MILITARY, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, POLITICAL SCANDALS, AND DEMOCRACY IN BRAZIL - 1998-2000, THE

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer 2003 by Zirker, Daniel, Redinger, Matthew

INTRODUCTION

Intelligence agencies, civilian and military, represent pivotal cases in understanding the character and depth of the democratization of the former military dictatorships of South America. Alfred Stepan, in his 1988 interpretation of political transition in Brazil, argued that the intelligence system had become "more autonomous than in any other modern authoritarian regime in Latin America..." (Stepan, 1988:13), and that it had become a key "military prerogative" to power (Stepan, 1988:106).' He added that retention of key military cabinet positions by active military officers represented another such prerogative. If Stepan was correct, the years 1998-2000 in Brazil (during which both the key intelligence agency and the military ministry were "civilianized") provided a critical barometer regarding the depth of this aspect of democratization,2 and one that may point to the promise, as well as the limitations, of Brazilian democracy during the new Labor Party presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Certainly the few public accounts of the impact upon the delicate process of democratization of secret military intelligence agencies, provided with the tools and the mandate to conduct covert investigations of virtually anyone, and possessed of a politicized agency-specific agenda, are striking. We believe, based upon these, that the events in Brazil between 1998 and 2000 suggest a very rich, informative, and partially successful case of military resistance to the civilization process - one with broad-reaching implications and lessons.

Revolutions are exceedingly rare political phenomena. Evolution is the norm in politics, and hence we can assume in most cases that government agencies, even newly reconstructed ones, will tend to manifest significant elements and characteristics of previous regimes. In Latin America, this is particularly the case. Patrice McSherry refers to the new democracies there as "guardian democracies," observing that

In guardian democracy, military power endures as a check against and counterweight to popular majorities, and the political space for political opposition is circumscribed. The security apparatus, ever alert to 'threats from below,' remains a political actor that monitors and contains civil society. (1998:16)

Moreover, scandals necessarily affect and inform each other, and this alone seriously attenuates the possibility of coincidence. Additionally, the manipulation of public opinion has been the leitmotif of democratic politics over the past century. Finally, in such manipulation, particularly in the relative absence of widespread social well-being, political and economic scandals have become extraordinarily effective instruments. In revealing "skeletons in the closets" of specific individuals and agencies-scandals directly, if unpredictably, impact political outcomes. The use of scandal, as Machiavelli (1972) observed, is a dangerous game because scandals have a life of their own, and can turn on those who try to use them.

Success in the use of scandal as a political weapon, then, would seem to depend, at the very least, upon maintaining the anonymity of the provocateur. Given the extent to which two major national scandals impacted-directly and indirectly-the military establishment in Brazil during the delicate 1998-2000 period, it is intriguing how silent the military intelligence agencies, the CIM (Navy Intelligence), the SECINT (Air Force Intelligence), and the CIE (Army Intelligence Center) remained.3 The two major scandals subsequently affected the interests, if not the organization, of military agencies in Brazil: the scandal that accompanied the founding of the new civilian intelligence agency, Abin, and the scandal that engulfed the first civilian Minister of Defense, leading ultimately, to his removal. In this context, the continuing silence of the military intelligence agencies became deafening.

Perhaps observers should not be surprised. The democratization of Brazil after 1985 had included the development of a veritable political culture of scandals. While this is nothing new to comparative democratic government, as politics in the United States have repeatedly demonstrated, the sheer volume and scope of national scandals in Brazil were staggering. The impeachment and removal of President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992, while perhaps the best known, is only one of a great many.4 Bugging and wiretapping figured prominently in most of them, with incriminating tapes frequently leaked to the news media. A journalist commented that the Cardoso government manifested an unusual tendency toward intrigue, concluding that "...spy films from the Cold War and stories of James Bond...are minimal compared to [the Cardoso Administration's] vocation for mystery, betrayal and power." The observer concluded that

this is garbage inherited from the military dictatorship, the practice of espionage of the SNI that remains untouchable in the democracy. The government and its police know that the old agents of the SNI have left the government and have gone on to sell their services in the markets of blackmail and fear. Besides this, freelancers continue operating freely, utilizing government equipment to spy on ministers and even the President of the Republic. (Caldas, 1999)