August 9, 2005
Associated Press
HAROLD OLMOS
RIO DE JANEIRO - A former president has disclosed that the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for two decades tried to develop an atomic bomb, but says the program was scrapped when an elected government assumed power in 1985.
The 1964-85 dictatorship was long suspected of seeking nuclear weapons, but former President Jose Sarney's comments Sunday were the first confirmation of the program.
Sarney, who led the first democratic civilian government after the dictatorship ended and previously denied the existence of the program, said he was informed that the military had dug a deep well for an eventual nuclear test explosion in a remote area of the northern state of Para.
He did not say exactly when or how he received the information, but it was shortly after he became president in 1985.
''I reacted with surprise,'' Sarney told Globo TV, adding that he gave instructions for the well to be sealed. He offered no other details during an interview about the most difficult moments of his presidency.
Brazilian authorities on Monday reaffirmed that the country's constitution states that nuclear energy may only be used for peaceful purposes.
''Any initiative before the 1988 Constitution is buried,'' said Sergio Rezende, Brazil's science and technology minister. ``All we have from the old nuclear program is knowledge related to nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes.''
Sarney said he denied the existence of the atomic-weapons program when he was president so as not to jeopardize talks intended to head off a nuclear-arms race with neighboring Argentina.
Argentina also had reinstated democratic rule, and both civilian governments were negotiating a nuclear-cooperation agreement that eventually cooled a long rivalry between two of South America's most powerful nations.
''The Argentines also were engaged [in developing atomic weapons], but they also denied it, the same way as we did,'' Sarney said.
Argentina, which had South America's most advanced nuclear-power facilities, has always denied it ever had an atomic-arms program. But until the early 1980s, the country's nuclear-energy program was closely tied to the Argentine military.
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