maxim
Joined: 26 Apr 2005
Posts: 136
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 Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:54 am Post subject: "Brazil" is racing for Western Africa. |
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Does this mean "Brazil" is out of oil and raw material to be profitable. When I say "Brazil" I mean that most of the land and resources are in the hands of foreigners. Now the native elite portuguese speaking "Brazilian" who is considered little in affecting globalism and actual ownership of resources in Brazil is making aims at Africa to be the the majority foreigner to own and control resources in the west of Africa. What lesson to be learned in this glorious world.
For those who see foolishness in this here is the story which will lead to the next. | Quote: |
Brazilian Army Worries Foreign Powers May Eye Amazon
Source: Copyright 2005, Reuters
Date: April 10, 2005
Byline: Angus MacSwan
MANAUS, Brazil (Reuters) - The Brazilian army has plenty to keep it busy in the Amazon jungle.
Drug smugglers, illegal loggers and miners, land grabbers, guerrillas and assorted gunmen all lurk in the untamed area which is larger than Western Europe and has 6,800 miles of porous borders with seven countries.
However, the ultimate concern of Brazilian military strategists is that one day they might end up fighting a foreign power for control of the Amazon.
"The threats today are diverse. (One is) a superior military power to us and we have a strategy to resolve this," said Gen. Claudio Barbosa de Figueiredo, army commander for the Amazon region.
"Another great threat we consider is a power vacuum," he said in an interview at his headquarters on a military base in Manaus, a sweltering port city on the Rio Negro.
Since the end of the 1964-85 military dictatorship, defending the Amazon has become a priority for Brazil's army. In recent years it has built up its troop strength to 22,000 and plans to have 26,000 by the end of 2006, Figueiredo said.
Some 25 special frontier platoons with about 70 men each have been deployed in remote positions, he said.
The area is covered by the Amazon Vigilance System, a network of radars, computers and aircraft that looks for illegal air strips, incursions and environmental damage and which U.S. defense chief Donald Rumsfeld visited last month.
The perceived threat that lurks at the back of many Brazilians' minds is that outsiders covet the Amazon, a fear fanned whenever a foreign politician talks about the forest and its waters as an international resource.
Indeed, former EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, now a candidate to head the World Trade Organization, in February proposed the Amazon should designated "global public goods" and be administered by the international community -- a proposal that drew a sharp rebuke from Brazilian government.
Brazil mounted a big Amazon exercise in November called Operation Ajuricaba involving 3,000 men, 35 planes and 170 boats. The enemy was a superior foreign military force.
"Brazilian armed forces planning for the hypothetical war in the Amazon region foresee the region turning into a new Vietnam," Correio Braziliense newspaper wrote. Diplomats also note with interest that Vietnam has just posted a defense attache to its embassy in Brasilia.
CONCERN OVER FOREIGN POWERS
"The internationalization of the Amazon is one of the worries that takes us to this strategy of defense in relation to signs from big countries, not just the United States but also Europe," Gen. Figueiredo said. "We must be prepared. After all, the Brazilian Amazon is Brazilian."
In 2003, top government aide Jose Dirceu said: "If the United States occupies Colombia, it will occupy the Amazon."
A spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, which covers Latin America, said Brazil had every right to plan to defend territory but the United States posed no threat.
"I think its safe to say in Southern Command we don't maintain contingency plans for anything to do with Brazil," Lt. Col. David McWilliams said by telephone from Miami.
The two militaries' relations were excellent, he said.
Eduardo Gamarra, head of Latin American studies at Florida International University, also said military cooperation between the two countries was probably greater now than it had been for many years, for example with Brazil's leadership of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti.
"We've been hearing rumors that the U.S. is going to take over the Amazon for the water, to stop drugs. There are thousands of rumors like that," Gamarra said.
David Cleary of the environmental group Nature Conservancy in Belem said the military genuinely believed there was an international threat and that it was primarily American.
"The day-to-day threat comes from Colombia and Peru and not America," he said.
Drug smugglers from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia use Brazil as a transit point for shipping narcotics to Europe and fuel the consumer habit in Brazilian cities.
Illegal migrants cross the border from Bolivia and Peruvian loggers are stripping the jungle. In the interior, illegal logging and land exploitation has led to alarming destruction -- an area of forest the size of New Jersey was wiped out last year. Land disputes lead to frequent bloodshed.
The war between leftist FARC guerrillas and Colombia's government, which has deepened with the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, always threatens to spill over into Brazil.
Figueiredo, a polite, silver-haired man, said no recent clashes had occurred on the Colombian border and he believed the situation was contained.
"Obviously we are alert ... but as we understand it, the FARC do not want to open up another combat front," he said.
In other spheres, the army's main role was to back up civilian agencies, he said.
"Drugs is the mission of the federal police but we investigate together with them up to a point. We do operations with IBAMA (federal environmental agency) so they can stop illegal logging. We provide them with logistics and security."
