Brasília, November 12, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The new National secretary of Public Safety, Luiz Fernando Corrêa, affirmed today that the integration of police forces, through exchange of information and sharing of intelligence services, is the major weapon for fighting organized crime in the country. Corrêa, who replaced the anthropologist Luiz Eduardo Soares, was installed in office by the Minister of Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos.

"It is by uniting efforts, summing capacities and, at the same time, joining forces, that we, with personnel brought from other police units, shall transfer knowledge and prevent actions in other states in the future," the new secretary, a Federal Police commissioner, pointed out.

Through his choice of Corrêa, the Minister wants to give the Secretariat a more operational profile. One of the secretary's goals is to start up an Integrated Management Cabinet in each of the states that adhered to the Federal Public Safety System (Susp). With the exception of Pernambuco, all the other units of the federation have joined the system.

Corrêa was the coodinator of the Federal Police intelligence group, part of the task force uniting police units in Rio de Janeiro, created to investigate and combat organized crime in the state. According to the secretary, this endeavor serves as the embryo of a model to be extended to the other states.

During the office-taking ceremony, the Minister announced the creation of the first Regional Integrated Managment Cabinet, composed of representatives of security systems in states in the Southeast region. Next Tuesday (18), the governors and secretaries of public safety from Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, and São Paulo will meet with Bastos in Brasília to define how this cabinet will function.

The Minister once again called for the adoption of a series of measures to dismantle the "criminal production line," including changes in the judicial system, the prison system, and the police. "If we had a one-shot solution, we would already have used it; if we had a remedy to resolve the problem of violence in one application, we would already have administered it. The fact is that there is no single act; rather, there are many activities which have been undertaken for a long time by the federal government and state governments," the Minister observed.

He said he is confident in the organized effort among police forces. "There has never been an integration of security forces in the entire country. This is a stimulated integration, induced by the federal government, and the responses are increasingly affirmative and assertive," he underlined. (DAS)