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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BRASILIA 000504 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR WHA, WHA/BSC, AND S/CT 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/18/2018 
TAGS: PTER PGOV PREL KCRM ETTC EFIN ASEC AR BR
SUBJECT: COUNTERTERRORISM IN BRAZIL: ONE STEP FORWARD, ONE 
BACK (PART 2 OF 2) 
 
REF: A. BRASILIA 000440 
     ¶B. BRASILIA 000579 
     ¶C. SAO PAULO 000991 
     ¶D. SAO PAULO 000532 
 
Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Phil Chicola.  Reasons 1.4 B and 
 D 
 
¶1. (C) Summary:  In November of last year the Government of 
Brazil announced that it was backtracking on its effort to 
introduce counterterrorism (CT) legislation after a 
years-long effort by a working group within the Presidency's 
Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI) to coordinate the 
drafting of the initiative within the government.  Although 
they now seek to downplay the importance of having such 
legislation, prior to the reversal GOB officials claimed that 
new anti-terrorism legislation was necessary to improve its 
legal regime--which currently does not treat terrorist 
activities,  terrorism financing, or support of terrorism as 
crimes.  Some news reports have suggested that President 
Lula's powerful chief of staff quashed the proposed 
legislation, which had been attacked by some social activists 
and advocacy groups who feared it could be used against them 
and compared it to military era repression.  The media and 
political silence that greeted the government's reversal has 
exposed a vacuum on matters pertaining to terrorism among the 
elites whose support would be required to overcome GOB 
resistance.  As a result, our efforts to put this legislation 
back on Brazil's agenda will be an uphill climb. End Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) This cable is the second of two that looks at the 
Brazilian government's latest actions to counter terrorist 
activities.  The first touched on Brazil's reform of its 
intelligence and counterterrorism structure. 
 
-------------------------------------- 
No Crime Without a Law to Define It 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (U) In 2004, the GOB formed a working group within GSI, 
the Presidency's office in charge of coordinating 
intelligence, counternarcotics and national security, charged 
with examining Brazilian laws related to terrorism, as well 
as the way the government was structured to deal with the 
challenges posed by international terrorists (ref A).  Prior 
to this effort, Brazilian government officials and outside 
observers had concluded that Brazilian laws dealing with 
terrorism were ambiguous and needed updating to account for 
modern realities (refs B and C).  Under Brazilian law, 
terrorist acts, their financing, and activities supporting 
terrorist acts are not considered crimes.  Both the Brazilian 
constitution and the National Security Act (Public Law 7.170 
of 1983), which defines crimes against national security, 
criminalize acts of terrorism in general.  However, because 
the National Security Act harkens back to the military 
regime, Embassy contacts have indicated that it is highly 
unlikely the government would ever use it to charge someone 
with a crime related to a terrorist activity (Ref B).  In 
addition, because terrorism under that law is proscribed 
without being typified, even in the unlikely case someone 
attempted to test the prevailing wisdom on the applicability 
of a military-era national security law to charge someone 
with the crime of attempting to commit an act of terrorism, 
they probably would be unable to do so.  The Act specifically 
proscribes criminal acts that could be considered acts of 
terrorism, such as sabotage and bombings, but only as 
distinct crimes from terrorism.  Because of this, terrorist 
activities consisting of defined crimes under the law could 
not be charged explicitly as terrorism. 
 
------------------------------ 
Domestic Politics to Blame 
------------------------------ 
 
¶4. (U) As soon as news reports started surfacing in early 
2007 that GSI was about to wrap up its work, the government 
started coming under fire from opponents of the bill.  The 
 
BRASILIA 00000504  002 OF 004 
 
 
influential Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (OAB, the Brazilian 
bar association) criticized the government for pushing 
legislation that was, according to OAB's president Cezar 
Britto, in reality a thinly veiled move to criminalize the 
actions of social movements and those fighting for equality. 
Forced on the defensive, several high-ranking GSI officials 
publicly suggested that any anti-terrorism legislation would 
be rarely used and that judges would have discretion in 
applying it.  Then in late November 2007, the government 
unceremoniously announced that it would not introduce the 
legislation to Congress. 
 
¶5. (C) In a meeting with Poloff, Assistant Secretary Jose 
Antonio de Macedo Soares of the Secretariat 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 
explained that it was impossible to reach consensus within 
the government on how to define terrorism.  Asked to confirm 
a news item in the daily newspaper Correio Braziliense noting 
that Minister Dilma Rousseff (chief of staff to President 
Lula in the Casa Civil) had quashed the proposal, Alvarenga 
equivocated, suggested that several "clients" had weighed in, 
including the Ministry of Justice.  In the end, he did not 
deny the news report, stating that the decision had been a 
"political" one. 
 
¶6. (SBU) A Brazilian War College analyst on strategic 
intelligence and author of numerous articles on 
counterterrorism topics, Andre Luis Soloszyn, went farther, 
asserting to poloff that the Correio story sounded very 
credible to him, and that the GSI working group was a 
smokescreen for the government to demonstrate to the US and 
the international community that it was taking the issue of 
counterterrorism seriously.  Soloszyn noted that there was 
little chance that this particular government, stacked with 
leftist militants who had been the object of military 
dictatorship-era laws designed to repress 
politically-motivated violence, was going to put forth a bill 
that would criminalize the actions of groups it sympathizes 
with, such as the Landless Movement (MST), for "there is no a 
way to write an anti-terrorism legislation that excludes the 
actions of the MST". 
 
