Around Latin America: Human Rights

-While ending DADT continues to stir debate in the U.S., it's far from the only country dealing with the issue of homosexuals in the armed forces. A Brazilian general has caused outrage in Brazil after commenting that gay soldiers should not be able to have troops under their command. Gen. Raymundo Nonato, who has been nominated to the top military court in Brazil, commented that while he believes homosexuals who kept their sexuality private should be allowed to remain in the military, he also believed that homosexual officers "will not be obeyed by his subordinates in combat situations."

-In a baffling decision that defies common sense and mocks justice, a Swiss court ruled that "at least $4.6 million from Swiss bank accounts previously awarded to charities must be returned to the family of former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier." The Duvalier family attained "its" wealth via the monopolization of the tobacco industry in Haiti, helping to keep the Haitian population in poverty even while the Duvaliers became millionaires. That this ruling happened just 12 hours before the earthquake was an extra thumb in the eye of Hatians; according to the report, the $4.6 million could have fed one million Hatians for two weeks.

-As General Reynaldo Bignone, the final dictator of Argentina's military dictatorship (1976-1983) went to trial for human rights abuses this week, he hopefully felt extremely uncomfortable upon seeing the images of the disappeared in the public gallery of the court.

-Finally, the Human Rights Watch report on Colombia came out. Not surprisingly, paramilitaries are a major focus, though exactly who these paramilitaries consist of and what to call them is increasingly challenging and complex. What is clear is that the current activities of paramilitaries draws upon the groundwork and actions of previous paramilitary groups, even while branching out and coming to incorporate elements of gangs as well as drug traffickers. The report also says that the AUC continues to be a major threat, as many of its soldiers never demobilized and new elements have entered into its forces. Overall, the report paints a very grim picture of the human rights situation in Colombia, and given Alvaro Uribe's neglect of these issues and connections to some of these paramilitary groups, and the likelihood that he will be elected to a third term later this year, there seems little hope that the situation will improve in Colombia anytime soon. The report is worth reading in its entirety (~120 pages) for those interested in human rights, Latin America, or policy. Still, gird yourself - it's depressing news all around, made even moreso by the fact that we're unlikely to see any improvements as long as Uribe is in office.

Around Latin America

-The Honduran Supreme Court has appointed a judge to investigate a prosecutor's filed case against the military for its role in forcing Manuel Zelaya from the country on June 28. No warrants can be issued until the judge rules on the filing. That may sound nice, but given that this is the same Supreme Court that upheld the illegal removal of Zelaya, I don't think much will come from this. Still, if something is to happen, it has to start somewhere.

-Additionally, the Micheletti regime is apparently broke: "The Finance Minister for the de facto government, Gabriela Nuñez announced today that she does not currently have access to sufficient funds to pay government employees for January. It all boils down to cash flow. She said she has access to about 400 million lempiras, and needs a total of about 1,500 million lempiras. In addition, she noted that the government has run up large debts with suppliers, including 450 million lempiras for medical supplies, and a further 700 million lempiras owed to road construction and paving contractors." I don't know to what extent international reaction to the coup and reduction of financial support has played a role in this, but I suspect it must be at least somewhat significant, and nothing less than what the Micheletti has brought upon itself.

-Is Peru's economic star rising in Latin America? A road between Peru and Brazil and a growth in GDP of 9.8% last year indicate Peru may be in for a brighter future.

-Not as bright for Peru's future: illegal gold mining in Peru's Amazonian basin is causing long-term environmental damage : "it takes about five grams of mercury to extract a gram of gold. That mercury is usually tossed overboard, poisoning one of the world’s most biodiverse rain forests. And Borian’s form of mining is among the most benign. Illegal cartels with heavy equipment clear-cut and mine huge areas of virgin forest, alarming environmental activists."

-In response to Mexico City legalizing abortion, surrounding states are making it increasingly difficult to obtain an abortion in the rest of the country:

In response to a Mexican Supreme Court ruling in August 2008 upholding a Mexico City law permitting abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, 17 of 32 Mexican states have approved amendments to their constitutions declaring that life begins at conception and granting legal rights to fetuses, the Chicago Tribune reports. Veracruz, which in November 2009 became the most recent state to enact an antiabortion-rights amendment, has called on the federal government to consider adding a similar amendment to the national constitution.

