Posted on 01/10/2003 7:10:25 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin
The comment triggers alarm although the new left-wing government says he was not expressing official policy
RIO DE JANEIRO - A senior official in the left-wing government that took power last week triggered alarm by arguing that Brazil should acquire the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.
'Brazil is a country at peace, that has always preserved peace and is a defender of peace, but we need to be prepared, including technologically,' said Mr Roberto Amaral, the newly appointed Minister of Science and Technology in an interview with the Brazilian service of the BBC that was broadcast on Sunday night.
'We can't renounce any form of scientific knowledge, whether the genome, DNA or nuclear fission.'
His remarks, coming as the United States faces a nuclear crisis with North Korea and is preparing for war with Iraq over its weapons programmes, has reawakened debate over Brazil's own nuclear energy and research programme, the most advanced in Latin America.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was quick to distance the new president from Mr Amaral's pronouncement that 'mastery of the atomic cycle is important' to Brazil, saying that his remarks were not an expression of official policy.
'The government favours research in this area, solely and exclusively for peaceful purposes,' Mr Andre Singer told reporters in Brasilia.
Mr Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, Brazil's most prominent nuclear physicist and the newly appointed head of the state electrical power utility Eletrobras, said on Wednesday: 'Brazil does not have, does not need and should not obtain the knowledge of this technology. The bomb is a plague of mankind.'
But Mr Amaral's declarations echoed a certain discontent expressed by Mr da Silva as a candidate last year.
In a speech here in September, he criticised the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as unjustly favouring the United States and other nations that already had nuclear weapons, asking: 'If someone asks me to disarm and keep a slingshot while he comes at me with a cannon, what good does that do?'
Those remarks were made to a group of retired military officers, many of whom supported the ambitious nuclear programme undertaken by the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 and caused immediate alarm here.
The environmental organisation Greenpeace, for example, criticised Mr da Silva's position, as did groups of scientists here and abroad and even members of his own Workers' Party.
The Brazilian Constitution, promulgated in 1988, forbids the development of nuclear weapons and their presence here.--New York Times
And yet a missle defense system sounds silly to those on the left. Heh.
The solution is really quite simple, invasion and regime change in Brazil. It will only take a few U.S. troops. They will be greeted by throngs of grateful Brazilians as liberators and heralds of a "Democratic Brazil." If all else fails, Rumsfeld (in contrast that peacenick appeaser Colin Powell...boo hiss) has assured us that we can easily fight three....er two...wars at one time. We can allow a place in our own backyard to have WMD, after all. <P Let's teach those rain-forest jockies as lesson! Lock and Load and if necessary make Brazil glow!
I'm speculating that the prevailing winds out of China across the peninsula towards Japan?
No s#it! I'm starting to miss the cold-war days.
Not to worry
Professor Says Mayan Calendar Does Not Portend Earth's Doom (2012AD)
First we got the bomb, and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Who's next?
France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears,
They can't wipe us out for at least five years.
Who's next?
Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white.
Who's next?
Egypt's gonna get one too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense.
Wants one in self defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb.
Who's next?
Luxembourg is next to go,
And (who knows?) maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb.
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?
This kind of "problem solving" could be alleviated by the new 'assassination-is-now-legal-again' law signed by Dubya, in conjunction with the new flexible rules for engagement by U.S. Special Ops forces.
There are far too many loose canons tooting their tin-horns these days...
South Korea wants unity with the North, China doesn't want millions of Korean refugees flooding over the border, and Japan doesn't want all that radioactive fallout drifting its way across the Sea of Japan.
By this I mean we are not afriad to talk badly, threaten and go to war with Iraq and we behave in mark contrast to a nuclear North Korea.
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