BRAZIL: Warning – Violating Air Space Could Be Fatal

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 5 2004 (IPS) - Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is getting ready to sign into law a bill that would allow the air force to shoot down planes that enter the country’s air space without permission. But critics say the law would be unconstitutional, because it would introduce the death penalty.

Although the bill was approved by Congress in March 1998, its implementation depends on a decree codifying the law, which was recently completed by the ministries of defence and justice, and is merely awaiting the president’s signature.

The aim is to crack down on unidentified planes suspected of involvement in drug trafficking or activities that violate national sovereignty, and that fail to respond to warnings.

Independent parliamentary Deputy Fernando Gabeira told IPS that he would challenge the new measure before the Supreme Court as soon as it is signed into law.

He said the constitution does not accept the death penalty, which the new law would establish ”by unconstitutional means.” He also complained that the measure would allow ”the killing of crew and passengers who sometimes have nothing to do with criminal activity.”

Small planes are an essential means of transport in the Amazon jungle region, and many people ”hitch rides,” he noted.

Airlines are also worried about the law, because many of their aircraft only have precarious technical equipment and could be shot down simply because they are unable to identify themselves, said Gabeira.

The legislator said the new law was approved by a broad majority in Congress due to what he described as ”a mistaken vision” that could create ”a climate of war” in the Amazon jungle region, ”which would be in no one’s best interests.”

In his view, there are alternatives for combating illegal flights, such as shooting planes with bullets containing indelible ink ”to mark” and identify them.

But Volnei Garrafa, president of the Brazilian Bioethics Society, said the option of shooting down planes ”is drastic, but necessary.” He underlined that he was expressing a ”personal opinion,” not the view of the association he represents.

Brazil has to ”defend its borders,” which are frequently violated, especially in the Amazon jungle, he said, adding that it was a question of ”protecting society” with a measure that will ”benefit many people.”

Whether or not the new law would introduce the death penalty is a question for ”an interesting public debate,” said Garrafa.

Defence Minister José Viegas Filho said ”this is a law that we hope we never have to use.” He also stressed that a number of precautionary measures would be put in place, and that a plane could only be shot down after nine attempts at communication failed to receive a satisfactory response.

First of all, the authorities would verify whether an airplane lacked identification or provided false identification information, and whether it had entered Brazilian air space without giving prior notice and without an authorised flight plan. In addition, communication by radio would be established, and warning shots would be fired.

Despite the safeguards and the arguments in favour of the bill, the Lula administration and its predecessor, the government headed by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, delayed signing it into law for six years – a delay blamed on U.S. pressure, although Minister Viegas denies that there has been any such pressure.

The law must be in line with U.S. legal requirements, because otherwise Washington will suspend its anti-drug aid to Brazil, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last month.

In the past, Washington encouraged the shooting down of planes suspected of trafficking drugs, a practice that is authorised and carried out in Colombia, with U.S. aid.

It also used to be legal in Peru. But in 2001, the Peruvian air force mistakenly shot down a small plane in which a U.S. missionary and her infant daughter were travelling. In the wake of the scandal following those deaths, Peru suspended its shoot-down policy.

Brazil does not need U.S. intelligence assistance, as it has its own means of identifying clandestine aircraft, especially the System for the Vigilance of the Amazon (SIVAM), a network of radars, control towers, surveillance planes and computerised information and communications centres launched in 2002.

But much of the equipment used by SIVAM, whose data is also of great interest to neighbouring nations like Colombia and Peru, which share the Amazon jungle, came from a U.S. company, Raytheon, which won the contract in an international bidding process in the 1990s that was controversial because of supposed favouritism towards U.S. companies.

That situation feeds suspicions that Washington could set conditions for supplying new SIVAM equipment or the cooperation required by the system – one of the forms of pressure exercised with relation to the new shoot-down policy, according to Gabeira.