "fusão" to see if it means "fusion" (my guess) or "fission", but
> I'm too lazy]

> 3\. Integration [?] [something] Amazon River [?] into the rest of national
> territory, [something] international pressure around implementation [?] of
> project called Triple A. For this, hydroelectric construction project on the
> Trombetas River [something something] Amazon River, with implementation of
> road BR 163 to the Suriname border

> 4\. Cyberdefense - Implementation of National Cyber Defense Plan, integrated
> with existing security plans [?]

> 5\. Biotech - Establishment of a program to eradicate the primary diseases
> in Brazil's rain forests (malaria, [some other diseases])

> 6\. Mining - Execution of the National Mining Plan, obtaining [?] minerals
> critical for the nuclear [something] and the aerospace industry

> 7\. Science and Technology - Implementation of the national technology
> [something] plan

All seems relatively mundane, though (as a side note) it's interesting that
Brazil's actively pursuing nuclear and aerospace projects. Brazil's vast
expanses of equatorial territory could make it a major player in space travel
should it manage to capitalize on that real estate. I'm guessing that might be
what that "VLS" project is. If those points are ordered by priority, that'd
imply that aerospace projects are Brazil's #1 priority, which is pretty
exciting for the future of space travel.

\----

I'm assuming there are other slides not shown in the article, but if the
article's gonna claim that said slides document the Brazilian government's
strategic use of hate speech, it'd be really helpful if it, you know, actually
included that slide. Maybe that's part of entry #3 in that Strategic Agenda;
there's a lot in there and I understood relatively little of it, but that also
seemed to be the article's focus.

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ed_dantes99
Wow! How did this absurdly fake news make the HN front page?

~~~
bkemmer
How do you know it is fake news?

~~~
ed_dantes99
Did you read the article? Tell me where is the leaked document.

~~~
vcoelho
[https://cdn-prod.opendemocracy.net/media/images/b2d7aa17-e06...](https://cdn-
prod.opendemocracy.net/media/images/b2d7aa17-e061-4cbd-a792-8b3346566c6a.width-800.jpg)

~~~
wtdata
Do you understand Portuguese? That slide is nothing about what this article is
reporting.

For anyone that doesn't understand Portuguese, this slide is about how the
government feels threatened by what they see as (even agreeing that would be
paranoid) a disinformation campaign orchestrated by NGOs, media, and other
actors.

Also, besides this slide having nothing to do with the article being discussed
here, it also begs the question on why we should trust an agency that was
openly anti Bolsonaro and pro PT (the opposing party) in the elections without
any substantial proof but showing a photo of a slide.

