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.

biz.thestar.com.my

Two major Singapore engineering companies say they will bid for Brazilian oil platform contracts worth up to US$1bil despite new rules in the South American country that require high levels of domestic involvement. 

Both Keppel Corporation Ltd and SembCorp Marine Ltd have stakes in Brazilian firms, helping them to meet the new local content rules for oil rig contracts in the country. 

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had made the construction of the two oil platforms a campaign issue before his sweeping election win in October, saying the contracts would create jobs for the local industry. 

SembCorp Marine said it was in talks to boost its stake in a Brazilian shipyard, Maua Jurong, following the new ruling. It bought its current 35% stake in 2001 for about US$8.75mil. 

Keppel, for its part, owns 60% of Brazilian yard FELS Setal. – Reuters

www.upi.com From the International Desk Published 3/7/2003 6:01 PM

BRASILIA, Brazil, March 7 (UPI) -- Colombia's president defended his nation's crackdown on leftist rebel groups during a diplomatic visit to Brazil Friday, saying there was no other alternative to ending the nation's nearly four-decade-old civil war.

Alvaro Uribe was also searching to bolster his support base among Brazilian leaders for his war against the groups.

The Colombian leader said there was no other choice for dealing with rebel groups than by force, alleging that the time for negotiation has long since past.

"There is no defect in our road to defeating them," said Uribe, adding that the rebels -- which he referred to as "terrorists" -- have an insatiable appetite for destruction and no regard for human rights or the law.

The strife-torn nation bordering Brazil to the northwest is currently engaged in a multi-billion blitz of rebels like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's largest group.

Known as Plan Colombia, the country has received $2 billion in equipment and other military assistance from the United States to bolster its combat capacity.

Brazil has been critical of Plan Colombia saying it allows the United States to meddle in regional affairs and could lead to the expansion of the U.S.-led war on terror in both nations.

Despite the nation's difference of opinions on Colombian rebels, Uribe and Lula did agree in a 23-point joint statement that they need to combat terrorism "by all means possible."

Leading up to Friday's meeting analysts assumed that on Friday Uribe once again would ask his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to classify FARC and other rebel groups as terrorists, a notion that Brazil has declined to do in recent weeks.

The U.S. State Department has bestowed the terrorist group moniker on the groups for their ties to violent insurgences and use of narcotics trafficking to fund their activities.

Uribe however, didn't make the request, though he stressed there is no other way to classify groups that use car bombs and other explosive devices. "It is not a value judgment, it is terrorism."

Earlier this week, Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations Celso Amorin said Brazil would not label the groups as terrorists.

Brazil's reluctance to classify FARC and others as terror groups falls in line with its professed desire to serve as a mediator between the Uribe administration and the rebels, a move that some analysts say could ultimately cause a rift between the bordering nations.

www.upi.com By Carmen Gentile UPI Latin America Correspondent From the International Desk Published 3/7/2003 5:05 PM

SAO PAULO, Brazil, March 7 (UPI) -- Brazil's landless workers movement -- coming off a week of land seizures throughout the country -- said Friday that it would not back down in its fight for agrarian reform even though it considers the nation's president its ally.

The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, known locally as the MST, said it would continue to hold its current seizures and intensify its efforts next month, according to the movement's leadership.

Movement officials said they would increase its efforts until April 17, the seventh anniversary of the 1996 killing of 19 MST members during protests in the northern state of Para.

The MST appeared to catch Brazilian officials off guard when it broke its informal truce with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and invaded several private owned farms during the Carnaval celebration, which ended earlier this week.

"The government of the PT (Lula's Workers' Party) was our dream, but government is government and the movement is the movement," said Jaime Amorim, an MST coordinator.

Founded in the early 1980s, the MST uses large-scale seizures to bring attention to inequitable land distribution in a nation where most of the nation's farmable land is held by a small fraction of the population.

The movement says it has ended its truce with Brazil's leading leftist Workers' Party though still considers Lula an ally to its cause.

Lula, a formal labor activist, won over the MST when he campaigned on a platform that included promises of more aggressive land reform tactics and accelerated distribution efforts.

The reform group however, appears to have grown weary of waiting for change despite the president's relatively brief tenure in office. Since assuming the presidency on Jan. 1, Lula has focused much of his attention on other reform issues, mostly political and economic, and his nationwide hunger eradication program.

Still, PT officials maintain that agrarian reform is in the works, and criticized the MST for its recent invasion of the headquarters of Brazil's National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform in the central states of Mato Grosso and Goias.

"President Lula has only been in office for two months and wants to better the MST's situation," said PT President Jose Genoino in an interview with Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper. "Agrarian reform will be made, but its must be done peacefully, without compromising agriculture productivity."

"The MST cannot treat the PT as its enemy," he said.

Genoino's pleas reflect the PT's decidedly different stance regarding the MST and agrarian reform from its predecessor, the moderate Social Democratic Party led by former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The Cardoso administration showed less tolerance for land seizures and regularly arrested activists, though said it had it has allocated some 50 million acres to landless workers during his eight-year tenure, a claim the MST widely refutes.

news.bbc.co.uk

Leaders of the landless movement in Brazil have ended a truce with the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, by organising a new wave of land invasions.

Peasant officials said unproductive farms and government property had been occupied over the last few days because President Lula had failed to take any concrete action to carry out land reform since taking up office in January.

They said the present protests were only the beginning of a bigger campaign of invasions starting next month.

The wait-and-see period is coming to an end Joao Paulo Rodrigues MST leader

But the Brazilian Agrarian Development Minister, Miguel Rossetto, criticised the protesters, saying the government was working towards a peaceful process of land re-distribution.

President Lula's Workers Party has been a traditional ally of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST).

More of the same

The truce was declared on 1 January to coincide with inauguration of the first left-wing Brazilian president for 40 years.

But last week, farm workers resumed their occupation of public and private property in five Brazilian states.

The latest took place on Wednesday when about 500 women and 100 children set up tents at the headquarters of the Agrarian Reform Institute (Incra) in the Goias state capital Goiania, 200 km (125 miles) from Brasilia.

Lula is a long-time supporter of the MST

"We have waited long enough for the new government to take concrete action in favour of agrarian reform," Joao Paulo Rodrigues, an MST leader said. "The wait-and-see period is coming to an end."

Mr Rodrigues said the invasions were only a prelude for nationwide protests in April.

President Lula's government has called on the protesters to end their practice of land seizures.

"It's legitimate to exert pressure, but we do not accept invasions of public buildings or the occupation of productive rural lands," said Workers Party president Jose Genoino.

The MST was created in 1985 to keep pressure on the government to speed up its land reform programme.

They say occupying unproductive farms is the only way to push the government to carry out land reform in Brazil.

Correspondents say land distribution in Brazil is among the most uneven in the world, with 20% of the population owning 90% of farmland and the poorest 40% owning just 1% of the land.