Red World: Brazil: Lula da Silva founds Sao Paulo Forum, promotes alliance with Russia, China; Havana contributes US$3 million to Workers' Party

Pictured here: Neo-Soviet Tyrant Vladimir Putin travels to Brasilia, where he meets Brazil's neo-communist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, November 22, 2004.

Federative Republic of Brazil
Type of state: Republic with multiparty system featuring neo-communist government
Independence: August 29, 1825 (from Portugal)
President of Brazil: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party): January 1, 2003-present
Political composition of national legislature: In the last election for Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, which occurred on October 1, 2006, the seats were distributed in the following manner: Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (centrist, including former members of guerrilla army Revolutionary Movement 8th October) 89, Workers' Party (social democratic with Trotskyist and other far-left factions) 83, Brazilian Social Democracy Party 65, Democrats/Liberal Front Party 65, Progressive Party (conservative) 42, Brazilian Socialist Party 27, Democratic Labor Party 24, Brazilian Labor Party 22, Liberal Party of Brazil (linked to Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) 23, Socialist People's Party (formerly old Brazilian Communist Party) 21, Green Party 13, Communist Party of Brazil (Maoist, formerly faction of old Brazilian Communist Party) 13, Christian Social Party 9, Socialism and Freedom Party (Trotskyist) 3, Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order (nationalist, integralist) 2, Party of National Mobilization (centrist) 3, Christian Labor Party 4, Humanist Party of Solidarity (distributist) 2, Brazilian Labor Party (restored, center-right) 1, Party of the Nation’s Retirees (centrist) 1, and Brazilian Republican Party (linked to Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God) 1.

Communist governments:

1) Workers’ Party, in coalition with Communist Party of Brazil, Brazilian Socialist Party, Progressive Party of Brazil, Brazilian Republican Party, and Liberal Party of Brazil: 2006-present
2) Workers’ Party, in coalition with Communist Party of Brazil, Party of National Mobilization, Green Party of Brazil, and Liberal Party of Brazil: 2005-2006
3) Workers’ Party, in coalition with Communist Party of Brazil, Socialist People’s Party, Party of National Mobilization, Green Party of Brazil, and Liberal Party of Brazil: 2002-2005

Noteworthy governments:

1) Military-controlled presidency of Emílio Garrastazu Médici (National Renewal Alliance Party, Brazilian Integralist Action): 1969-1974
2) Socialist presidency of João Belchior Marques Goulart (Brazilian Labor Party): 1961-1964 (deposed in military coup supported by Party of Popular Representation, consisting of former AIB members)
3) Second presidency of Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (Brazilian Labor Party): 1951-1954
4) Semi-fascist “New State” presidency of Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, modeled on Portugal’s New State dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar: 1937-1945
5) Semi-fascist presidency of Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, with support of Plínio Salgado’s Mussolini-financed Brazilian Integralist Action (AIB): 1930-1934

Pictured here: President Lula da Silva travels to Beijing, where he is welcomed by Chinese Tyrant Hu Jintao, May 24, 2004.

Communist insurgency:

1) Landless Workers’ Movement (MST): Founded in 1984 the MST is the largest social movement in Latin America, boasting 1.5 million landless peasants organized in 23 out of Brazil’s 27 states. According to some estimates, 1.6% of landowners control almost one half (46.8%) of arable land in Brazil. The MST sites the 1988 Brazilian Constitution as the legal basis for its land occupations since Section XXIII of Article 5 of that document permits the government to expropriate land that is not presently serving a “social fuction.” The federal agency responsible for expropriations, the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), determines whether the occupied property is productive or unproductive and, hence, serving or not serving a social fuction. The legal interests of MST families are represented by human rights organizations such as Terra de Direitos, co-founded by Darci Frigo, the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award Laureate. Brazilian courts have favored both occupiers and landowners, depending upon the case. The expropriation process can take years.

The MST is an ideologically diverse rural movement whose members variously subscribe to liberation theology, Marxism, Cuban-style communism, and other leftist ideologies. The MST enjoys the support of progressive bishops and priests in the Catholic Church.

