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RR RUEHRG
DE RUEHBR #0440/01 0931912
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
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FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1328
INFO RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 6660
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 5386
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 4014
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ 6048
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 7277
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0214
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 7851
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 5960
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RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRASILIA 000440 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/18/2018 
TAGS: PTER PGOV PREL KCRM ETTC EFIN AR PA BR
SUBJECT: COUNTERTERRORISM IN BRAZIL: ONE STEP FORWARD, ONE 
BACK (PART 1 OF 2) 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Clifford M. Sobel. Reasons: 1.4 (B) & (D) 
 
¶1. (U) Summary: After a drawn-out process that began in 2004, 
President Lula on March 25, 2008 issued the decree that will 
reform the Government of Brazil's intelligence apparatus, 
including its counterterrorism (CT) structure.  The reform is 
intended to provide a more robust intelligence capability to 
the government by strengthening the Brazilian Intelligence 
Service (ABIN), shoring up its centralizing functions, and 
giving it a more prominent role in producing intelligence on 
CT-related matters.  According to Embassy contacts, this 
reform could represent a significant step for Brazil in 
establishing a capability to monitor, deter, and respond to 
terrorist activities, although significant questions remain 
as to whether such an integrated system will facilitate or 
impede the work of the law enforcement units within the GOB 
that already function with a high degree of efficiency.   End 
summary. 
 
¶2. (U) This cable is the first of two that will look at the 
Brazilian government's latest actions related to 
counterterrorism.  The second cable will touch on Brazil's 
reversal on plans to introduce long-delayed counterterrorism 
legislation. 
 
---------------------- 
Out with the Old... 
---------------------- 
 
¶3. (U) Issued on March 25, 2008, the President's decree 
re-structuring the intelligence system in Brazil was an 
effort that began several years ago and was spearheaded by 
the Institutional Security Cabinet (or GSI, the Office of the 
Presidency's office in charge of coordinating intelligence, 
counternarcotics and national security).  It represents the 
latest reform is a series of changes that have taken place 
within Brazil's intelligence apparatus since the end of the 
military dictatorship, reflecting the confused and ambivalent 
attitude of the new democratic governing class towards the 
usefulness of a repressive intelligence system that was no 
longer necessary to maintain the regime's grip on power. 
 
¶4. (U) The first such change occurred in 1990 with the 
dissolution of the precursor to ABIN, the National 
Information Service (SNI), five years after the return of 
civilian rule.   It was not until 1995 that ABIN was created 
by provisional measure, and ever since its creation it has 
lacked credibility, resources, and a clear focus.  Because of 
its confused mandate, the Brazilian intelligence system 
(SISBIN) was created by Public Law 9.883 of 1999 to bring 
coherence to Brazilian intelligence by serving as the 
overarching architecture of an integrated intelligence 
apparatus, which included ABIN, the Federal Police, the 
intelligence services of the branches of the armed forces, 
among other security elements.  The idea behind it was assign 
ABIN the lead responsibility of spearheading the task of 
coordinating information, and to increase coordination 
between the services through SISBIN.  In reality, the system 
existed in theory, and ABIN had little authority to execute 
the idea. 
 
-------------------- 
...In with the New 
-------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) President Lula's reform is centered on strengthening 
ABIN's capabilities and importance as a civilian intelligence 
agency, focusing its tasks on key missions, and increasing 
its role as a centralizer of intelligence.  Assistant 
Secretary Jose Antonio de Macedo Soares, of the Secretariat 
 
SIPDIS 
for Monitoring and Institutional Studies, at GSI (and 
Ministry of External Relations representative to GSI, where 
he holds the rank of minister) and GSI advisor, Janer Tesch 
Hosken Alvarenga, told poloff that the two most important 
changes are the creation of two new departments within ABIN, 
the Department of Integration of the Brazilian Intelligence 
System and the Department of Counterterrorism. 
 
¶6. (U) The creation of the Department of Integration beefs up 
ABIN's heretofore ambiguous role as an integrator of 
 
BRASILIA 00000440  002 OF 003 
 
 
government-wide information by creating an institutional 
mechanism to marry intelligence, security, law enforcement, 
financial, and other entities within the GOB.  The mechanism 
provides a physical area within ABIN's spaces for each of the 
24 government entities that, in theory, make up the 
components parts of the SISBIN.   Some of these include, the 
intelligence services of the armed forces, the intelligence 
service of the Brazilian Federal Police (DPF), the Ministry 
of Justice through its National Secretariat for Public 
Security (SENASP), the Financial Activities Oversight Council 
(COAF), the Central Bank, Receita Federal (Customs), the 
Highway Police, the Presidency's Casa Civil, and the Office 
for Combating Drugs and Trans-National Crimes (COCIT) at the 
Ministry of External Relations.  It also includes entities 
not traditionally oriented towards intelligence such as the 
Ministry of the Environment's enforcement agency (IBAMA), the 
National Institute for Social Security (INSS),  the National 
Institute of Colonization and Land Reform (INCRA), the 
airports authority (INFRAERO), Brazilian Agricultural 
Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the Ministry of Labor, the 
Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Science and Technology, 
the Ministry of the Environment, and the Ministry of National 
Integration by way of the National Secretariat for Civil 
Defense. 
 
