NACLA Report on the Americas

ISSN: 1071-4839 (Print) 2471-2620 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rnac20

Tales of Terror on the Triple Frontier

Fernando Brancoli

To cite this article: Fernando Brancoli (2019) Tales of Terror on the Triple Frontier, NACLA Report
on the Americas, 51:1, 85-89, DOI: 10.1080/10714839.2019.1593697

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2019.1593697

Published online: 29 Mar 2019.

Submit your article to this journal

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rnac20
 R E P O RT

Fernando Brancoli

Ta les of Terror o n th e Triple

Fro ntier
The Paraguay-Argentina-Brazil border region has long been home to immigrants
from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. In recent decades, Brazil has come to see these
Muslim communities as a singular terrorist threat, with the help of U.S. empire.

O
n September 6, 2018, during the Brazilian
presidential campaign, Jair Bolsonaro, who
would soon be elected president of Brazil,
was stabbed on the street during a campaign
stop in the state of Minas Gerais. Brazilian police were
quick to note that an individual with mental problems
who had acted alone carried out the attack. But some of
Bolsonaro’s disciples quickly discredited this version of
events. In their retelling, Hezbollah, in conjunction with
leftist political parties and criminal groups, had supposedly
planned and executed the act. Although this relationship
sounded strange to academics and experts in general,
important figures in the country’s political establishment
contributed to this narrative, including Onyx Lorenzoni,
Bolsonaro’s Chief of Staff, and Joice Hasselmann, a popular
congresswoman. The conservative news website The
Antagonist was more detailed: its commentators alleged
that the attack was plotted from the Triple Frontier region,
the border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, an
area often described as permeated with terrorist groups.
In a September 2018 post, the website claimed, quoting O
Globo, that “Agents of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service,
were recently in Argentina to warn local authorities that
Hezbollah members would make their victims in South
America from the Triple Border: the targets would be
Mauricio Macri and Jair Bolsonaro.” The reference to this
region is not an anomaly, but is part of a decades-long
process of constructing transnational threats as emanating
from the border region.
This article seeks to analyze why and how the Triple
Frontier region between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay
has been construed as a terrorist threat where groups such
as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Islamic State (ISIS) have
bases, speaking to a number of essential political dynamics
in the region. This narrative has implications for refugee
and migration policies, the fight against terrorism, and
joint processes of transnational securitization between the
United States and countries in the Global South, as Paul
Amar has written. The construction of a terrorist threat in
the region, however, goes much further back. Exploring its
history affords us a greater understanding of the nexus of
organized crime and terrorism in the region.
MUSLIMS IN BRAZIL
T he presence of Muslims in Brazil dates back to the
country ’s colonization by Portugal beginning in
1500. The Muslim population grew in the 1920s after the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire, with groups relatively

NACL A — REPORT ON THE AMERICAS | VOL. 51, NO. 1 | 85-89

ht tp://dx.doi.org /10.1080/10714 839.2019.1593697
© 2019 Nor th American Congress on Latin America (NACL A)

