Reports on Police Violence and Prison Conditions in Brazil

In yet even more cheerful news from Brazil, Human Rights Watch once again put Brazil on its list for police violence.

According to NGO Human Rights Watch, an alarming number of police killings have gone unpunished in Brazil. Police officers from the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have killed more than 11,000 people since 2003.

Most of these killings are claimed to have been “resistance” killings — those that occur when police officers return fire in self-defense. Police officials say these killings are in resistance to gangs linked to drug trafficking.

However, Human Rights Watch says otherwise. The group led a two-year investigation, called Lethal Force, that focused on 51 such killings and found evidence that police officers often took steps to cover up the true nature of the deaths.

This should come as no surprise to people familiar with Brazil or regular readers here. The solution, according to HRW, is to appoint independent investigators and prosecutors to focus on the extrajudicial killings. That would be nice, and there have been some forays into prosecutorial action and even some newer tactics within police forces, but with the broader lack of concern about the fate of the poor in Brazil and the deep-seated impunity most police have enjoyed, nothing short of a massive and complete overhaul of the police system, structure, and workforce forced upon Rio from the federal government will accomplish an eradication of this, and that simply isn't happening for obvious logistical reasons.

Nor is that the only problem facing Brazil, in terms of policing and human rights. A British journalist had the chance to see some of the prison conditions in Brazil, and he learned firsthand that they were nothing short of appalling. In addition to the horrible crowding and understaffing, there are broader fundamental problems:

Many of the people being held have only been charged with extremely minor offences – such as shoplifting – but administrative inefficiencies in the conduct of trials means that it is not uncommon for them to spend longer on remand than their final sentence. Many should not even be there at all. The Brazilian judiciary have recently reopened the files in a number of states and found that around 20% of the people currently in prison should be released and a further 30% moved to lower security.

Locking up petty thieves with hardened killers also provides the gangs with a steady stream of new recruits. Their leaders are responsible for the day to day administration of many prisons, controlling the distribution of food, medicine, and hygiene kits and enforcing whatever internal discipline exists. Two and half years ago the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), São Paulo's most powerful crime gang, launched a series of co-ordinated attacks against police officers and prison staff in a protest over prison conditions, which resulted in around 450 killings. The PCC was initially formed by a group of prisoners to "avenge the death of 111 prisoners" who were killed during the suppression of a prison protest in 1992.

As Foley points out, this also needs major reforming, which is easy to say and hard to do. I think prison reform in Brazil has a better chance to be accomplished fairly quickly in comparison to police reform. Either way, though, in spite of Brazil's recent growth, expansion, and success in the international arena, it is still very difficult to be either poor or a criminal in Brazil, and there is little hope that the basic structural situation facing those groups is going to improve anytime soon.

Report: Police Killed 11,000 People in Favelas in Last Six Years

At the beginning of the year, I commented on reports that Rio's police were trying new tactics in the favelas in an attempt to reduce the power of drug gangs in the favelas. However, I expressed skepticism of how well it would work broadly, since the program was for two favelas, and not the 1000+ favelas of Rio (a concern that Rio's police chief also expressed in the excellent Jon Lee Anderson article). Last week, NPR also highlighted the program in the Santa Marta favela, basically updating the report on which I had commented in January. In some ways, I'm encouraged by the fact that, after almost a full year, the police have not abandoned this program. If you're going to establish infrastructure and a relationship with people who live in the favelas in order to undermine the drug lords, then you need to have a long-term presence of a benevolent state (rather than lightning-flash attacks and retreats of repressive forces), and NPR's report suggests that the program is getting that support. At the micro-level, this is encouraging, even if some officers still believe "a heavy hand is necessary in violent slums."