By 2001 about 150,000 children were enrolled in 1,200 primary and secondary schools in MST settlements and camps. The schools employ 3,800 teachers, many of them MST trained. The MST maintains partnerships with UNESCO, UNICEF, and the Catholic Church. The MST, according to its own estimates, taught more than 50,000 landless workers to read and write between the years 2002 and 2005. In 2005 the MST partnered with Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the State Government of Paraná, the Federal University of Paraná, and the International Via Campesina, an international body that agitates for land reform worldwide, to found the Latin American School of Agroecology. The collaborating entities signed the protocol of intentions for the school’s formation at the Fifth World Social Forum.

In March 2005 the MST organized a two-week, 200-plus-kilometer march in which nearly 13,000 banner- and scythe-wielding landless workers marched from the city of Goiania to the national capital, Brasilia. There the MST protested outside the US embassy and Brazilian Finance Ministry. A delegation of 50 landless workers also held a three-hour meeting with President Lula da Silva, who sported an MST cap for the media. During the conference Lula da Silva expressed his commitment to settling 430,000 families on expropriated land by the end of 2006, as well as releasing the needed human and financial resources to fulfil this promise. Several MST leaders also conferred with President Lula da Silva on May 18. On this occasion the landless workers presented a list of 16 demands related to the implementation of economic reform, social spending, and public housing. Afterwards, during an interview with Reuters, the MST representatives affirmed that the organization still considers President Lula da Silva as an ally, but insisted that he fast track promised land reforms.

The MST has adopted various tactics, such as property invasions, to pressure the federal government into accelerating expropriations. In addition to occupying abandoned farms and public buildings, the MST has also invaded and vandalized productive properties. For example, in 2002 the MST invaded, looted, and damaged the private farm of then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso's sons in the state of Minas Gerais. President Lula da Silva and Workers’ Party condemned this property invasion. As a result of this incident 16 MST leaders were indicted for theft, vandalism, trespassing, resisting arrest, and hostage taking. In June 2003, the MST invaded the Monsanto research and development farm in the state of Goiás. On March 8, 2005 the MST invaded a nursery and research center in Barra do Ribeiro, near Porto Alegre. Both facilities were owned by Aracruz Celulose. The MST held the local guards hostage while the landless workers vandalized the nursery. MST president João Pedro Stédile was reported to have declared that not only the landowner, but also “international capital” was regarded as the enemy. In April 2006 the MST invaded the Suzano Papel e Celulose farm, a manufacturer of paper products, in the state of Bahia. During this incident the landless workers blamed the farm owner for introducing eucalyptus, a non-native plant that has been reportedly identified as causing “enivronmental degradation” in northeast Brazil.

Brazilian land reform has been marred by outbursts of violence, perpetrated by both government authorities and the MST itself. The MST has on many occasion erected roadblocks and blocked railroads. In the Eldorado dos Carajás Massacre, 19 MST members were gunned down while they blocked a national route. The MST has also been accused of committing violence, including an accusation of responsibility for the torture and assassination of police officers.

The MST was reported to have aided the subversive prison-based terrorist gang First Capital Command (PCC) in perpetrating the orgy of violence that killed more than 40 police officers throughout Sao Paulo and other cities in May 2006. The PCC was founded in 1993 by inmates of Taubaté prison in São Paulo. PCC boss Marcos “Marcola” Willians Herbas Camacho allegedly ordered the 2006 attacks. This uprising, which was aimed at security forces and some civilian targets, was the worst outbreak of civil violence in the history of Brazil. All together more than 150 people, including prison inmates and civilians, died. Police tapped telephone conversations in which PCC leaders disclosed the role that the MST played in organizing Brazil’s largest-ever protest of prisoners’ relatives on April 18, 2005. The MST denied the link with a formal statement, but no proof to refute the phone tap recordings was offered.

2) National Liberation Action (ANL): The revolutionary tradition of the short-lived National Liberation Alliance (below) was revived in February 1968 by Carlos Marighella, a Sao Paulo communist, who referred to the new entity as the National Liberation Action. The restored ANL peaked in strength with 200 members, consisting of radical students, Marxist intellectuals, and a smattering of professional communists. The main geographic areas of revolutionary activity took place in the cities, especially Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and the main target was the military dicatorship. Throughout 1968 and 1969 the ANL “expropriated” banks, seized control of the National Radio Station, stormed military and police outposts, and bombed army barracks and the offices of US companies.

