U.S. Spy on Lula: A Disturbing ‘Backyard’ Mentality

"In recent years, the U.S. control over its so-called 'backyard' seems to have been relaxed on the surface, but this is based on strengthening another kind of control, namely the surveillance of key figures in various fields, which has now reached an unscrupulous level in Latin America," a Brazilian scholar told Xinhua.

by Bian Zhuodan

The revelation that the U.S. government and military agencies have been monitoring Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the current Brazilian president, since more than half a century ago, has caused an uproar in Latin American public opinion.

The mainstream view in Brazilian academic and media circles is that this incident fully proves that the U.S. imperial hegemonic thinking of Latin America as its “backyard” has not changed over the past 200 years since the birth of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends the EU-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit in Brussels, Belgium, July 17, 2023. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

“In recent years, the U.S. control over its so-called ‘backyard’ seems to have been relaxed on the surface, but this is based on strengthening another kind of control, namely the surveillance of key figures in various fields, which has now reached an unscrupulous level in Latin America,” Marcos Pires, director of the Institute of Economics and International Studies at Sao Paulo State University, told Xinhua.

In mid-July, Lula’s biographer Fernando Morais revealed that his writing team had recently obtained 819 documents totaling 3,300 pages of records about Lula from 1966 to 2019 from different U.S. agencies.

According to the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, most of the documents were produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which holds 613 documents on Lula, totaling 2,000 pages. U.S. agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network have not yet responded to requests for information from Lula’s biographers.

At the same time, the documents applied by the biographers are only records about Lula’s activities before 2019. The number of such documents over the past five years, especially during Lula’s third term starting from 2023, is unknown. Brazilian political analysts believe that the real number of documents related to Lula may far exceed expectations.

The U.S. government’s surveillance of leaders of other countries is nothing new. As early as 2013, Brazilian media reported the NSA’s surveillance activities against Brazil’s then-President Dilma Rousseff and many senior officials in her government. However, the time span and the breadth of surveillance content on Lula are more than staggering.

Ever since Lula joined the metalworkers union in 1966, “the United States has always been there, keeping an eye on him,” Gleisi Hoffmann, president of Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party, said on X last week.

“In addition to the notorious CIA and NSA, the U.S. Department of Defense, Southern Command are also on the watcher list,” Hoffmann said. “They monitor our national defense, foreign relations, and who knows what others!”

As for why Lula fell victim to surveillance, Reinaldo Azevedo, a columnist for the mainstream portal UOL, refers to Brazil’s importance as an emerging economy with great potential and its geographical proximity to the United States, and Lula as a progressive politician with global influence. “But he is not the kind of person who is reverent to the United States,” Azevedo said.

Brazilian international relations expert Vladimir Feijo believes that the surveillance incident may heighten tensions between Brazil and the United States.

“What is the extent of the investigation of countries that claim to be partners, respectful, that have good relations and why would it be necessary to use a secret service, so to speak, if there are open channels of communication?” he asked.

In this regard, some Brazilian politicians and academics are of one mind — the U.S. government does not actually respect the sovereignty of other countries that it claims to respect. The U.S. government’s surveillance behavior is “not only an unacceptable act of violence against Brazilian citizens, but also an insult to Brazil’s national sovereignty,” according to Hoffmann.

Azevedo pointed out that the United States believes that Brazil, located in its so-called “backyard,” should be a country that is subject to its interests and is “part of the American group.” However, Brazil hopes to maintain its diplomatic independence.

Brazil regards its relationship with the United States as a cooperative and commercial partnership, which makes the United States “unhappy.”

“Brazil is also a key country in the Global South and BRICS that the U.S. is fighting,” said Azevedo.

According to the columnist, the United States is spying on the entire world, which is what an empire does when it thinks it is an empire. Though the world is showing a multi-polar trend, the increasingly decadent America is still monitoring its so-called “backyard.”

Worryingly still, the United States has the power to intervene all over the world. If it intervenes too much in some places, it may destroy the world, Azevedo warned.