DRUGS-BRAZIL: Armed Forces Launch Major Anti-Marijuana Operation

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 2 1999 (IPS) - Brazil’s Armed Forces, usually reluctant to get directly involved in the fight against the drug trade, unleashed a massive campaign against marijuana plantations in the nation’s northeast.

“Operation Mandacarú” mobilised approximately 1,200 soldiers this week, in addition to 400 experts, including police, Public Ministry prosecutors, fiscal authorities, environmentalists and social workers.

Military helicopters and vehicles provide backup for the mission, which seeks to eradicate drug production in the area known as “the marijuana range,” covering 20 municipalities in the interior of Pernambuco and Bahia states, a semi-arid and sparsely populated region of 450,000 people.

General Gilberto Serra, from the Institutional Security Cabinet of the Presidency, leads the anti-drug operation. In its first two days, the armed forces eliminated some 200,000 marijuana plants, which were pulled up by the roots and burned.

The operation is to last two months, drawing criticism from among its participants who say it is not enough time. Planting will resume as soon as the soldiers leave, admitted Jayme Lielson, spokesman for the Federal Police in Pernambuco.

An effective operation requires persistence in preventing new cultivation and harvesting, in order to inflict losses that make the illegal activity economically non-viable in the region, explained police chief Francisco Martins, who commands the Federal Police involved in “Operation Mandacarú.”

Pernambuco’s governor, Jarbas Vasconcelos, also wants to see a permanent action. “It will not work to have one isolated spectacle to show on television if it doesn’t stop the major traffickers,” he affirmed.

More experienced in repressive actions, the police also criticise the enormous publicity campaign that announced the offensive, because they say it allowed the traffickers to flee the area.

Police also say the operation is too expensive, requiring more economic resources than any of the government’s previous operations, at an estimated cost of 3.9 million dollars.

Two months ago and with much less funding – some 45,000 dollars – , the Federal Police were able to eradicate nearly 700,000 marijuana plants in two days and apprehend 16 suspects, asserted police chief Martins.

An earlier proposal for police surveillance in the area throughout the year was not approved by the Justice Ministry, even though it would have cost just one tenth of the “Mandacarú” budget, Martins lamented.

But this is a different kind of action, because it calls for eradicating marijuana from the region by providing crop alternatives, argued general Serra.

The current offensive was preceded by the Moxot-Paje project, which offers easy credits to small local farmers in order to encourage them to plant legal crops, Serra explained.

Since July, the government’s Bank of the Northeast – for regional development – has granted low-interest loans to farmers in the 40,000 square km of “the marijuana range,” reported Walter Maierovitch, head of the National Anti-Drugs Secretariat (SENAD).

In the first three months of the bank programme, 1,516 loan agreements were signed, and another 1,800 are being reviewed, totalling 15.7 million dollars, said Maierovitch, predicting investments will reach 230 million dollars by 2004.

An estimated 40,000 families are expected to benefit from the programme and authorities hope to free the entire region and its farmers from economic dependence on marijuana.

“Operation Mandacarú” is underway within this crop-substitution context, not as an isolated event, and has established the presence of the State in backing local security so that the population can return to a normal life, according to SENAD.

In addition, the Armed Forces initiated a civic-social operation Wednesday, providing medical and dental services for the local population, facilitating the distribution of identification documents and repairing roads and schools.

Authorities hope the combination of these efforts reduces local violence, which has included several assassinations, attacks along highways and in the cities, and persistent death threats, all of which have multiplied since marijuana has dominated the area’s economy.

But another problem lies in that marijuana production, before repressive operations began in “the marijuana range,” had already expanded to other states in Brazil’s northeast, primarily Maranhao, warned the Federal Police in Pernambuco.