MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Hundreds of brooms in Rio’s beaches to protest Brazilian rampant corruption

The brooms have the national colours of Brazil and belong to the “Rio for Peace” NGO headed by Antonio Carlos Costa

A total of 594 brooms representing Brazil’s 81 senators and 513 members of the Lower House have been planted in the famous Copacabana beach of Rio do Janeiro by a non government organization demanding for action against rampant corruption.

“National Congress helps us sweep out corruption in Brazil” was the only message in the only banner of the surprise protest which attracted the attention of thousands of ‘cariocas’. The brooms had the cane painted yellow and the brush green, the Brazilian national colours.

The brooms were set out in long columns several wide and at the head of the formation another two brooms next to two buckets which resemble the shape of the federal congress building in the capital Brasilia.

The expressive protest takes place a week after President Dilma Rousseff accepted the resignation of a fourth minister since taking office last January, all of them on alleged corruption charges. The cabinet has already lost a cabinet chief plus Transport, Agriculture and now Tourism ministers.

A fifth minister, Defence, not involved in corruption but in strong language (“in the cabinet I’m surrounded by a bunch of idiots”), also had to step down.

Although the Brazilian media describe the ‘knocking outs’ as a campaign “to sweep out corruption”, President Rousseff denies any specific initiative since her position contrary to waste and dilapidation of public funds is, has been and will be permanent.

The protest exhibition in Copacabana was organized by Rio for Peace, a non government organization that struggles for an end to violence in Rio do Janeiro. The same organization on occasions has planted thousands of crosses to remember victims of violence in Brazil’s most world famous city, but also one of its most violent.

“The purpose of our initiative is to make people aware of the extent of rampant corruption and to demand greater transparency in the management of public funds, since the deviation of funds is responsible for the death of thousands of Brazilians” said Antonio Carlos Costa, leader of Rio for Peace.

“We need a greater social control over Legislative and Executive actions because that control is currently limited to political parties that hold their own meetings and decisions, while the people can just look with crossed arms”, said Costa who anticipated a massive manifestation downtown Rio this week to protest corruption and government lack of initiative on the matter.

“Our peaceful protest is geared to get people to the streets so that huge absurd sums of public funds wasted, deviated, ill spent are channelled to infrastructure, schools, medical attention among other purposes”, underlined Costa.