Unfortunately, that heavy hand has been devastating in the favelas, as a new report suggests that the police have killed over 11,000 people in the favelas in the last six years, with many of those killings being execution-style murders. Even if many of those killed were involved with violent crime, they should receive a trial and sentencing. Brazil's prison system may be bleak (another issue too complicated to get into here), but it's still better than summary executions. Certainly, Santa Marta is a point of light in police tactics, but the overall picture is still extremely bleak, and until Brazil (and not just Rio) launches major programs in the style of the Santa Marta program and completely eliminates impunity for police involved in extrajudicial killings, the murder of innocent civilians, and participation in militias, then conditions in the favelas are unlikely to get any better.

"Fat-Killings" in Peru a Cover-Up for Extrajudicial Police Killings

A couple of weeks ago, a story made the rounds about a gang in Peru killing people for their fat, which they then sold to cosmetics companies. It was macabre but strangely intriguing. Unfortunately, it turns out that the police's report of these killings was untrue, and the truth is much more disturbing:

Peru's police chief dismissed the head of his criminal investigations unit Tuesday amid suggestions that officers may have invented a story about a murderous gang of human fat thieves, perhaps to distract from allegations of police killings. [...]

Former Deputy Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio suggested some police cooked up the story to divert attention from a recently published magazine article alleging police had killed 46 suspects in 2007 and 2008 in the coastal town of Trujillo.

"My hypothesis is that they were mainly trying to cover up the tremendous revelation of extrajudicial killings of criminals in Trujillo made by Ricardo Uceda ... in Poder magazine," Basombrio wrote on the political analysis blog Espacio Compartido.

Extrajudicial killings in any case are bad; the fact that some police in Peru have made up this story about a gang killing people for their fat in order to cover up the police's own illegal activities is just sad. It's really hard to find any good news in a story involving dozens killed, be it by gangs or by police, but I suppose if the police are prosecuted for this, then at least there will be some sense of justice in eastern Peru.

Is Jamaica the Most Homophobic Country in the Americas?

You can definitely make a strong case for it:

Today has been proclaimed 'Gay Eradication Day' by residents of the McGregor Gully community in East Kingston. Residents say that they will be taking action as a two-week notice given to all gays and lesbians to flee the community has now expired.

THE STAR learnt that about two weeks ago angry residents who declared that they were fed up with seeing the activities of several gay persons in their community, ordered that they leave by today or suffer the consequences.

Some residents who admitted to THE STAR that they are a part of the "gay clearing out" scheme said that it is being done to protect their families and the community on a whole.

Most Americans (in a different kind of base stereotyping) think of Jamaica as an island of happiness, home to marijuana and Bob Marley. Few realize that Jamaica is actually home to rampant homophobia that isn't even remotely veiled. Attacks on homosexuals on the island are not limited to verbal assault; Jamaican homosexuals often face very real violence if they come out of the closet, with nowhere to turn. Even the police get in on the act, committing abuses based on sexual orientation. It would be nice if this despicable (and that's being charitable) act of this community in Kingston was abnormal. Unfortunately, it's not - it's symptomatic of broader attitudes towards homosexual men and women in Jamaica, and there's just no sign of any aid coming to those who are threatened anytime soon.

Understanding the Complexities of the Drug Trade in Rio's Favelas

Randy points us to this article in The Economist. The article does a great job explaining succinctly why A) there appears to be so much violence in Rio, and B) why it's in the favelas, and not a city-wide event:

"A further reason for Rio’s spectacular violence is that it has three large, competing drug factions, whereas in other big cities (including the largest, São Paulo) one gang is dominant. A recent study from Rio de Janeiro state’s government on the economics of the local drug business suggests that, because of this competition, far from living like characters in an MTV hip-hop video, Rio’s dealers are operating at “close to break-even”.

Using a conservative estimate for total annual drugs sales in the city, of R$316m ($182m), the study reckons that after buying the product from wholesalers, employing a sales force and investing in capital (guns, mainly), Rio’s dealers make combined annual profits of R$27m ($15m). The wage structure within the factions appears to be surprisingly flat, far more so than in the American gang analysed in 2000 by two academics, Steven Levitt and Sudhir Venkatesh. Rio’s dealers seem to be an exception to Brazil’s national picture of unequal income distribution."