It's hard to be surprised by this. Anti-choice sentiment stemming from conservative social values and Catholicism made any kind of response in Mexico likely. Still, this particular response from other state governments, and the pressure for a national law banning abortion, is very unfortunate. While each state can do what it wants (in the same way the D.F. can and did), it would be very bad of there were a national law enacted in Mexico.

-According to Venezuela's state-run National Electric Corporation, the country could be facing a major power outage nationwide in the next 3-4 months if water levels in the reservoirs continue to drop. Weather is funny, so there's no way of predicting accurately what will happen in that time period; still, power loss for an entire country would be tough to deal with politically, socially, or economically.

-While the recent massive rainfall in Brazil has led to the deaths of dozens, it may have the opposite effect in terms of agricultural production, as "Brazil’s coffee crop may beat the 48.48 million bag record this year, the country’s crop supply agency said in a report which also raised forecasts for the newly-begun soybean harvest."

-Finally, Lula is expected to decide soon which company he will contract for the a $4.4 billion U.S. dollar fighter jet order. In addition to Boeing (a U.S. company), France's Dassault and Sweden's Saab are in consideration. If Boeing is selected, it would create thousands of jobs for the struggling U.S. economy, a fact that didn't deter Republican Senator George LeMieux from doing all he could to damage U.S.-Brazil relations prior to the approval last week of Thomas Shannon as ambassador to Brazil.

When Revisionism Swings Too Far to the Other Side: A New Book on the War of the Triple Alliance

While this book has the potential to be interesting, this review raises my eyebrows immediately. There is no doubt that the War of the Triple Alliance was an absolute bloodbath; Paraguay did in fact lose 90% of its male population, something which (unsurprisingly) took its toll for generations. Still (and this is only based on the review, which may itself be problematic), I have a lot of problems with the way it seems to characterize events and take sides. Certainly, Lynch's role has been overstated in popular culture and earlier histories of the war - no doubt, she was much more complicated than simple villification makes her out to be. And her reputation as the "whore" who fueled the war may still exist among popular culture in Brazil (though I never saw any books or heard anybody talking about her in discussions on the war, of which I did have some).

However, I have never seen a historical work in the last 30 years that focused on Lynch, or even really gave her much credence, other than to acknowledge that, at the time of the war, she was a convenient scapegoat. Most histories of the war focus on the fact that the war was brutal for both sides (though because Paraguay's population was smaller, it naturally suffered more, as Brazil could simply outlast it). They document how there was plenty of blame to go around in the start of the war, and that there were multiple diplomatic and military aggressors, including Brazil and Paraguay. Additionally, these histories do a good job of detailing atrocities on both sides, not just in terms of battles, but in terms of racist propaganda. Brazil portrayed Paraguay as a backward mix of indigenous peoples and Spanish, while Paraguay portrayed Brazil as a degenerate slave society (with racial implications as well). Additionally, the Paraguayan people and troops were extremely devoted to Solano Lopez, and the fact that he did not ever surrender did play a role in the casualties; as long as he fought, Paraguayans seemed ready to follow him. By simply saying, "It wasn't Lynch's fault - Brazil was genocidal!" really ignores the complexities of the causes and events of the war.

Perhaps most egregious in this reassigning of blame, though, is the overlooking of the causes of deaths. Nearly two-thirds of those on both sides who died in the War of the Triple Alliance died from disease and malnutrition, and cholera ravaged both armies. While war exacerbates these conditions, it's kind of hard to take seriously claims that Brazil (or Paraguay) actively committed "genocide" against the troops and people. And to be clear, I'm not saying this out of defense of Brazil - it certainly did commit atrocities during the war, as did Paraguay. However, the review makes it seem that this biography completely overlooks these complexities and facts, all in the name of rehabilitating somebody who at this point has really fallen to the margins of the narratives and analyses of the War of the Triple Alliance.

I still may try to check out the book sometime; it's quite possible that the review is overlooking many complexities within the book by focusing on the revival of Lynch's reputation. Still, at least based on the review (not to mention the fact that two Irishmen are writing a revisionist history of an Irish woman, not exactly the most apolitical move), this smacks of writers swinging too far to the other side in the telling of a story, simply switching out its villains (in this case, Lynch for Brazil at large), and that's the worst kind of revisionism possible. If you really want to learn about the war and its effects in Brazil, I'd stick to Peter M. Beattie's excellent work, and leave the revisionist biographies on the shelf.

