Rural Movements denounces HSBC

The protest of rural social movements happens after published various scandals pointing out to tax evasion and money laudry involving its holders.

In the afternoon of this Thursday 12th, circa of 1000 peasants organized within the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), Movement of Land Less Rural Workers (MST), Federation of Family Agriculture (FAF) and members of Youth Popular Uprise and trade-union CUT, held an protest in front of HSBC, at the Paulista Avenue, in São Paulo. The objective of the protest is to denounce this financial institution due its participation in several scandals of corruption and money laundry.

The denounces occur after the leak of HSBC’s data of 106 thousand clients of 203 countries. It is suspected that there is a money laundering scheme and tax evasion committed by a list of HSBC Bank wealthy clients who have secret accounts in Switzerland. The suspicion is that this type of account was used to evade taxes, to hide income and property and dirty money. The complaint is that HSBC guided to practice these crimes and these remittances to the “swiss bank accounts”.

There is a list of approximately 6600 accounts, of 8667 Brazilian clients with more than 20 billions of Reais in deposits within 2006/2007. These accounts are of bankers, rich entrepreneurs, politicians, artists, etc.

The denounce was made by an “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which obtained information from a former employee of HSBC who worked in the bank’s data technology sector. The journalist Fernando Rodrigues, who had access to SwissLeaks said that two former directors of São Paulo’s subway, Paulo Celso Mano Ademir Moreira and Venancio de Araújo, opened accounts in Switzerland in the period in which the agreement was signed for the purchase of trains with the French multinational Alstom, accused of paying kickbacks at state bids.

In September of 2013, more than three thousand MAB activists and of Popular Youth Uprise (Levante Popular da Juventude) denounced the corruption scheme of the subways in São Paulo, know as the Subway Cartel.

According to Gilberto Cervinski, MAB’s coordinator, HSBC is the tip of the whole fraud scheme of big banks: “HSBC is where the Brazilian right-wing laundries their dirty money. The media says a lot about the corruption at Petrobras, which involved more or less 21 billions of reais. If the mainstream media were coherent, the time they sped talking about the corruption involving Petrobras, the media had to make a whole program on HSBC, regarding the amount of money of its corruption scheme. “

Peasants deliver their agenda of demands to the General Secretary of the Presidency

Before this act against HSBC, the activists protested front of the General Secretary of the Republic also placed at Paulista Avenue. A commission of the social movements met with representatives of the General Secretary of the Presidency and delivered the movement’s agenda of demands.

The main demands regards structural issues for the rural workers, as agrarian reform, food and territorial sovereignty and reconsignment of the land. The goal is to denounce the several forms of oppression caused by the agribusiness model, which is today financed by several instances of the government.

The demand of an Official Plebiscite for Political Reform, democratization of communication and struggle for worker’s rights were also presented.

“We achieved in delivering our unitarian agenda, but we want now to treat this directly with those who was power of decision, with the state banks Caixa Econômica Federal, Banco do Brasil and BNDES and other organs responsible for attending our demands which we are requesting already for a long time.

We are tired of waiting for a positon of this government that have been supporting the agribusiness, energy privatization and cuts on worker’s rights. We have come here to pressure, but at the same time we know the importance to defend against the attack of the right-winged coupists; and that is why tomorrow we will be at the streets again to sum to the mobilization in defense of democracy and in defense of the rural and urban workers”, affirmed the state ordinator of MST, Delveck Matheus.

Another point highlighted by the movements that organize the act is the issue of energy. The movements are fighting for the immediate cancellation of all increases in electricity bills planned to come into force in 2015, carrying out political and institutional changes to overcome the energy market model, in defense of Petrobras and against the privatization of all the energy matrix.