It's a quick run-down, and does a good job distributing the blame. While many uninformed non-Brazilians, many racist/classist (no matter how much they deny it) Brazilians, and foreign media reports place the blame solely on the drug gangs (and the favelados more generally), the economist reminds us that there's a long legacy miscues (to put it euphemistically) from other groups as well, including governmental policy-making:

Past mistakes include making accommodations with drug-dealing factions in the hope of keeping them peaceful. Rio’s police force is also part of the problem. Some of the weapons used by drug dealers are sold to them by the police, and officers still execute too many people on the spot rather than bother with prosecuting suspects, making favela-dwellers regard them as no more a source of justice than the drugs gangs.

The article also mentions the existence of militias in the favelas and around them, though it doesn't mention that these militias are often composed of former and current members of the police. Nonetheless, the (brief) article is the first I've seen in the foreign press that really understands the complexities of the violence and drug economy in Brazil. These complexities are why last week's violence was not initially an attack on police forces in Rio (as many headlines and reports tacitly or explictly framed it), and are why the Olympics are not in any grave danger from these types of incidents. And if the media, both in Brazil and abroad, would take better care to understand and report on these complexities, then maybe bringing an end to the violence could be a more realistic possibility than it is when media reports simply frame the city as a place of extreme violence and treats all the urban poor and favelados as criminals. Maybe then, images like the one above will become more uncommon.

On the Weekend Violence in Rio de Janeiro

This past weekend, violence in Rio's favelas flared up, with ugly results:

Some 2,000 police officers patrolled the streets of Rio de Janeiro Sunday after a bloody confrontation between rival drug gangs and authorities that killed 14 over the weekend, including two police officers. [A third died this morning, according to reports in Brazil - Trend].

Two suspected drug traffickers were killed and four were arrested in Sunday's operations by Rio de Janeiro's military police, the official news agency Agencia Brasil reported.

Of course, these events have led many in both Brazil and abroad to comment on what this means in light of Brazil recently being awarded the 2016 Olympics. Boz broached this subject earlier today:

It's not credible to think that Rio's drug gangs have a unified grand plan of Olympic disruption that they're implementing. However, their ability to create a climate in insecurity and harm Rio's reputation is certainly a greater factor with the Olympic announcement. I expect them to continue to challenge the security forces and attempt some more high-profile attacks in the coming year.

I absolutely agree with that first part of the paragraph. This wasn't some coordinated response to the Olympics; hell, it wasn't even an uncoordinated response to the Olympics. Some of the news stories have insinuated this clearly indicates that this is a threat to Olympic athletes, as the favela in question (Morro dos Macacos) is "only five miles" from where one of the villages will be, not taking into account that that's five miles by air, not five miles through mountains, lakes, buildings, and the world's largest urban forest. In grand terms, this means pretty much nothing in terms of the Olympics or the athletes.

I find Boz's final sentence more interesting. I certainly think the drug gangs will challenge the police, but it's not like this is the first time that they've challenged police,given the military tactics used against civilians in the favelas, where it's not uncommon to see images like this one (from the CNN story):

Indeed, I once ended up on a city bus that passed through a favela in downtown Rio, and while it was as uneventful as most bus rides (and less eventful than some that never went near a favela), I was still alarmed to see military men with assault rifles poised just hanging out on street corners, alert but not in battle. You want to know the dynamics of the favelas? That picture hits it perfectly - a small kid who probably has nothing to do with the drug trade, a very well-armed individual from the military police, and somewhere unseen, actual drug lords. And kids like the one in this picture, along with old women and plenty of others untouched by the drug trade, are often killed (with some estimates hitting the thousands of innocent civilians dead).

