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http://www.colombiareport.org/colombia122.htm
July 15, 2002
Brazil's
Escalating Role in the Drug War
by Ronald J.
Morgan
Brazil began bolstering its border security almost as soon as Plan
Colombia surfaced in 1999. After three years of military expansion, the
Brazil-Colombia border is bristling with new installations. Among them is
a new air force base, a naval base, and a set of border platoons
stretching from Tabatinga through an area known as the Dog�s Head, where
Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil meet. A new jungle brigade based in the
Amazon city of Tefe provides support for the 2,500 troops stationed along
the 1,000-mile border. These ground forces are supplemented with naval and
marine units as well as aircraft at the new Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira
airbase.
The Brazilian military has also been busy putting in new roads,
bridges, schools, health clinics, water wells and riverboat docks
throughout the heavily indigenous area with a population of some 100,000.
The Brazilian buildup, part of a revamped older border development program
know as Calha Norte, includes $14.5 million in military security spending
and $10.5 million in social development, most of it spent in the Colombian
border region.
The government has also dispatched to the border a 200-man federal
police task force known as Operation Cobra to further bolster security and
fight drug trafficking. Brazil says its programs are preventive medicine
aimed at protecting the Amazon and that most activities are directed at
controlling drug trafficking, stopping illegal logging, and clearing out
poaching gold miners.
As early as 1996, Brazil and the Raytheon Corporation began
constructing a $1.4 billion radar system called System for Amazon
Surveillance (SIVAM). Announced with much fanfare at the 1992 Rio Earth
Conference, the project is about 70 percent complete and will be
inaugurated in Manaus on July 25. This system uses radar stations, air
reconnaissance and some satellite support to monitor air traffic, maritime
movement, border activity, and intercept communications of all types.
SIVAM will also keep track of weather patterns and land use, while making
rural telecommunications in the Amazon more efficient.
While originally designed to save the Amazon rainforest from various
types of abuse, it is expected that its Manta FOL-type reconnaissance
abilities will also be used to stop drug pilots from entering Brazil and
provide timely information to border units. The Brazilian air force
estimates that some 200 planes flew into Brazil illegally in 2001 and is
calling for the government to issue a shoot down regulation similar to the
type in place in Colombia and Peru. Last year, the U.S.-Peruvian program
resulted in the accidental shooting down of a missionary
plane.
Brazil stressed that it was not interested in becoming part of the
U.S.-backed Plan Colombia when the border buildup began. In October 2000,
Admiral Hector Blecker, Brazil's assistant chief of intelligence, told the
Brazilian congress that while it was obvious the probable impact of Plan
Colombia would require Brazil undertake police, environmental and social
action programs in the border area, "the idea of a multinational military
operation in the Brazilian Amazon is unacceptable."
During the congressional hearings it was stressed that the
environmental impact to the Brazilian Amazon from Colombian aerial
spraying, and the possible use of a mycoherbicide could destroy legitimate
crop production along Brazil's jungle rivers. Blecker is concerned that
"chemical agents such as glyphosate and biological agents such as
fusarium oxysporum in the Putumayo and Caquet� rivers will flow
into the Ica and Japura rivers respectively."
But just as the United States originally claimed that Plan Colombia
would confine itself to fighting drug trafficking but is now expanding to
include counterinsurgency operations, Brazil role in the war on drugs has
also experienced mission creep. Recent air, land, and sea maneuvers along
the Brazil-Colombia border involving 4,000 men sent a clear signal that
Brazil intends to use force to keep guerrillas and drug traffickers out of
its territory.
United States involvement on the Brazilian side of the border is also
ratcheting up. In September 2001, Brazil signed a bilateral letter of
agreement with the United States for counternarcotics activities that call
for mutual cooperation and U.S. aid for Operation Cobra and other counter
drug trafficking operations. The agreement also pumps funds into the newly
created National Secretariat for Public Security, which has unified
control over Brazil's Federal and local police forces.
Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, while still officially
claiming that Brazil is not involved in Plan Colombia, strongly endorsed
Colombian President Andr�s Pastrana's decision earlier this year to
terminate the demilitarized zone granted to the rebel Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC). Cardoso also called the election of Alvaro
Uribe in May a "clear example of the vigor of democratic ideas in South
America."
