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P 051907Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8589
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RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RUEANHA/FAA NATIONAL HQ WASHINGTON DC
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RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 6179
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 6838
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RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BRASILIA 000600 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EB/TRA: JHORWITZ, JREIFMAN, KGUSTAFSON 
STATE FOR CA/OCS 
TSA FOR VREEDER, SHASMAN 
 
SIPDIS 
FAA FOR CTFRANCESCHI, CCAPESTANY, MASHBY 
DEPT OF TRANSPORTATION FOR BHEDBERG 
BUENOS AIRES PASS TSA/JOCHOA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAIR PGOV OTRA ECON BR
SUBJECT: BRAZIL: AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS STRIKE, MAY BE PROSECUTED 
 
REF: A. 07 BRASILIA 485 
 
 ¶B. 06 BRASILIA 2680 
 ¶C. 06 BRASILIA 2521 
 ¶D. 06 BRASILIA 2315 
 
Sensitive but Unclassified, please protect accordingly. 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  On March 30, between 120 and 200 air traffic 
controllers (ATCers) initiated the strike that they had been 
obliquely threatening for months, marking another tense chapter in 
Brazil's civil aviation history.  Due to the military's control of 
the ATC system, this action was considered to be mutiny:  Air Force 
sergeants defied their commanding officers and effectively halted 
travel in much of the country on Friday, March 30, causing 
widespread flight cancellations and delays of more than 28 hours in 
some cases.  The action reportedly was the largest military 
rebellion in Brazil since 1963/64.  The controllers' demands include 
the transfer of the ATC function to civilian authorities, which 
would allow for better pay and working conditions.  The Commander of 
the Air Force, General Juniti Saito, threatened to arrest the 
striking controllers.  He was initially reined in by President Luiz 
Inacio Lula da Silva, who learned about the strike while traveling 
to the U.S. for his Camp David meeting with President Bush.  Lula 
instructed the Minister of Planning, Paulo Bernardo, to negotiate 
with the controllers.  The resulting deal called for giving the 
controllers the option of leaving the military and working for a new 
ATC agency under the Ministry of Defense, which eventually would be 
moved under civilian control. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Upon his return to Brazil, Lula met with Saito, Minister of 
Defense Waldir Pires, and others on the crisis.  Saito and Pires 
apparently convinced Lula that not punishing the strikers for 
clear-cut insubordination would be a threat to military discipline. 
The legality and practicality of the deal with the controllers was 
also questioned, as President Lula did not have the constitutional 
authority to countermand the administration of military justice. 
Lula ultimately backtracked and repudiated the deal; the strike 
leaders are now being threatened with arrest and exemplary 
punishment in military courts.  Meanwhile, in airports over the 
March 31-April 1 weekend, chaos was in full bloom.  News cameras 
captured distraught would-be passengers engaging in sporadic acts of 
violence, including occasional fistfights and hurling objects at 
frightened airline workers cowering behind counters.  Events 
continue to unfold quickly, but with the crisis quickly becoming a 
political football for Lula, discussion of the fundamental problems 
in the ATC system is becoming overshadowed by the political drama. 
So far, embattled Defense Minister Pires, the man responsible for 
resolving the ATC mess, is maintaining his tenuous grip on his 
position and appears to have Lula's support.   End Summary. 
 
¶3. (U) Flights across much of Brazil ground to a halt on Friday, 
March 30, after a group of striking controllers, based primarily at 
the Air Force's Integrated Center for Air Defense and Air Traffic 
Control-1 (CINDACTA-1) in Brasilia, halted all take-offs in the most 
congested airspace in Brazil-- the Brasilia-Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo 
corridor.  President Lula, informed of the strike en route to Camp 
David, initially overruled Saito's intent to arrest the strikers and 
order the remaining controllers back to work.  Lula instead 
instructed Minister Bernardo to negotiate a deal with the strikers. 
Initial reports indicated that a provisional measure (MP -- a 
presidential decree with immediate force of law, but subject to 
Congressional ratification) would be signed April 3 to immediately 
transfer 1500 of 2400 military controllers to a new entity, the 
 
BRASILIA 00000600  002 OF 004 
 
 
"General Control of Aerial Circulation," which would initially be 
linked to the Ministry of Defense, but not report to the Air Force. 
This was seen as an interim measure on the way to civilian oversight 
of the ATC function.  Air Force Commander Saito stated soon after 
the strike ended on March 31 that within 45 days, all remaining 
ATCers would no longer be under Air Force command.  "There is no 
longer an environment for them to work there," Saito said. 
 
¶4. (U) However, Lula reportedly backtracked and disavowed the deal 
after spending nearly all day April 2 closeted with the commanders 
of the Army, Navy and Air Force.  Lula emerged from the meeting and 
said that he viewed the striking ATCers as traitors, chastised them 
for waiting until he traveled to the United States to begin their 
strike, and called their paralyzing of the country's air traffic 
"irresponsible."  He said he does not recognize the agreement that 
was concluded with the controllers in the middle of the chaos on 
March 31.  At that time, Lula said, Minister Paulo Bernardo was 
given the mission to take control of the air traffic situation and 
get it functioning again.  Lula argued that the agreement with the 
mutineers was not a true negotiation, since it took place under 
duress; getting air traffic moving again was a question of national 
security, and there was no reserve of ATCers to take the mutineers' 
places. 
 