But back to Boz's comments. Yes, they will challenge the police, and they have in the past, but, in spite of the major framing of this story, that's not what this event was. Yes, a police helicopter was shot down. But this wasn't even a case of police raiding a favela and violence erupting. This was a battle between drug gangs. The helicopter was shot down when flying over the favela to see what was going on, and as Boz himself points out, the helicopter getting shot down wasn't even intentional; according to reports, the bullets that hit the helicopter were basically stray bullets, and they weren't even from .30 caliber machine guns (though I agree with Randy that it's disturbing the gangs have this kind of weaponry, though again, it's not like the police haven't shown a propensity to murderous actions, too). With all due respect to Boz, he mistranslates that passage of the article, which reads [and I translate], "the helicopter was hit by light fire - nothing that was fired from a .30 caliber machine gun or that could have been caused by a rocket-propelled grenade found in gangs' arsenals."

So while some pitch a fit over Brazil getting the Olympics over Chicago in light of this weekend's events, they're completely out of touch with what the history, the context, and the meaning of this weekend's events. As Boz says, it wasn't some coordinated (or even uncoordinated) response to the Olympics; it wasn't even an attack initially launched on the police. It was gang warfare located away from the sites of the future Olympics that ultimately included the deaths of 3 police officers as well as at least 14 "traficantes" (though, as always, that title and/or figure is questionable). Is it a threat to the Olympics? No more so than every other incident of favela violence has been a threat to the Olympics, which is to say, not at all. The favela violence is kept to the favelas, and regardless of what you think of that, it does not mean anything to the Olympics yet. And the Brazilian government is not just ignoring this problem - today Lula pledged an extra $60 million to Rio to help combat violence in the city. This wasn't an internal "protest" to the Olympics, and it wasn't an event that should make anybody reconsider awarding Rio the Olympics. It simply was what all the other incidents of favela violence have been - sad episodes of violence, with plenty of blame to go around.

Honduran Police Confront Zelaya's Supporters

It certainly didn't take long for things to get ugly in Honduras:

Honduran police used tear gas Tuesday to disperse supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya outside the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where Zelaya has sought refuge since secretly returning to the country, TV news reports showed. [...]

One image broadcast on the station showed a policewoman punching a handcuffed woman in the face.

The station also showed video of water cannons being used to scatter Zelaya supporters and the ousted president's backers throwing rocks and other objects at police.

I'm not surprised at the military's quick response here (police and military often being part of the same branch in Latin American countries).

It's looking like Micheletti's trying to do the one thing left in his power, namely, isolate Zelaya inside from his supporters outside, and continue stonewalling. It may work, but Micheletti has successfully thrown away any last remnant of legitimacy or of anything resembling a decent political legacy that he may have had.

If the coup, repeated curfews, censorship, and bombarding the Brazilian embassy with noise in an effort to root out Zelaya didn't assure that, then certainly video footage of police punching in the face a handcuffed woman unable to defend herself will do the trick.

Another Small Step in the Fight to Reign in Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro

It took four years, but this week, two former Rio de Janeiro police officers were sentenced to 500 years in prison for their roles in the massacre of 29 people in one of Rio's suburbs in 2005.

The ex-police officers joined three other former colleagues already sentenced to long terms in the case, which was dubbed the Baixada massacre after Rio de Janeiro's poor northern outskirts where prosecutors say a group of police officers fired on pedestrians, bar patrons and a crowd in a public square in 2005.

As the report also points out, nobody in Brazil can serve more than 30 years in prison, so the sentences for the two men (of 483 and 540 years) are obviously symbolic. Still, the fact that another case involving police killing innocents has resulted in prison is a small step in the right direction. Hopefully such cases will become more frequent, especially for those who kill innocents in the favelas.

Investigating Fernando de la Rua's Role in Deaths in 2001

While the collapse in the economy last year was truly remarkable and a little frightening, it really didn't compare to what Argentina went through in 2001 - a total economic collapse, street protests and subsequent police violence that resulted in the deaths of 5 protesters in Buenos Aires and another 21 dead elsewhere in the country, and the president fleeing Argentina from a helicopter.

