In the first months of government, President Jair Bolsonaro prioritized approving the budget for the Ministry of Defense. Of the more than R$150 million (about US$40 million) allocated to the Ministry, 98% – practically its entirety – is expected to fund the Calha Norte program for the Amazon region, a project developed in the 1980s that responded to a geostrategic concern of the military with the region. The Calha Norte project sought to ensure the presence of strategic infrastructure for the defense on the country’s remote and relatively pristine northern border.
Government officials say that there is no political motivation behind the efforts made this year to guarantee these funds, and that this allocation has a simple, practical reason: to increase the operational capacity of the Ministry of Defense.
The government states that reviving the Calha Norte project is important in bringing opportunities and dignity to the northern people, a region that covers a territory of 1.5 million km² throughout eight states – Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, Rondônia and Roraima – occupying an area larger than all of Colombia. But the reality shows that Bolsonaro and members of his government are more concerned about fighting off international pressures that seek to prevent the exhaustive economic exploitation of the Amazon than they are about bringing dignity to the local populations.
