The shadows of South America are under new scrutiny from the media and the government. Could al-Qaeda be operating from a secret base in Brazil? Timothy Pratt investigates

  IT is a notion that has gripped the US media: Middle Eastern extremist groups, including al-Qaeda, are reported to be creating a new terror base in the jungles of South America.

And despite a US State Department spokesman telling the Sunday Herald that 'the US has no information that al-Qaeda is present anywhere in Latin America', he admitted that investigating terrorism was 'a major component' of a recent visit by a department official to the so-called triple-frontier region where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet.

Deputy director for counter- terrorism Brigadier General Jonathan Cofer met with officials from the three countries on December 18, and the State Department offered the governments $1 million to strengthen their intelligence-gathering and abilities. 'Future visits are absolutely planned,' added the source.

Terrorism experts agree that the area has all the ingredients of a global hotspot. 'The concept of having international terrorist groups in Latin America is consistent with the region,' says Timothy C Brown, chair of international studies for the Sierra Nevada College in Nevada and a former US diplomat in several Latin American countries during three decades. Brown says he has heard reports in the region of groups including Hizbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Hamas, as well as Spain's ETA, 'since at least the 1960s and 1970s'.

Brown, who acted as a liaison between presidents Reagan and Carter and the anti-communist Contras of Nicaragua, has written extensively on guerrilla movements in Latin America. He recalls an incident in Managua, Nicaragua, during the early 1990s in which a bomb exploded at what he described as a safe house for terrorist groups. He says that, in the investigation that followed, documents linked to the PLO, ETA and the IRA were found.

The region currently under American scrutiny has long been a centre for Arabic expatriates: up to 15,000 are understood to live there . Myles Frechette, a 35-year American foreign service veteran who enjoyed a stint as consul in S‹o Paulo, Brazil, recalls being in the state of Parana when Iranian Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989. 'I was in a small town in Brazil, and I remember being surprised to find three mosques full of Muslim Arabs mourning the death of Khomeini,' he says.

The area is also widely known for its leaky borders. 'This is of great concern, because we know there have been people from a variety of Middle Eastern countries coming through for a long time,' says Frechette. 'Most of the Middle Eastern people in the area are peaceful and industrious, but terrorists may be hiding among them.'

Douglas Unger, the author of several books on the region and of a forthcoming article on the guerrilla movements that combated Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner across the three borders from the 1960s to the 1980s, echoes the former consul's description of the area. 'The region is full of pirates and smugglers, and is sort of a catch-all for immigrants, many of whom are shady,' he claims.

Unger, a Pulitzer Prize-nominee whose last novel, Voices From Silence, was based on the thousands who disappeared under Argentina's dictatorships in the 1970s, also says the region would be an easy place to hide terrorist training facilities. Such camps are rumoured to exist north of Brazil's Igua?u Falls .

'It's possible to be a fringe group here and not be noticed,' he says. 'If you go back to the ongoing history of guerrilla activities, it's always been going on -- so why would it be a surprise that a group of Arabs is training when you have 50 years of this kind of thing?'

It has been suggested that left-leaning governments in Venezuela and Brazil will help create a safer haven for anti-US groups such as al-Qaeda -- but neither diplomat agrees.

Brown believes Latin governments have too much to lose by not at least giving the appearance of cracking down on terrorism: 'There may be sympathies among the left for anti-American ideals, but they understand which side their bread is buttered on.'

Frechette adds: 'President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has been accused of sympathies to the FARC [a Colombian guerrilla army] and he's done some foolish things, but I don't think he has sympathies for Middle Eastern groups. Brazilian President-elect Lula is left of centre, but he is also nationalist and interested in helping Brazilians, and is trying to confront the problem of violence tied to drugs in his country. I have no reason to believe he is in the least bit sympathetic to Arabic terrorists.

'And in today's post-September 11 atmosphere, if there was anything serious going on there, the US would be johnny-on-the-spot.'

But the challenge, of course, will be finding out about something serious before it happens. As State Department official Francis Taylor said in a speech to leaders from Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina only three months after the September 11 attacks of 2001: 'We are worried ... not by the things we see, but by the things we do not see.'

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BLOOMBERG Sunday, Jan 05, 2003,Page 11

On the up and up

• Crude oil for February delivery gained 3.9 percent to US$33.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange

• The near-month oil futures contract climbed 57 percent last year.