De la Rua, who had also attempted to censor all the media in Argentina at the time, was charged for ordering the police repression that did result in the deaths of the five in the Plaza de Mayo. In April, a lower court had dismissed the charges, but yesterday, an appeals court overturned the dismissal, ruling that the case be re-opened and charges continue until the investigation comes to a close. This of course doesn't guarantee that de la Rua will ever be punished for anything, or even connected directly to anything, but the ongoing investigation at least allows prosecutors, lawyers, and human rights officials to examine the case fully to get at what de la Rua's exact role in the events of December 19 and 20 of 2001 were, rather than letting him go free from any legal consequences of his actions, as would have been the case had the dismissal of charges been maintained. So this is overall good news, and it will be curious to see what (if anything) happens from this point on.

Will Rio de Janeiro Be Held Responsible for the Violent Acts of Its Own Police Force?

In a ruling that could have major consequences on police violence and urban violence in Brazil, a court ruled that Rio de Janeiro was responsible for the stray bullet that hit Ana Maria Mendonça while she waited for a bus, and that the city must pay her $15,000 in damages. Judge Marco Antonio Ibrahim commented in the ruling:

"The city of Rio de Janeiro is caught up in a whirlpool of violence," Judge Marco Antonio Ibrahim said in his summation. "People are being assassinated by stray bullets in their homes, at bus stops, in schools, on beaches, and at football stadiums. Saying the state is not responsible is, in practice, blaming the victim."

Of course, the city has appealed the ruling, saying that "it cannot be held responsible for the 'omissions' of police officers." I have no idea how the appeal may play out, but it already seems that the judge's ruling is already on much stronger legal ground than the city's. If the police force is a part of the city's state apparatus, claiming that the city is not responsible for its own mechanisms is pretty ridiculous.

This may be one of the best ways to combat police impunity in Rio de Janeiro. While the state of Rio de Janeiro has recently taken several small steps in the effort to combat police violence, the city government has generally done little on its part to combat police violence; indeed mayors often win by appealing to the basest political rhetoric and policy that simplistically paints the favelas and the poor of Rio as the culprits of Rio's poverty and violence, rather than as victims. However, if the city is constantly having to defend itself against lawsuits alleging injury due to police carelessness, it could quickly force the city to start actively taking on a greater role in combatting police abuses, too.

With the appeal, the case could be overturned; again, it's hard to explain how the city is not responsible for its own security apparatus, but the ruling could also open the city to numerous lawsuits that it doesn't always deserve (after all, it isn't just the police who are armed in the favelas). Nonetheless, I think a member of Brazil's Lawyer's Association (the OAB, Organização dos Advogados do Brasil), Margarida Pressburger, hit the ruling's importance on the head:

Ms. Pressburger notes that the case ins [sic] not closed, and could well go all the way to the Supreme Court. But at the least, she says, authorities have been given a wakeup call."Finally, there is justice," she says. "We pay taxes so the state can guarantee our security. In the past, everyone has avoided taking responsibility. Now, someone has to pay."

Indeed - the innocent poor in the favelas and innocent bystanders nearby have paid enough. It's time for the city to start facing the consequences for its actions, too.

Reminders of Human Rights Violations in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay

It's been a kind of busy week for the history of human rights in Latin America this week. Thursday (the 23rd) marked the 16th anniversary of the Candelária massacre in Rio de Janeiro. Candelária is a massive cathedral in the heart of Rio de Janeiro's downtown area. While home to weddings, ceremonies, masses, concerts, and tourist visits, Candelária was also a place where street children who had no home would gather at night to sleep safely and semi-sheltered. In 1993, however, one of the more gruesome crimes in recent history in Brazil occurred, when five unidentified individuals pulled up in a car, got out, and opened fire on the sleeping children, killing 8.

Survivors of the shooting reported that two cars pulled up to the front of the church entrance early on the morning of July 23, letting out at least five men, some of whom were later identified as police officers. The men opened fire on the sleeping children.
Although their apparel did not immediately indicate that they were police or military officers, one key witness, Wagner dos Santos, recognized the men as military police and later testified against them in court.
It is well known among Brazilians that the country's death squads, whose objectives are to "cleanse" the streets, are primarily comprised of off-duty officers. Lamentably, street children often, through no fault of their own, find themselves in the middle of this "cleansing" process.