3) National Liberation Alliance (ANL): Considered by some to be a forerunner of Che Guevara, revolutionary Luís Carlos Prestes supported the failed Tenente Rebellion against Brazil’s coffee oligarchs in 1922. The main instigators of this rebellion were the middle class officer corps and poor conscripted servicemen. Prestes was seriously ill during the revolt and did not personally participate in the uprising. Nevertheless, he perpetuated the insurrection in the so-called Long March of disaffected peasants through the rural Brazilian interior.

In 1930 fascist sympathizer Getúlio Vargas assumed the presidency of Brazil. Living in exile in Buenos Aires, Prestes embraced Marxism. In 1935 he became leader of the National Liberation Alliance (ANL), a popular front consisting of socialists, communists, and other progressives, but dominated by the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) that opposed Vargas' suppression of organized labor. In March 1935 the Brazilian Congress banned the ANL under the National Security Act. The Vargas regime imprisoned Prestes and raided the ANL offices. Employing new emergency powers that permitted arrests and summary trials, the federal government suppressed the entire left. In response, the ANL instigated an armed insurrection in November. Prestes, who died in 1990, and some of his comrades opposed armed struggle, provoking a schism, which exists to this day, between militant Maoists and the orthodox Marxist-Leninists of the PCB.

4) Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8): The MR-8 was an urban guerrilla army that opposed the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985) and was composed of dissenters who rejected the Brazilian Communist Party’s decision to refrain from armed resistance. The MR-8 was responsible for kidnapping US Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in 1969, the basis of the Brazilian film Four Days in September (1997), which starred Alan Arkin (pictured here) as the captive ambassador. After the restoration of civilian rule in 1985 the MR-8 joined the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), a political party that currently holds the largest number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The presence of the MR-8, an unreconstructed communist group, operating within the centrist PMDB is considered by some political observers as somewhat incongruous. MR-8 developed close relations with Iraq’s deposed Ba’athist regime.

Communist parties:

1) Anarchist Popular Union (UNPA): Founded in 2003 this party is anarcho-communist in orientation.
2) Brazilian Communist Party (PCB): Founded in 1922 the PCB was outlawed during its formative years. After being recognized by the Communist International, the PCB in 1930 boasted 1,100 members. In 1943 Luís Carlos Prestes was elected to the party's presidency. In 1945, after the Vargas dictatorship toppled, the PCB was re-legalized. In the 1950s the party was again driven underground but it covertly supported workers' strikes throughout Brazil. The alliance that the PCB formed with other leftist parties did not endure the 1964 coup. Under the military regime the PCB continued to organize the workers' movement and endeavored to reunite the "democratic" opposition. The PCB leadership, however, refused to engage in warfare against the military dictatorship, prompting some defectors to form new communist parties dedicated to armed revolution. The growth of the Workers' Party, founded in 1980, accelerated the fragmentation of the PCB, leading ultimately to the latter's dissolution in 1992. The PCB reorganized itself and adopted a new name, the Socialist People's Party. A minority faction continues to this day under the old name.
3) Imprensa Popular: In 1992 this communist party split from the Socialist People’s Party, formerly the majority of the old Brazilian Communist Party.
4) Brazilian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist): No information.
5) Brazilian Section of the Trotskyist-Posadist IVth International (SB 4IT-P): Founded in 1953 as the Revolutionary Workers’ Party, this Trotskyist party operates under the leadership of Afonso Magalhães.
6) Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB): Founded in 1985 this socialist party associates with the Latinamerican Socialist Coordination and Sao Paulo Forum.
7) Cabocla Anarchist Federation (FACA): Founded in 2001 this party is anarcho-communist in orientation
8) Centre of Socialist Studies and Debates (CEDS): This Trotskyist party is a split from the PSTU and associates with the Committee of International Rapprochement.
9) Committee for Popular Struggle (COMLUT): Founded in 2000 this party is anarchist in orientation.
10) Communist Anarchist Movement (MAC): This party is anarcho-communist in orientation.
11) Communist Current-Luiz Carlos Prestes: This party associates with the Sao Paulo Forum.
12) Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB): Founded in 1961 as a split from the old Brazilian Communist Party, the PCdoB is “ex”-Maoist and “ex”-Hoxhaist in orientation and associates with the International Communist Seminar and Sao Paulo Forum.
13) Communist Party of Brazil-Red Faction (PCdoB-FV): This party is Maoist in orientation.
14) Construction of Socialism (CAS): This Trotskyist party associates with the Committee of International Rapprochement.
15) Fourth Internationalist League of Brazil (LQIdoB): Founded in 1996 this Trotskyist party associates with the League for the Fourth International.
16) Gaucha Anarchist Federation (FAG): Founded in 1995 this party is anarcho-communist in orientation and associates with the International Libertarian Solidarity.
17) Group for a New Revolutionary Marxism: This party is radical left in orientation.
18) Internationalist Bolshevik League (LBI): Founded in 1995 as a split from the CO, this Trotskyist party formerly associated with the Bolshevik Current for the Fourth International.
19) Internationalist Workers’ League (LOI): This Trotskyist party associates with the LSI and formerly associated with the International Center of Orthodox Trotskyism-4th International.
20) Libertarian Struggle (LL): This party is anarcho-communist in orientation.
21) Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (PCML): Founded in 2000 by the July 5th Movement, this Stalinist party associates with the International Communist Seminar.
22) Marxist Workers’ Party (POM): This party is Trotskyist in orientation.
23) Movement for Self-Government (MA): Founded in 1994 as the Socialist Liberation Movement, this party is left communist in orientation.
24) October 8th Revolutionary Movement (MR-8): Founded in 1968 this radical left party associates with the PMDB and International Communist Seminar.
25) Orthodox Trotskyist Group (GTO): This Trotskyist party associates with the Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International.
26) Proletarian Marxist Organization (OMP): Founded in 2002 as a split from the Workers' Party this party is radical left in orientation.
27) Radical Critique (CR): This radical left party was formerly known as the Party of Revolutionary Workers.
28) Revolutionaries in Struggle (RL): This party is Trotskyist in orientation.
29) Revolutionary Communist Collective (CCR): This party is Trotskyist in orientation.
