US embassy cable - 05BRASILIA1343

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRASILIA 001343 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, KCRM, PHUM, SOCI, BR, Domestic Security & Crime 
SUBJECT: POLITICAL CORRUPTION SPARKS RIOTS IN BRAZIL'S 
RONDONIA STATE 
 
1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  Violence erupted this week in Porto Velho, 
capital of Brazil's western Rondonia state, with revelations 
that the state governor and several members of the State 
Assembly were locked in a complicated web of corruption.  The 
worst of the violence subsided without serious injury, and 
federal and state investigations are underway.  But Brazil's 
tradition of impunity for political corruption does not offer 
much hope that justice will be done in this case.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
2. (SBU) On May 15, Governor Ivo Cassol (PSDB) of the small 
western state of Rondonia (along the Bolivian border) went 
public with a videotape showing seven Deputies from the State 
Assembly seated in his home soliciting bribes of $R50,000 
each (about US$20,000) per month to buy their votes in the 
Assembly.  One of the Deputies helpfully explains that Cassol 
can hide the payoffs by padding the state budget.  Cassol 
secretly videotaped that 2003 meeting and may have held it 
 
SIPDIS 
over the Deputies' heads since then.  The revelations are 
just the latest in a spiraling conflict of corruption and 
political feuding in the state.  Cassol was prompted to go 
public with the video this week in an effort to prevent the 
State Assembly from impeaching him for unrelated charges, 
including financial improprieties, conspiracy, illegal mining 
on indian lands, and taking kickbacks while he was a 
small-town mayor in the late 1990s. 
 
3. (SBU) The videotape was shown nationwide, save in 
Rondonia, where the Deputies managed to get a friendly judge 
to grant an injunction against its being screened, although 
still photos and internet versions quickly made it to the 
state.   The videotape ignited three days of public outrage 
in Rondonia's capital of Porto Velho, as groups of university 
students attacked first the State Assembly and then the 
Governor's office, breaking windows and starting small fires 
with Molotov cocktails, demanding the resignation of the 
Governor and the seven Deputies.  No serious injuries were 
reported.  On May 18, the other members of the State Assembly 
voted unanimously to suspend the seven Deputies for 30 days 
while the inquiry unfolds, and this seemed to defuse the 
tensions in the streets.  Cassol then announced that he has a 
total of forty hours of videotapes, dating from August 2003 
to as recently as last month, although he did not explain why 
he has secretly collected the tapes for nearly two years, 
without ever denouncing the Deputies publicly. 
 
4. (SBU) The federal Senate has set up an investigative 
committee to look into the Rondonia crisis and the federal 
Chamber of Deputies may follow suit.  Federal Senator Fatima 
Cleide (PT-Rondonia), Cassol's chief rival in the state, is 
on the committee and is already calling for Cassol to step 
down.  The State Assembly and the state prosecutor have also 
opened investigations. 
 
5. (SBU) Allegations against Rondonia's Assembly came from 
all quarters this week, as the state's Financial Oversight 
Tribunal announced that the Assembly had overspent its 
payroll budget by some $12 million last year (there are only 
24 Deputies) and had refused to comply with the nationwide 
computerized financial oversight system.  In fact, last year 
Governor Cassol became so incensed with the Assembly's 
irresponsible spending that he refused to transfer part of 
the Assembly's budget that had already been appropriated and 
approved.  This, in turn, led the Assembly, when it drafted 
the impeachment charges against him, to add on the charge of 
"altering the state budget without the Assembly's 
authorization" -- all part of the bitter exchange leading up 
to this week's denouement. 
 
6. (SBU) Meanwhile, despite Governor Cassol's release of the 
videotape, an Assembly committee on May 19 voted out the 
impeachment charges to the floor.  If his impeachment is 
approved by a floor vote next week, Cassol will have 20 days 
to present his defense. 
 
7. (SBU) COMMENT.  Political corruption is a spectator sport 
in Brazil, where it seems no bad deed ever gets punished. 
The Rondonia scandal is distinguished by the fact that 
citizens briefly took to the streets demanding 
accountability, but beyond that it is just one of a dozen 
major scandals all going on here at the same time -- 
coincidentally a few weeks before Brazil hosts the Fourth 
Global Forum on Fighting Corruption.  The press does a good 
job of investigating scandals and bringing them to the 
public's attention, but it is a rare and unlucky politician 
who goes to jail, even for the most egregious excesses. 
Despite the videotaped evidence of extortion, the popular 
revulsion, and the multiple state and federal investigations, 
we are not sanguine that justice will be served in Rondonia. 
CHICOLA