¶7. (U) In an interview with daily newspaper Valor Economico, 
ABIN Director Paulo Lacerda indicated that the reformulated 
SISBIN will create space within ABIN facilities for up to 5 
representatives of each agency that participates. In the 
interview, Lacerda took pains to emphasize that ABIN will act 
as a facilitator, will not demand access to each agency's 
system, and that full integration will be limited since it 
will not include sharing of databases.   In the interview, 
Lacerda noted that such integration was essential to leverage 
information that is flowing through different government 
entities but that does not get properly transmitted up to the 
senior levels of the government because of excessive 
protection of information, often catching them unaware and 
unprepared to head off multiple public security, 
infrastructure, environmental, and social crises.  He cited 
examples such as land invasions, takeovers of critical 
infrastructure such as hydroelectric dams, problems at 
airports, terrorist activity, and the outbreaks of gang 
violence.  Focusing on the last one, Lacerda stated that 
prior to the outbreak of First Capital Command (PCC) violence 
in Sao Paulo in 2006, the DPF had prior knowledge through an 
intercepted communications from Recife to Sao Paulo, but that 
the information did not properly flow through the appropriate 
Federal and State channels in a timely fashion. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Echoing Lacerda's comments, Brazilian War College 
analyst on strategic intelligence Andre Luis Soloszyn, author 
of numerous articles on counterterrorism topics, told poloff 
that a major reason for this reform was the government's lack 
of a strategic warning capability that would anticipate 
crises, such as the PCC's violence in 2006 and the takeover 
of the Tucurui hydroelectric dam in the state of Para in May 
of 2007, which threatened a power cutoff to significant 
portions of Brazil's north, northeast and central-west 
regions. 
 
-------------------------- 
CT Now a Primary Mission 
-------------------------- 
 
¶9. (C) Significantly, ABIN's reorganization raises the CT 
mission up to the department level, placing it on equal 
footing with the Departments of Strategic Intelligence, 
Counterintelligence, and Integration of the Brazilian 
Intelligence System.  According to the President's decree, 
the new department's mission will be to plan and execute 
actions to prevent terrorist activity in Brazil, as well as 
collect and produce intelligence on such activities.  GSI 
Assistant Secretary Soares stressed to poloff the 
significance of this development as a signal--despite 
whatever statements are made publicly by Brazilian officials 
about the lack of terrorist activity within Brazil or the 
failure to introduce CT legislation (septel)--of the GOB's 
commitment to monitoring and preventing terrorist threats. 
Alvarenga, who demonstrated an unexpectedly keen 
 
BRASILIA 00000440  003 OF 003 
 
 
understanding of the always evolving terrorist threat, told 
poloff that he hoped the new structure would be better 
equipped to deal with what he called "alternative scenarios" 
to the "classic and most publicized terrorist target sets," 
referring to the rise of independent and homegrown cells that 
could conduct attacks with little outside assistance or to 
the gravitation of the larger and more well-known terrorist 
groups towards softer targets, such as Brazil. 
 
------------------- 
But Risks Remain 
------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Despite the lifting of the CT mission within ABIN, 
Soloszyn warned that the reforms, though necessary, were 
fraught with risks.  According to him, ABIN has no 
credibility within the government where other agencies see it 
as a lightweight with regards to its intelligence and CT 
functions in comparison to the effective work of the military 
intelligence services and the DPF.   He cautioned that there 
was a great risk in strengthening ABIN's hand in coordinating 
functions within the government.  ABIN and SISBIN could 
"suffocate" the other agencies by miring them in bureaucratic 
minutiae, thus eroding what are currently effective 
operations. Increased integration could also leave the 
intelligence missions subject to ideological or political 
compromises, since there could be an increase in access and 
exposure of intelligence information to a larger number of 
politicized entities in the government.  He noted that some 
entities within the government are either reluctant to work 
with or incapable of understanding intelligence and CT work, 
which could paralyze operations. 
 
--------- 
Comment: 
--------- 
 
¶11. (C) Brazil has taken a step forward in recognizing the 
importance of having a strategic intelligence capability and 
in recognizing the significance of the counterterrorism 
mission as one of the most significant challenges Brazil 
faces.  On the other hand, the success of this reform is far 
from assured and the scope of its ambitions may yet meet with 
resistance from other government agencies.  A significant 
unanswered question is whether the project runs the risk of 
impeding the timeliness of CT-related intelligence operations 
by drawing currently effective USG partners, such as the DPF, 
into bureaucratic quagmires, or by decreasing their 
independence of action. In addition, the model they have 
chosen to pursue--sharing building space, but keeping 
separate offices and maintaining information control in the 
hands of its component parts--may prove in the end to enhance 
coordination only marginally.  Much will depend on the 
ability and willingness of the various agency heads to work 
together.  If there is a high-level commitment to cooperation 
and to protect the effort from political interference, it 
could better prepare Brazil to head off crises, coordinate 
its incident response, and draw increasing attention to the 
issue of counterterrorism.   End comment. 
 
SOBEL 
SOBEL