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Brazil routinely authorizes weapons sales to countries with poor human rights records. The country has signed major deals not only with Saudi Arabia, but also with Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Zimbabwe and dozens of countries across the Middle East and Africa since the 1980s. Brazilian companies have also ramped up sales of “nonlethal” arms such as tear gas, pepper spray and concussion and smoke grenades. Some of these have surfaced in Bahrain, Turkey and Egypt, often in the wake of bloody police-led efforts to crush pro-democracy demonstrations.
Many of Brazil’s arms manufacturers have been heavily subsidized by the Brazilian Development Bank, or BNDES. Freedom of information requests reveal that Taurus received $16.7 million in low-interest loans between 2008 and 2015. In 2013 alone, the year Taurus reportedly sold the 8,000 handguns to Mr. Mana’a, the company benefited from $10 million in loans from BNDES. The Brazilian Cartridge Company, one of the world’s largest producers of ammunition (and majority shareholder of Taurus), received $2.9 million in loans over this same eight-year period. Brazil’s defense sector, excepting aeronautics, received $70.5 million in BNDES loans from 2008 to 2015. BNDES is now implicated in Brazil’s largest corruption scandal.
One reason Brazilian arms exports are expanding at breakneck speed is because Brazil’s Congress passed a law to promote innovation and competition in a flagging defense sector. The legislation also grants designated companies significant tax exemptions. Brazil is now the fourth largest supplier of small arms and ammunition in the world and second in the Western Hemisphere, after only the United States.
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