Haiti, the Repressive Tactics of Brazil's Military, and the U.N.'s Dubious Cover-Up of Violence

In June, Haitian Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest, ally of Jean Bertrand Aristide, and participant in the Lavalas movement in Haiti, died in Florida. On June 18, his funeral service was held in Haiti, and thousands of supporters gathered to pay their last regards to one of their movement's leaders. However, the funeral ended ugly, as UN troops opened fire at the gathering, and one man was left dead. The UN insisted at the time that troops had fired into the air, and that they fired only when they were "apparently attacked by stone-throwing demonstrators from different parts of the town center." Of course, the story didn't make much news in the U.S., which couldn't care about Haiti less if it tried. It also remained generally unreported in Brazil, which has an actual stake in the events. Why? Because Brazilian troops are the main forces serving as the U.N.'s "peacekeeping" forces in Haiti, in what is one of the largest mobilizations of Brazil's military since the military dictatorship of 1964-1985. This is no small source of pride for the military, its supporters, and various "nationalists" in Brazil, who point to the important role they are playing in the international diplomatic community, and how the military that just 24 years ago ended its repressive regime is now helping maintain peace and "bring democracy" around the world.

However, the killing and violence at Jean-Juste's funeral betrays that vision, as well as the U.N.'s version of the story, as reports are now coming out that the Brazilian troops fired into the crowd and not into the air, and the U.N. is trying to cover up the incident. Despite the U.N.'s and Brazilian general Floriano Peixoto's insistence that the troops only fired into the air, there is video evidence showing troops firing towards the crowd as well. What is more, the U.N.'s and Peixoto's defenses are more than a little suspect. Peixoto was quoted immediately afterwards as saying he did "not believe... that the soldiers fired on the people with live ammunition...I'm convinced that this did not happen." That's not exactly an overwhelming case there, and the complete lack of any evidence that he himself could cite (beyond his "belief" and "conviction") doesn't mean that the troops didn't fire into the crowd. And the U.N.'s reliance upon "unspecified preliminary information" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the innocence of the Brazilian troops, either - it's "preliminary" for a reason, and when more detailed evidence (like an autopsy) shows that bullets, not rocks, killed the individual, you shouldn't try to ignore the report. Not if you're responsible for "peacekeeping."

While some (and to be clear, far from all) Brazilians point to the way in which the military has reformed in the last 25 years, this case reminds us how little the military has changed. Indeed, these tactics of firing into crowds to "keep the peace" are nothing new within the Brazilian military. They actually marked the policy and treatment of protests during the 1960s, culminating in the deaths of individuals like high school student Edson Luis de Lima Souto and leading to the Brazilian dictatorship's most repressive phase. And these tactics were and are not limited to the military dictatorship. Firing indiscriminately into crowds is common among the military police when they invade favelas, and the failure of Brazil's government, media, or society to question these tactics has only reinforced the impunity of the military in its treatment. For all of these reasons, the military's response in Haiti on June 18th is not surprising, nor is it the only case in which Brazil's military has dealt with its "peacekeeping" mission with less-than-peaceful tactics.

All of this matters for several reasons. First and foremost, there is the fact htat nobody seems to care about the situation in Haiti, and the U.N.'s dubious approach to its mission there. It's hard to explain how firing into crowds at a funeral is "peacekeeping." The fact that there had been protests for a higher minimum wage over the previous two weeks is not a defense; indeed, in one of the poorest countries in the world, you would think people might want to address that issue with constructive policy formulation, rather than "peacekeeping." Then there is the issue of the U.N. effectively trying to cover up the incident of June 18. I'm far from a believer that the U.N. can only help, but this effort is ridiculous. There seems to be no direction in the Haitian mission, no constructive path that the U.N. is offering, and that's depressing, given that the U.N.'s alleged objectives as an organization. Finally, there is the issue also matters in terms of the tactics and direction of the Brazilian military. Certain sectors of the civil and military society in Brazil have insisted that things have changed since the dictatorship. Yet to this day, the military employs the same repressive and brutal tactics that it employed during the dictatorship, be it in the favelas or in Haiti, revealing just how little has changed over the last 45 years. And the fact that no Brazilian politicians, including Lula, are questioning the military on this is grim but not surprising.