• Prices rose 1.1 percent this week, their seventh straight weekly gain.Crude oil prices may rise from a two-year high because violent protests in Venezuela may delay the resumption of normal supply from the fifth-biggest oil exporter.

President Hugo Chavez, who is considering declaring a state of emergency to end a national strike, may fail to make good on a pledge to restore full production in six weeks, analysts said.

Venezuelan soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets yesterday to disperse demonstrators near an army base. Two people were killed in protests in the capital, AFP reported.

"Until now, it's been surprisingly peaceful. An emergency may bring the armed forces into control," said Simon Games-Thomas, an independent energy consultant in Sydney. "It will be a while before oil production in the country returns to normal.

We'll be seeing the impact on the US crude inventories for at least several weeks."

Crude oil for February delivery gained 3.9 percent to US$33.08 a barrel yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its highest closing price since Nov. 30, 2000. Reports this week showed US supplies were 10 percent lower than a year ago as the strike, aimed at ousting Chavez, limited Venezuela's output.

"We finally got the data that proves we have a supply problem," Bill O'Grady, director of fundamental futures research at AG Edwards & Sons Inc in St. Louis said yesterday. "The fields in Venezuela are missing needed maintenance. When the strike is over they are going to have a mess on their hands and it will take a long time for production to recover."

The near-month oil futures contract climbed 57 percent last year. Prices rose 1.1 percent this week, their seventh straight weekly gain.

Chavez earlier asked Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to provide technicians and engineers from Brazil's state- controlled oil company to help run Venezuela's oil installations.

Chavez made similar appeals to Mexico and Ecuador.

Brazil's largest oil workers union would oppose sending its engineers to help Chavez break the strike, a union leader said.

It's too dangerous to send Brazilian workers to Venezuela during a potentially violent strike, said Antonio Carrara, national coordinator for the Brazilian Petroleum Workers Federation.

"As part of the international union movement, we don't make it our policy to intervene against unions that are on strike," said Carrara.

Tens of thousands of Chavez opponents marched through Caracas to demand the release of National Guard General Carlos Alfonzo Martinez. The opposition planned to mass hundreds of thousands of protesters in front of the Fuerte Tiuna army base where the dissident general is being held.

Two people died in hospital from gunshot wounds after fighting between pro- and anti-government protesters, Agence France-Presse said, citing Pedro Aristimuno, Caracas head of health services.

A total of six people were injured by bullets during the fighting, AFP said. Police said seven officers had been injured.

Venezuela's output is now 172,000 barrels a day, Horacio Medina, president of the union of management workers, Unapetrol, said. Chavez has said the output by state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA was 800,000 barrels.

potentially violent strike, said Antonio Carrara, national coordinator for the Brazilian Petroleum Workers Federation.

"As part of the international union movement, we don't make it our policy to intervene against unions that are on strike," said Carrara.

Tens of thousands of Chavez opponents marched through Caracas to demand the release of National Guard General Carlos Alfonzo Martinez. The opposition planned to mass hundreds of thousands of protesters in front of the Fuerte Tiuna army base where the dissident general is being held.

Two people died in hospital from gunshot wounds after fighting between pro-government and anti-government protesters, AFP said, citing Pedro Aristimuno, Caracas head of health services. A total of six people were injured by bullets during the fighting, AFP said. Police said seven officers had been injured.

Venezuela's output is now 172,000 barrels a day, Horacio Medina, president of the union of management workers, Unapetrol, said. Chavez has said the output by state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA was 800,000 barrels.

PetroLogistics Ltd, an industry consultant, said output in Venezuela fell to an average of 1 million barrels a day in December, down from 2.85 million barrels a day in November. The strike began Dec. 1.

Venezuela was the fourth-biggest oil supplier to the US in October, according to the Energy Department. Saudi Arabia, Canada and Mexico were the three leading sources of US imports during the month. The four countries are usually the top suppliers to the US, their position switching monthly.

Oil prices have been bolstered by tensions between the US and Iraq.

OPEC ministers have said theey may raise output later this month to counter rising prices. OPEC has an informal mechanism to boost output by 500,000 barrels a day after the price for its oil holds above US$28 a barrel for 20 trading days.

The OPEC benchmark was at US$30.05 on Thursday, its 12th day above the target.

Venezuela was OPEC's third-biggest producer before the strike.

