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Brazil

Latin America and the Caribbean

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Wikileaked Documents Shed More Light on U.S., Brazilian Motives Behind MINUSTAH

As we’ve described in other posts, U.S. State Department documents made available by Wikileaks demonstrate that international support for MINUSTAH is an important priority for the U.S. government. A new cable recently released by Wikileaks may help explain why: Latin American alliance with a U.S.-objective that “completely excludes [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez” (h/t Ansel Herz):

11. (C) An increasingly unifying theme that completely excludes Chavez, and isolates Venezuela among the militaries and security forces of the region, is participation in international and regional peacekeeping operations. The Southern Cone is doing very well in this area, with all countries active contributors to PKO missions worldwide. Argentina and Chile have even formed a combined peacekeeping brigade, which is expected to be available for deployment sometime in 2008. Uruguay is the highest per-capita contributor of PKO troops. We should make more GPOI funds available to Southern Cone countries to increase and strengthen their peacekeeping capabilities and cooperation.

The cable also suggests that MINUSTAH could be an opening foray into such U.S.-promoted multilateral operations “on a broader scale”:

Additionally, we should explore using the mechanism that the region's contributors to MINUSTAH (Haiti) have established to discuss ways of increasing peacekeeping cooperation on a broader scale.

If these documents accurately reflect U.S. government goals regarding the mission, then Brazilian leadership is perhaps especially desirable, considering the Brazil-Venezuela rivalry that some in the U.S. foreign policy community believe – despite much evidence to the contrary – and perhaps desire, to exist. While other cables reveal that the U.S. sees Brazil’s main motivation in leading the force to be proving its worth for a UN Security Council seat, another cable from September 2009 - just released - describes what could be another motive:

ARMY GENERAL SUGGESTS ARMY SOLDIERS HELP PACIFY FAVELAS

4. (U) During a September 18 seminar hosted by Brazilian development bank BNDES entitled "Opportunities for Favelas," Brazilian Army General Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro (retired) stated the Brazilian Army was prepared to cooperate with Rio de Janeiro state and municipal officials and police to occupy and maintain control of favelas (Note: Rio de Janeiro state currently maintains special police units -UPP - that are controlling five favelas. End Note). Citing the Brazilian army's role in United Nations Peacekeeping operations in Haiti, he said many officers and units were specifically trained and prepared to undertake operations related to public security and general policing in communities lacking state control.

Jake Johnston / December 23, 2010

Article Artículo

Fed Lending Shored Up Bank Profits

Initiated in late 2007, the Term Auction Facility (TAF) was the first of the Federal Reserve’s many liquidity facilities intended to stem a financial collapse by providing financial institutions with emergency funding. The TAF was intended to alleviate some of the stigma on Wall Street against borrowing from the central bank’s discount window. The program was structured to provide low-interest, short-term loans (set to mature in either 28 or 84 days) to all eligible depository institutions, with investment-grade assets held as collateral. The terms and specific beneficiaries of the facility were kept secret until earlier this month, December 2010, when a Congressional mandate forced disclosure.

We now know that hundreds of banks, both American and foreign-based firms, accessed short-term funding through the Federal Reserve’s program. In cumulative terms, the Fed auctioned off over $3.8 trillion through the TAF, from late 2007 to early 2010. The top ten participating institutions at the TAF accounted for nearly $1.8 trillion – or nearly half – of cumulative borrowing from the Fed.

CEPR and Matt Sherman / December 22, 2010