Brazil & Southern Cone - November 2012 (ISSN 1741-4431)

Uruguay’s defence minister, Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, delivered a speech at the tenth biennial conference of defence ministers of the Americas (CDMA), held in Punta Del Este, Uruguay on 8 -11 October, which it is fair to say stood out as somewhat different from previous speeches delivered at the CDMA by defence ministers of host nations. It was certainly not quite what they might have expected to hear.

Fernández Huidobro quoted Albert Einstein (“the fourth world war will be fought with stone clubs” and “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former”); Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, who after fleeing from civil war in Argentina in the early 19^th century wrote on a rock, “Barbarians! Ideas cannot be killed”, to which the Uruguayan philosopher Vaz Ferreira added some years later, “but neither can bad ones”; and Gabriel García Márquez, at length.

“In Macondo (in One Hundred Years of Solitude) they hang a sign on the cow: ‘This is the cow’. Today we are living in Macondo, much more than we suspect,” Fernández Huidobro argued. “To growth and development we need to put up explanatory signs since today what we call growth is a disaster foretold and what we call development is a myth since it is impossible that all the inhabitants in the world can have the same levels of consumerism and waste that we are given as a model.”

He went on: “If all the countries in the world grew in this way, the planet would collapse irremediably. It is not for everyone. This model forcefully excludes. It is for some. Mathematically it is like this. Even GDP, as a yardstick, is a highly contaminated fraud. It measures contradictory things… In particular it does not measure human happiness. Or environmental damage. It is like the handsaw which cuts the branch upon which we are sitting, sawing with enthusiasm. The other problem we have with mathematics is the formula of compound interest. This mind-blowing weapon of mass destruction, also of exponential growth which the banks manipulate and upon which the ramshackle monetary system and current system of global finance is based.”

Fernández Huidobro then argued that “the population crisis, the drinking water crisis, energy crisis and food crisis are the four new horsemen of the Apocalypse”. He talked about the vast amount of money squandered on military spending which could solve many of these problems, before finally getting to the point of his message to those gathered in Punta del Este: “the material limits of countries (means that) there should be no other objective than peace. There can be nothing more desirable from our work than peace. It cannot be anything but peace. Unequivocally it must be about peace. National, regional, hemispheric and world peace…”

While delivering the inaugural speech at the CDMA, President José Mujica similarly stressed that “we have to stage meetings between defence ministers to concern ourselves with peace… The greatest war is against inequality and poverty”. He added that he had “never imagined”, as a former Tupamaro guerrilla (just like Fernández Huidobro), to be addressing a regional conference of defence ministers but that he was honoured to do so.

Peace has long been the primary concern of Uruguay’s armed forces. Uruguay is the largest contributor of peacekeepers in the hemisphere and one of the largest per-capita contributors in the world. The armed forces also play a key role in disaster relief. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke at length at the CDMA about the important role of the armed forces across the hemisphere in disaster relief (see sidebar).

Military cooperation in the South Atlantic

Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay participated in the biennial Atlasur maritime exercise with South Africa from 25 September to 10 October. The aim of the naval exercise is to improve the combined maritime doctrine in the South Atlantic and develop a partnership with South African military forces.

The ninth Atlasur joint training exercise was hosted by South Africa. In addition to classic naval exercises it included a focus on Special Forces tactics as well as anti-submarine warfare exercises, anti-aircraft firing exercises and Vertical replenishment, or VERTREP, a method of supply of seaborne vessels by helicopter.

The Argentine and Brazilian corvettes, ‘Spiro’ and ‘Barroso’ respectively, participated with the frigate ‘ROU 01 Uruguay’ and a frigate and a submarine from South Africa. Atlasur VIII took place in Argentine maritime waters back in 2010.

“Brazil sees Atlasur as one of the most important international joint exercises between the four navies,” Brazil’s defence and naval attaché, Captain Paulo Cesar Demby Corrêa, observed. “Each exercise improves a little bit more of our inter-operability and our professional skills from all four navies involved,” Corrêa said (see sidebar).

The Atlasur exercises have been carried out every two years since 1993. In the first year they started off as joint naval exercises between Argentina and South Africa, but in 1995 Brazil and Uruguay also took part. ‘ROU 01 Uruguay’ was welcomed into port in Montevideo by the naval top brass and defence minister Fernández Huidobro on 20 October. Fernández Huidobro repeated the same message he gave at the CDMA in Punta del Este: “these exercises”, he said, “should be carried out with the overarching goal of seeking peace”.

• Disaster relief

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called for the approval of a new plan to set up a database to allow nations to coordinate their responses to disasters and organise humanitarian relief efforts more effectively. “Western Hemisphere nations worked together to provide much-needed help, but we lacked a mechanism to collaborate in real-time and focus our efforts where they were needed most,” he said, in allusion to criticism of the disaster response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January 2010. The CDMA agreed to allow data sharing to improve coordination of military support to disaster relief.

• Special Forces

The Special Forces training exercise during Atlasur IX involved a scenario on the Cape Peninsula in which a royal prince was kidnapped and taken to a ship anchored offshore. A rescue mission was then staged. “This inter-operability in the fast rope exercises, the snipers, the procedures, the helicopter approach, all these tactical procedures are very important for this Special Forces team because it is not easy to carry out or conduct an exercise like this at sea,” Brazil’s Captain Paulo Cesar Demby Corrêa said.