30) Revolutionary Communist Nucleus (NCR): This party associates with the International Communist Seminar.
31) Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR): Founded in 1995 as a split from MR-8 this Stalinist party associates with the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (Hoxhaist).
32) Revolutionary Marxist Committee (Marxist Trench) CMR(TM): This Trotskyist party associates with the LCICPT.
33) Revolutionary Strategy (ER): Founded in 1999 this Trotskyist party associates with the Trotskyist Faction-International Strategy.
34) Revolutionary Vanguard: This Trotskyist party split from the Tendency for the Revolutionary Workers’ Party.
35) Socialism and Liberty: Founded in 2003 as a split from the PSTU, this party is Trotskyist in orientation.
36) Socialist Action (AS): This party is radical left in orientation.
37) Socialism and Freedom Party (P-SOL): Founded in 2004 this party is radical left in orientation.
38) Communist Union (UC): This radical left party operates under the leadership of Ney Nunes.
39) Freedom and Revolution (LR): Founded in 2004 as a faction in DS, this Trotskyist party operates under the leadership of Heloísa Helena and associates with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
40) Land, Labour and Freedom Movement (MTTL): This Trotskyist party was founded in 2002.
41) Movement for a Proletarian Tendency (MTP): This radical left party operates under the leadership of Roberto Morales.
42) Revolts: Founded in 2004 this Trotskyist party associates with the International Socialists.
43) Revolutionary Socialism (SR): Founded in 1996 this Trotskyist party associates with the Committee for a Workers' International.
44) Socialism and Freedom Collective (CSL): Founded in 2003 as a split from the PSTU, this party is Trotskyist in orientation.
45) Socialist Left Movement (MES): Founded in 2002 as a split from CST, this Trotskyist party operates under the leadership of Luciana Genro.
46) Socialist People’sParty (PPS): Founded in 1922 as the Brazilian Communist Party, this “ex”-communist, left socialist party former associated with the Communist International and World Marxist Review.
47) Socialist Popular Action (APS): Founded in 2004 as a radical left faction within Workers' Party, this party operates under the leadership of Ivan Valente.
48) Socialist Resistance Pole (PRS): This party is radical left in orientation.
49) Socialist Workers’ Current (CST): Founded in 1994 this Trotskyist party associates with the International Workers' Unity (Fourth International).
50) Socialist Space (ES): This radical left party split from the PSTU.
51) Tendency for the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (TPOR): Founded in 1989 as a split from CO, this Trotskyist party associates with the Liaison Committee for the Reconstruction of the IVth International.
52) Trotskyist Faction (FT): Founded in 1997 as a split from the Tendency for the Revolutionary Workers’ Party, this Trotskyist party operates under the leadership of Otavio Lisboa and and associates with the Fourth Internationalist Tendency.
53) Proletarian Vanguard (VP): Founded in 1997 as a split from the Tendency for the Revolutionary Workers’ Party , this Trotskyist party operates under the leadership of Otavio Lisboa and associates with the Fourth Internationalist Tendency.
54) Unified Socialist Workers' Party (PSTU): Founded in 1994 this Trotskyist party associates with the International Workers' League (4th International).
55) Movement for a New Socialist Party (MNPS): This movement was founded in 2003.
56) Workers' Cause Party (PCO): This Trotskyist party operated as the tendency Workers’ Cause within the Workers’ Party. The PCO associates with the Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International.
57) Workers' and Peasants League (LOC): Founded in 1997 as a split from the Revolutionary Communist Party, this party is Maoist in orientation.
58) Workers’ Opposition (OO): This Trotskyist party associates with the LCICPT.
59) Workers’ Party (PT): Founded in 1980 this left socialist party contains many political tendencies and associates with the CSL and co-founded, along with the Communist Party of Cuba, the narco-terrorist Sao Paulo Forum. The PT attracts highly skilled workers and middle-class intellectuals who can be variously classified as Trotskyists, Stalinists, communist dissidents, ex-guerrillas, and "leftist Christians." It vigorously opposed Brazil's military dicatorship in the early 1980s. According to Pravda, organ of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Communist Party of Cuba illegally contributed US$3 million to Lula da Silva's 2002 presidential campaign. Cuban Tyrant Fidel Castro and PT founder and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are pictured below.