¶5. (SBU) On April 4, military prosecutors opened an inquiry, 
expected to take 40 days, to investigate the controllers' actions. 
If ultimately convicted of military crimes in a trial, the 
controllers who participated in the strike could receive prison 
terms of four to eight years, with the leaders subject to up to 
one-third longer terms.  Several DAO contacts, while condemning the 
mutiny, also questioned Lula's usurping of Saito's authority. 
Lula's backtracking from the deal with the strikers probably averted 
a crisis between the administration and the military.  According to 
the DAO, the military is now claiming that there was simply a 
misunderstanding when the crisis first began on Friday; that Lula 
thought Saito wanted to immediately imprison 80 controllers. 
Instead, the Air Force sought to take into custody 18 ringleaders 
scattered amongst the four CINDACTAs in the country (Brasilia, 
Curitiba, Recife, and Manaus) who had been identified pursuant to a 
year-long, internal inquiry, and punish them through the military 
justice system.  These ringleaders were seen as contaminating the 
rest of the ATC force.  It is also worth noting that the source 
claims that 80--not 120 to 200--military ATCers were involved in the 
strike on Friday, contrary to the figures reported by the press. 
 
The ATCers' Demands 
------------------- 
 
¶6. (U) The reported 120 to 200 controllers who participated in the 
strike nationwide began their efforts at 6:45 PM on March 30, when 
ATCers at CINDACTA-I in Brasilia stopped all takeoffs and began a 
hunger strike, and now face the threat of prosecution and 
imprisonment.  Their manifesto outlined the following complaints: 
chiefly, that their military commanders have obliged them to handle 
more flights than international norms (set by ICAO) recommend; that 
their pay does not match that of the (smaller number of) civilian 
air traffic controllers; and that they are working with outdated 
equipment.  "We have reached the limits of the human condition. . . 
we do not trust our equipment, nor our commanders," said the 
document.  In order to address these complaints, they demanded that 
the ATC function be removed from the Air Force and placed under 
civilian authority. 
 
 
BRASILIA 00000600  003 OF 004 
 
 
The Air Force's Warning Shot 
---------------------------- 
 
¶7. (U) Saito fired back at the controllers of CINDACTA-4, in a March 
31 letter.  He told them they had "infringed on discipline and the 
hierarchy of the military," and for that, they needed to leave the 
Air Force.  The ATCers subsequently received a questionnaire, which 
included a question about whether they wished to remain part of the 
Air Force.  According to reports, dozens opted to abandon military 
life.  Wellington Rodrigues, president of the Brazilian Association 
of Air Traffic Controllers (ABCTA), put the number as high as 90% of 
the 2,200 military ATCers, while the military claims it would be 
more along the lines of 80%.  This was before the most recent 
reports that the Supreme Court had condemned the strike and the 
Military Prosecutors had determined that the Air Force would open a 
Military Tribunal to investigate and prosecute the conduct of the 
striking controllers. 
 
The Tug of War over Resources 
----------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) Any demilitarization of Brazil's ATC system faces significant 
difficulties.  The ATC radars, communications systems and computers 
belong to the Air Force, which reportedly would not consider having 
a new civilian ATC organization take over the equipment as the same 
radars and navigation systems also are used for air defense.  New 
facilities would also need to be constructed, as the military 
sharing space with civilian controllers is also seen as inadvisable, 
particularly if the civilian corps is created from former military 
controllers. 
 
The Status Quo? 
--------------- 
 
¶9. (U) Despite the frequent twists and turns of this crisis over the 
last weekend, flights are once again limping along.  By April 1, a 
relatively modest 18 flights were canceled, representing only 1.6 
percent of flights in the country.  20.4 percent of all flights were 
more than an hour delayed, but that figure is typical of the 
unfortunate pattern of the past several months.  Representatives of 
the controllers have stated publicly that they will not disrupt 
traffic over the Easter weekend, but may strike again given Lula's 
repudiation of the deal. 
 
¶10. (U) Defense Minister Pires, the person responsible for fixing 
the mess, is still clinging to his position by a thread.  Lula was 
quoted in a press conference Wednesday, in response to a question 
from reporters regarding Pires' tenure:  "He will continue in the 
job.  [The] Minister. . . I wanted to put him there, if one day I 
need to take him out, I will do it.  For now, this is not the 
question." 
 
¶11. (SBU) Comment:  The GoB is in a quandary.  One of the principal 
problems in the ATC system is an insufficient number of controllers 
to deal with the number of flights, as air traffic has grown 19 
percent per year over the last three years.  As the military takes 
three years to train a new controller, they can ill afford to lose 
any of its scarce air traffic controllers to prison terms.  This may 
be the reason the GoB is now mulling prosecution only of the 18 
perceived ringleaders.  However, given the problem of resources 
(outdated ATC equipment and facilities), simply transferring 
authority over the ATC function to the civilian side seems unlikely 
to improve the situation in the near term.  It will eventually 
 
BRASILIA 00000600  004 OF 004 
 
 
become a civilian function, agree DAO sources, but it will not 
happen in one month, or probably even six months.  The media has 
speculated the complete transition could take as long as seven or 
eight years.  Regardless, the issue is becoming a hot political 
topic, with Lula's congressional allies hard pressed to block the 
formation of a congressional inquiry into the ATC crisis.  It looks 
likely that the politics will continue to overshadow discussion of 
the fundamental problems of resources and management and that the 
ongoing agony that Brazilian air travelers have suffered during the 
past few months will continue.  End Comment. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Mission Brazil has worked with the FAA to schedule an 
April 13 conference call with GoB military and civil aviation 
authorities to discuss and exchange information on technical ATC 
issues.  Embassy is also working to set up follow-on sidebar 
meetings between the FAA representatives and these GoB counterparts 
while they attend the Latin American Civil Aviation Commission's 
GEPETJA (political and economic subgroup) meeting from April 23-24 
in Rio de Janeiro.  It is hoped that these bilateral discussions 
will lead to some form of USG assistance to help Brazil begin to 
arrest the developing air traffic control crisis. 
 
¶13. (SBU) A political analysis of the air traffic crisis will follow 
septel. 
 
CHICOLA