The event was atrocious, and led to a heightened awareness and fight for children's rights not just in Brazil, but globally, as Unicef and Amnesty International became involved. Ultimately, some officers were convicted, while others were acquitted; one officer who had died in 1994 was accused of having masterminded the massacre, offering a convenient scapegoat unable to defend himself. Today, outside of the cathedral, the figures of the eight victims are represented in red paint on the sidewalk, a constant reminder of the horrible events of July 23rd, 1993.

Unfortunately, the events of that night continue in Brazil. One of the survivors of the Candelária massacre was Sandro Rosa do Nascimento, who in 2001 would take a bus in Rio hostage, leading to what can only be categorized as an absolute disaster as the police, crowds, and television cameras all gathered around the hostage situation. On camera, Nascimento repeatedly emphasized that he was one of the Candelária survivors, making clear the effects of that night in 1993 had not faded away from the minds of the victims. Ultimately, the hostage situation ended as horribly as one could imagine: the cops, trying to kill Nascimento (who had exited the bus with a hostage), mistakenly killed the hostage. Crowds, thinking Nascimento had killed the girl, rushed in to lynch him. The police took him to the back of a police car, where they suffocated him to death on live television. It was a horrible, horrible event that cut to many of the social, economic, and justice problems facing Brazil, and it was documented in the film Bus 174 (and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: everybody should see this film).

Nor was dos Santos the only one. Of the 62 children who survived that night, 44 were dead by 2000 (and dos Santos was added to that total a year later). And a recent study has found that 5000 youths between the ages of 12 and 18 are killed in Brazil every year, offering a depressing reminder that, while the Candelária massacre happened 16 years ago, Brazilian youths, especially the poor and homeless, continue to face appalling conditions and chances of survival in Brazil today.





For better news, alleged Argentine torturer Jorge Alberto Souza was arrested in Spain this past week. Souza "is wanted in Argentina in connection with 18 cases of kidnapping and torture between 1975 and 1977." Although Argentina's "Dirty War" only began in 1976, paramilitary and police repression existed well before that, and it's good to see Argentina going after Souza for that, as well. He's being held in Spain, but will be transferred to Argentina, where he will hopefully join others who are known torturers and killers in prison. (h/t)

And in a painful but important reminder of Paraguay's history, authorities in Asunción uncovered a common grave containing at least two of the 900 "disappeared" and killed victims of the Stroessner regime, in addition to the thousands who were tortured and the nearly one million exiles.

Another Faint but Encouraging Effort to Rein In Police Violence in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro

This week, prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro have charged 30 police officers with executing young men in the favelas in "death squad"-style murders, and have asked that the officers be imprisoned.

The state prosecutors' office said it had examined the deaths of 20 people in the Brazilian city between 2007 and 2008 and found strong evidence that many were executed. Police said the victims had resisted arrest.
The majority of the victims, all between 14 and 29 years old, were killed at close range or with bullets in their backs and only two of them had criminal records, the office said.
"This is activity typical of a death squad, shown by the technical evidence which disproves the police version that there was a confrontation," prosecutor Alexandre Thermistocles said in a statement.

I don't know that these officers will actually end up in prison. "Justice" in Brazil is....fickle, to put it politely, and it strikes me as unlikely that there will be a speedy resolution to these charges. Honestly, I expect the police to be let off relatively lightly, if not completely free. After all, it's not like these kinds of killings have not been going on for years, and it's not like they don't enjoy the popular support of many civilians in Rio. Indeed, the fact that the woman who condemns the police for killing people and saying after the fact that the victims were just "bandidos" doesn't want to be named "for fear of retaliation" makes clear that the police can and do still act with relative impunity in the favelas.

