Terrorist Use of Biological Weapons - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 285

firmly established. A fourth incident, the 2001 anthrax letter attacks in
the US, may be bioterrorism or biocriminality, determination of which
must await the identification of the perpetrator(s) and motive.
In addition to these several known incidents of BW use by terrorists,
there have been thousands of hoaxes—false claims that a biological at-
tack has been perpetrated. Some of these have been ideologically moti-
vated (most clearly when abortion clinics were the targets) and were
intended to cause fear and to intimidate; they are thus incidents of bio-
terrorism.
Finally, there has been a long history of interest by terrorist groups in
chemical and biological weapons (CBW), but few have had the expertise
necessary to gain actual possession of a bioweapon. Most of these have
been individuals or small groups on the far right or the far left. More re-
cently there has been evidence of interest in such weapons by al Qaeda.
However, so far lack of expertise appears to have prevented even large,
well-funded groups from implementing their interest. How long this state
of affairs will continue is unclear.
There are also a handful of allegations of terrorist use of BW against
plants or animals; these are mentioned in Chapter 11.
1957-1963 Attacks on Indigenous Brazilians
In 1964 the Brazilian military seized power, claiming among other things
a goal of ridding the country of corruption. As part of that agenda, in
1967 Attorney General Jader Figueiredo was commissioned by General
Albuquerque Lima, minister of the interior, to investigate charges of ram-
pant corruption in the Indian Protective Service (SPI). His 5,000-page re-
port, issued in 1968, alleged that among other things, SPI officials had
collaborated with landowners to displace indigenous Native Americans
from their land. The means were largely conventional violence, includ-
ing aerial attack, mass murder with firearms, and other forms of terror,
but they included alleged attempts to use chemical agents (arsenic-laced
sugar) and to introduce a variety of diseases into indigenous communi-
ties. Two hundred SPI officials were dismissed and another 134 were in-
dicted for the alleged crimes, but whether they went to trial, and if so
what the outcomes were, is not clear. 2 Apparently some received admin-
istrative discipline, but none appear to have been convicted of crimes. Ul-