Spring 2019 | N ACL A — REPORT ON THE AMERICAS  85

NACLA_51-1.indd 85 3/18/19 8:22 PM

 concentrated in the southeastern region of the country. In
southern Brazil, the largest percentage of Muslims live in
Foz do Iguaçu, in the state of Paraná. The Muslims residing
here, who primarily identify as Shi’a, are descendants of
Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian people. Foz do Iguaçu
is part of a border region historically marked by large
circulations of people and goods [you can read more about
the commercial history of this region in Fernando Rabossi’s
article in this issue]. As the name suggests, the Triple
Frontier encompasses three cities: the aforementioned Foz
do Iguaçu on the Brazilian side, Ciudad del Este on the
Paraguayan side, and Puerto de Iguazú on the Argentinian
side. These cities are largely connected by highways
and have been historically known for drug and human
trafficking and the circulation of contraband.
Connections between Muslim groups in the region and
terrorism only galvanized after 2001, in the wake of the
September 11 attacks in the United States. In a report
86  NACL A — REPORT ON THE AMERICAS | VOL. 51, NO. 1
NACLA_51-1.indd 86
from that year, the United States State Department
pointed to the Triple Frontier as a f inancial sanctuary
for Hezbollah and Hamas. They alleged the presence of
these groups precisely because a Muslim community lived
there, conflating the practice of Islam with the presence
of terrorism. The report asserted that, by maintaining
ties with their countries of origin, these groups served as
channels for money laundering. The Brazilian government
and State Department cables alike have regularly described
the Triple Frontier as a “non-governed” area and a “zone
of non-sovereignty,” thereby requiring immediate action
to contain threats, according to research by Thomaz Costa
and Gastón Schulmeister.
However, the United States and Brazil have construed
these supposed threats in diverging ways. While the
U.S. correlated the presence of Syrians, Lebanese, and
Palestinians with groups considered terrorist organizations,
Brazil denied the presence of terrorists in the region, and
A mosque in Foz do Iguaçu
(HERR STAHLHOEFER/ WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
3/18/19 8:22 PM
 argued that Hezbollah, a Lebanese political party, should
not even fall under that category.
Of course, the United States continued to pressure
Brazil to take a more active stance in the region. In 2003,
then-U.S. president George W. Bush requested that then-
president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva send troops
to Iraq and increase its control of the Triple Frontier. Lula
declined to send troops to the Middle East, stating that
“Brazil’s war is against hunger.”
The question of how to define terrorist groups in Brazil
was up for debate: in its 1988 constitution, post-military
dictatorship Brazil never specifically defined terrorism and
did not have an Anti-Terror Law, though constitutional
articles did condemn terrorism. This was due to the
association between the dictatorship’s justif ication of
“terrorism” to persecute people who opposed the regime,
leading to constant human rights violations, an association
newly-democratic Brazil sought to avoid.
In the early 2000s, Brazil had other reasons for not
wanting to respond to the United States’ pressure around
the Triple Frontier issue. Within the framework of its
South-South foreign policy, the Lula government (2003-
2011) had begun to strengthen its ties with Middle Eastern
countries. Securitizing the Triple Frontier region could
jeopardize these relationships. The Brazilian population,
like the press, did not spread the idea that the Muslim
community in Brazil could have terrorist groups within it.
In fact, this period was marked by a growing global interest
in Arab and Muslim communities in Brazil, including
favorable depictions in famous telenovelas, as Claudia
Ferreira’s research shows. According to the Federação das
Associações Muçulmanas do Brasil (Federation of Muslim
Associations in Brazil), between 2001 and 2011, there
was an increase in the number of Brazilians converting to
Islam, as well as of migrants arriving from the region.
A THREAT NARRATIVE EMERGES
T his situation would quickly change, however, when
Brazil was selected to host the FIFA World Cup and
the Summer Olympics. Pressure came from countries in the
Global North that would send athletes to Brazil—mainly
the U.S., Israel, and France—as well as from the events’
organizing bodies to pass legislation to classify terrorism.
The pressure from the International Olympic Committee
was particularly assertive. In fact, a number of Brazilian
Members of Congress received extra-official statements
NACLA_51-1.indd 87
warning them that Brazil could become a hotspot for
money laundering for terrorist groups if effective policy
measures weren’t taken, according to El Pais. The pressure
worked: in 2016, then-president Dilma Rousseff passed the
Brazilian Anti-Terror Law, which included language that
emphasized that social movements could not be considered
under this classification, an effort to avoid the abuses of the
past. This did not stop policy-level criticisms and concerns
over the vagueness of the law, as Luiz Flávio Gomes and
Débora de Souza have written.
A s conversations around terrorism and national
territory reemerged, the new law generated larger political
consequences for the Triple Frontier. After warnings about
the possibility of attacks during these mega-events, the
Brazilian population was on the defensive. Moreover,
Europe had recently been targeted by ISIS members
residing in the countries where the attacks took place.
This rose a specter of fear that something similar could
happen in Brazil. Conservative media outlets set the
tone for these discussions. Two weeks before the start of
the 2016 summer Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, the
newspaper Estado de São Paulo warned that Brazi could be
at risk for terrorist attacks from within the country. “Lone
wolves generally come from the countries where attacks
occur,” said researcher Paulo Velasco, who is quoted in the
article. The piece went on to state that in Brazil, most of the
Muslim community is located in the south of the country,
implying that people from that community constituted
terrorist threats.
Such allegations, lacking in supporting evidence,
initiated panic, as Brazilian intelligence agencies began
to concentrate their security efforts on the Triple Frontier.
The situation worsened further when 30 people were
imprisoned, only a few days into the Games, for supposedly
planning ISIS-ordered attacks. According to federal
authorities, the perpetrators had recently converted to
Islam and pledged allegiance to ISIS through the Internet,
since most had never left the country, and had received
orders online to carry out attacks during the Olympic
Games. According to the Minister of Justice at the time, the
group was planning to “use explosive devices in stadiums,
government buildings, and main roads, communicating
through mobile apps such as Whatsapp. Although the police
operation that intercepted them was massive and widely
considered a success, there is much debate within academia
about whether the suspects were professionalized enough
Spring 2019 | N ACL A — REPORT ON THE AMERICAS  87
3/18/19 8:22 PM
 The Triple Frontier region could serve as a laboratory for Brazil
to implement and improve its use of tools of control and violence,
justified under the banner of the fight against terror.
to have had the capacity to perform such acts. Before
the arrests, Brazil had already established coordinated
intelligence operations with the United States and France
in Rio de Janeiro.
It is important to recognize that these narratives of
Islamic terrorism emanated from Washington, linking
threats from abroad with presence within. This narrative
posits that threats from abroad—in this case, Islamic groups
from the Middle East—could materialize domestically via
religious communities. Accepting this narrative has made
Brazil’s response to the Triple Frontier similar to the United
States’, in the form of tighter control over migrants and
refugees, in addition to collaboration with other countries
affected by “Global Terrorism.”
The strengthening of U.S. relations over terrorist
threats was especially important in the context of the
profound political changes taking place across the region.
Conservativism had returned as the “Pink Tide” waned.
In 2015, Mauricio Macri came to power in Argentina
with a discourse of reducing the economic role of the
state. In Brazil, Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party
(PT), was removed from office in 2016 in a controversial
impeachment process that many on the Left refer to as a
constitutional coup. The right-wing parties that replaced
Rousseff were quick to condemn what they deemed as
collusion between the PT and countries in the Middle East.
Despite the shallowness of these arguments, the narrative
that the PT or “the Left” had alliances with extremist
groups grew. Far-right activists initiated attacks claiming
that the Landless Worker’s Movement (MST), a Brazilian
social movement that works towards democratizing
agriculture, had relationships with Hamas and other
groups—with Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Islamic State
often used interchangeably.
During the 2018 presidential campaign, Bolsonaro
accused the P T of having “imported” terrorists that
supposedly were located mostly on the Triple Frontier.
According to this increasingly dominant discourse, Foz
do Iguaçu became a type of symbolic territory of the
88  NACL A — REPORT ON THE AMERICAS | VOL. 51, NO. 1
NACLA_51-1.indd 88
Middle East, a kind of Brazilian border with terror. The
Islamophobic presumption that Muslim communities are
homogenous fits into the popular notion that the border
exists as an ungoverned space. In this sense, the Triple
Frontier came to be known not only for contraband and
the circulation of people, but also as an area of “exception,”
where traditional tools for asserting control do not work to
address emerging threats.
THE ORGANIZED CRIME-TERRORISM
NEXUS: THE NEW FUTURE?
W e must see the consequences of the narrative of
terrorist incursion in the Triple Frontier within the
larger context of the Right Turn. The case of Argentina is
illustrative: since his arrival to the Casa Rosada, President
Mauricio Macri has made strengthening ties with the
United States a central theme of his foreign policy. Macri
authorized the establishment of a U.S. base there in 2016,
citing questions involving organized crime. Macri has
claimed that Islamic terrorism and organized crime have
joined forces, and that Islamic groups are colluding with
militias linked principally to arms and drug trafficking.
This is an argument that has gained momentum in recent
years, with some going so far as to claim that the two are
in the process of uniting. Although authorities on the
Brazilian side have also cited this issue, there is little
evidence to corroborate this claim.
These discussions intensified in 2017, when the largest
Brazilian gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), won a
bloody battle for control of illicit activities on the Triple
Frontier. The dispute was highly violent, included the use
of high-caliber weapons, and left dozens dead. The local
press widely reported on these events, which reinforced the
idea that the Triple Frontier region was a strategic meeting
spot that serves as a point of drug disposal and contraband
for Brazil and its Europe-bound ports.
The PCC’s monopoly in the region provoked a profound
change in the scale and character of illegal activities on
the Triple Frontier, to the extent that they have in many
3/18/19 8:22 PM