Despite Brazilian contentions to the contrary, South America's biggest
and most prosperous country is slipping deeper into the drug war and the
Colombian Conflict. In March, Brazilian military officers visited the
Pentagon where they exchanged views with U.S. officers and gave
presentations on Brazil's border security and development program.
On a recent visit to Brazil, Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state
for the Western Hemisphere, expressed Washington's desire for
internationalizing intervention in Colombia's conflict, "We think that the
threat to Colombia's democracy is a common threat not just to the United
States and Brazil, but to the whole Hemisphere. And, if countries are
worried about the spillover effect of, say, 'Plan Colombia', they should
be even more worried about the effect of not stopping the terrorists and
the narcotics traffickers inside Colombian borders."
Operation Cobra is also growing in scope and sophistication. In
December, Brazil opened a regional intelligence center at Tabatinga whose
mission is to sort through intelligence on border activities, which it
will then share with Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and the United States.
Additionally, Brazil has completed work on seven new police installations
along the border stretching from Tabatinga to Vila Bittencourt.
Brazil has both shed blood and suffered casualties along the Colombian
border. In February Brazilian troops attacked a boat with suspected FARC
guerrillas, killing six persons near Apoporis. The same month a Brazilian
soldier disappeared under unclear circumstances. In March, 197 indigenous
persons of the Maku nation sought refuge at Vila Bittencourt charging that
the FARC had threatened them. During maneuvers in May, Brazilian soldiers
suffered two casualties--one wounding of a soldier outside Tabatinga
apparently involved Colombians, while another soldier disappeared along
the Rio Negro.
Colonel Roberto de Paula Avelino, who manages Calha Norte from a
campus-like building in Brasilia, downplays the incidents, claiming the
border area is fairly quiet despite the FARC presence on the Colombian
side. He also believes that a major incursion by uniformed FARC guerrillas
is unlikely, "I don�t think the FARC is interested in making a new
enemy."
De Paula Avelino's analysis stands in sharp contrast to recent
statements about Colombia's illegal armed groups made by Reich, "If these
people work to ever gain control over larger parts of Colombian territory,
I think there is no doubt that they would take their business, which is
narcotics and terrorism, to other countries. I don't think they are only
interested in taking control by force of Colombia. I don't think they know
any borders. Terrorists sans frontiers, to coin a phrase."
Not surprisingly, the FARC disagrees with Reich's analysis. Oliverio
Medna, the FARC International Committee representative in Brasilia, said
FARC commanders have been ordered to keep their troops out of neighboring
countries. "We are hoping for reciprocity from the neighboring
governments. Reciprocity in what sense? If we don�t cause problems in the
territories of the neighboring countries, that their governments will
abstain from intervening and getting mixed up in the internal affairs of
Colombia. We are not a problem for any state other than Colombia."
Medna claims that talk of FARC border incursions is part of a policy
aimed at discrediting the rebel group, "If a tree falls in the Ecuadorian
jungle, they says its the FARC's fault. If in Peru a cow shows up dead in
the morning, it's the FARC. Our plans do not include intervention in the
territory of any country."
Alcides Costa Vaz, an international relations professor at the
University of Brazil, says Colombia is not a hot political issue in
Brazil, "Issues of national security have ranked very low on the domestic
political agenda. There is not a very strong position in public opinion.
The last few years economic issues have ranked very high." He went on to
stress that, "So far Brazil has resisted the idea of having a active
role," but if Colombia asks for regional alliances and cooperation, Costa
Vaz believes Brazil will probably cooperate.
Whatever the semantics, Brazil is involved in the Colombian conflict
through the sharing of intelligence and an escalation of military and
police activities inside Brazil aimed at stopping drug and arms
trafficking and preventing a spillover of the violence. This is likely to
continue even if the leftist Workers Party candidate Luiz Ignacio Lula da
Silva wins the fall elections for the presidency.
Workers Party Senator Ti�o Viana, who represents the Amazon state of
Acre, said the party opposes U.S. bases and U.S. troops in Brazil but
supports exchange of intelligence, training, and cooperation in operations
as long as Brazilians execute them. "In the Brazilian Amazon there's a
clandestine infiltration of groups from Bolivia, Peru and Colombia
involved in drug trafficking and clandestine wood extraction," Viana said.
