BRAZIL
Military Exports from Canada (1990-1999)
Year
Military Value of
Equipment Military
Types Exports
1999
6, 10, 11 259,596
1998
3, 10, 14 3,363,152
1997
3, 10, 11 3,620,968
1996
3, 10 1,437,591
1995
10,11 1,035,794
1994
9,10 1,501,875
1993
10 2,006,643
1992
10 1,252,736
1991
1, 6, 10 991,694
1990
9, 10, 11 4,342,918
Total $19,812,967
Sources: Export of Military Goods from
Canada, Annual Reports 1990-1999.
Published by the Export Controls Division, Export and Import Controls Bureau,
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Government of Canada.
Web site: <http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/~eicb/>
-----------------------------------
Examples of Canadian Military Exports (1990s)
Pratt & Whitney Canada Inc.
• PT6A-68
engine for 2 advanced trainer/light attack aircraft (subcontract)
Value
unknown (1995)
Spar Aerospace Ltd
• Renewal
of contract(s) with Brazilian Navy
Value
unknown (1995)
Project Ploughshares’ Canadian Military
Industry Database
SR Telecom
• Equipment
for air force
Value
unknown (1998)
Ploughshares Monitor, June 1999
-----------------------------------
Canadian Government Promotes Military Exports
The Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade (DFAIT) gave this advice to Canadian military exporters:
"Although Brazil has attained a
considerable level of self-sufficiency in defence production, its market
potential remain significant. Imports are necessary to fill the gap. Canadian
companies have better chances in niche markets, not covered by local
manufacturers. Canadian companies
interested in participating in any military government tender for military
requirements must have by law a local representative. The prescription for
selling in Brazil includes the usual doses of patience and culture
understanding and, above all, a long-term commitment to the market....
characterized by frequent visits in order to gain first-hand knowledge and to
avoid potential pitfalls.
Firearms
and Ammunition: Many Brazilian manufacturers of firearms and ammunition wish to
restrict firearm imports. The three largest manufacturers (Rossi, Taurus and
CBC) form a strong cartel with the support of the Brazilian army and are the
major impediment to the growth of the import market. Although most of their
production is geared toward export sales rather than the domestic market, they
oppose any loosening on import restrictions. The cartel controls price and
market access even if local demand is greater than the local production."
Source: "Brazilian Defense Sector,"
Our Market Reports, Jan.2001. By the Cdn. Trade Commissioner Service, DFAIT.
<http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/geo/html_documents/br_defense-e.htm>
---
Military Trade Shows
* Latin
America Defentech, an international military exhibition in Rio (April 24-27,
2001), is now being promoted on at least three Canadian government websites:
the Canadian Consulate in Brazil, DFAIT and Industry Canada.
* Smart
Procurement in Latin America is an "aerospace/defence" conference
which was promoted on Industry Canada's website (Oct. 16-17, 2000, in Rio)
* The Canadian Embassy in
Colombia and the Canadian Trade Commissioners Service produced a document in
1998 advising Canadian exporters seeking markets in Colombia to exhibit at a
biennial air show in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Source: <http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/geo/html_documents/47238-e.pdf>
-----------------------------------
Human Rights Violations (1999)
Violations against detainees
About 170,000 prisoners were incarcerated in
more than 500 prisons and municipal jails and in thousands of police
stations. Authorities proposed a number
of measures at federal and, in some cases, state level, which, if implemented,
would improve the conditions of detention and the treatment of detainees.
Proposals included reducing the prison population by increasing the application
of non-custodial measures and revising the penal code.
Deaths, torture and impunity
Scores of deaths in custody were due to
violence by police and prison officers, denial of medical care or negligence by
authorities to prevent violence between detainees. These deaths were generally
not documented or investigated. Military and civil police reacted to prison
disturbances with excessive force and brutality. Prisoners were injured, tortured and killed as a result.
Civil
police officers routinely resorted to torture and ill-treatment to extract
confessions. Beatings and intimidation were used in prisons and police stations
to control long-term detainees held in very overcrowded conditions. Prisoners
who complained were often subjected to further abuse.
Many
pre-trial and convicted prisoners were held in extremely overcrowded,
unsanitary conditions. Conditions
constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Health care was poor or nonexistent.
Most
of those responsible for human rights violations continued to benefit from
impunity.
Death squads
Children continued to be killed by police and
“death squads” acting with the participation or collusion of police. They killed civilians in circumstances suggesting
extrajudicial executions.
Human rights defenders
Human rights defenders were threatened and
attacked, frequently paying a high price for testifying against police and
politicians. Their vulnerability underscored the importance of federal government
action to investigate serious human rights violations where state authorities
were unwilling or unable to do so promptly and impartially.
Land-related violence
Land conflicts generated increasing tension and violence in Paraná state. Land reform activists in a number of states were harassed, assaulted and murdered by gunmen hired by local landowners, with the apparent acquiescence of the police and authorities.
Source: Amnesty International Report 2000.
<http://www.amnesty-usa.org/ailib/>
-----------------------------------
Labour Rights Violations (1999)
There can only be one union per occupational
or economic category in each territory. This is strongly opposed by unions and
ignored in practice.