Thus, the events of June 18 were certainly tragic, but their impact is not limited to that day alone. The problems extend beyond the funeral of a man, the death of another, or the repression of a political group in Haiti, and include the continuation of repressive tactics within Brazil's military institutions and questionable actions and explanations on the part of the U.N. itself. It would be good for others in Brazilian politics, the military, and the international community to call out the U.N. and the Brazilian troops for the actions not just of June 18th, but for the entire "peacekeeping" mission and its apparent lack of direction. But that would require people to pay attention to and care about Haiti and Haitians, and unfortunately that just isn't going to happen anytime soon.

China Turning to Brazil for Naval Training

Rob over at LG&M recently broke down the fascinating report that the Chinese are pushing forward their aircraft carrier program. As his IR/military policy posts always are, this one is outstanding, but this part in particular really grabbed my attention:

The PLAN has apparently arranged to begin training its carrier pilots on board the Sao Paulo, Brazil's full deck aircraft carrier.
[...]Sao Paulo, formerly the French Foch, operates A-4 Skyhawks. It appears from this interview that the PLAN has arranged with the Brazilian Navy to train some of its pilots and crews on board Sao Paulo. It's fair to say that this represents a substantial step forward for Chinese naval aviation. This agreement with Brazil will presumably allow the Chinese access to Brazilian naval aviation experts in addition to the carrier itself. This should accelerate the development of Chinese naval aviation
by quite a bit.

I either didn't know or had forgotten that Brazil had an aircraft carrier, and I was certainly surprised to know that it is ahead of China in this regard. Rob does an excellent job outlining why training is so difficult and important. He also does a fine job quickly explaining why China didn't go to the U.S., France, or Russia for training, but I think he misses something. He basically suggests that Brazil was the default trainer for the Chinese, given the reasons the U.S., French, and Russia have to not train China. While it's true in one sense that Brazil was the default ally for China, there was nothing dictating that Brazil had to agree to help China develop its naval power. This isn't a case where China bullied Brazil (and, though it's a gross simplification of complex issues, I like the idea of a country without aircraft carriers threatening a country with an aircraft carrier); through economic agreements, China needs Brazil as much (if not moreso) for its agricultural imports (especially soy), industry, and (down the road) oil as Brazil needs China's money and investment. I certainly don't believe this was a case of Brazil getting forced into an agreement it otherwise wouldn't have made. Yet Brazil signed on happily, with the Minister of Defense going to China later this year to further work out I think it's also evidence of the strengthening ties between China and Brazil, not just economically, but politically.

Of course, I don't envision some future "Sino-Brazilian" hegemon or anything. However, the agreement is mutually beneficial for both China and Brazil; China gets training, and Brazil strengthens its reputation and power as a global force. These efforts have been primarily economic up to this point, but this latest military agreement fits within a broader pattern of each trying to increase its role in international politics. The agreement on the carrier training was apparently part of the private meetings between China and Brazil during Lula's trip to Beijing last week, itself a noteworthy event as China and Brazil strengthened their trade relations in what they hope is a mutually beneficial agreement that would reduce both countries' dependency on the U.S. economy (and also agreed to jointly send 3 satellites into space by 2013). China will send military leaders to Brazil to train, and Defense Minister Nelson Jobim will be going to China in September, presumably when the details of the arrangement will be worked out.

Although Brazil has little it is materially gaining directly from China in this agreement, I think it could be the biggest "winner" here. That a country as powerful as China is turning to Brazil (and only partly out of necessity) is a real coup in Brazil's efforts to demonstrate its equality with the other major world powers. Nothing is assured down the road, but other countries are certainly taking notice of this. I doubt anybody outside of South America is worried about Brazil's military potential, and they shouldn't be; Brazil isn't gunning (no pun intended) for global military domination, and this is certainly not the first time that Brazil has demonstrated its growing power among the biggest international leaders, be it in economic, diplomatic, or military aspects. However, it does mark another major demonstration that Brazil isn't going away anytime soon, and it's a major feather in Brazil's cap in strengthening its position in the international community.

