News from Rio de Janeiro

News from Rio de Janeiro

By Mina Seinfeld de Carakushansky

President of BRAHA – Brazilian Humanitarians in Action

Board member of World Federation Against Drugs and Drug Watch International

Rio the Janeiro, considered by many as the most beautiful city of the world, is the official chosen site for the future 2014 World Soccer Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, has been over the last six days the scenario of hell: dozens of buses and cars being set on fire by criminals all over the city, innocent people running for their lives trying to avoid being hit by bullets of cross-fires between police forces and criminals, dead and wounded at the hospitals

Rio de Janeiro, one of the megacities of the world, has a population of 6.2 million people, with 12 million people living in its metropolitan area.

The topography of Rio has a long and narrow strip of land separating the beaches from the mountains. The climate is very nice almost all year around and the cariocas are friendly people. But this type of topography has contributed to the steep prices of apartments in the many high rise buildings. Sometimes an apartment (such as in the neighborhoods of Ipanema or Leblon) can cost 1 or even 2 million Euros and then two or three blocks away, are the favelas or shanty town houses on the mountain, where most of the poor people live. Many of the ancestors of these poor people migrated to Rio de Janeiro hoping to make a living by getting jobs which in general are still lacking in their original towns or cities. When these people arrive, they are hoping to get good jobs, a house and education for their children. However, the reality shows that only a minority actually achieves this success, most of the people end up living in very poor slums.

Although many hard working and honest people live in the favelas, over the last three decades, populist mayors, governors and other politicians, seeking cheap and numerous votes, have conveniently shut their eyes on drug trafficking and other criminal activities in the favelas, and even making alliances with the crime lords. Criminals were then able to gain forces, organize and get weapons which many times are newer and even more powerful than those owned by the legitimate legal forces such as the police.

These shanty towns have grown and multiplied to the point where nowadays there are about 1020 distinct favelas in Rio de Janeiro. For instance, while a common citizen has to get permits from the established formal authorities to build a house or even to change something in his own house, in the favelas anything goes. People build without any type of rule and afterwards the establishment comes in to give them social benefits such as electricity, water, schools, roads, etc., enabling some politicians to get voted by those people on the next election. It is the informality taken to its highest degree. From time to time, when there are strong rains, tragedies occur with some of these houses falling and killing its inhabitants. Nowadays it is not politically correct to call the favelas by this name and instead it has been tacitly agreed by everybody to call them instead “Communities”.

In Brazil, only the States have power over the police forces, not of the cities. Sergio Cabral, Rio de Janeiro’s Governor, got easily reelected, two months ago, for a new term of four years. His victory stems, besides President Lula’s open support, also from his political platform of fighting the criminals and giving back some peace to the population through the implementation of the UPPs – Unidades de Policia Pacificadora (Pacifying Police Unities).

Those Unities are based on a philosophy similar to what Community Policing heralds all over the world, which means that the Police should work together with the citizens in order to achieve and maintain security and peace. The program has as one of its main objectives to regain the territory occupied by the criminals in each favela and in this way to make possible a secure life for everybody living in the community. It is easy to understand why people who were suffocated and oppressed by constant fights and shootings and the iron rule imposed by drug lords and other criminals, are so happy to feel that they are free to live their lives in a more normal manner.

Up to now, the UPP have been implemented in only 13 favelas. Considering that there exist 1020 favelas, it is easy to perceive that there is still a long way before most of the favelas can be freed from criminals who spread fear and violence and make living under their rule almost inhumane.

Inspite of that, these UPPs, implemented in important strongholds of drug trafficking, are causing heavy losses to the drug lords. It was then that their reaction started.

Since last Sunday (six days ago) the criminals decided to implement terror, burning buses and cars in three of the main highways that connect the capital of the State of Rio de Janeiro to the State´s interior. This action was spilled also to the capital, Rio de Janeiro, spreading terror by setting fire to vehicles in emblematic neighborhoods such as Copacabana in the area where the high middle class lives.

These actions originate from the unusual union of rival bandit factions and were coordinated from inside the prisons of maximum security where the main drug bosses are imprisoned. This fact may appear strange to far away observers, but it should be stated that the proponents of “human rights” have been able to get approved over the years, laws and norms ever more liberal for the prisoners, such as weekly intimate visits, prohibition to personal search their lawyers when they enter and leave the prisons, etc., which allow the criminals who are in prison to have a regular and free flow information from and give order to their subordinates.

The State Government’s reaction was double: 1) with the help of the Federal Government, transferred thirteen famous prisoners to far away States in order to make it more difficult for them to communicate with their subordinates. 2) Invasion (with the important help of the Marines and their heavy vehicles) of the favela Vila Cruzeiro, considered one of the principal bunkers of the drug trafficking and where there is no UPP.

The TV Station Globo filming from an helicopter above showed in real time, more than two hundred criminals fleeing to the nearby Morro do Alemão, another major stronghold of the bandits, where there is still no UPP. The repercussion of these scenes for the population was of much joy. Today’s popular newspapers speak about the traffickers as coward fugitives, and saying such things as: “Now they will know who is in command!”.

What has happened up to now, even in these six horrible and frightening days, which some intellectuals and university scholars are comparing to the urban guerrillas of Colombia, Mexico, Afganistan, and the Gaza Strip, is that the criminals when expelled by the police and get out of one of the favelas in which they are established, they lose the power of their territory until they can get another. The vision that criminality will not disappear in the short range of time is recognized by all government and political authorities and even by the population, since over too many years almost nothing was done to revert this type of situation. But if the government continues showing force, intelligence and determination, we as Rio’s citizens will not feel like hostages in our own city.

© 2010 Mina Seinfeld de Carakushansky