OE Watch Commentary: The Brazilian Supreme Court sent former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (1 January 2003 – 1 January 2011) to jail for twelve years. He had been convicted of money laundering and corruption in July 2017, but his appeals process ran out this month, not in his favor. The news was reported extensively all around the continent. Lula is an icon of the Latin American Marxist left. Besides becoming President of Brazil and mentor of another former President, Dilma Vana Rousseff, he was also the founder, along with his ally and friend Fidel Castro, of the Forum of Sao Paulo. President Rousseff had been President Lula’s Chief of Staff. Late in 2015, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies presented charges of impeachment to the Senate against then President Rousseff and in 2016, the Brazilian Senate found her guilty of budget crimes and removed her from office. It is difficult to believe, had she not been removed from office, that Lula’s legal fate would not have been different. In any case, before reporting to prison, Lula returned to his roots, giving an encouraging speech to an audience of metal worker unionists. He may have pointed out, or perhaps tried to anoint as such, the coming leadership of the activist far left in Brazil, Manuela d’Avila and Guilherme Boulos. Needless to say, radical leftist organizations from seemingly everywhere voiced their support for him. Typical was the unequivocal message of solidarity from the Colombian FARC, which demanded on his behalf all the guarantees of the Brazilian Constitution. End OE Watch Commentary (Demarest)