Brazil's Lula pledges solidarity with Colombia war

www.alertnet.org 07 Mar 2003 23:40 By Axel Bugge

BRASILIA, Brazil, March 7 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose government includes former left-wing guerrillas, promised his Colombian counterpart on Friday "total solidarity in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking."

Lula's strong backing for Bogota's armed conflict with Marxist rebels could end a disagreement over his government's reluctance to brand the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- known by the Spanish initials FARC -- as "terrorist."

During a trip on Friday to Brasilia by Colombia's right-leaning President Alvaro Uribe, Lula, Brazil's first elected president from a left-wing party, told him he could "leave Brazil knowing that we are partners in ending violence in Colombia and Brazil."

"Brazil is committed to helping Colombia and we have total solidarity against the fight on terrorism and drug trafficking," Lula said in reference to Colombia's 40-year war which claims thousands of lives each year.

The unusually strong endorsement by a Brazilian government for Bogota marked yet another departure for Lula's Workers' Party from its radical past. The Workers' Party was created in 1980 from the labor movement and many of its members fought as guerrillas against Brazil's military rulers of 1964-1985.

The party had links with the FARC in the past.

After a recent bomb attack by the FARC in Bogota which killed 35 people, Uribe's government launched a diplomatic offensive for the region's governments to brand the FARC as terrorist. The Brazilian government only described the attack as terrorist, but not the FARC organization itself.

BRAZIL DRUG GANGS DEAL WITH FARC

Brasilia's pledge to help Colombia has practical reasons too. Brazil is one of the region's biggest markets for Colombia's drugs and Brazilian authorities have found increasing evidence of gangs dealing directly with the FARC.

Last year Brazilian authorities cracked a gang which police said was trading guns for cocaine with the FARC and Brazil's best-known drug runner was arrested in Colombia in 2001. The FARC denies smuggling drugs but admits to "taxing" coca -- the raw material used to make cocaine.

"This is a problem that Colombia suffers from today and we have to stop it because it has a dangerous capacity of expanding to our neighbors," Uribe said. "That is why we find the firmness of President Lula and his government in beating terrorism of the utmost importance."

Much of the drugs flowing into Brazil from Colombia come through the deep jungles of their 1,000-mile (1,600-km) Amazon border. If it doesn't end up sold on the streets of Brazil's cities, helping to feed spiraling violence, the drugs are shipped on to U.S. and European markets.

Uribe warned that drug crops in Colombia were "destroying the Colombian Amazon, but in some years it could destroy all of the Brazilian Amazon."

Uribe said Lula had offered Colombia access to information from the massive SIVAM radar surveillance system, which monitors the Amazon, to help control smuggling.