US and Brazil in Talks Re: New Anti-Drug Base in Rio

The details are few thus far, but according to a report in Spain’s El País yesterday (and also published in Venezuela’s El Nacional), the Brazilian government has begun negotiations with the United States to create some sort of joint counternarcotics base in Rio de Janeiro which would “monitor” drug trafficking in the region. El País says such a base would be similar to existing US outposts in Lisbon, Portugal, and Key West, Florida—the latter of which became the “nerve center” for counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean during the late 1990s when Panama asked US troops to leave in 1998.

The current Brazil-US talks are occurring between Southcom commander, Gen. Douglas Fraser, and Brazilian Defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, but the report says the idea would be to have Rio serve as a space for “multinational cooperation” against “drugs and terrorism.” US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is already planning a visit to Brazil later this month and this topic is said to be atop his agenda. I’ll be keeping an eye on this as more details come out.

This news from Brazil comes as the race to replace Lula da Silva officially began yesterday. Both Dilma Rouseff and Jose Serra resigned from their current posts—Rouseff as Lula’s chief of staff and Serra as governor of Sao Paulo—per Brazilian election law. Nine other members of Lula’s cabinet also stepped down to pursue elected political office in October. The new issue of the Economist also looks at Brazil and the upcoming presidential campaign. Its focus, however, is the “revived belief in the state” seen among some Brazilian politicians. The magazine writes:

“To mark this year’s 30th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) its presidential candidate, Dilma Rousseff, gave a long interview for a celebratory book in which she argued that ‘during the crisis, after the failure of Lehman Brothers, it was [state-controlled] institutions like the Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal and the National Development Bank (BNDES) that prevented the economy from being shipwrecked.’ Furthermore, the government pursued ‘a clear policy to strengthen Petrobras,’ the state-controlled energy giant, ‘rather than to weaken it.’ In other words, Brazil’s state capitalism succeeded where the private sector failed.”

The magazine’s anti-statism reveals itself in the article but it sets up an interesting way for thinking about future debates between Rouseff and Serra—and differences between how the two might govern. The article ends with a quote from Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who preceded Lula as president (and is a Serra supporter). Cardoso argues the election will be about whether Brazil would do better with a “bureaucratic capitalism in which the state orders and resolves things” or a “competitive, liberal capitalism.”

To other stories as the weekend approaches:

· The LA Times has more on the brazen attack on two military outposts by drug traffickers in Northern Mexico earlier this week. The attacks, the paper argues, are an “escalation of warfare.” Here’s the paper in its own words: “In taking such aggressive action, the traffickers have shown that they are not reluctant to challenge the army head-on and that they possess good intelligence on where the army is, how it moves and when it operates.” Interestingly, the paper goes on to describe the strategy of the Wednesday attacks as “taking a page from a manual on urban guerrilla warfare.” According to Martin Barron, a policy analyst in Mexico City, “It is a risky tactic [for cartel gangs] because it has the potential of angering society, but it is a very effective show of power.” Also, while border state governor, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, ordered the National Guard to the Mexico border to beef up security Wednesday, Mexican officials called for increased US-Mexico border cooperation. In a statement responding to the Richardson move, the Foreign Relations Dept. of the Mexican government said Thursday that Mexico respects the right of U.S. authorities to determine how to provide security along their side of the border, but added that increased cooperation is the answer.

· And, from the Miami Herald, a report that US immigration officials are steadily increasing the number of asylum requests they receive from Mexicans attempting to flee drug violence. Mexican officials are quick to point out that violence remains isolated to specific cities along the US-Mexico border. One unnamed official even tells the paper that, overall, levels of violence in the country are less than they were 10 years ago. But, continues the report, “In fiscal year 2008, asylum officers and immigration judges combined approved 250 Mexican asylum petitions compared to 153 the previous year and 133 in 2006…Separate figures from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services show an increase in Mexican asylum case approvals from fiscal year 2007 to 2008 -- 146 to 264 -- but a decrease to 249 in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2009.” These numbers are relatively small still, the paper notes, but it’s a huge increase when considering the fact that virtually all asylum seekers from Mexico were denied in the early 1990s.

· Amnesty International became the latest rights group to condemn the Venezuelan government for “targeting government critics” with “politically motivated arrests.” In a statement yesterday, AI says at least three opponents of the president were detained and charged in the month of March alone—all for political reasons. Part of the statement reads:

“Over recent years the Venezuelan government appears to have established a pattern of clamping down on dissent through the use of legislative and administrative methods to silence and harass critics. Laws are being used to justify what essentially seems to be politically motivated charges, which would indicate that the Venezuelan government is deliberately targeting opponents.

· High level US and Cuban officials met briefly at the UN this week—what the BBC calls “one of the highest level contacts between the two countries in years.” The encounter brought together Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, with Hillary Clinton’s chief of state, Cheryl Mills, to discuss the situation in Haiti. A spokesman for Ms. Mills said the two “did not agree on much” but they did agree on the need for aid in Haiti. In a statement from Havana, the Cuban government said, “We would hope that future exchanges of this nature are a possibility.” Few details of the discussion have yet been made public, although State spokesman PJ Crowley did recognize Cuba’s healthcare work in Haiti (the issue of Alan Gross’s imprisonment was also broached). As the AP adds, “nearly 800 Cuban doctors have worked in Haiti since the quake, performing 7,000 operations. They have helped deliver 1,400 babies and immunized more than 100,000 people. Hundreds of other doctors trained in Cuba have joined their effort, which builds on a mission that Cuba had run in Haiti long before the quake.”

· The recently freed Colombian soldier Pablo Emilio Moncayo—held by the FARC for 12 years—is preparing for a thank-you tour that will include stopovers to meet with the presidents of Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador (and perhaps also on to Europe). Interestingly no public words of thanks to Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe.

· An important land reform activist in Brazil was murdered this week. As the AP writes, the killing Pedro Alcantara Souza, leader of a landless peasants group in Para, came just hours after a delay in the trial of a man accused of masterminding the slaying of another rain forest activist, American nun Dorothy Stang, was announced.

· A major seizure of some 1.5 tons in cocaine was made by Bolivian authorities this week, bringing the total amount seized in the country this year to 10 tons, according to Bolivian officials. Also from Bolivia, the government signed a deal with a Chinese firm Thursday to launch the country’s first ever communications satellite, to be named Tupac Katari.

· From Just the Facts, a new podcast with Adam Isacson on the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative.

· From AQ, a recap of the magazine’s online discussion about the digital divide in Latin America, which took place earlier this week.

· And some opinions today from Roger Noriega of AEI in Forbes, speaking out against attempts to end the Cuba travel ban. Instead, he argues, legislative energies should be directed toward an FTA with Colombia. The Washington Post, meanwhile, has an editorial on the UN Haiti conference, with its “good,” “bad,” and “bottom line” on the meetings.