The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights would have received illegal contributions

Leo Pinheiro former boss of the OAS construction company

September 16th 2019

Entrepreneur investigated by case Lava Jato links OAS and Lula with Bachelet campaign in Chile. Léo Pinheiro, former construction boss, said he delivered 101.6 million pesos (about USD 145,000) to finance the campaign of the then candidate for President of Chile, at the request of the former Brazilian President.

In the midst of the investigation into the Lava Jato case, which investigates a wide network of corruption between politicians and contractor companies in Brazil, businessman Léo Pinheiro revealed in his judicial statement that the company he ran, the construction company OAS, illegally financed the presidential campaign of Michelle Bachelet in 2013, at the request of former President Lula da Silva.

As part of the delation agreement negotiated with the Public Ministry, according to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, Pinheiro mentioned the former Brazilian president as a business intermediary between the aforementioned company and the Governments of Costa Rica and Chile, as well as revealed an alleged interference in other countries such as Bolivia and Equatorial Guinea.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began serving a 12 year prison sentence in 2018 for corruption

In the case of Chile, Pinheiro -who has been detained since 2016- said that the Brazilian company was trying to establish itself in 2013, by joining the consortium that sought to build a bridge in the Chacao canal, a process initiated during the Government of Sebastián Piñera, but that would be specified in the subsequent administration. It was an election year, where New Majority flag bearer Michelle Bachelet was the favorite to return to La Moneda.

In that sense, according to the testimony revealed by Folha, OAS was afraid of losing the contract with the change of government, a concern that they transmitted to Lula. The former president replied that he discussed the issue with former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, who in turn would have guaranteed that the construction company would continue with the concession.

Likewise, Pinheiro assured that Lula asked for money to finance the Bachelet campaign, in order to secure the concession. This is how, according to the businessman, the Brazilian company paid 101.6 million pesos "in the interest of the Bachelet campaign". This amount, he said, was delivered through a fictitious contract with the company Martelli y Asociados after the end of the campaign.

Lula Da Silva supporting Michelle Bachelet (2013)

However, after the Lava Jato case broke out in Brazil and OAS interference was investigated, the construction company withdrew from the concession in the Chacao canal.

According to Folha, Léo Pinheiro also revealed shares of his company in other countries, with the intervention of Lula. That was the case of Bolivia where, according to the former director, OAS was awarded the construction of a road between the cities of Potosí and Tarija in 2003 at the request of the leader of the PT, whose government at that time had differences with the administration of Evo Morales. It was not an easy project, since it had been initiated in 2003 by Queiroz Galvao, a company that broke into a conflict with the Bolivian government, breaking the contract in 2007. This opened a diplomatic impasse that Brasilia wanted to avoid.

In this way, Pinheiro assured that the then Brazilian President promised OAS to obtain another contract in Bolivia as compensation for taking a problematic project.

Another case cited by the former president of OAS was the intervention of Lula in Costa Rica. In 2011, the former president was hired by the Brazilian company, through the payment of USD 200,000, for a conference, and managed a meeting between Pinheiro and former Costa Rican head of state Óscar Arias.

Likewise, the businessman met with the then President Laura Chinchilla to negotiate the obtaining of public concessions, a business that took shape.

Léo Pinheiro is syndicated as one of those responsible for OAS in a huge plot of corruption that includes the delivery of a triplex by the construction company to former President Lula, made by which the former ruler was sentenced to 9 years in prison, penalty which he is serving in a criminal enclosure in Curitiba.

September 17th 2019

Bachelet and alleged relationship between her campaign and Brazilian construction company: "I have not had any link with OAS." I do not know if there will be a background behind this, "said the former President, after a Brazilian publication said that in 2013 her campaign would have received contributions from the company.

Former Chilean President and current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

The former President and current High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN, Michelle Bachelet, spoke about the supposed link between the OAS company and the financing of her campaign in 2013. "I have never had a link with OAS, nor with no other company, "said Bachelet, also describing as" strange that this information now appears on topics that are quite speculative such as the Chacao Bridge, which the truth is that it was awarded during the Government of Sebastián Piñera and not during mine. " .

Source: Emol.com

Visit of Pope John Paul II to Chile (April 1987)

The visit of John Paul II to Chile, made between April 1st and 6th, 1987, was that Pope's only trip to the country and the first visit of a supreme head of the Catholic Church to Chile.

