Read here Brazil's Merchants of Death
With weapons appearing in Yemen and transferring
to repressive regimes, Brazil's arms policies are outdated and out of step with
it's peaceful aims.
Brazilian-made weapons – whether firearms,
ammunition or cluster munitions – are turning up with alarming frequency in
some of the world’s most fragile countries. This is not so surprising; Brazil
has ranked among the top global producers of small arms and ammunition for two
decades. Between 2005 and 2015, for example, the Latin American giant exported all
manner of weaponry to more than 100 countries, according to United Nations
customs data.
What makes Brazil’s
“arms seller” credentials awkward is the country’s simultaneous claim to be a
global peace broker. To be fair, the country has a hard-earned reputation for
preventing conflict and building peace close to home and overseas, having
participated in nearly fifty UN-led peacekeeping missions. Yet there is
misalignment between the government’s stated foreign policy and its aggressive
attempts to expand arms sales. To fix this, Brazil needs to increase
transparency in arms licensing and transfers, improve enforcement of end-use
compliance, and ratify the Arms Trade Treaty, or ATT.
The arms industry is
big business in Brazil. If all defense products are considered — aircraft,
ammunition, small arms, light weapons, cluster munitions, and more — the sector amounts to
roughly $60 billion annually, of which about $350 million involves exports of
small arms and ammunition. While many industrial sectors have faced shortfalls
and cuts during Brazil’s ongoing economic recession, the defense industry has
been ring-fenced as a budget priority. Total military spending by Brazil’s
Ministry of Defense jumped to $27.4 billion in 2016, a 36-percent increase on
the previous year.
The export and use of
these weapons generate disproportionate costs, not least a severe human toll in
armed conflicts and violent crime around the globe.
Take the case of
Brazilian-made armaments that have repeatedly turned up in Yemen’s two-year-old
civil war. Over the past 18 months, the Saudi-led coalition has used cluster
munitions manufactured by Avibras Indústria Aeroespacial at least three times.
One attack reportedly killed two civilians in December 2016, while rockets
launched in October 2015 and February 2017 injured non-combatants, including
children. More than 100 countries ban the manufacture, stockpiling, and sale of
these types of weapons because of their indiscriminate impact on civilian lives
and infrastructure. Brazil is not one of them.
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