Compulsory
“union tax” is payable by every worker to the Ministry of Labour, which
redistributes the funds to national union federations according to their
membership.
The
government can cancel collective agreements inconsistent with its wage policy. Collective bargaining for public servants is
restricted.
Rural workers
An unprecedented number of clashes between
landowners and landless rural workers took place. The MST rural workers’
organisation stepped up its occupations of unproductive land to put pressure on
the government to speed up and broaden land reform.
Military police frequently use excessive
force to evict workers. Hired gunmen help state police to evict workers and are
rarely brought to justice.
In
May, two gunmen, shot and killed the president of the Farm Workers’ Union in
northern Brazil. He had received several death threats for supporting land
reform. A report by the Pastoral Land
Commission, a Catholic human rights group, said gunmen hired by landowners had
killed 41 farm workers in 1998, and 30 in 1997. The Commission said that 1,158 rural workers had been killed
between 1985 and 1998. Only 86 cases
reached court.
In
August, a mass trial began in the state of Para where 150 military policemen
faced charges of massacring 19 rural workers while dispersing a demonstration
in 1996. The three commanding officers who were the first to stand trial were
acquitted.
Protester killed
Riot police killed a public sector worker in
December, and injured 20 others. Some 500 workers demanding higher salaries had
blocked the entrance to a government-run company, Novacap, in Brasilia, and
refused to move. Riot police charged them and said they had fired rubber
bullets, stun grenades and tear gas, although live ammunition was found in the
dead worker’s body.
Source: Annual Survey of Violations of Trade
Union Rights (2000), International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
-----------------------------------
Child Labour Violations
* 2.9
million aged 10-14, and 8.8 million aged 15-19 are working. (ILO, Yearbook of
Labour Statistics, 1999)
* 19,940
slave labourers (1993) 25,193 (1994). (ILO-IPEC, Mainstreaming Gender in IPEC
Activities, 1999)
Where Children Work
* Conditions
approximate forced labour or debt bondage in mines and on plantations. (EI
Barometer, 1998)
* The
government says 60,000 work in unhealthy conditions. (U.S. Dept. of State,
Human Rights Report, 1999)
* One
million are domestic servants. (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Sweat and Toil of
Children, 1998)
* Many
work with parents or are illegally employed, aged 7-17, in sugar cane fields,
cutting hemp or making charcoal.
Frequent accidents and squalor are common.
* In
Sergipe state (1997), 10,000 aged 6-18 worked in the orange-growing region, 54%
aged 7-14. (U.S. Dept. of State, Human Rights Report, 1999)
* Tea
plantations, from age 7.
* A
1993 study said 1,300 of 7,000 working in the shoe industry were under 14.
(ABC-CLIO, Sandy Hobbs et al, Child Labor: A World History Companion, 1999)
Child Prostitution
* Girls
are auctioned for $4,000 at mines in Rondonia. (CATW Fact Book on Global Sexual
Exploitation)
* About
1 million children enter the multi-billion dollar sex market each year. (“Child
Prostitution,” ECPAT Bulletin, Vol. 4/1, 1996-97)
* Child
prostitution occurs in north Amazonia around the mines, in large urban centers
where girls leave home abused or sexually exploited and become prostitutes to
survive, in northeast coast cities where sex tourism is prevalent, and in ports
where cargo crews are a primary clientele. (U.S. Dept. of State, Human Rights
Report, 1999)
Source: <http://www.globalmarch.org/worstformsreport/world/brazil.html>
-----------------------------------
TAKE ACTION!
Council of Canadians
The exploitation of Latin America’s natural
resources by Canadian and U.S. corporations now taking place would dramatically
increase under a hemispheric pact. Transnational mining, energy, water,
engineering, forestry and fisheries corporations would have new access to the
precious resource base of every country and the investor-state right to
challenge any government that tried to limit their access to them. The ability
of governments to protect the ecology or set environmental standards regarding
the extraction of natural resources would be greatly reduced, as would the
right to ensure local jobs from activity of foreign corporations.
Joining
the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) under these circumstances would be
“tantamount to suicide,” says a coalition of unions in South America. In December 2000, the major unions of
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay held a summit. They called upon their governments to submit
the FTAA to national plebiscites, which they believe would result in its
defeat. The FTAA process is deepening the already growing poverty of the
region, they said, putting “limits on national institutions that should decide
the future of each country, while pushing aside mechanisms that allow society
to ensure a democratic administration of the state.”
The
world of international trade can no longer be the exclusive domain of sheltered
elites, trade bureaucrats and corporate power brokers. When they understand
what is at stake in this hemispheric negotiation, the peoples of the Americas
will mobilize to defeat it. That is the fate it deserves.
Source: “The FTAA and the Threat to Social
Programs, Environmental Sus-tainability and Social Justice in Canada and the
Americas,” by Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians (CC).
Contact: CC, 502-151 Slater Street, Ottawa
ON K1P 5H3. Tel.: (800) 387-7177;
Email: <mailto:inquiries@canadians.org>
Web: <http://www.canadians.org/>