The United States has urged Latin American armies to get more involved in the war against drugs. But the question of how far soldiers should take on police work in a continent where memories of military rule are still fresh is a delicate one.
Likewise, Washington wants them to play a greater role in its war on terrorism. But at an Americas-wide meeting in Manaus last November, Brazil's Defense Minister Jose Alencar told Rumsfeld that fighting poverty was a greater priority.
"We don't have terrorism here nor on our frontier. The Americans consider trafficking terrorism, but that is within Colombia," Figueiredo said.
Originally posted at: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=8134558&src=rss/lifeAndLeisureNews |
| Quote: | Brazilian President courts West African leaders
afrol News, 12 April - Brazil's popular President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on a current roundtrip to four West African countries is seeking support for an enlarged South-South trade and for his country's plea to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. President Lula yesterday visited Cameroon and Nigeria, a new major trade partner for Brazil, and is now in Ghana. Tomorrow, he heads for Guinea-Bissau and then finally Senegal.
The Brazilian President has indeed strengthened his country's relations with Africa since he came to power. With this roundtrip, President Lula will have been on an official visit to a total of 14 African countries. After tomorrow's visit to Guinea-Bissau, he will also have visited all the five Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa since he was elected by a landslide in October 2002.
The five-country roundtrip started on Sunday in Cameroon, where President Lula was received by his counterpart, President Paul Biya. Several accords were underway to strengthen ties between Cameroon, and Brazil, according to government sources in Yaoundé. These in particular include technical aid from Brazil in the sectors of cocoa production, health and education. Also, the reopening of the Brazilian embassy in Cameroon was announced.
Yesterday, he arrived in Nigeria, a country that has become Brazil's major trade partner in Africa. In Abuja, the Nigerian capital, President Lula met with his Nigerian counterpart, President Olusegun Obasanjo. One of the main aims during this visit has been to consolidate and strengthen these trade links, which include large-scale exports of fish from Brazil to Nigeria.
President Lula yesterday urged President Obasanjo to help strengthening these South-South trade links. "Our commercial relations could be infinitely improved, our cultural relations could be infinitely improved and our political relations could be infinitely improved," President Lula told his Nigerian counterpart at a gala luncheon in Abuja yesterday.
Brazilian trade links with Ghana are still limited but observed to have a great potential given Ghana's rapid growth and stabile business environment. Ways to strengthen these ties will be the key issue when Ghanaian President John Agyekum Kufuor receives Mr Lula at the Accra International Conference Centre this evening, hosting a major banquette in honour of the Brazilian President. Tomorrow, the two state leaders will inaugurate the Brazil-Ghana Chamber of Commerce.
Tomorrow's visit to Guinea-Bissau will have a more political character, given the still dysfunctional economy in that country and the preparations for the upcoming presidential polls in Bissau. President Lula, also representing the Portuguese speaking "commonwealth" (the CPLP), which is offering election aid to Guinea-Bissau in addition to political advise.
The next day, President Lula moves on to Senegal, where trade and economy again will dominate the agenda. Senegal also receives some technical aid from Brazil and new cooperation accords are expected to be signed in Dakar when Mr Lula meets with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.
In addition to the commercial agenda of President Lula, the Brazilian leader was also seeking to boost his country's diplomatic standing as a representative from the South. Brazil is seeking a permanent chair in the UN Security Council as the UN now is reforming. For that, President Lula will need the support of all current Security Council members and a majority of the UN's member countries.
According to Brazilian press reports, President Lula has achieved support for his country's campaign to get a permanent UN Security Council seat. In Cameroon, President Biya was reported to have promised his support. Also in Nigeria, President Lula was reported to have been successful. There are no reports of what the Brazilian leader had to promise in exchange, but Nigeria is also a possible candidate for a permanent UN Security Council membership, being Africa's most populous country.
The Brazilian President further achieved support for his country's presentation of a candidate to the post of Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The Cameroonian President already has promised his country's support for the Brazilian candidacy. Brazil has stood united with many African nations during the last rounds of free trade negotiations hosted by the WTO.
On economic cooperation with West Africa, President Lula was quoted as saying that he lamented that the Brazilian government did not have enough resources to launch major projects in Africa. The state could only contribute with technical assistance.
Larger investments, according to President Lula, had to be left to Brazil's private sector, which however until now has shown little interest in investing in Africa. Not even in Portuguese-speaking countries, where Brazilian companies have competitive advantages, do investments from Brazil play a major role so far. Pleas by the government of São Tomé and Príncipe, for example, for Brazilian private investments in its new oil sector have not led to anything.
Brazilian trade with Africa is nevertheless increasing rapidly, according to the government in Brasilia. While the total trade between Africa and Brazil was valued at US$ 6.1 billion in 2003, it increased to an estimated total of US$ 10.4 billion last year, according to the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.
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