by John Fitzpatrick

This week´s bloody events in Iraq have shared the front pages and television news programs with similar bloody events in Rio de Janeiro where an undeclared war has been going on between drug traffickers and civil society. Like the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the favela shanty towns are no-go areas for the authorities and the law is meaningless. Power is held by armed gangs which terrorize the inhabitants and are becoming increasingly aggressive in protecting their interests. This week the gangs set up road blocks in the middle of the city, dragged motorists out and blatantly stole their vehicles. In one case a woman who tried to drive off was shot dead. Hundreds of police were sent into the favelas and over a dozen people – police and alleged traffickers - have been killed. The gangs´ weapons include machine guns and grenades and we have witnessed gun battles on television, complete with tracer bullets lighting up the sky, which could easily have come from Iraq.   

One big difference is that these gangs have no political or ideological beliefs. Nor do they have any charismatic leaders. The life of a drug boss in a favela is nasty, brutish and short, so there are no veteran Mafia-type bosses around to calm down the hotheads and provide a shadow power in their communities. Since the gangs are not a threat to the political power structure, as they are in Colombia, for example, they are left to their own devices. No-one cares when the gangs rob, murder and rape the inhabitants of the favelas and the police only crack down, as they did this week, when the gangs´ activities affect other sectors of society.

The authorities have no plan to end this hell and the police are left to deal with the mess. The federal government has more or less washed its hands of any responsibility and left it to the state government. Brazil´s military, which ran the country the country for two decades, is also uninterested in helping to solve this problem. A Brazilian military contingent will shortly be leaving for Haiti to help improve security there when the soldiers would be more useful in their own back yard. As in most countries, the military feel they are above dealing with common crime. The Brazilian military prefers marching around the parade ground, showing off its medals and regimental banners, to helping tackle one of the country´s most critical problems. We cannot expect help from that quarter.

Nor can we expect much from Anthony Garotinho, who is in charge of security in Rio de Janeiro state. Garotinho is a former state governor and husband of the current governor, Rosinha Mateus. To single out Garotinho as one of the most unscrupulous politicians in a place as full of unprincipled political leaders as Brazil might seem unfair but no thesaurus could provide enough pejoratives to describe Garotinho. When he was put in charge of Rio´s security last year I believed he might do something since he is one of the few politicians who could – and would if there was enough benefit for him - enter a favela and talk to gang leaders. Garotinho is shamelessly egoistical and has the kind of cheek that has made him popular with many lower-class Brazilians. He is a populist and his simple solutions to difficult questions attracted so many voters in the last presidential election that he ended up in third place. He is a young man and could easily be a presidential candidate again. However, he has done nothing to stop the violence in Rio.

Garotinho - Rio´s Dirty Harry
An attempt to win some cheap publicity backfired on him recently when he held a press conference at which he presented a young man allegedly responsible for the murder of an American couple. Garotinho questioned the alleged killer in front of the cameras in a cynical bid to portray himself as a kind of Brazilian Dirty Harry. Within a few hours, the suspect was released on a judge´s order due to procedural errors and police are now following new leads.

Garotinho refused to accept any of the blame for this farce and claimed that the police had been at fault. At the same time, Garotinho has backed the police actions against the favelas. If these police raids had any lasting effect then perhaps the brutal tactics might be worth supporting. However, they do not work and many innocent people are killed. These are either bystanders, often children, who are hit by bullets or suspected criminals who are allegedly shot dead in cold blood. In some cases, police are suspected of being in league with the traffickers.

It is always easy to criticize the police and in a violent country like Brazil a policeman´s lot is certainly not a happy one. However, there have simply been too many accusations against the police to accept that brutality and corruption are not endemic. Let me give two examples of police behavior which I have witnessed.  One afternoon about two years ago I was coming out of the Cidade Jardim railway station in São Paulo when I heard a screech of brakes and saw a motorcyclist driving on the pavement right at me. I froze and hoped he would not hit me. Behind him, on the road, came a police jeep driving at high speed. A policeman leaned out of the window and opened fire regardless of my presence. The bullet whizzed past my face and missed the motorcyclist who immediately stopped and stood still with his hands up. The jeep stopped and two policemen ran out pointing their guns at the motorcyclist. When they saw that he was not armed they rammed their guns into his belly and genitals, screaming repeatedly “você vai morrer” (you are going to die). I was only a couple of feet away and there were some passers-by but the police paid no attention. They then told the man to lie and down and handcuffed him. I felt like complaining to the policeman who had opened fire in such an irresponsible way but could see he was in no state to have a reasoned conversation. Another couple of jeeps arrived and the motorcyclist was whisked off to his fate. Maybe he was a mass murderer or maybe he was innocent. Who knows? I do know that, while I am glad to have a police force around, I don´t want to have anything to do with them.

On another occasion I saw police leave  the corpse of a young man they had just killed lying on the pavement  outside the Renaissance hotel, one of the most exclusive in the city.  The body lay there for 15 minutes before it was dumped into the boot of a car and then removed and put into a mortuary vehicle. If this is how the police behave in broad daylight in the middle of São Paulo one can imagine how they behave in the dark anonymity of a favela.

This mounting violence and institutionalized conflict between the drug traffickers and the security forces is one of the greatest problems facing Brazil today. The people in the favelas have been abandoned by the civil and military power and have no hope. At the end of the day, the federal and state governments have failed, the military are uninterested and the police have no ideas. This is a fair description of the plight Brazil is in today under the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The Brazilian flag is one of the few in the world with words written on it. These words say “Order and Progress”. What order and what progress?

April 4, 2004

(c) John Fitzpatrick 2004