[PEN-L:33118] (no subject)

[topp8564@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

This is about Roberto Rodrigues, future Minister for Agriculture. The Minister 
for Development is Luiz Fernando Furlan, currently president of Brazilian 
agribusiness titan Sadia; foreign minister is Celso Amorim.

All of them are conservative economic nationalists, most of them aren?t even 
PT; the only sort of leftwinger in the government is the minister of the 
environment, Marina Silva?

This guys defends the right of property owners to take up arms against the MST.

Thiago Oppermann

Portuguese original at: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/
ult96u43530.shtml







Lula?s Minister was Secretary under Fleury and is Opposed to MST Farm 
Occupations

Sílvia Freire 
Folha Online

Agronomist Roberto Rodriges ,50, was nominated today for the Ministry of 
Agriculture by president-elect Luiz Inácio da Silva, and arrives at the top 
echelon of the new government bringing with him the experience of having been 
secretary for Agriculture and Supply in the State of São Paulo between 1993 and 
1994, during the governorship o Luiz Antonio Fleury Filho (ex-PMDB, now PTB 
[ie. Ex-centrist, now rightwing of the centre-left? *sigh*])

Rodrigues is an agricultural engeneer  with qualifications in rural 
administration obtained at the UNAERP in Ribeirão Preto, and professor in the 
Department of Rural Economy in the UNESP, in Joboticabal, where he currently 
leaves. The future minister is also an agriculturalist in the municipalities of 
Jaboticabal and Guariba, in São Paulo and in Balsas in the state of Maranhão.

Since 1999, Rodrigues has presided over the ABAG (Brasilian Association of 
Agribusinesses), and entity which represents 45 large businesses and 
cooperatives in the agricultural sectors, including Monsanto, the fertiliser 
and biotech enterprise; banks and agricultural cooperatives.

Rodrigues represents the private sector in the Foreign Trade Business Council, 
and between 1992 and 1993, was the sector?s representatie in the National 
Monetary Council.

In an article published by the magazine Agroanalysis, of the FGV (http://
www.abagbrasil.com.br/) in march, Rodrigues criticised the farm occupations 
under the ?respectable, but debatable flag of agrarian reform? and argued a 
defense of the property-ownders ?who end up arming themselves to defend 
themselves?.

In the text, Rodrigues criticises the worker?s rights legislation which 
construes rural employers as debtors, as victims of specialist lawyers.

In another article, published in august in the same magazine, the future 
minister defended the association of government and private enterprise to 
increase the competitiveness of Brazilian products in the international arena, 
so as to increase exports.

In this text, Rodrigues says that the federal government has been ?timid? in 
its actions in the funding, logistical and in international negotiations and 
criticises the Government for having refused to presen the WTO with a document 
composed by the Ministry of Agriculture about losses caused by American 
protectionism.

Rodrigues was one of the organises of the first national congress of rural 
economy, which for 18 years has defined the trajectories for development of 
agrobusiness in Brazil. This year he organized the first Brazilian Congress of 
Agribusiness, which will discussed policies to increase the competitiveness of 
the country internernally and externally.





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