Brazil Cuts Security Budget for Olympics

The challenge has been described as Olympic in itself, protecting 1,500 athletes and nearly 500,000 visitors over the course of two weeks during the summer Olympics scheduled for Rio De Janeiro. Now Brazil’s law enforcement and security forces may have to do it in the wake of a $550 million budget cut.

Last Monday the government cut security budgeting by more than 30%, which will delay the establishment of a specialized Urban Pacification Police unit in Mare, Rio’s massive complex of 15 slums near the airport. Instead, the unit will only be set up sometimes once the games are over.

Eliana Sousa, Director of the Mare Development Network, says now that the government will have to rely on the Army just as it did during the World Cup, when more than 1,000 soldiers were sent to Favelas, Brazil’s frequently dangerous slums to keep order.

The 2014 World Cup cost Brazil $15 billion with FIFA only pickup up about $2 billion of the operational costs. Brazil also was given a budget of $11 billion dollars for infrastructure projects including a new extended subway system.

With the Olympics less than five months away some, even within Brazil’s law enforcement community feel that Brazil is not taking the threat of terrorism seriously. One office warned that Brazil’s Intelligence Agency appears to view the threat of a terrorist attack at the Olympics as a low risk.

Brazil’s 48,000 police and firefighters combined with 38,000 military personnel is about twice the size of London’s security forces for the 2012 Olympic games, but unlike London, Brazil doesn’t have the same level of investment in security technology and equipment, something they hope to overcome with raw manpower.

Brazillian security forces warn that the South American country is as vulnerable as Paris and Brussels. Reports in 2015, showed that the Islamic State (IS) was trying to recruit jihadists in Brazil to conduct attacks at the 2016 Olympics.

Security experts feel the timing of the security cuts come at a bad time as with the recent attacks in Brussels putting the world on edge and Brazil’s highly porous 23,000 kilometer border unguarded it would be easy for a terrorist to slip in.

Brazil just recently passed new legislation that broadens the term of what consists of a terrorist.

A Spokesman for the ministry of justice insists that security will be ready for the Olympics as hundreds of police went up to the Pan-American Games in Toronto last summer to learn the latest techniques, and develop best practices for handling events and large crowds, and they’ll be utilizing the latest technical surveillance techniques from a new command and control center.

Cameras installed all over the Olympic grounds allow for immediate images in real time Security forces will also work with experts from all over the world within the command and control center. Visitors will even be screened before they land in Brazil as passenger information is derived from their country of origin and passed on to the police for screening.

In addition to the obvious threat based on the history of terror attacks against Olympic sites, Brazil is also currently coping with the outbreak of the Zika Virus and a suffering economy, major factors in Brazil’s budgetary cuts to security. Brazil has spent billions on the World Cup and now the Olympics and with a country in political turmoil if anything does go wrong at the Olympics it could lead the country into chaos.