The US Southern Command’s Silent Occupation of the Amazon
By Santiago Navarro F. and Renata Bessi,
Truthout | Report
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42542-the-us-southern-command-s-silent-occupation-of-the-amazon
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thanks a
Brazilian soldier for assisting with his tour of the jungle
training center in Manaus, Brazil, on March 28, 2012.
Dempsey was there to visit the jungle training center which
borders several different countries in the Amazon Basin.
(DOD photo by US Army Staff Sgt. Sun L. Vega, Joint
Staff)
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Brazil, Colombia
and Peru share a triple borderland separating north from
south on the South American continent. Located deep in the
Amazon forest, this is the theater of operations in which
more than 30 military companies test their services and
merchandise. The multinational military exercise known
as AmazonLog2017, is organized by the
Armed Forces of Brazil. More than 1,500 members of the
Brazilian military and military members from invited
countries participated with high-caliber weapons and
munitions, boats, aircraft, helicopters, information
technologies, nautical and energy intelligent equipment,
radars and sensors. The Southern Command of the United
States — the Unified Combatant Command of the United States
Department of Defense with influence in the Caribbean,
Central and South America — is also an AmazonLog2017
participant.
Activists and
researchers are alarmed about this military exercise.
According to Mexican economist and geopolitical specialist
Ana Esther Ceceña, AmazonLog2017 allows “the
placement of troops that facilitate specific territorial
incursions and rapid response operations, both of which
imply the use of special forces, whether those be US forces,
local or private on the triple borderland.”