Agência Brasil

Brasília - The X National Conference of State Legislatures, which began yesterday (17) and runs through Friday (19), will debate denunciations that the Amazon is being internationalized. State deputies from various regions in Brazil and experts on the Amazon are gathered in Manaus (AM) for the event, which is sponsored by the National Union of State Legislatures (UNALE).

At the end of the encounter, the participants intend to draft the Letter from Manaus, which will be delivered to the candidates in this year's presidential race. During the conference the military commander of the Amazon region, general Cláudio Barbosa Figueiredo, will give a talk entitled "Amazônia - Patrimony of Brazil," in which he will warn of the foreign intervention risks the country faces.

According to UNALE president, José Távora, the choice of Manaus to host the conference was a strategic one for raising the issue of the risk of the region's internationalization. "Among the wealth of topics of vital interest to state legislatures, we want to discuss the national security of one of the states with the greatest resource endowments in the country and question the purpose of the presence of 3,600 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the region," he affirmed.

Translation: David Silberstein