Burdened by domestic problems Brazil’s Rousseff will be absent from Unasur summit

Mercopress, 11/28/2012

Dilma faces a full agenda of controversial problems, Mercopress.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has cancelled her attendance to the Union of South American Nations, Unasur summit in Peru on Friday because of “agenda problems” and previous “domestic engagements”, according to the Planalto press secretary office. Vice-president Michel Temer will be attending in her name.

The cancellation motive, according to congressional sources is linked to the fact that on Friday the president must decide whether to veto or sanction a controversial bill on the sharing of oil and gas revenue which modifies the current arrangement to benefit all states but the oil producing areas strongly reject.

The official news agency said the agenda problems refer to the fact that on Wednesday President Rousseff was in Argentina for an industrial and trade forum and on Saturday must be present in Sao Paulo for the drawing lots of the coming Football Confederation Cup, which will be a test for the 2014 World Cup. Besides, the president is involved in the arrangements for the Mercosur summit to be hosted in Brasilia on December 6/7.

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Brazil and Colombia draw up bilateral plan to combat organized crime on border

Daniella Jinkings – Agencia Brasil, 01/18/2012

On Tuesday, January 17, the Colombian minister of Defense, Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno, was in Brasilia for talks with the Brazilian minister of Defense, Celso Amorim, on the creation of a joint border defense plan as part of greater cooperation between the two countries in the military area.

According to Amorim, a bilateral commission will be set up to implement the plan with a technical meeting scheduled for February or March.

“In the past we exchanged information. With this plan everything will be more transparent,” explained Amorim, adding that the consolidation of South America’s defense industry and combating transnational crime organizations were issues that Colombia and Brazil would discuss at a Union of South American Nations (“Unasul”) ministers of Justice and Defense meeting in May in Colombia.

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Latin American integration: Peaks and troughs

The Economist – from the print edition, 11/26/2011

Hugo Chavez. Credit: The Economist

IT WILL, says Hugo Chávez (pictured), be “the most important political event to have occurred in our America in 100 years or more.” Well hardly. But the inaugural get-together of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a 33-country outfit known as CELAC from its initials in Spanish, to be held in Caracas on December 2nd and 3rd, does reveal how Latin America is changing.

For a start the influence of the United States is declining in a region it once called its “backyard”. The new body includes all the countries of the Americas except the United States and Canada. Meanwhile, the Organisation of American States (OAS), which includes them, is in such disarray that it may not survive. Brazil, Venezuela and Republicans in the US Congress have all either withheld, or have threatened to cut, funding for the OAS, for differing reasons. The clout of Spain, once seen as a model by Latin America’s restored democracies, is also receding: only half the heads of state bothered to turn up last month at an Ibero-American summit, a Spanish-inspired annual event.

Yet, the proliferation of regional bodies does not necessarily mean that Latin America is any more united. The English-speaking Caribbean apart, it has three broad trade blocks. Brazil dominates Mercosur, a relatively protectionist trade group. Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, all on the Pacific coast, are more open economies trying to forge closer ties. And then there is Mr Chávez’s Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), an idea he launched ten years ago. Conceived as a political block, rather than a trade group, its aim was to free the region from the grip of the United States and “the tyranny of the dollar”. ALBA signed up Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador and three tiny Caribbean nations (Dominica, St Vincent and Antigua). But Honduras withdrew in 2010 after its president was ousted in a coup.

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Brazil, Peru Foreign Ministers sign agreements on crime, jobs

Dow Jones/WSJ, 11/01/2011

The foreign ministers of Peru and Brazil signed Monday a series of agreements intended to promote cooperation between the neighboring countries in the areas of new job creation, fighting drug trafficking, digital television, social development and health.

Peru is a “strategic ally” of Brazil and both countries are committed to increasing and improving regional cooperation, Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota told reporters.

In addition to signing agreements, Patriota and Peru’s foreign minister, Rafael Roncagliolo, discussed several subjects of bilateral interest, including cooperating on social programs, fighting drug smuggling and other forms of cross-border crimes, and strengthening the Organization of South American Nations, or UNASUR in its Spanish abbreviation.

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Meeting in Buenos Aires to “recondition Argentine missiles” with Brazilian technology

Mercosur, 09/06/2011

Celso Amorim is scheduled to meet with his counterpart Arturo Puricelli

Brazil’s Minister of Defence Celso Amorim is in Buenos Aires for several scheduled meetings this week with his Argentine counterpart Arturo Puricelli and to establish closer ties in defence issues in the framework of Unasur (Union of South American nations).

This is Amorim’s first visit to Argentina as Defence minister and according to the official release from the Brazilian Ministry of Defence they will be discussing Argentina’s intention of “reconditioning Argentine missiles in Brazil” with Brazilian technology.

This is the second time both ministers will be meeting: the first was ten days ago in Sao Paulo where during a defence seminar Puricelli proposed the creation of a South American Space Agency following on the European experience and acting advantage of the Unasur working structure.

