Brazil: The Amazon’s Silent Spy
Last October 27, Brazilians elected leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known simply as “Lula”) of the Workers’ Party to be their next president. One of the most persistent concerns that has been raised regarding Lula’s political and economic leanings–in addition to fears caused by his promise not to be bullied by international lenders, which sent jitters through international markets–is whether the new president will ally himself, in word if not in deed, with Colombia’s leftist insurgents. Many conservative politicians and commentators decried Lula’s radical tendencies, but the new president has shown little sign of supporting Colombia’s guerrilla groups. On the other hand, his announced intention to work toward a peaceful solution to the decades-old conflict contrasts with U.S. and Colombian plans for a military solution.
Brazil has good reasons for wanting peace in Colombia–its massive Amazon rain forest, which is half the size of Europe, is vulnerable to spillover from the conflict. Over the past decade, the Brazilian army has had many skirmishes with narco-traffickers and combatants from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). And if the conflict escalates, Colombian coca farmers could be pushed across the border and many of that country’s more than two million internally displaced people could seek refuge under the Amazon’s dense canopy.
Nor is Colombia the only neighbor that makes Brazil nervous, says Col. Geraldo Lesbat Cavognari Filho, the coordinator of the Strategic Studies Center at the Universidade de Campinas. “All neighboring countries in the Amazon are weak democracies and prone to institutional crises. Brazil does not want its territory to be used as a sanctuary for dissident groups.”
Protecting Brazil’s 11,200 kilometer Amazonian border is not easy. Today, the country has a two-part strategy: It has established the Northern Gutter program, which is aimed at populating the country’s border regions with self-sustaining military-civilian settlements; and it has installed a $1.4 billion high-tech radar and surveillance system called the Amazon Vigilance System, or Sivam, which went into operation last July.
There are currently some 25,000 troops patrolling Brazil’s Amazon borders, including several battalions of jungle combat soldiers, special forces personnel, and a flotilla of navy ships that patrol the region’s rivers. “Practically the entire Amazon force is comprised of acculturated Native Americans who know indigenous languages and the numerous trails in the hinterlands. It is one of the best trained jungle forces in the world,” Cavognari boasts.
But even a strong military presence, says Cavognari, will be vulnerable without effective reconnaissance, especially in an area as large as the Amazon. That’s where Sivam comes into play. Originally sold as a system to protect against illegal deforestation and to detect the use of Brazilian land- and air-space by traffickers, Sivam is made up of an impressive array of surveillance and telecommunications hardware. It includes 19 fixed radars, six mobile radars, five airborne warning and control airplanes, three remote-controlled airplanes, three regional surveillance centers, and 914 data transmission stations. Sivam’s infrared and heat sensors are designed to provide real-time information on ground movements and the trajectories of low-flying aircraft, allowing government authorities to coordinate immediate responses to suspicious activity.
The Brazilian government claims Sivam, “the most sophisticated ecological safeguard system in the world,” will provide information on intruders, detect fires, identify illegal deforestation, help control epidemics, predict weather patterns, and protect indigenous communities. But critics remain skeptical about whether it will work, who it is designed to help, and if such an advanced technological system was worth the cost to a country plagued by underdevelopment and poverty.
Adriana Ramos, an Amazon policy analyst at the Instituto Socioambiental, says that while Brazil has been busy dumping millions of dollars into Sivam it has ignored other pressing development and Amazon protection programs. She also points out that the government is not prepared to handle all the data the system will produce: “The problem is that the system’s capabilities outstrip the government’s abilities.”
Brazilian law enforcement agencies agree that more personnel are needed. “We have three problems: information, communication, and mobility. Sivam will solve the first, which is very important. But we don’t have enough people nor sufficient means to work effectively,” says Joao Carlos de Albuquerque Valenca, the head of the Federal Police in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonia.
Other critics, like Cong. Fernando Gabeira of the Workers’ Party, worry that Sivam will enable foreign exploitation of the Amazon’s natural resources, including its estimated $1.6 trillion in precious mineral reserves. In an op-ed last year, Gabeira wrote: “Sivam will in truth be an extension of Plan Colombia, with the difference being that [in Colombia] it is the United States who finances the project; here in Brazil we pay the bill.”
The fact that a major U.S. defense contractor–Raytheon–was hired to set up the system also raised suspicion that the United States would get information from Sivam, despite the Brazilian government’s insistence to the contrary. Also, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported early last year that it had acquired U.S. State Department documents in which officials mention having access to sensitive information about the bidding process that led to the Raytheon contract.
Raytheon has tried to relax concerns, stating in a press release last year that Sivam “will be installed with important participation of the Brazilian industry and technicians and will be operated exclusively by Brazilians, thus conserving the strategic destination of Brazilian resources in Brazilian hands.”
The grant of access to sensitive information collected by Sivam will no doubt become a strong bargaining chip for Brazil in its relations with its neighbors. Although the Workers’ Party has not officially announced a position on the matter, Brazil’s outgoing foreign minister, Celso Lafer, told Colombia’s newly elected President Alvaro Uribe that Brazil would be willing to share information to help fight narco-trafficking–a tantalizing offer because Sivam’s coverage can reach 300 kilometers into southern Colombia.
On the other hand, any information provided to the Colombians would most likely be used against the guerrillas. Because of its desire to work for a peaceful solution to the conflict, Lula and the Workers’ Party might decide to back out on any promises made by the outgoing administration. Still, Lula will probably be under extreme pressure to provide whatever data he has at his disposal, regardless of his position vis-à-vis the guerrillas or his desire to seek a peaceful resolution to the Colombian conflict.