Via the AP: Brazil Dictatorship Wanted Atomic Bomb
A former president has disclosed that the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for two decades tried to develop an atomic bomb, but says the program was scrapped when an elected government assumed power in 1985.The 1964-85 dictatorship was long suspected of seeking nuclear weapons, but ex-President Jose Sarney’s comments Sunday were the first confirmation of the program.
Sarney, who led the first democratic civilian government after the dictatorship ended and previously denied the existence of the program, said he was informed that the military had dug a deep well for an eventual nuclear test explosion in a remote area of the northern state of Para.
No suprirse, really. It has long been thought that they had been pursuing a nuke. Indeed, what else would one expect from a military dictatorship in a country that sought regional hegemony? Especially given that the military dictatorship (at the time) to the south in Argentina also looked as though they might be pursuing a nuke as well.
August 9th, 2005 at 9:28 am
I think the more surprising thing about Brazil and South America is that they’ve seemingly avoided the inter-national (i.e., between South American nations) political and military tensions that have occupied so much of the rest of the world the last half-century. When was the last dust-up between two South American countries?
August 9th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
There have been a few incidents recently along the Columbia-Venezuela border, haven’t there? Over the tacit support Venezuela has been providing to leftist guerrillas battling Columbia’s government.
And wasn’t there a contretemps around 1995 between Ecuador and Peru over border demarcation? The lack of a recent loud, violent, bloody war doesn’t mean all is goodness and light down there in the South…
August 9th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
No, I wasn’t tryuing to imply that all was goodness and light. But South America has been much more conflict-free than Europe, or Asia, or Africa. I’ll add North America to the conflict-free list, but having one nation that dwarfs the other NA nations pretty much makes that a default.