MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian Justice Minister outlines Amazon Security Plan

“What happens in the Brazilian Amazon is of national and global interest,” Dino said

Brazil's Justice Minister Flávio Dino Tuesday announced that the government's Amazon Security Plan foresees 34 river and land bases and will involve the presence of different police forces, Agencia Brasil reported.

Dino said that the new security plan for the Amazon intends to create 34 new river and land bases with a constant presence of federal and state police forces. The idea is to use resources from the Amazon Fund to fund the construction of checkpoints.

“We are proposing 34 new bases, river or land, depending on the reality of each state. At each base, we will have the Federal Police, Federal Highway Police, National Force, and state police working. And, when appropriate, the Armed Forces, especially in the border area,” Dino explained in a broadcast show. The plan's guidelines were drawn up with the participation of the governments of all the Amazon states.

Last week, Dino met in Brasilia with ambassadors and other representatives from 23 European Union countries to present the program, called the Amazon Plan: Security and Sovereignty, as well as actions taken by the Federal Police in the first half of the year, especially those in cooperation with the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol).

“What happens in the Brazilian Amazon is of national and global interest,” Dino said. The expansion of the presence of security forces in the Amazon biome will also improve public safety in the rest of the country, since the region has been used as a platform for organized crime in crimes such as international drug trafficking, illegal mining, illegal logging, predatory fishing, among others, he added.

Points of the security plan, which had already been announced by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva himself, include the expansion and modernization of the naval resources that patrol the rivers of the Amazon, the modernization of the network of captaincies, police stations, and agencies of the maritime authority, support for border platoons, increased operations in the Amazon, acquisition and modernization of aerospace systems and logistical equipment for the Armed Forces.

The plan also provides for the equipping and modernization of means and infrastructure of public security agencies operating in the Legal Amazon, the implementation of the Manaus-based International Police Cooperation Center for the protection of the Amazon, and integrated command and control centers, with an emphasis on integrated intelligence.

Meanwhile, Indigenous Peoples Minister Sônia Guajajara said Tuesday that there were still illegal miners in Yanomami Lands and blamed them for the recent death of a girl. Guajajara insisted these trespassers should be expelled by the end of the year.

According to her, more than 80% of them have been removed from Yanomami territory since the beginning of the current government (Jan. 1, 2023). But the challenge is to expel those who resist more violently, which she hopes will be done by the end of this year.

“We managed to remove 82% of the miners. There is a much more violent and dangerous situation because there are those people who resist leaving the territory, hide, and are causing conflicts. This final phase is much more difficult,” she said.

“According to information from the leaders themselves, it is people linked to drug trafficking and organized crime who want to stay there. And, really, they are there provoking conflicts between indigenous people and indigenous people, to pretend that they are internal problems, but, in fact, it is still a consequence of mining,” she added.

The body of the seven-year-old child was found by Roraima firefighters last Friday, after three days of searching in the Parima River region. The body was handed over to the family to perform the indigenous rituals. On July 3, five indigenous people were injured and the child was murdered, after conflicts with firearms inside the Yanomami land.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)