BRAZIL-US:
Tooth for a Tooth

Mario Osava


RIO DE JANEIRO,  (IPS) - It is unlikely that Brazil will continue to fingerprint and photograph visitors from the United States for long, due to growing pressure from the tourism industry. But the legal decision that led to adoption of the measure enjoys broad popular support.

''It's an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,'' wrote Eduardo Mohila and José Barreto from Sao Paulo in a message to a ''readers' forum'' page set up by the Estado news agency to invite comments on the issue.

Almost all of the more than 200 people who posted messages on Tuesday and Wednesday supported the ruling issued by federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva, who ordered that fingerprints and photos be taken of all U.S. citizens arriving in Brazil, as of Jan. 1.

The legal order was based on the ''principle of reciprocity'' in response to the U.S. government decision to carry out the same procedure with foreign nationals arriving in the United States, starting on Jan. 5.

The new U.S. screening process, called the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, or U.S.-VISIT, has gone into effect at 115 airports and 14 seaports across the country. It will also be expanded to 50 land border crossings with Canada and Mexico by the end of 2005.

Short-term visitors from 27 mostly European nations, who do not need visas to enter the United States, are exempt from the new measure, as are most Canadians.

''Arrogant'' and ''stupid'' were some of the words used by readers to describe the new U.S. measure, which Washington justifies as part of its anti-terrorism strategy.

There has been no mention so far of the effects of Brazil's retaliatory measure on relations between the two countries, already strained by discrepancies in other areas.

The Rio de Janeiro mayor's office announced that it would apeal Judge da Silva's verdict on grounds that it hurts tourism, an especially important industry in that city, particularly during the southern hemisphere summer (December through March) and Carnival, which falls the last week of February this year.

Rio de Janeiro Tourism Secretary Sergio de Almeida said he had the support of Tourism Minister Walfrido Mares Guias in the plan to get the measure overturned.

The pressure will only grow once concrete information starts coming out on damages to tourism caused by the measure.

The federal police deployed 14 officers to take the fingerprints of more than 600 U.S. tourists, passengers on a Dutch ocean liner, who disembarked Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro.

The operation, which took two and a half hours, could be repeated on a near-daily basis, because 35 similar cruise liners are scheduled to arrive from here to March.

It was also reported Wednesday that a U.S. company decided to change the travel itinerary of 240 employees who were awarded a bonus trip to Brazil. Due to the new requirements for U.S. citizens, the excursion will go elsewhere.

The potential losses for the tourism sector and the lack of technology for carrying out the screening process in an expeditious manner are the reservations most often mentioned in the letters to the Estado agency's readers' forum, even by those who support the judicial measure.

Fingerprints are still taken manually in Brazil, which gives rise to an enormous hassle as tourists' fingers become ink-stained, and long queues form -- up to seven hours long in the Rio de Janeiro airport Monday -- annoying travellers and drawing protests from the U.S. Embassy.

But Judge da Silva's decision was ''absolutely correct,'' the president of the Cardiologists Association of the eastern state of Minas Gerais, Marcia Barbosa, told IPS.

Barbosa said that in October, she was treated ''like a criminal'' in a U.S. airport, and was not allowed to enter the country, where she was to take part in a medical seminar.

''I hope the Brazilian government will not back down from the principle of reciprocity,'' she said.

She pointed out that it was the United States that started to discriminate by applying the new measure to all countries with the exception of European and other rich nations, even though some of the terrorists who staged the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington were said to have come from Europe.

Dr. Barbosa said she had no plans to return to the United States, where she has travelled more than 20 times, frequently as a guest invited to participate in medical conferences and seminars. She will only return ''out of professional need, and only if absolutely necessary,'' she added.

The retaliatory measure ordered by Judge da Silva added a new source of tension to relations between Brazil and the United States on the eve of the special Summit of the Americas to take place next Monday and Tuesday in the Mexican city of Monterrey.

Brazil is challenging Washington's leadership in the negotiations to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

It also headed the alliance of developing nations -- the so-called Group of 20 (G20) -- that kept the United States and European Union from imposing their agendas at the fifth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference, held last September in Cancun, Mexico.

In addition, Brazil's current diplomatic strategy, aimed at strengthening South American unity and building a broad coalition of developing countries, including giants like India, China and South Africa, has not exactly endeared the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio ''Lula'' da Silva to Washington, analysts point out.

Nor did Lula's recent tour through five Arab countries, including Libya and Syria, or the Brazilian government's opposition to the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq in March.

The Foreign Ministry has formally requested that Brazil be removed from the list of countries whose citizens are required to go through the U.S.-VISIT screening process, and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Donna Hrinak have begun to discuss the possibility of exempting Brazilians.

Brazil also demands visas for U.S. citizens, in response to a similar requirement for Brazilians entering the United States.

Antonio Carlos Apolinario of Sao Paulo, another reader who sent a message to the Estado agency's readers' forum, criticised the measure ordered by Judge da Silva on the argument that ''imitating the United States could lead to serious problems.'' Besides, he argued, ''we don't need to imitate them, because we're better than that.''

''You can't combat paranoia with paranoia,'' wrote Alberto Wagner Rodrigues of Belo Horizonte.