Program description | Budget | Other sites

Program description:

Grant U.S. assistance is increasing as Brazil’s Federal Police step up efforts to stop narcotics from transiting the country, particularly through the Amazon region and major ports. As the police coordinated anti-trafficking efforts with neighboring countries in 1998, notes a State Department document, “U.S. counternarcotics assistance played a valuable role, … augmenting limited Brazilian resources and experience with equipment, support with personnel-associated costs, and information sharing and analysis.”²

The State Department’s International Narcotics Control (INC) program works to improve the Federal Police’s intelligence and investigative abilities while providing equipment to improve the “police counternarcotics infrastructure.”³ Needs are especially acute, the State Department’s International Narcotics Control Congressional Presentation reports, for “investigative equipment such as tape recorders, video camcorders and digital still cameras.”⁴ Further INC support seeks to assist Brazilian efforts to monitor shipments at major ports for possible narcotrafficking activity.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) cooperates closely with Federal Police in several counternarcotics efforts, particularly training and information-sharing. In 1998 DEA agents were invited to observe Federal Police anti-drug operations in the Amazon region, and taught a month-long course in Washington to a Federal Police special intelligence counternarcotics unit. DEA also plans assistance for an anti-drug task force at the Sao Paulo international airport.⁵

DEA agents taught some modules of a specialized jungle operations training course at a Federal Police jungle survival school outside of the Amazon town of Manaus. Students at the school, which opened its doors in October 1998, included police officials from Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, and participants from Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela are expected in the future.⁶

The State Department’s March 1999 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) notes several 1998 counter-drug efforts involving other U.S. agencies: a week-long Coast Guard and Customs Service port inspection training program   in Santos; two training programs on arms-trafficking control offered by the Treasury Department’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) bureau; and the “United Counter-drug” multilateral exercise and conference sponsored by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami and Key West.⁷

While counternarcotics training is frequent, the United States does not coordinate interdiction efforts with Brazil as closely as it does with Bolivia, Colombia or Peru. “Should Brazil feel it would be inclined to invite the United States to share information on the flow of narcotics throughout the hemisphere,” remarked U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen in May 1998, “we are happy to do so. But there has been no plan and no intention to have such an arrangement that I am aware of.”⁸

Budget:

(Thousands of U.S. dollars)

Other sites:

• Narcotics Affairs Section, U.S. Embassy / Brazil.

Sources

¹ United States, Department of Defense, “Joint Press Briefing Enroute to Brazil with Secretary Cohen and Gen. Wilhelm,” May 26, 1998 <http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May1998/t05281998_t526enrt.html>.

² United States, Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 19 <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/fy2000_budget/latin_america.html>.

³ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 20.

⁴ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation 20.

⁵ U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998, (Washington: Department of State: February 1999): <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/major/Brazil.html>.

⁶ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁷ Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998.

⁸ United States, Department of Defense, “Secretary Cohen's Press Conference at the American Embassy, Brazil,” May 27, 1998 <http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May1998/t05281998_t527bras.html>.

⁹ Department of State, Fiscal Year 1998 Budget Congressional Presentation 25.

¹⁰ Department of State, Fiscal Year 1999 Budget Congressional Presentation 28.

¹¹ United States, Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 22.

¹² United States, Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2001 Budget Congressional Presentation (Washington: Department of State: March 2000): 29