Between 1989 and 1996 left-wing Catholic activist Francisco "Chico" Whittaker was elected twice on the PT ticket as a local councillor in Sao Paulo. In 2000, as Executive Secretary of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops' Commission of Justice and Peace, Whittaker was a prime mover in the formation of the neo-communist World Social Forum. Whittaker remained a member of the PT until early 2006. At this point he resigned, insisting that the party was no longer faithfully adhering to its principles. In other words, the PT was no longer "left" enough for his tastes. Another co-founder of the World Social Forum was Marxist Jesuit priest Francois Houtart, who also directs the Tricontinental Centre at the Universite catholique de Louvain, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's alma mater.

Political tendencies within the Workers’ Party:

1) Advance the Socialist Struggle (ALS): This tendency is radical left in orientation.
2) Articulation of the Left (AE): Founded in 1993 this left socialist tendency operates under the leadership of Valter Pomar.
3) Articulation-Unity in Struggle (A-UL): Founded in 1993 by the right wing of Articulation, this social democratic tendency represents the current of President Lula da Silva.
4) Construction: Socialism and Democracy (CSD): Founded in 2003 this tendency is based in Brasilia and operates under the leadership of Arlete Sampaio.
5) Democratic Action (AD): Founded in 1997 this left socialist tendency is based in Rio Grande do Sul and operates under the leadership of Ivar Pavan.
6) Democratic Left (ED): This left socialist tendency is based in Rio Grande do Sul and operates under the leadership of Henrique Fontana.
7) Florestan Fernandes Collective (CFF): This radical left tendency operates under the leadership of Paulo Rubem Santiago.
8) José Luiz Carneiro Cruz Collective CJLCC: This tendency is radical left in orientation.
9) Labour (O Trabalho): This unofficial youth organization is Trotskyist in orientation SIQI, operates under the leadership of Markus Sokol, and associates with the SIQI.
10) Marxist Organisation (OM): This radical left tendency was founded in 1999.
11) Marxist Tendency (TM): This radical left tendency was founded in 1991.
12) Movement for the Reafirmation of Socialism (MRS): This left socialist tendency was founded in 1995.
13) Movement of Socialist Unity (MUS): This Trotskyist tendency split from the MES.
14) Pole of the Left (PE): Founded in 2002 as a split from Articulation of the Left, this tendency is base in Rio Grande do Sul.
15) Popular and Socialist Unity (UPS): Founded in 2001 this left socialist tendency operates under the leadership of Olívio Dutra.
16) Posadist Current of the Workers’ Party (CPdoPT): This tendency is Trotskyist in orientation.
17) PT Advances (Avança PT): This socialist tendency operates under the leadership of Chico Floresta.
18) Reacting PT Movement (Movimento Reage PT): Founded in 1997, this radical left tendency is based in Niterói and operates under the leadership of Paulo Eduardo Gomes.
19) Revolucionary Marxist Group (GMR): This tendency is Trotskyist in orientation.
20) Socialist Brazil (BS): Founded in 1968 this radical left tendency traces its origins to the Brazilian Revolutionary Communist Party and operates under the leadership of Bruno Maranhão.
21) Socialist Democracy (DS): Founded in 1979 this Trotskyist tendency associates with the USFI.
22) Socialist Forum (FS): This radical left tendency is based in Sao Paulo and operates under the leadership of Renato Simões.

Communist Bloc memberships: United Nations, Latin American Parliament, Union of South American Nations (merger of Andean Community of Nations and Southern Common Market; to be implemented by December 2007)
Socialist International presence: Democratic Labor Party
Sao Paulo Forum presence: Workers’ Party, Communist Party of Brazil

Moscow-Beijing-Havana-Caracas Axis political/economic/military presence: During the First Cold War (1945-1991) Brazil, like many other Western countries, maintained a distant relationship with the Soviet Union. Following the “collapse” of communism in Eastern Europe, the neo-Soviet state did not lose interest in Latin America as an arena where the influence of the USA could be countered. Since then, Brazil and Russia have expanded bilateral relations in the fields of commerce, space technology, missile defense, and military weapons transfer. Bilateral treaties include the Brazilian-Russian Cooperation Treaty of 1997, the Brazilian-Russian Governmental Commission of 2001, the Brazilian-Russian Military Technology and Transfer Pact of 2003, and the Brazilian-Russian Strategic Alliance of 2005. In response to an invitation issued by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a state visit to Brazil on November 22, 2004. Lula da Silva reciprocated Putin’s state visit on October 18, 2005 when the two leaders signed documents in Moscow that implemented their countries’ strategic alliance. This meeting also committed the Russian Federal Space Agency to hosting Brazil’s first astronaut, Marcos Pontes, aboard a Soyuz TMA-8 rocket bound for the International Space Station. Pontes’ flight occurred on March 30, 2006. In September 2006 state-run Novosti reported that Rosoboronexport, the Kremlin’s official arms exporter, signed deals to export Sukhoi warplanes to Mexico and Brazil, as well as establish helicopter maintenance and pilot training centers in Venezuela. Rosoboronexport's regional department head, Sergei Ladygin, announced: “We hope that Sukhoi planes will soon appear in Latin American countries.”

Russia is not the only communist state seeking to extend its influence throughout the Western Hemisphere. The other half of the Moscow-Beijing Axis is rapidly expanding its net of strategic partnerships throughout the region, including Brazil. In August 2006 Chinese state media reported that Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the rubber-stamp National People's Congress and thus China's top legislator, traveled to Brazil where he met President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Together the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to their countries’ strategic partnership, established in 2004 when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Brazil, as well as Argentina, Chile, and Cuba.

Although the concept of a Moscow-led coalition of countries uniting Russia, Brazil, India, and China was first published by the banking firm Goldman Sachs in 2003, there is no publicly available official text revealing the so-called “BRIC” alliance. Nevertheless, evidence of bilateral and trilateral agreements among these countries is available on the foreign ministry websites of each of the countries mentioned. Relevant organizations include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with full members Russia and China and associate member India, and the India-Brazil-South Africa Trilateral Forum, which unites these countries in yearly dialogues. The G-20 coalition of developing states embraces all of the BRIC countries except Russia.