This historical event, which was framed within the 33rd Apostolic Journey of John Paul II (in which he also visited Argentina and Uruguay), revolutionized the faithful of Catholicism and contracted multiple meanings and facts because it was carried out during the military government of Augusto Pinochet, and served to dispel to some extent the political tensions of that time.

John Paul II arrived at Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Santiago on April 1st, on a six-day visit. At the air terminal, he was received by Augusto Pinochet and first lady Lucia Hiriart, along with military and government troops.

Later, from the Cathedral, he went to visit the Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception on San Cristobal Hill, where he blessed Santiago and sent a message to the whole country.

When descending from the Alitalia flight that landed on the slab of the old Pudahuel airport, on Wednesday, April 1st, 1987, the first thing that John Paul II did was to kiss the Chilean soil. He came to spend six days in the country, which had never before received the visit of the Pontiff.

Karol Wojtyla's tour, then 66 years old, had a busy schedule and included eight cities: Antofagasta, La Serena, Valparaíso, Santiago, Concepción, Temuco, Puerto Montt and Punta Arenas.

As expected, due to the magnitude of the character and the present that was lived, the visit had a series of milestones.

The first one was the meeting he held the next day with a Pinochet dressed in a suit and tie. What it meant was a private appointment, it was converted by the regime as a show of support, with the image of both greeting the public from a balcony in La Moneda.

The Eucharist on Friday 3rd in the O'Higgins Park had a series of situations that would end up marking it. The massive presence of the public, which is estimated at one million people, and the pitched battle in which the enclosure was converted, due to clashes between those present and the regime's security agencies, and that included barricades, fire and bombs tear gas.

The use of gases affected even the Pope, who stopped his words for a few minutes observing what was happening in front of him.

After three days in the capital, with a brief transfer to Valparaíso, the Pontiff flew to Punta Arenas, from where he began to move from south to north until the end of April 6th with a mass in Antofagasta.

The Cold War determined the international context, where the conflict between the east, led by the United States, and the west, ruled by the Soviet Union, progressively increased the tension between these powers and their countries of influence. “Pope John Paul II was the result of that international historical situation. His nomination caused a stir because he was a Polish Pope, since Poland was under the Soviet Union. ”

Chile, meanwhile, lived in an authoritarian regime and society became polarized among the sympathizers and antagonists of the head of government. It was a complex picture, compared to what was happening abroad.

The Pope had also paid a visit to Poland, which was ruled by a leftist general, with an iron and authoritarian regime that was Jaruzelski, and was coming to Chile, which was also ruled by a general in a fervent way, but from the right and focused on neoliberalism.

Source: Channel 13, Catholic University of Chile

Foreign Ministers of Chile and Brazil support the Bioceanic Corridor Between Brazil and Chile

The Foreign Minister of Chile, Teodoro Ribera, and his Brazilian counterpart, Ernesto Araujo, reaffirmed the interest of both countries to develop the Bioceanic Road Corridor that will link Porto Murtinho (Brazil), via Paraguay and northern Argentina, with the Port of Antofagasta (Chile).

"The crossing of the Andes mountain range and the Chilean ports are fully ready and operational to receive Brazilian cargo," said Foreign Minister Ribera.

"In the bilateral sphere, we agree in the interest of moving towards a strategic relationship, which will strengthen long-term ties between both countries, looking towards 2040," said the Chilean Foreign Minister.

Regarding trade relations, Ribera said Chile is the second largest trading partner of Brazil and, in turn, this country is the first for Chilean international trade.

In that regard, he stressed “the importance of putting into effect the Free Trade Agreement signed in November 2018, and that it needs to be approved by both Congresses”.

In addition, they reaffirmed the interest of promoting the process of convergence between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur, within the framework of the respective Pro Tempore Presidencies that Chile and Brazil exercise in said integration mechanisms.

The 1,800 kms bi-oceanic route that will connect Chilean Pacific ports with Brazilian Atlantic ports and cross the Paraguayan Chaco, will reduce merchandise transport between the two oceans to three days.

Nowadays, ships that follow the routes to Asia, passing through Cape Horn, take an average of 13 days.

Source: PortalPortuario, ABC.com