01/05/2003

WELCOME, GILBERTO GIL, Brazil's new minister of culture. You've won enthusiastic acclaim as a pop singer-guitarist whose urbane music leaves one's hearing intact. (Your Grammy-winning album Quanta plays as I type.) You are far less appreciated in your current gig as a cabinet member under the new Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Most of the criticisms against you are, to me, fine qualifications for the job. If you ever get tired of fighting entrenched political and cultural interests in Brazil, please come to the United States and take over the National Endowment for the Arts.

Now why are members of Brazil's establishment sitting on their hands as you samba by? The political extremes don't like you because you have promoted sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. The right disapproves of the sex and drugs, and the left scorns the rock 'n' roll (too American).

Members of the left-leaning Workers' Party don't like you because you're not one of them. You belong to Brazil's small Green Party. In the past, you've endorsed candidates running against your new boss. Party loyalists can't figure out why da Silva named you as culture minister.

You irritated a number of people by complaining that you cannot live on the $2,500-a-month salary given Brazilian cabinet members. You vow to continue performing with your band on weekends to augment the family's income.

Your fellow countrymen don't say this out loud, but some undoubtedly disapprove of you for being black and from Bahia. A northeastern Brazilian province, Bahia is the land of the long siesta and not known for 24/7 ambition.

There are even those who don't like your dress. You are seen wearing all white, the emblem of peace in the Afro-Brazilian religion. You keep your hair in dreadlocks and avoid ties. To ease such concerns, you wore a dark suit to da Silva's inauguration.

You say, "I am a tolerant person and not easily offended." Thank goodness for that.

Finally, you have expressed dangerously original ideas on what a ministry of culture ought to do. You almost seem to think Brazil doesn't need one. "We have to free ourselves a bit from the idea that the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture is to produce culture," you said. In your view, a culture ministry should have two simple missions: 1) Create the conditions in which culture can be made. 2) Help bring the people who make culture and audiences together.

Gilberto Gil, you're so right. Why on earth would Brazil need a government bureaucracy to push its culture? It's music and dance conquered the world long ago. Brazil's great cultural offerings sprang from the soil and the soul -- not committees reading grant proposals in Brasilia office buildings. If I have it right, then, you'd want to enhance the overall environment for the arts, rather than pick and choose among art works deserving taxpayer subsidies.

President da Silva deserves applause for appointing a politically hard-to-herd artist who probably didn't even vote for him. And not every leftist would promote a minister of culture who thrives in the commercial world and takes inspiration from American pop music -- regarded on much of the planet as a weapon of U.S. imperialism.

How the ideologues or the grant applicants will take to you, Gilberto Gil, I don't know. All I know is that you would make a great chairman of our own National Endowment for the Arts.

Congressional conservatives took an ax to the NEA budget after the endowment stupidly subsidized such controversial works as Andres Serrano's photo of a crucifix soaking in urine. The biggest complaints nowadays come from liberals who say that the endowment only supports "art that is safe."

American culture, high and low, dominates the globe, so it's sometimes hard to understand why we even need an NEA. The United States produces mountains of art, music, drama and movies. There's always a public for things people want to see and hear. And if an artist can't find an appreciative audience to pay the rent, well, that's what day jobs are for.

Gilberto Gil, you could have a great future shrinking ministries of culture. Meanwhile, good luck in your new position. You'll do fine work building Brazil's wealth of creative expression, especially on weekends, when you're away from the ministry, playing with your band.

Froma Harrop is a Journal editorial writer and syndicated columnist. She may be reached by e-mail at: fharrop@projo.com.

By Gwynne Dyer SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL Sun, January 5, 2003

The past year has been dominated by a U.S. obsession with Iraq which, remarkably, seized the Bush administration only three months after the terrorist attacks on the United States in September, 2001. In my year-end survey 12 months ago, just after the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, I simply wrote that Middle Eastern Muslims were waiting to learn "which of their countries the United States would hit next: Iraq, Somalia or Sudan." Washington was clearly looking for a fresh target, but nobody had a clue which way it was going to jump.

Whatever the original motives for the choice of Iraq, the project now has an almost unstoppable momentum within the introverted world of Washington politics, and the Bush administration almost certainly will attack Iraq, probably in the next few months. But the weird thing about 2002 is that the international news has been virtually monopolized by a non-event. There has been no fighting in the Middle East apart from the familiar cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and no regimes have toppled. Indeed, nothing tangible has yet changed in the region, apart from a gradual increase in the usual pace of U.S. and British bombing in Iraq's "no-fly zones."