----------------------------------------- 
An Idea Whose Time Has Come(and Gone 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Asked if there was a possibility the legislation could 
come back some time in the future, both Soares and Alvarenga 
were pessimistic.  Commenting on the enormously complex 
nature of the issue, Alvarenga noted that discussions of 
terrorism within Brazilian society remain at an immature 
stage, with few experts on the topic and very few people 
interested.  Soares added that people within and outside the 
government find the possibility of a terrorist attack taking 
place on Brazilian soil so improbable that they are incapable 
of giving the issue much attention. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Soloszyn echoed these comments, indicating that he 
is one of the few individuals to focus on the issue of 
terrorism outside the government.  Within the government, the 
story is not much different, he added, and virtually no one 
in Congress was focused on the issue.  Most legislators and 
general public are so in the grip of the "it can't happen 
here" mentality that they lack any idea of terrorist tactics, 
the concept of support networks, the threat of homegrown 
terrorism, and exploitation of soft targets.  According to 
Soloszyn, the issue of potential pockets of Islamic extremism 
among segments of Brazil's large Muslim community is likewise 
an unstudied subject among specialists, and unthinkable as a 
proposition among the public at large.  The Brazilian mind 
even among the highest echelons of the government, he added, 
can't get past its own cliches about the multicultural 
paradise that is Brazil. 
 
¶9. (SBU) According to him, the only factor that could change 
 
BRASILIA 00000504  003 OF 004 
 
 
this indifference is another wave of violence like that 
unleashed by the First Capital Command (PCC) in Sao Paulo in 
2006 (ref D).  Terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremists is 
too remote for Brazilians to worry about.  The only way they 
are going to move on this, he added, is when it affects them 
on a daily basis.  (Comment: In the immediate aftermath of 
the PCC's violence in 2006, President Lula called their 
actions terrorism, and made noises about finally getting some 
anti-terrorism legislation on the books.  End comment.) 
 
--------------------------------- 
"We have to Stop this Farce" 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) In his conversation with poloff, Soares dismissed the 
importance of the government's reversal, arguing that the 
success of any potential terrorist attack against the Israeli 
Embassy in Brasilia is not going to be determined by whether 
there is a law on the books outlawing terrorism.   Brazil, 
according to him, has excellent working relationships with 
other countries, he noted, including with the US and Israel. 
Soares added that he hoped to continue cooperating with the 
US, despite what he described as the "farcical" elements 
within the bilateral CT dialogue:  Soares did not miss the 
opportunity to repeat the oft-heard complaint by GOB 
officials about comments on the part of USG officials 
suggesting the Triborder Area (TBA) remains a top concern 
with regard to potential terrorist activity, which then 
prompt the obligatory Brazilian demands for evidence of such 
activity.  He called the exercise pointless, since, in his 
words, "we all know that your officials based their 
statements on information we provide the US".  Soares also 
criticized Argentine officials for their comments linking the 
TBA to the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, calling their 
accusations "silly" and "baseless". 
 
------------- 
Comment: 
------------- 
 
¶11. (C) After various Brazilian government officials had 
warned of the flawed nature of the Brazilian legal system, it 
is unfortunate, though not surprising, to hear GSI officials 
now argue that there is no need for the GOB to improve 
Brazil's legal regime to make it illegal to commit, finance, 
plan, or support terrorist acts.  Although we cannot confirm 
definitively that the Casa Civil quashed the initiative for 
political or ideological reasons, it is certainly plausible. 
Outside of some agencies focused on security issues, this 
government evinces very little interest in terrorism issues, 
much less on legislation its base has no interest in seeing 
enacted and that would require significant political capital 
to push through Congress.  Likewise, with little knowledge or 
enthusiasm within Congress, there is no one to take up the 
mantle there either.  As a result, the initiative has become 
an orphan of Brazil's current political realities.  For the 
moment, any effort to suppress terrorism, its financing, or 
activities supporting terrorist activities will have to 
continue for the foreseeable future to follow the "Al Capone" 
approach of taking down terrorists based on customs 
violations, tax fraud, and other crimes that unfortunately 
also carry less jail time.  While this approach can work, it 
is not a substitute for giving police and judges the 
additional legal tools that the international community has 
agreed are necessary in the fight against terrorism and nor 
is it a substitute for institutionalizing counterterrorism 
within the Brazilian legal system.  Taking Brazil's reform of 
its CT structure (ref A) together with its backtracking CT 
legislation once again shows a mixed picture of Brazil's 
overall CT effort at the policy level.  Furthermore, the low 
standing CT holds as an issue among Brazil's elite casts some 
doubt as to whether the potentially useful reform of ABIN 
will actually materialize.  Over the next months, Mission 
will consult with Washington agencies as we review our 
strategy for increasing Brazilian attention to 
counter-terrorism. 
 
 
BRASILIA 00000504  004 OF 004 
 
 
¶12. (C) Comment, cont: On a separate note, we found Soares' 
admission that Brazil provides the bulk of the intelligence 
on matters related to CT to be highly atypical, although it 
sheds some light on a question that has long-puzzled the 
Mission. That is, whether policy-level officials, 
particularly at Itamaraty, where they tend to be most 
disinclined to accept the suggestion that there may be 
terrorist elements active in their territory, receive the 
same information from Brazil's intelligence elements as the 
U.S. receives.  Although we cannot answer definitively, 
Soares comments would suggest that to be the case and that, 
despite their denials, they recognize the potential problems 
Brazil faces.  Another possibility is that they have access 
to the same information but, either because the information 
would be inadmissible in a Brazilian court or because it does 
not meet a presumed higher threshold of what constitutes 
terrorist-related activity, they technically do not consider 
it evidence of such activity.  This means they are either 
playing games or they are defining terrorism out of Brazil. 
Neither interpretation presents a flattering picture of the 
seriousness with which the senior levels of the Brazilian 
government treat the issue of terrorism, but both are 
consistent with what we have seen over the last several years 
from a government that considers CT a low priority.  End 
comment. 
SOBEL