It Was Torture When Practiced on Americans 60 Years Ago; It's Not Torture Now

I recently read Shawn C. Smallman's excellent Fear & Memory in the Brazilian Army & Society, 1889-1954. Smallman does a great job of tracing shifts in military politics and memory, and the implications for the 1964-1985 dictatorship (though it is outside of his focus). One of the recurring themes is military leadership's use of torture against opposing factions or uprisings. One of these uprisings, the 1935 uprising of communists in the Brazilian Northeast, resulted in extreme repression and the establishment of the Estado Novo dictatorship, and many participants and leaders were tortured when the uprising failed. One of the participants was an American, Victor Allan Barron. Smallman writes of Barron's fate on page 53:

Victor Allan Barron, an American who had formerly been a member of the Communist Youth, underwent horrible tortures after his arrest. [...] A naval captain (and doctor) supervised Barron's torture, as he was beaten, shocked, and had his testicles squeezed until he fainted. [...] According to Brazilian authorities, Barron committed suicide by jumping from the second floor of the central police station. It is unclear if he was dead before he went through the window or if he died in the hospital after the fall. In the U.S., Congressman Vito Marcantonio denounced Barron's torture and murder before the house of representatives. He read a statement from Joseph R. Brodsky, Barron's lawyer, who claimed personal knowledge of his client's torture: 'They beat him with belts and rubber hose; they burned and shocked him with live electric wires; they punched and kicked him around constantly and did not let him sleep for days." (emphasis mine)

It's worth pointing out here that, when an American was forced to sleep deprivation (among other horrors) in another country, a U.S. Congressman took to the floor to denounce the actions. Yet 67 years later, Bush administration legal counsels suggested that "sleep deprivation does not constitute" torture when we were using it on foreigners.

Many other people (including myself) have commented already on the double-standard of the U.S. under Bush, as acts that other countries previously committed that we called "torture" suddenly became legal when we were employing the same methods. Smallman's study (published in 2001, well before we'd even begun torturing people) offers just one more documentary piece of evidence into the hypocrisy of making "legal" the torture methods for which we have previously condemned others.

Lula's Plan for Brazil's Military to Upgrade, Improve, Diversify

This has been in the works for awhile, but yesterday, Lula finally announced his restructuring plan for the Brazilian military. Among other things, the plan reorganizes the entire military into brigades for faster mobilization abilities; seeks to decrease Brazil's dependence on other nations for arms and weapons and increase its own military technology production (including satellites and nuclear-powered submarines); and, in what is perhaps the most novel part of the plan, to actually enforce mandatory conscription on people from all classes.


The technological and tactical parts of this plan are interesting, and could have a profound impact on Brazil's economy, it's role in the region and the world, and its military and international relations. I admit that, upon first learning of this, I was a bit uneasy - after all, Brazil's military was frequently involved in politics in the 20th century. (In addition to the 1964-1985 dictatorship, the military also intervened in politics in 1930, 1937, 1945, 1955, 1961, and finally, 1964; these interventions were not always direct, and could often take the form of "the military is providing vague threats if we politicians don't do X," as was the case in 1961; nor were these interventions always successful, as in 1955; still, one can easily identify at least those 6 cases of military involvement to one degree or another in Brazilian politics, and you can argue that there were other instances, too). Up until the announcement of the plan, there were just vague mentions of "increasing the military's power" in Brazil. Still, it seems that this is directed mostly at improving the ability of the military to mobilize, improve its standing in the region, protect Brazil's territory (no doubt, the discovery of a major oil field off Sao Paulo's coast providing some additional motivation for this latter issue), and other measures. Certainly, increased firepower and greater mobility could lead to a greater role of Brazil's military in politics down the road, and I'm still a bit uncertain about this, but it is at least not openly increasing the military's presence in the political sphere, which is a small victory I guess. And the fact that Brazilian progressive Roberto Mangabeira Unger (who, tangentially, was one of Obama's law professors at Harvard) is the author of this project is also encouraging if for no other reason than it wasn't drawn up by some conservative or a hawk.

However, I find Lula's efforts to actually enforce military conscription for everybody to be quite a fascinating aspect. Although the military is technically and legally supposed to conscript from all Brazilian sectors regardless of class, race, etc., the reality is Brazil's military ranks are composed overwhelmingly of the poor and marginalized who do not have recourse to get out of such service and who often accept it because they need the money. For decades and even generations (dating back to at least the Paraguayan War) there has been an unspoken understanding that elites and (more recently) the middle classes were "above" military service. So in one sense, any effort to break through this mold to prove that "mandatory conscription" applies to all Brazilian citizens, and not just those who don't have an economic/cultural/political way to avoide it.

