Protesters Out Again in Sao Paulo      06/19 07:20

   SAO PAULO (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Brazilians again flooded the streets 
of the country's biggest city to raise a collective cry -- people are weighed 
down by high taxes and high prices but get low-quality public services and a 
system of government infected with corruption.

   That was the repeated message Tuesday night in Sao Paulo, where upward of 
50,000 people massed in front of the city's main cathedral. While mostly 
peaceful, the demonstration followed the rhythm of protests that drew 240,000 
people across Brazil the previous night, with small bands of radicals splitting 
off to fight with police and break into stores.

   Mass protests have been mushrooming across Brazil since demonstrations 
called last week by a group angry over the high cost of a woeful public 
transport system and a recent 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares in Sao 
Paulo, Rio and elsewhere.

   The local governments in at least four cities have now agreed to reverse 
those hikes, and city and federal politicians have shown signs that the Sao 
Paulo fare could also be rolled back. It's not clear that will calm the 
country, though, because the protests have released a seething litany of 
discontent from Brazilians over life's struggles.

   Yet, beyond complaints about the cost for bus and subway rides, protesters 
haven't produced a laundry list of concrete demands. Demonstrators mainly are 
expressing deep anger and discontentment -- not just with the ruling 
government, but with the entire governing system. A common chant at the rallies 
has been "No parties!"

   "What I hope comes from these protests is that the governing class comes to 
understand that we're the ones in charge, not them, and the politicians must 
learn to respect us," said Yasmine Gomes, a 22-year-old squeezed into the plaza 
in central Sao Paulo where Tuesday night's protest began.

   President Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who was imprisoned and 
tortured during Brazil's 1964-85 dictatorship, hailed the protests for raising 
questions and strengthening Brazil's democracy. "Brazil today woke up 
stronger," she said in a statement.

   Yet Rousseff offered no actions that her government might take to address 
complaints, even though her administration is a prime target of demonstrators' 
frustrations.

   The protests have brought troubling questions about security in the country, 
which is playing host this week to soccer's Confederations Cup and will welcome 
Pope Francis in July for a visit to Rio de Janeiro and rural Sao Paulo.

   Brazil's media has scrambled to cover the sprawling protests _ coverage that 
in some cases raised the ire of protesters, in particular that of the powerful 
Globo TV network. Whenever what appears to be a Globo helicopter swoops over a 
demonstration, protesters hiss, raise their fists and chant slogans against the 
network for what they say was its failure to widely show images of a violent 
police crackdown on protesters last week in Sao Paulo.

   Brazilian demonstrations in recent years generally had tended to attract 
small numbers of politicized participants, but the latest mobilizations have 
united huge crowds around a central complaint: The government provides woeful 
public services even as the economy is modernizing and growing.

   The Brazilian Tax Planning Institute think tank found that the country's tax 
burden in 2011 stood at 36 percent of gross domestic product, ranking it 12th 
among the 30 countries with the world's highest tax burdens.

   Yet public services such as schools are in sorry shape. The Organization for 
Economic Co-operation and Development found in a 2009 educational survey that 
literacy and math skills of Brazilian 15-year-olds ranked 53rd out of 65 
countries, behind nations such as Bulgaria, Mexico, Turkey, Trinidad and 
Tobago, and Romania.

   Many protesting in Brazil's streets hail from the country's growing middle 
class, which government figures show has ballooned by some 40 million over the 
past decade amid a commodities-driven economic boom.

   They say they've lost patience with endemic problems such as government 
corruption and inefficiency. They're also slamming Brazil's government for 
spending billions of dollars to host next year's World Cup soccer tournament 
and the 2016 Olympics while leaving other needs unmet.

   A November report from the government raised to $13.3 billion the projected 
cost of stadiums, airport renovations and other projects for the World Cup. 
City, state and other local governments are spending more than $12 billion on 
projects for the Olympics in Rio. Nearly $500 million was spent to renovate 
Maracana stadium in Rio for the World Cup even though the venue already went 
through a significant face-lift before the 2007 Pan American Games.

   Attorney Agatha Rossi de Paula, who attended the latest protest in Sao Paulo 
along with her mother, called Brazil's fiscal priorities "an embarrassment."

   "We just want what we paid in taxes back, through health care, education and 
transportation," said the 34-year-old attorney. "We want the police to protect 
us, to help the people on the streets who have ended up with no job and no 
money."

   Although a single group set the protests in motion with its demonstrations 
last week calling for lowered transit fares, the mass gatherings are showing no 
evidence of any central leadership, with people using social media to call for 
marches and rallies. Groups of Brazilians also staged small protests Tuesday in 
other countries, including Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Denmark.

   A cyber-attack knocked the government's official World Cup site offline 
Tuesday, and the Twitter feed for Brazil's Anonymous hackers group posted links 
to a host of other government websites whose content had been replaced by a 
screen calling on citizens to come out to the streets.

   Tuesday night's march in Sao Paulo started out peacefully but turned nasty 
outside City Hall when a small group lashed out at police and tried to invade 
the building.

   Different groups of protesters faced off, one chanting "peace, peace" while 
trying to form a human cordon to protect the building, the other trying to 
clamber up metal poles to get inside. At one point, one person tried to seize a 
metal barrier from another who was trying to use it to smash the building's 
windows and doors.

   The air was thick with police pepper spray and smoke after demonstrators set 
a TV satellite truck and a police lookout booth on fire.  


(KA)