Almost unnoticed amidst all the media hype about coming events, there was dramatic progress in closing down the real wars that have been ravaging whole regions and killing huge numbers of people. First came the 27-year-old Angolan civil war, which suddenly ended in April after the rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi, was caught in an ambush and killed. Next, in July, there was a breakthrough in peace negotiations in Africa's oldest war, between the Arabized Muslim northerners and southern, mostly Christian, Africans of Sudan. There is not yet a definitive cease-fire in Sudan, but a war that has killed 2 million people over 33 years finally seems to be subsiding. Then, still in July, a peace agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) ended what has been called "Africa's First World War.. Most of the six foreign armies have already gone home, and the fighting that caused more than 2 million Congolese deaths in four years has subsided to sporadic outbreaks of banditry.

The miracles then moved east, to the two longest-running wars in Asia. In September, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam dropped their demand for a separate state for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, opening the way for negotiations to end the 19-year war that has devastated the island nation. In December, Indonesia signed a peace deal with the separatist rebels of Aceh in northern Sumatra, ending a 26-year war by granting the provincial governments of the region a 70 percent share in Aceh's oil and gas revenues. Also in December, the Tutsi-dominated government of Burundi signed a power-sharing agreement with the largest of the Hutu opposition groups, which gives the Central African country its best chance for peace since 1963.

There was bad news, too: A new civil war broke out in once-stable Ivory Coast in September, and the Maoist insurgency in Nepal, gaining strength by the month, threatens to produce a new Year Zero in that impoverished and misgoverned country. But from 15 wars only five years ago, Africa is now down to only three or four (depending on whether Sudan is really over), and Asia is down to just three (in Nepal, Kashmir and the southern Philippines). Even allowing for one civil war in the Arab world (Algeria) and one in Latin America (Colombia), the world is a more peaceful place this month than it has been at any time since September 1939.

More peaceful, but far from out of the woods. The most terrifying confrontation of the past year was the summer stand-off between India and Pakistan, two newly fledged nuclear powers that have fought each other three times already. If they were to do so again, using their new weapons, the death toll would exceed the total losses in all the other wars of the past 10 years in a matter of days. New Delhi and Islamabad have stepped back from the crisis for the moment, but huge armies still face each other across the border.

There has been one great change in the world this year, however, not in the Middle East at all, but in Latin America. An unsuccessful U.S.-backed attempt in April to overthrow the continent's one existing left-wing leader, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, was notable for the speed with which the poorest section of the population came to his defense, despite his failure to improve their economic plight. That was followed by the imposition of a state of emergency in Paraguay and widespread looting and bank closures in Uruguay in July, and an electoral upset in Bolivia in August that gave over a third of the seats to candidates of Indian descent and brought Evo Morales, the leader of the Movement Towards Socialism, to within a hair's breadth of the presidency.

Then in quick succession came the victory of Workers' Party leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the October presidential elections in Brazil; populist Lucio Gutierrez's capture of the presidency in Ecuador's November elections, less than two year after he was jailed for leading an attempted leftist coup; and a renewed confrontation between Hugo Chavez and Venezuela's right-wing white elite that halted oil exports from one of America's largest suppliers in December. Almost half of Latin America's people now live under left-wing governments. While the Bush administration has been focusing obsessively on the Middle East, it has lost control of its own back yard.

The United States remains the great conundrum of the planet. Americans have been so traumatized by a single terrorist attack on their own soil that they have handed the country over to an administration with a radical right-wing agenda for domestic change and foreign expansion, though fewer than a quarter of them voted for it. The question is whether the American people can recover their balance without having to go through some painful and expensive, though ultimately instructive, experiences in the Middle East. The answer, at the moment, appears to be no, so a great deal of the rest of the world's business is being put on hold.

By Kenneth Rapoza, Globe Correspondent, 1/5/2003

IO DE JANEIRO - Maria do Carmo Brito says she owes her life to leftist militants who kidnapped the German ambassador here in June 1970. They would only release him in exchange for her freedom.

Brito, then a 25-year-old leader of an antigovernment militia, had been caught smuggling a gun to a prisoner and was thrown in jail with 43 others labeled terrorists during the most brutal years of Brazil's 21-year dictatorship. She said she was tortured daily for two months.

''If the ambassador wasn't kidnapped in exchange for our freedom, I would have been killed,'' she said recently. ''These aren't good memories.''