While I like the idea of forcing the middle class and elite youths into the military, in practice I don't think is this automatically a great thing. Taking the most recent case, when Brazil's military led the coup in 1964, it did so with the support of the middle and upper classes. Many of the working class men who were actually in the military at the time were strong supporters of Joao Goulart, the deposed president, and the military really had to crack down on its own troops in order to "keep the ranks in line." Even today, a majority of the Brazilian middle class and elites are social and political conservatives with little tolerance for the poor or the racially marginalized (a marginalization made greater by the fact that Brazilians by and large culturally deny the existence of racism by claiming extreme miscegenation makes racism "impossible," which is, of course, bunk). Filling the ranks with conservatives who believe the poor are poor because they are "lazy" and "criminals" seems to make it more likely that, if the military were to launch another coup because somebody was too "progressive" in the future, the military would have much more support from the ranks than it did in 1964. What is more, it's not like conscription of all classes will lead to some amazing social levelling. It still seems highly likely that, even if the ranks were levelled out socially, the children of middle-class and elite families probably stand a much greater chance of promotion into the officer corps, due to factors such as better education as children, economic power, political connections, etc. Thus, while the face of the ranks might become more diverse, I really don't think the officer corps would, and given that it's the officers who are responsible for strategy, the power structure in the military would continue to be lopsided.

In spite of all this, though, I just don't see this enforcement of mandatory conscription for all happening anytime soon; rather, I think that part of the plan is simply the first step in trying to force the issue in Brazil. And I think that Lula's administration recognizes this, too - after all, Unger himself said this should start a "novel debate" on the issue of conscription and exactly what role sectors like the middle-class and the elties play in the Brazilian nation. Generally, if you're really trying to enforce a strong program, you don't comment that y our plan will spark an "novel" debate. Still, the fact that any presidential administration is even going so far to admit that there's definitely a social inequality when it comes to who has to serve in teh military and who does not is a decent step. I don't honestly know if this will go any further, and wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't (Lula has plenty on his plate between now and 2010, and there's no reason to believe his successor would strongly push this issue). But it is an interesting if subtle shift in the way the governments since 1985 have dealt with the issue of military service and nation. This fact, together with the significant changes in more technical and technological aspects of the plan, make it a fascinating and potentially game-changing plan not just in terms of military composition, but of Brazil's internatinoal relations, regional politics, and militarization throughout the continent in the near future.

Another Case of Extreme Military Violence in Brazil

Long-time readers to the blog know that I often have harped on the fact that torture and police repression in Brazil did not go away with the military dictatorship. This weekend offered a particularly gruesome reminder of this fact, as in Rio a youth in the military barracks who was caught smoking marijuana was set on fire (story in Portuguese, but the picture says enough). While the youth's condition is "stable," the burns were severe enough to cause him to be heavily wrapped, and his eyes were apparently affected.

Of course, some councilpersons in Rio have already taken a stand and demanded this issue be dealt with, but nothing will come of this - it never does. Until the Brazilian governmental systems at all levels begin to thoroughly and completely crack down on these types of military and police violence, until not one single state agent, from the lowest-ranking policeman to the highest-ranking general, retains impunity for these actions. And neither governmental leaders nor civil rights groups nor the police themselves have shown any sustained interest in making these changes. Maybe things will change some in the next 20 years, but quite honestly, I doubt it.

The Wiretapping Scandal in Brazil

Some pretty ugly news came out of Brazil yesterday. Apparently, high-ranking officials of Brazil's intelligence service have been tapping the phones of high-level politicians, including Lula's chief of staff, the president of the Senate, and the head of the Supreme Court.

Although Boz and Greg both beat me to it, there are a couple things I still want to highlight here. Although the opposition is immediately attacking Lula as abusing his powers and deserving of impeachment (even if he was unaware of the tapping), I find it extremely difficult to believe Lula knew of the tapping. Wiretapping is relatively easy as it is in Brazil from a strictly legal standpoint. What is more, wiretapping and spying have a rich history in Brazil's military and intelligence units dating back to the extensive use of wiretapping during the military dictatorship and even beforehand. The culture of spying within the military was never really dealt with after the dictatorship's end in 1985, and I have little doubt that that culture still exists today; no government in Brazil has tackled the military's continued impunity on this issue, leaving the military and intelligence organizations little incentive to stop unsolicited wiretapping or tapping for political purposes. As for the demand that Lula be impeached even if he was unaware of the tapping (and again, I really, really doubt he would be so dumb as to order these kinds of things), that is nothing but pure political posturing on the opposition's part.

