BRAZIL:
Warning - These
Computers Come With
Strings Attached
By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS)
- The declaration the
Dell computer maker is
requiring its Brazilian
customers to sign,
promising their
computers will not be
exported to the "axis of
evil" or used for
weapons development,
according to reports,
highlights the
difficulties faced by
scientific research due
to U.S. geopolitical
considerations.
Paulo Silveira Gomes, a
professor of nuclear
physics at the Federal
Fluminense University,
refused to sign the
export compliance
agreement after buying
"an ordinary personal
computer" from Dell
Brazil.
The ban on transferring
or exporting Dell
products to Cuba, Iran,
North Korea, Syria or
Sudan, and on using them
for the production or
maintenance of nuclear,
chemical or biological
weapons, is part of the
conditions imposed on
the Brazilian market by
the U.S. parent company,
in accordance with
United States export
rules.
The incident had wide
repercussions in Brazil
because it was reported
in Folha de Sao Paulo,
the country’s leading
daily. So was the case
of chemist Adelina
Pinheiro Santos, a
researcher with the
National Nuclear Energy
Commission (CNEN).
Pinheiro Santos admitted
to buying one gram of
carbon nanotubes (tubes
with diameters in the
order of nanometres)
through a friend in the
United States, bypassing
the refusal of a supply
company which said it
was not authorised by
the U.S. government to
sell "certain materials"
to Brazil.
This kind of
"contraband" is a
mechanism to get around
U.S. restrictions that
several scientists told
the newspaper they faced
when they wished to buy
sensitive products, such
as carbon fibres and
nanotechnology
components. The vetoes
even affect trade with
Europe.
Silveira Gomes said he
did not sign the Dell
document for reasons of
"dignity" and national
sovereignty. "I do not
accept the division of
countries into good and
bad that the U.S. is
trying to impose on the
world. I work for a
Brazilian university,
supported by public
funding, and I can’t do
this if I’m subjected to
foreign laws," he told
IPS.
Neither would it be
ethical to sign a
statement he cannot be
sure of fulfilling,
since the computer
belongs to the
university and was paid
for by the National
Council for Scientific
and Technological
Development (CNPq), he
said.
Restrictions would be
justifiable if the
United States does not
want to export
"sensitive" products
because they might
encourage manufacture of
weapons of mass
destruction, but to
impose them on a
personal computer "made
in Brazil" and sold by
Dell Computadores do
Brasil, a company
constituted under
Brazilian law, is an
exaggeration of
"anti-terrorist
paranoia," he said.
A Dell Brazil salesman,
speaking on the
telephone to this
correspondent who posed
as a potential buyer,
explained that Dell
computers are made in
Brazil, but use
components and
technology transferred
from the United States,
so they must follow U.S.
export regulations. Dell
Brazil is only a
subsidiary, he
emphasised.
The export compliance
agreement is only
required "in certain
specific cases," when
the customers might
export the computer or
use it during travel to
countries subject to a
U.S. embargo or
sanctions, he said.
This distinction makes
little sense, however,
because a computer can
be used to contact
far-off enemy
governments over the
Internet without ever
leaving Brazil.
But supercomputers,
capable of extremely
fast calculations and
highly complex
simulations, needed for
nuclear and
meteorological
applications, are the
products subject to the
greatest controls, and
are the focus of most
accusations from
developing countries
that access to them is
being blocked.
The U.S. government
classifies countries in
four groups for the
purposes of computer
export regulations.
Since 2000, Brazil,
Argentina, Mexico and
the European countries
are among those that do
not need advance
authorisation from
Washington to import
computers of any
capability.
Countries subject to a
total embargo are those
mentioned in the export
compliance agreement,
while the two
intermediate groups must
have authorisation to
import supercomputers
capable of 33,000 and
45,000 million
operations per second
(MOPS).
The restrictions are due
to the high cost of
technological
development as a
proportion of the total
cost of equipment
produced in small
quantities, and because
these instruments are
essential in strategic
areas, such as
production of nuclear
artifacts and
anti-submarine warfare,
as well as cryptography,
where the side with the
faster machine wins the
decoding race, Gylvan
Meira told IPS.
A former head of the
Brazilian Space Agency
and ex scientific
director of the National
Institute for Space
Research (INPE), Meira
led a number of
sensitive international
negotiations, including
the purchase of
supercomputers. When
asked by IPS, he denied
rumours about vetoes and
conditions imposed on
such acquisitions for
INPE.
He also said there had
been no U.S. pressure
for the Centre for
Weather Forecasts and
Climate Studies (CPTEC),
opened in 1994, to be
built in Cachoeira
Paulista, 110 kilometres
from its parent
institute, INPE, which
concentrates on
aerospace research and
industry in Sao José dos
Campos, near Sao Paulo.
There had been rumours
that the U.S. had
demanded that the
facilities be kept
separate.
CPTEC’s first
supercomputer purchase
was made in full
knowledge of the
restrictions, and
undertaken in the
context of open
negotiations with the
U.S. and Japan, the main
manufacturers of such
equipment, said Meira,
who added that Brazil is
recognised as a
responsible and reliable
country.
CPTEC has had no trouble
in recently acquiring a
new supercomputer, one
of the 500 fastest in
the world, which is
capable of 280 million
MOPS.
But in previous decades,
before Brazil signed the
Nuclear
Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and while it was
developing its armaments
industry, it was a
target of mistrust.
Protecting equipment
that can be used to
build nuclear weapons,
attack nuclear
submarines or decipher
encrypted messages is
normal, and so is the
export compliance
procedure for buying
normal computers, said
Meira, who is now at the
Institute of Advanced
Studies of the
University of Sao Paulo.
Sales of some products,
like the chemical
substances that can be
used for cocaine
production, are
regulated by Brazil,
too, he pointed out.
Brazil’s regulations
against biopiracy also
draw criticism from
scientists whose
research projects may be
delayed or completely
blocked as a result.
There are plenty of
cases of researchers who
have been prosecuted and
even imprisoned for
transporting animal and
plant species out of the
country without the
numerous, complex
authorisations required. |
