Deputies think Brazil should be prepared for strategic defense and develop its own military technology

On Tuesday,(11/25), Deputies of the Parliamentary Front for National Defense met with the Minister of Defense, Nelson Jobim, who exposed to them the main items of the National Defense Plan.

The plan should be presented to the National Defense Council yet this year, and a series of projects, previewing changes in prevailing laws and new laws, should be sent to Congress next year. According to the front’s coordinator, Deputy Raul Jungmann (PPS-PE), the plan should take into account the need to decentralize defense in Brazil.

Strategic defense
Jungmann affirms that the plan should trigger intense debates next year, because of its subjects, such as the need for Brazil to abandon an extremely pacifist posture and to prepare for strategic defense. He defends the idea that it is necessary that Brazilian elites rethink the national defense for Brazil to develop.

According to the deputy, the plan should also discuss the geographic distribution of the Military; for him, it is necessary to displace the Army, the Navy and the Air Force from the Southern and Southeastern states to the border regions and to the Amazon.

In Jungmann´s opinion, a country wanting a seat at the Safety Council of the United Nations (UN), that has oil reserves at the pre-salt layer, and that has the Amazon at the ecological and territorial discussion center, has to integrate a development project and a defense study.

Pacific, but not naïf posture
For the deputy José Genoíno (PT-SP), who also took part in the meeting, the front should have periodic meetings with the minister, to keep discussing the plan. The deputy affirms that it will take Brazil out of a posture he considers “naïf”. Brazil has a pacific politics, but must not be naïf. This country has to have deterring capacity, be it through adequate and modern weapons, be it through a flexible organization of the Military. We will not attack anybody; we do not have conflicts with anybody. The plan aims at actually implementing the Ministry of Defense.”

The deputies Aldo Rebelo (PCdoB), Ibsen Pinheiro (PMDB -RS) and Michel Temer (PMDB-SP) also participated in the meeting.

Independent technology
Jungmann informed that the plan should propose ways for the country to develop its war technology, instead of buying foreign products. According to Genoíno, among the changes that will be proposed in the plan and that should be reviewed by Congress, there is a change at the Bidding Law. The objective is to make some concessions to the Military, so that, to comply with the law, they are not obliged to buy weapons from other countries.

The plan should also raise discussions about changes in obligatory military service, such as the obligation for those who do not serve to perform some kind of social service instead.

Parliamentary Front for National Defense
The front is integrated by 227 congresspeople and has the objective to promote an adequate defense system focusing the preservation of national sovereignty and of the Democratic State of Right. Its purposes are also the cooperation between National Congress and the Ministry of Defense; the promotion of international relations and of the South-American Council for Defense, Human Rights and National-Defense Politics; and the elaboration of the so-called White Book of National Defense – which will draw the attention of civil society to the subjects related to national defense.

Report - Paula Bittar
Editing - Regina Céli Assumpção/Rejane Xavier

Translation: Positive