It's important that Lula moved quickly to "suspend" those involved, and if there's anything he's proven, it's that people who abuse their power during his administration, be they friend or foe, will not be tolerated. However, his quick response, while good, is not enough; he really needs to use his position, combined with his popular support, to crack down on these practices. It's really time that a president in Brazil put an end to the last vestiges of the military dictatorship within the intelligence community. The 1988 constitution reduced and redefined the military's role in the Brazilian state; it's time that the intelligence community also see some heavy-duty reforms that make their operations less opaque and things like spying more difficult.

The Amazon, Indigenous Rights, and A Brazilian General's Complete Failure to Understand the Constitution

Randy points us to this story about Brazil's Amazon policy and brewing tensions. To summarize: a little-known (to the rest of the world) part of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 states that ancestral indigenous lands, including in the Amazon, were to be returned to the indigenous groups within 5 years. While that hasn't happened, Brazil has been making efforts, slowly but surely, to see this happen. However, in the Amazonian region in particular, there has been escalating violence as the government tries to evict people living on lands that are owed, as the constitution declared, to indigenous groups. In order to complete these efforts, the military has been brought in, but apparently, at least one member of the Army in the region is less than pleased with the government's efforts:

"At a raucous seminar on national sovereignty at Rio de Janeiro's Military Club, the head of Army's Amazon command, Gen. Augusto Heleno Pereira, attacked the federal government's indigenous policy as ''regretful and chaotic.'' He even suggested that the army would refuse to remove the settlers."

''The Brazilian army does not serve the government but rather the Brazilian state,'' Pereira said.

Um, no.

Randy is exactly right in explaining how flawed this logic is:

Brazil's constitution calls for all ancestral indigenous lands to be demarcated and turned over to their respective tribes. Pereira serves the Brazilian state and the state is defined by the constitution. A military man who doesn't understand that has no business being in the military.

And it doesn't stop there: when democratically-elected Brazilian jurists wrote a new constitution in 1988 (3 years after the end of the dictatorship), they were especially careful to be explicit and detailed in outlining the military's role within the state, and how the military's role is to defend the functioning of all branches of the state, especially the presidency, regardless of political party. In short: constitutionally speaking, in Brazil, the military can never again (as long as this Constitution survives) overthrow a "government" to save the "state"; any time the office of the presidency, regardless of what party represents it, is threatened, the military's job is to protect the functioning of the executive branch and the state, and not to overthrow it the president and assume control itself.

It's disturbing enough that a high-ranking officer doesn't seem to get the constitutional role of the Brazilian military. But really, this is only one reason Pereira's statements are so disturbing. Back in 1964, when the military overthrew Joao Goulart, they used a similar logic. At the time, as Brazil's economy was struggle and the cold-war ideologies led right-wing forces to believe that anything from the left was "communist," the military decided to overthrow the leftist Goulart and take control of the country. Their logic at the time was that Goulart was leading the country to a civil war (the same phrase that the author uses at the beginning of this Amazonian article, I'd poinit out), and that the only way to "save" Brazil was for the military to "overthrow the government to save the state." Of course, the military then went on to entrench itself in power through 5 presidencies, authorizing torture and the murder of "subversives" and rewriting the constitution not once but twice, all in the name of "defending the state."

Of course, it's unclear if Pereira's opinions and comments reflect any broader military brass beliefs he could be a lone voice within the higher ranks of the armed forces. And I'm certainly not saying that Brazil is on the cusp of another military overthrow of the elected leader and/or a dictatorship simply because the military used similar reasoning to justify its 1964 coup of Joao Goulart and its 21-year-long dictatorship. Any time a military official anywhere in the world says the things Pereira said is disturbing, but given the history of this line of thinking and Brazil's recent history (the dictatorship only ended 23 years ago), Pereira's "logic" is really, really disturbing. I'm fully with Randy on this - Pereira should be kicked out. This won't happen, and he very well may have been privately censured already within the armed forces, simply because many do not want to ever see the military involved in politics again.