cases replaced smaller and less professionalized operations
and increased the flow of drugs and weapons. Within this
new configuration, conceptions of the exceptionalism and
lawlessness of the region have intensified. But now the
narrative has combined the two threats posed by drug
traffickers and supposed Islamic terrorists.
Today, this connection stands to become stronger under
the new administration of Jair Bolsonaro, whose election
represents the largest change in foreign policy and security
since the country’s re-democratization in 1988. Under
this scenario, Brazil will strengthen its ties with countries
like the United States and Israel, both currently led by
extreme right-wing factions. Bolsonaro has already stated
that Donald Trump is a “faithful friend” and that he would
like to emulate Republican policies in Brazil. Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, was the first
international representative to visit Brazil after Bolsonaro’s
victory, even before the presidential inauguration. The new
Brazilian president had promised to move the Brazilian
embassy to Jerusalem and cut ties with the Palestinian
Authority.
In a recent interview, Bolsonaro affirmed that he was
considering authorizing the construction of a U.S. military
base in Brazilian territory to aid the country in handling
growing threats in the region. Moreover, Bolsonaro has
repeatedly declared that Israel and Brazil face similar
security threats and that they need to more closely align.
NACLA_51-1.indd 89
The Brazil-Paraguay border seen from Ciudad del Este
(WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
He has mentioned that Brazil intends to import armed
drones from Tel Aviv, in addition to seeking technical
partnerships for border control. Such alliances and actions
are signs that the fight against the alleged terrorism on
the Triple Frontier will ramp up, as Brazil receives more
technology and training from Tel Aviv and Washington.
In this sense it is no exaggeration to say that the Triple
Frontier region could serve as a laboratory for Brazil to
implement and improve its use of tools of control and
violence, justified under the banner of the fight against
terror. In a sort of triple alliance of securitization, Israel
and the U.S. could provide such tools, which would
certainly increase Brazil’s capacity for repression. Could
we be facing the late arrival of a Global War on Terror in
Latin America? n n
Fernando Brancoli is Professor of International Security
at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is also
an Associated Researcher at the Orfalea Center for Global &
International Studies at the University of California Santa
Barbara.
Translated from Portuguese by Emma Young.
Spring 2019 | N ACL A — REPORT ON THE AMERICAS  89
3/18/19 8:22 PM