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Argentina, with Brazilian support proposes a South American Space agency

Mercopress, 09/01/2011

Defence minister Puricelli addressing the Sao Paulo defence seminar

Argentina proposed this week in Brazil the creation of a South American Space Agency, an initiative which was supported by host Brazil during a Defence seminar in Sao Paulo.

“It would be vital for our region to have a South American Space Agency, which can be achieved by adding all our technological know-how and forces”, said Argentine Defence minister Arturo Puricelli.

The initiative was welcomed by his Brazilian peer and former Foreign Affairs minister Celso Amorim, who nevertheless pointed out that all space research in Brazil, depends from the Ministry of Science and Technology.

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WikiLeaks: U.S. and Brazil vie for power in Peru

Nikolas Kozloff – Huffington Post, 08/15/2011

In their correspondence with the State Department, U.S. diplomats in South America have been exceptionally paranoid about the activities of Hugo Chávez and the possibility of a leftist regional alignment centered upon Venezuela. That, at least, is the unmistakable impression that one is left with by reading U.S. cables recently disclosed by whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks, and it’s a topic about which I have written widely in recent months. Yet, with President Hugo Chávez’s health now fading fast and Venezuela looking like a rather spent force politically, it would seem natural that Washington will eventually turn its sights upon other rising powers — countries like Brazil, for instance.

Judging from WikiLeaks cables, the U.S. doesn’t have much to fear from this South American juggernaut in an ideological sense, and indeed leftist diplomats within Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs are regarded as outmoded and anachronistic relics of the past. Nevertheless, Brazil is a rising player in the region and U.S. diplomats are keenly aware of this fact. For the time being, Brazil and the United States maintain a cordial, if not exactly stellar diplomatic relationship. As Venezuela fades and Washington struggles to maintain its crumbling hegemony in the wider region, however, Brazil and the U.S. will inevitably develop rivalries.

This geopolitical competition has fallen somewhat under the radar, but a close reading of WikiLeaks cables lays bare Washington’s secret agenda. As far back as 2005 American ambassador to Lima Curtis Struble wrote that the U.S. was enmeshed in an “undeclared contest” with Brazil for political influence in Peru. “We are winning on most issues that count,” Struble added, remarking that negotiations over a U.S.-Peru free trade deal had remained positive. However, the ambassador noted ominously, “the government of Brazil is still very much in the game” and had met with some success in pushing for the so-called South American Community of Nations or UNASUR which would diminish U.S. influence.

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South America financial stability fund gets backing from Brazil, Argentina

Alexander Ragir, Eliana Raszewski – Bloomberg, 08/12/2011

Finance ministers from across South America are discussing the creation of a fund to provide the region a “safety net” and ward off the effects of the global financial crisis, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said.

Officials from the Unasur political bloc are meeting in Buenos Aires today to discuss creating a new stability fund or strengthening an existing mechanism, known as the Fondo Latinoamericano de Reservas, Mantega said. The $4 billion FLAR pools foreign currency reserves from five Andean nations plus Costa Rica and Uruguay to help member nations that run into balance of payment problems.

“Brazil and Argentina are ready to add to FLAR,” Mantega said at a dinner with Argentine Economy Minister Amado Boudou last night. “This could complement the International Monetary Fund. Since it’s already there we can strengthen it and think about creating something more comprehensive.”

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Brazil Defence minister wants the South Atlantic as a peace zone shared with Africa

Mercopress, 08/09/2011

Brazil’s new Defence minister Celso Amorim said he plans closer links with Unasur (Union of South American Nations) and Africa to ensure the South Atlantic turns into a peace zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

“We want to revalue the Unasur South American Defence Council and increase cooperation with the rest of countries of the region. We also want closer links with African countries and turn the South Atlantic into a zone of peace and free of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear arms”, said Amorim on taking the oath as Defence minister.

“The South Atlantic and its resources is a zone we share with African countries, and we want to make sure it remains an area of peace to the benefit of our peoples”.

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Uruguay‘s ratification gives Unasur legal status (nine out of twelve)

MercoPress, 12/02/2010

Uruguay became this week the ninth country to ratify the Unasur (Union of South American Nations) foundation charter thus giving full legal effectiveness to the twelve-nation group.

On Tuesday the Uruguayan Senate with the votes from the ruling coalition and part of the opposition sealed ample political support (20 to 6) as was requested by President Jose Mujica.

Last week the government could have mustered just enough votes to have the Unasur founding charter and constitution passed but gave time to the opposition hoping for a broader support, as happened.

Nevertheless there was a strong debate with those opposing the initiative arguing that Unasur is a Brazilian diplomacy “hegemonic” instrument which not only could end “competing” with the Organization of American States but would seriously undercut Mexican influence in other regional blocks in Central America and the Caribbean.

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