Brazil agent to lead subcommand of US Southern Army

For the first time, a Brazilian Army official will take up a position in the Southern Command of the US Armed Forces. At the invitation of US authorities, the Brazilian Army appointed General Alcides Valeriano de Faria Júnior to lead the interoperability subcommand of the US Southern Army. Under the Southern Command, the 52-year-old will be tasked with humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Negotiations started in 2017. The appointment was announced by Southern Command head Admiral Craig Faller during an address at the US Senate on February 9. “[The US has] worked with allied and partner [countries] to develop the concept of a multinational task-force capable of working on different scales within already existing cooperation frameworks, in order to facilitate its collective capacity to respond quickly to crises,” Faller declared.

According to Brazilian Army Commander General Edson Leal Pujol, General Alcides Valeriano will answer to US authorities. The date on which he is to leave the 5th Armored Cavalry Brigade to take up the new role is yet to be fixed. The Brazilian general will replace a Chilean official.

Duties

“The mission of General Alcides will be to work as the link between Brazil and the Southern Command as an adviser, subordinate to the US authorities, just as an official from another country in a joint command with Brazil would be subordinate to our Armed Forces,” Pujol said.

Among the duties to be taken by General Alcides Valeriano, the Brazilian Army reported, are to back the efforts of the Southern Command “in developing a multinational vision to meet humanitarian assistance needs and facilitate the development and enhancement of efforts to bolster interoperability between the US and friend nations, in support of the missions and the initiatives of the US Southern Army.”

In practice, Alcides Valeriano will monitor and lead the sections on training exercises and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, in addition to encouraging partner nations to collaborate with research.

The commander of the Brazilian Army described the appointment as another acknowledgment of the competence of the Brazilian military, adding that it comes chiefly as a result of “our participation in international missions as well as conferences, seminars, and exchange initiatives in other countries.”

Southern Command

The Southern Command comprises over 1.2 thousand military and civil agents of the US Army, Air Forces, Marines, and the Coast Guard, in addition to officials from other federal agents of the US and other countries.

In charge of implementing and protecting the US foreign security policy for the Central and South America and the Caribbean (with the communities, territories and possessions of the US overseas excluded), the Southern Command is tasked with ensuring the defense of the Panama Canal.