An Israeli firm had been hoping to provide security services at the 2016
Olympics in Rio. (Ricardo Stuckert/Wikimedia Commons) - Electronic Intifada
By Charlotte Silver
Brazil’s government has excluded an Israeli “security” company from
working at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro following a campaign by
Palestine solidarity activists.
In October 2014, the Israeli firm International Security and Defence Systems (ISDS) announced it had won a $2.2 billion contract with the Brazilian government to coordinate security at the huge sports event. The Times of Israel described the deal as “an unprecedented achievement for Israel,” while senior figures from the company stated it had already begun work.
But on 8 April a division dealing with large events at Brazil’s justice ministry denied that ISDS had been awarded any contract.
A letter from the ministry stated: “Any contract made by Rio 2016
won’t result in compromises by the Brazilian government.” The campaign
against ISDS, which was supported by some of Brazil’s labor unions, is interpreting this as an acknowledgement of its grievances.
Julio Turra, executive director of CUT, the largest workers’ union in Brazil, says in a press release:
“We are glad that the government distances itself from ISDS. It would
be illegal and shameful to hire a company that develops its technologies
in complicity with Israeli crimes and that accumulates complaints about
its participation in Central American dictatorships.”
This boycott success comes on the heels of another recent and very
significant win in Brazil for activists urging boycotts, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) against Israel. At the end of 2014, in response to a
separate campaign, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul canceled a contract with the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems to develop a major aerospace research center.
Bloody past
The campaign against the ISDS contract focused on lobbying the
government to cancel any contract with ISDS on the grounds that the
company had close ties with the Israeli military, as well as a long and
sordid history in Central and South America.
Founded in 1982 in Tel Aviv by a former colonel in the Israeli army,
ISDS has provided security and “counterterrorism” training to many
Central American states, including paramilitaries in Honduras and
Guatemala, throughout the 1980s.
ISDS helped train and arm the Contras in Nicaragua who tried to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government. In the 1989 book, The “Terrorism” Industry, Edward Herman and Gerry O’Sullivan document
how ISDS also trained and helped form anti-terrorism “squads” within
the Guatemalan military to target opposition forces and grassroots
organizing, while providing the military with electronic surveillance,
arms, helicopters, and airplanes. Furthermore, ISDS trained Honduran
death squads, including the notorious Battalion 3-16, which conducted
kidnappings, killings, and torture against political dissidents.
Not done
While Palestine solidarity activists are celebrating Brazil’s
decision, they are now turning their focus to the Olympics Committee,
which has named ISDS as an “official supplier” for the games.
Maristela Pinheiro, a member of the Rio de Janeiro Committee in
Solidarity with the Palestinian People stated: “There will be for sure a
strong campaign against the supplier deal between ISDS and the 2016
organizing committee and we’ll keep monitoring Coesrio [the government
agency responsible for the Olympics]. The games can’t be intensifying
repressive practices in our country, or endorse illegal and immoral
actions.”
Large sporting events, like the Olympics and the World Cup, are
magnets for military and security firms that are hired to pacify, place
under surveillance and remove poor and other “undesirable” segments of
the population from the festivities. ISDS is just one of several Israeli
and other international companies that have profited from this routine
in the past.
Due to Palestine solidarity activists, the company will not be
enjoying as much profit as it had hoped to reap in Brazil next year.
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