Deported after her release, she returned to Brazil only after the government provided amnesty to former political prisoners in 1979.

Former militants like Brito are having their say in a new series of five best-selling books by newspaper columnist Elio Gaspari. His collection, titled ''Armed Illusions,'' is among a number of recent books that chronicle the dictatorship era.

Gaspari details how the US military was poised to support the coup plotters who toppled leftist president Joao Goulart on March 31, 1964, as well as President Nixon's subsequent financial support of the military regime.

The books are creating a stir, as former guerrillas begin serving in the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in Wednesday. Many are pictured handcuffed in the pages of Gaspari's books.

Jose Genoino, president of da Silva's Workers Party, was arrested in the jungles of northern Para State. Jose Dirceu, da Silva's chief of staff, fled to Cuba and returned to Brazil undercover under the name Carlos Henrique, even going so far as to undergo plastic surgery to disguise himself.

Gaspari's first book in the series, ''A Dictatorship Disgraced,'' describes the days before the coup up until the creation in 1968 of the controversial National Security Council to spy on and eliminate political subversives. Gilberto Gil, a popular musician and newly appointed minister of culture, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil's former president, were among those exiled under the law in 1969.

The second, ''The Dictatorship Laid Bare,'' focuses on torture and political repression. More than 1,000 cases of torture were reported in both 1969 and 1970. Young leftist guerrillas began training in Para in reaction to the military crackdown, often engaging in armed conflict with government forces.

Gaspari cites US documents showing top-level US support for the regime and a desire to back those working to overthrow Goulart. But Lincoln Gordon, US ambassador to Brazil from 1961-1966, denies in his own book about Brazil that there was any US assistance in the coup.

Nonetheless, Gordon admits that the United States would have helped the military, if necessary. In ''Brazil's Second Chance,'' recently translated into Portuguese here, Gordon published a copy of a telegram he sent to Washington five days before Goulart was overthrown.

In the message, Gordon recommended that the United States support Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, a general and coup leader who took power after Goulart, by preparing ''undercover weapons not of North American origin for those who support Castello Branco in Sao Paulo.'' He also called for unmarked US Navy vessels to be on standby in case of armed political and civilian resistance to the coup.

''We became concerned about the possibility of a civil war and made contingency preparations,'' Gordon, a former Harvard University professor said recently in an e-mail from his office at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., where he is a guest scholar. ''No civil war occurred, and the contingency preparations were not used.''

The American publisher of Gordon's book, the Brookings Institution Press, did not include the telegram in the US version. Gordon says Brookings intends to publish the telegram in a second edition of his book this year.

Gordon, a staunchly anticommunist Democrat, said the United States feared that Goulart's advisers would press him to seek closer relations with Moscow or overthrow him. Leftist leaders in the government threatened civil war if the military deposed Goulart, but the warning proved unfounded. Goulart simply stepped down and was exiled to Uruguay.

''It was an easy coup,'' said Kenneth Maxwell, a historian of Brazil and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''But if the US had to intervene, they would have supported the military.

Leo de Almeida Neves, a political insider in the Goulart years, said Goulart worried about his country descending into chaos. ''The coup went smoothly because he wanted to avoid bloodshed and civil war,'' said Neves, author of ''Living Historical Facts,'' an account of the dictatorship years. He said Goulart had military support ready to help him.

''Goulart was informed of the coup the day before it happened by his ex-finance minister,'' Neves said. ''He was a fervent nationalist, but he had nothing to do with communism.''

Military aggression grew under President Emilio Medici, a general who ruled from 1969 to 1974. US diplomats in Brazil became deeply divided over the regime. Some worried that the United States had turned a blind eye to torture. Others were focused on the Cold War and interested in preserving US financial interests in the region.

In 1970, Medici became the first Latin American dictator to meet with President Nixon. His fear of communism led Nixon to develop military relations with Brazil and to financially support Medici.

That same year, the United States trained 562 Brazilian military personnel. Washington sold Brazil $20 million in weapons in 1971, despite US congressional hearings on human rights abuses, Gaspari writes, citing US documents.

Gaspari's next book, to be released later this year, will focus on how the coup plotters ironically helped to dismantle the dictatorship, starting in the late 1970s.

The dictatorship book trend will continue in 2003, with Maria do Carmo Brito's life story to be published in February.

This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 1/5/2003.