"The Amazon is very unprotected. There's a need for troops and
intelligence operations."
The Cobra Program is a natural for U.S. involvement, and cooperation
between the two countries began to increase last year when DEA agents
toured Brazil's Amazon operations. Brazilian Federal Police and the DEA
also cooperated in the arrest in Colombia of Brazilian drug lord Luis
Fernando da Costa, know as Fernando Beira-Mar (Seaside Freddy) and the
bust a few months later of his top lieutenant Leomar Olviera Barbosa in
Paraguay.
According to recent congressional testimony by DEA chief Asa
Hutchinson, DEA agents in Colombia and Brazil are currently working to
capture of Tomas Molina Caracas of the 16th Front of the FARC. The DEA is
also fielding special teams of DEA and Brazilian police to investigate
money laundering. It has been estimated that as much as 25 percent of
Colombian drug money may be hidden in Brazilian accounts.
Enticing Brazil into greater cooperation may be the increased
availability of funds for equipment, training, operations and development
projects, and a decade-long growth in domestic drug use and drug-related
violence. The Bush administration's Andean Regional Initiative calls for
Brazil to receive $6 million in counterdrug assistance and $12.6 million
in social development funds this year, while a 2003 Bush administration
request calls for another $12 million in counternarcotics
funds.
Recently, the presidents of Brazil, Peru and Ecuador joined together to
request $1.3 billion from the Inter-American Development Bank for use in
border social programs aimed at dealing with the spillover from Plan
Colombia. President Cardoso raised the fight against drugs to front burner
status in a national speech June 19 when he compared it to the country's
earlier struggle against hyperinflation. At the same time the government
released a study estimating that there were 1.7 million cocaine addicts in
Brazil.
Both increased domestic consumption and the creation of cocaine
processing centers in Brazil are seen as potentially undermining U.S. drug
war efforts. Brazilian traffickers are building a niche for themselves in
designer drugs, while the nation's large chemical industry provides an
opportunity to obtain drug-processing chemicals.
Drug traffickers are active and powerful throughout the country. A 2001
Congressional inquiry into drug trafficking and impunity called for the
indictment of 800 persons, among them politicians and
police.
Fearful that Brazil could rival the U.S. and Europe as a drug market,
the United States has been tinkering with Brazil's drug policies. It has
jointly designed with Brazil a new series of drug courts and it finances a
U.S.-style DARE school drug prevention program. It is also backing a study
of Brazilian attitudes toward drug use.
Drugs are seen as the fuel for the country's tremendous criminal
violence problem and increase in youth murders. In Rio de Janeiro some
10,000 persons are alleged to be active in local drug distribution and
street sales. According to a study by the International Labor
Organization, many of the persons involved are children. "What you find is
that since 1995 more children have taken up drug trafficking. They start
as young as eight years old," said Pedro Americo F. Oliveira, head of the
ILO Child Labor section in Brazil. "They come from the poorest of the
poor. They are one-parent families. The parent works and the child doesn't
go to school." What is the average life expectancy for a child drug
dealer? One year, says Oliveira.
According to a recent Human Rights Watch report the situation is
exacerbated by the regular use of torture and murder by the Brazilian
police forces. The gruesome killing of Brazilian Investigative Journalist
Tim Lopez by a drug trafficking gang has sparked a police crackdown in the
Rio de Janeiro favelas that may prove to be a prototype for harsh
action to come. A combined task force launched by the federal government
includes military intelligence units and the use of combined federal and
local police squads. Some people are advocating military occupation of
many of Brazil's troubled urban areas.
The rapid escalation of the drug war in the last year by the Cardoso
administration runs the risk of exacerbating tinder box social conditions.
Costa Vaz warns that over-militarization of the drug war, especially in
poor neighborhoods, will backfire unless enforcement programs are designed
carefully. "We have a very sensitive and dangerous domestic situation.
What is going on in Rio right now is generating a situation of social
conflict. The door to civil war will open if you bring in the military. We
will not solve Colombia's problems, we will probably reproduce
them."
Ronald J. Morgan is a freelance writer
who focuses on Latin America.
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