Cities at Amapá's International Border

International Journal of Research in Geography (IJRG) Volume 1, Issue 2, 2015, PP 9-17 ISSN 2454-8685 (Online) www.arcjournals.org Cities at Amapá’s International Border: Challenges in the Face of the International Integration and the Public Policies of Defense and Security1 Superti, Eliane Abstract: This article aims at analizing the context of Northern Amazon’s international border (state of Amapá) in the face of the processes of South-American integration and implementation of policies of security and defense. The article explores the hypothesis that Amapá’s international border suffers from the direct impact of the process of integration between the state and both the internal and external markets, yet the border is a fundamental social space of security and defense. However, the borderline municipalities represent the weak bond in the chain of political-administrative relations determining the contents of public policies. The local agents, lacking articulation, can hardly have their basic needs met, and are excluded from the main decision-making processes affecting the city. This article ultimately results from bibliographical research, data collection, and document analysis. It is organized into two stages of discussion. At the first stage, it deploys the political-economic aspects characterizing the state of Amapá, so that, at the second stage, it reflects on the cities at Amapa’s international border. Keywords: International Border; South-American Integration; Policies of Defense and Security; Amazon; Amapá. 1. INTRODUCTION The reflections presented in this article took part in the round-table debates on „Political border and transborderlining in the Plateau of the Guianas‟ at the Seventh National Meeting of the ABED – ENABED. The objective was to discuss the contexto of the international border of Northern Amazon (state of Amapá) in the face of the processes of South-American integration and implementing of policies of security and defense. The analysis of the state policies in the historical constitution of the Amazon is hardly an academic novelty. However, they would acquire new meaning, bestowed by the process of economic integration of South America. This process has been determined by both the post-war international context and the need of redefining Brazil‟s participation in the globalized market, which in turn has placed the cities at the Amazon‟s border in a new scenario. They were once understood as containing lines and limits of sovereign states, but now they take up the strategic role of both political integration and the integration of economic infrastructures. This change of focus is closely tied with the strategies drawn by the federal government in the economic and political repositioning of Brazil in the regional and global context. From the point of view of international politics, a change has been processed on the regional reference. The concept of „South-Americanness‟ (“sul-americanidade”) replaces the concept of Latin America. The proposal of uniting the twelve South-American states has redefined the geopolitical weight of the region in the American continent in the face of the large economic blocks and in opposition to the US project of creating the AFTA (Americas‟ Free-Trade Area). In the perspective of Lafer, “to Brazil, South American is not an option, but rather, in the terms of Ortega y Gasset, the circumstance of our diplomatic self.‟ (Lafer 2001: 56) The efforts of integration of South America have acquired a more conspicuous shape after the creation of Mercosur (1990s) IIRSA (2000) (Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America), which has been a decision of territorial politics of macro-restructurizing character, and, more recently, Unasur (2011) (Union of South-American Nations). Such efforts are based on the premises of open refionalism of UNECLAC and the new regionalism of IDB (Inter-American Development Bank). 1Translation into English by João Azevedo Abreu (St John's College, University of Cambridge). ©ARC Page 9 Superti, Eliane As for internal economic politics, the Brazilian government has adopted as a guideline to the Pluriannual Plans the competitive insertion of the country by means of South-American integration and productive modernization with the reduction of the Brazil cost by means of eliminating those strangling points of the productive and trade chain, which raise the cost and affect the competitivity of the national products. Since Fernando Henrique Cardoso‟s first term as a president, the Pluriannual Plans have been characterized by an important feature as opposed to the previous government‟s territorial policies: they established intervention lines intended to integrate the country to South America, thus opening markets from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean by means of the National Axes of Ingegration and Development (ENIDs). Regardless of a few cases of divergence concerning focus, the strategies were incorporated and applied further during Lula‟s government, thus presenting themselves in the Pluriannual Plan of 2004/2007 as well as the first two Growth Acceleration Programs, remaining as a central guideline during the Dilma Rousseff administration. The politics of security and defense habe also been reshaped in the face of the new scenario. The geopolitical attitude towards the areas of international border will now bring the political dimension into the debate of national security and defense, thus expanding the latter beyound the strictly military sense. In addition, the process of approximation to the South-Smerican countries required the establishment of new mechanisms of security and defense which would take into account the integration process. The South-American Defense Council represents an answer to such requirement, as it is supposed to support the security-related interchange among countries making up the Union of South-American Nations. This interchange covers from the proposal of elaboration of joint-defense policies to the integration of industrial bases of war material in that region. In the wake of the discussions above, the Amazon emerges as a strategic space for effecting the integration of economic infrastructures and becomes the stage of imporant actions of national defense in its broadened sense. This happens, in the first place, because the Amazon region is the ultimate means of physical communication between Brazil and six2 other South-American states and French Guiana, a fact that in turn makes its international borders a key element in the process of integration. In the second place, the Amazon region is looked at, once more, as a resource frontier offering great potential for both the economic exploitation and the attraction of the great capital and international networks, especially for mineral exploitation, recently petroleum. Finally, when the porosity in its borders is taken into account, that facilitates the illegal routes of traffic and international crime, in addition to the low population density of the area as well as the flimsy structure of its economy and public goods and services, the Amazon becomes priority in the politics of defense, which is established in the PDN (in Brazilian Portuguese, National Plan of Defense) of 2005. This new political picture involving the Amazon suggests a set of policies regarding territory and defense, aiming at both fighting illegal activities and supporting the development of the region. The objective is to meet the region‟s needs of defense by means of a new paradigma of security and defense. Namely, the idea is that the preservation of the Brazilian sovereignty will only be guaranteed by the combination of military-strategic entrepreneurship with the implemention of a set of public policies that would promote, at once, economic growth, social development, environmental preservation, and defense. As part of the governmental planning for the Amazon region, its defense-and-security policies are based on two main strategies: the increase in military presence, and the promotion of the local economic development. The increase from 3,300 soldiers in 1998 to 30,000 in 2009 was very meaningful, although it represents 10% only of the national troops (NASCIMENTO: 2010 The project named Integrated System for the Monitoring of Borders (Sistema Integrado de Monitoramento de Fronteiras) (Sisfron), still being designed, is expected to reach 35,000 soldiers in the region before 2019 as well as the creation of 28 Special Border Platoons, as opposed to the current 20 platoons in the whole Amazon region. Beyond two other programs (Calha Norte Program (PCN, in Brazilian Portuguese) and Protection System in the Amazon (SIPAM, idem)) already present in the Amazon context, Sisfron will provide for ground force, that is, the army of high-technology equipment, training, and travel, thus integrating the border units which used to be isolated. Such strategies are meant to meet the need for revitalization of the borders, given that, as they have become a key 2 On its Amazonian space, Brazil borders Bolívia, Peru Colômbia, Venezuela, Guiana, Suriname, and the French Overseas Department. International Journal of Research in Geography (IJRG) Page 10 Cities at Amapá’s International Border: Challenges in the Face of the International Integration and the Public Policies of Defense and Security element in the process of integration, they are an important link in the chain of illicit routes and crime maps spread over the Amazon. They are areas also sensitive to the international military presence.

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