Confidence and exuberance at Lula da Silva rally in Brazil – ‘We are in a battle and we are going to win’
Music, cheering, noise, chaos, and above all – dancing.
There is nothing quite like being on the Brazilian election trail.
Exuberant is the only word I can think of.
We joined the supporters of Lula da Silva in Sao Bernardo do Campo, a dormitory town on the edge of Sao Paulo city.
Enormous sound systems blared out the favourite Lula anthems, and people danced and cheered and sang along.
They came in their thousands to see the man they consider to be a saviour from the right-wing presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula, a former president, is bidding to stage a remarkable comeback to the top of the political ladder.
Arrested in 2018 on corruption charges, later quashed, he was consistently the most popular political leader in the world with approval ratings in the 80-90% range during his time in office from 2003 to 2011.
Many thought he could capture the presidency in the first round last Sunday, and he didn’t.
But, worse for both Lula and his party, President Bolsonaro confounded the polls and closed the gap to a handful of points.
Now everything is to play for in the days leading up to the decisive second round on 30 October.
Despite that exuberance on the streets, Lula’s team were shocked by how much the president made up ground. But the people we talked to in the crowds say they still believe in their man.
“We’re going to fight for him. I’m fighting,” says 61-year-old Maria Francisca Neves.
Maria
Maria has travelled from the Jardim Limpao favela, where she lives. She is unemployed and says she and many others are struggling to survive.
“We want them to fight for us, for us to be able to eat meat again, to have our table full of food, for us to have a glass of milk to drink in the morning and be able to give that to our children, to be able to go to university…”
“We are in a battle, and we are going to win. Lula will get there, I have faith in God, I thank God!” she added passionately.
Erivan (left)
Another supporter, Erivan Paulino de Souza, said he would have preferred Lula had won in the first round to put an end to the tension.
“But everything we have achieved in our lives has been through fighting – we go and conquer, nothing has ever been easy for us,” he explained.
“This is not the first election that has gone to the second round, and so we will fight until the end.”
Lula da Silva
They all waited in the blistering heat for hours when, finally, he appeared from the side door of the union building on the street where he was arrested in 2018.
He was helped onto the back of a truck, joined by politicians from his Workers’ Party.
And so began a chaotic caravan through the streets of the town.
This is the first time Lula has been back on the campaign trail since he failed in that first round, and they loved it.
The streets were jammed with supporters, waving flags, and dancing. Many were trying to touch Lula or to at least get his attention.
A huge cheer erupted when the would-be president began taking photos of the crowd with a professional camera.
Almost certainly a move to underline his basic campaign message that he is for the people and part of the people.
He has certainly aged and is not the energetic president of the past, but he still shows the touch of the ‘man of the people’ which has proved so popular for so long.
The real question though is whether his type of politics can appeal to an electorate that is already terribly divided.
Followed by thousands, we watched as Lula and his entourage and political colleagues wound their way through the streets.
Shoppers and shop owners watching on as this loud parade made its way to a nearby square.
Most held their hands in the air with their thumb and index fingers in the shape of an L.
L for Lula, they say, and L for love.
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Once the caravan got to the square, the 76-year-old addressed the crowd, promising not to give up, and warning against the spread of misinformation.
“You know that our adversary’s speciality is to lie, seven or eight lies a day through fake news, through zap (WhatsApp), through any other way to talk to people.
“In the next 24 days, you have to be alert, you need to know how to tell truth from the lies,” he said.
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‘Too poor to vote’ in Brazil election
Presidential elections are often won by the candidate with momentum.
In truth President Bolsonaro grabbed that momentum when he drew near to his adversary.
Lula needs new momentum now. And he and his team hope that this is the start.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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