BRAZIL: Under Pressure to Take Action in Colombia, East Timor

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 9 1999 (IPS) - A visit by the chief of the U.S. army Southern Command, General Charles Wilhelm, has stepped up pressure on the Brazilian government to get involved in the conflict in Colombia.

The government has also come under pressure from within to take a more determined stance with respect to the crisis in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor.

Wilhelm met Thursday in Brasilia with Defence Minister Elcio Alvares to discuss the role Brazil should play with respect to Colombia’s guerrillas, which are mainly supplied with Brazilian foodstuffs, according to U.S. authorities.

In the face of Brazil’s emphatic refusal to get involved in initiatives affecting Colombian sovereignty, the United States is pressing it to at least tighten security along the border with Colombia to block the flow of goods to the insurgents.

Wilhelm is also preparing a November visit to Brasilia by U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen.

The U.S. offensive to convert the armed conflict and drug trade in Colombia into a regional Latin American – and especially Brazilian – issue began two weeks ago, with a tour of several countries in the region by the head of the White House office on National Drug Control Policy, Barry McCaffrey.

Although Washington’s “drug czar” gave his assurances that a military intervention in Colombia formed no part of his government’s plans, he stressed that drug trafficking activities in Southern Cone countries like Argentina and Brazil were growing as part of a search for new routes to the markets of the industrialised North.

Pressure on Brazil to take a more active role in the Colombian crisis has also come from neighbouring Venezuela, which is more directly affected by the effects of the violence in Colombia.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who brought up the issue at a meeting last Saturday with his Brazilian counterpart Fernando Henrique Cardoso in Manaos, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, said he was willing to meet with the guerrillas to help get the peace talks between Colombia’s government and rebel groups back on track.

The Brazilian government, however, is opposed to any initiative entailing meddling in internal affairs, in line with a longstanding rule of Brazilian diplomacy – respect for legitimately constituted governments – and has turned a deaf ear to Washington’s warning that Colombia is jeopardising regional security in South America.

With respect to the crisis in East Timor, the Cardoso administration was accused of failing to act by former Brazilian ambassador to Portugal, José Aparecido de Oliveira.

A decisive diplomatic effort by Brazil could have helped prevent the slaughter of East Timorese by pro-Indonesia militias occurring since local residents voted overwhelmingly for independence in an Aug 30 self-determination ballot, said De Oliveira, a leading advocate of the Community of Portuguese- Speaking Nations.

Based on the fact that both Brazil and East Timor are former Portuguese colonies, De Oliveira and others have called for the Brazilian government to follow Portugal’s lead in launching a diplomatic offensive and demanding immediate action by the United Nations.

In response to the criticism, Cardoso issued a communique Wednesday expressing “concern over the worsening situation in East Timor,” and reporting that he had sent a message urging Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie to clamp down on the violence.

“Efforts to frustrate, by force, the determined aspiration of the people of East Timor for independence cannot be accepted,” said Cardoso.

He added that Brazil was preparing to take actions to guarantee the safety of the local population of East Timor – which was occupied by Indonesia in 1975 – and enforce respect for the results of the referendum.

Neither Cardoso nor a statement by the foreign ministry mentioned whether Brazil would take part in a UN peacekeeping force, if the international community decided to send troops into East Timor.

Brazilian military personnel have participated in peacekeeping missions in Angola, another former Portuguese colony in the grip of a bloody civil war since it achieved independence in 1975.

Brazilian diplomats say any future action by the Cardoso administration will depend on the UN Security Council’s decisions, and whether the Indonesian government agrees to an international peacekeeping force.

Although De Oliveira said that position was correct, he maintained that the government should have brought more pressure to bear on the United Nations, while strengthening the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Nations, in order to prevent the crisis in East Timor – which he said was all too predictable.