AND: Commander of the Brazilian army meet with reactionary military from India
We publish an unofficial translation of an article published in A Nova Democracia, found here.
The Brazilian army commander Tomás Miguel Miné Paiva, met with military from the High Command of the Indian Armed Forces and with the Secretary of Defense of the old Indian State during a six-day visit to the Asian country, between August 28th and 2nd of September. A visit that seeks to approach the military forces of the two countries through bilateral cooperation.
During the visit, the Brazilian general met with the Chief of the General Staff of the Indian reactionary army, General Manoj Panda, with the Chief of the General Staff, General Anil Chauhan and with the Secretary of Defense, Shri Giridhar Aramane. Tomás Paiva also participated in showings of shooting and military maneuvers by the Indian reactionary army.
The Indian Defense Minister said that “these conversations underline the shared goals to improve the cooperation and collaboration in the area of Defense between the two nations.” He also said that the two commanders had “constructive conversations” about regional and global contemporary issues.
Fundamental similarities
In terms of strategic defense, India and Brazil share similarities in appearance. The location of the two countries is extremely distant and both are surrounded by internally different internal issues. The habitat and physical geography, important factors for defense, also are brutally different.
Still, in terms of internal issues, India has important features for the interest of the Brazilian reactionary army. The Asian country is predominantly agrarian and there is a revolutionary process for more than 50 years, in which peasants and indigenous people, organized in the Popular Guerrilla Liberation Army (PLGA) of the Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist), has a partial control over significant parts of the territory.
The Indian Armed Forces have the central role of repression in this process. Since 11 years ago, the old Indian State coordinates, through the reactionary military and police forces, bloody operations against the PLGA and the CPI (Maoist), such as the Operation Green Hunt and Prahaar.
Currently, the operations are led by the fascist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Besides these operations, Modi, which has been in office since 2014, has been responsible for wide repression against the popular Indian masses in general, in addition to popular and democratic movements of the country. Last year, the Modi government illegalized the Indian Popular Front and its eight affiliated organizations, under the accusations of “terrorism.”
‘Internal enemy’
The Brazilian reactionary army has a big interest in these issues. Years ago, it has intensified training and operations portrayed to confront the “internal enemy” in the country. The training is shameless, with no effort to disguise what they are: in the year 2020, the army did a training in which candidates to integrate the “elite troop” of the corporation, had to combat a “clandestine armed organization” emerged “of a dissent of a Workers Party” that “recruited thirty militants of the MLT [Movement of Struggle for the Land]”. The operation was done in the city of São Paulo.
In the same year, the Army made another training, this time in Rondônia, in which it simulated a confrontation between an army of a “red country” against a “blue country.” This time, the exercise came to have direct supervision of the Yankees (United States, USA), by the former Secretary of State and former agent of the CIA, Mike Pompeo.
This year, the Army has announced that it will use part of the investment in strategic projects of 2024 for the development of drones and helicopters for its focused use in the Amazônia. The region is well known for being a scenario of peasant struggle in the country. All recent episodes point to the maintenance and development of the military strategy of the Brazilian reactionary army, directed towards the “internal enemy”. In particular, against the peasants in sharp struggle for the land, especially in the Amazon region.