That said, the fact that the prosecutors are charging police with these murders is a faint glimmer of optimism. Just a few years ago, charges would never have been brought forth, and the police's version that people with bullets in their backs (often from close range) were "bandits" who were "firing back" would have been blindly accepted by most people. And this isn't the first time that these charges have been made publicly against police. So in the sense that at least these charges are being made publicly and be legal authorities, I'm encouraged. But only slightly. Until these charges lead to real prison time for the murderers in the police force; until the police cannot act with impunity in the favelas; and until there is a major overhaul in the justice system and the treatment of favelados in Rio, things will remain unsatisfactory, and human rights abuses within the favelas will continue.

New Police Tactics in Rio's Favelas - Will They Be Successful?

A year ago, I offered some comments on the major shift Sao Paulo police had employed in their efforts to combat drug trafficking in the favelas. Within that shift, there were two keystones, one tactical (a more concentrated effort to combat just the drug dealers, rather than going into the favelas with guns blazing), and one policy-based (establishing a stronger state presence in the favelas via infrastructure and social programs to combat the return of trafficking once the police left). At the time, I also commented that Sao Paulo's approach offered at least some actual examples of how the Rio police could perhaps better undertake their own efforts in the favelas.

Well, it seems that the Rio police actually are finally trying to address the issue as well in two separate favelas:

The police have regularly launched large operations in Brazil's favelas, or slums, in their battle against drug gangs over the years, but authorities say the occupation of Santa Marta, a relatively small, contained neighborhood, is part of a new approach, a pilot project for the future of crime fighting in this violent city. Brazilian police officers are attempting counterinsurgency tactics similar to those used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- setting up small bases occupied around the clock inside violent neighborhoods, developing intelligence by living among their adversaries, and using government funds to rebuild broken areas and generate goodwill.

While in some ways, I'd welcome any shift away from entering favelas with guns blazing only to leave a few days later claiming the victory of a couple of dozen dead "traficantes," I'm not particularly sure following the U.S. model in Iraq is the guarantor of success. Suffice to say, the results in the Santa Marta (and Cidade de Deus, another site of new tactics) have been mixed. Some people in Santa Marta are satisfied with the police presence:

Barreto, 44, was lifting sacks of cement alongside several other construction workers employed by the state government to build some 50 sturdy houses to replace the decrepit wood shacks. "I think things are better now. People are feeling safer after the police occupation," he said.

The outstanding thing about this to me is not that the police efforts seem to be somewhat successful in driving some of the drug rings out; this happens often, only for the traffickers to return when the police leave the favelas. What's particularly notable here is the fact that the government was helping to build nicer houses for the residents, as well as employing the favela's residents in these projects, giving them an alternate source of income not tied to any "criminal activity." Any kind of success in an operation on this is absolutely determined by the strength of presence of the bureaucratic state in the wake of police operations, and this component has been completely absent from any efforts in the favelas in Rio up to this point. I fully agree with Boz that, if there's any hope that these efforts have long-term positive effects, it's up to the government to keep that sustainability going beyond the police actions. Thus far, I've seen nothing (and the article gives no indication) of how long the local, state, or federal government plan will support this project or what job opportunities the favela residents may have after temporary projects like construction, but the fact that there's any governmental follow-up action in the wake of police activity is a major shift, and one that is essential to attaining any mark of "progress" in combating crime, be it in the favelas or elsewhere.
However, the picture is far from perfect:

"The problem is that they [the police] act in this aggressive way, focusing on the poor areas, as if that's where the real criminals are actually living," said Rafael Dias, an investigator with Justiça Global, a human rights organization in Brazil. "The people in these neighborhoods do not have safety now. They have an occupation."

This really gets at the crux of the issue in terms of the difficulty of dealing with crime in the favelas. Although I've been hyper-critical of police activity in the favelas (and rightfully so, I think), it's not like there aren't real problems with crime in the favelas, and brutal police tactics do not take away from that fact. At the same time, it's not a simple good guys/bad guys incident in which all the favela residents are on the "wrong" side and the police have nothing but the purest intentions, and there are so many broader economic, social, and political processes at play in the favelas and in Brazilian society as to make them an absolute mess in trying to pull apart causes, effects, involvement, etc.

In that context, there are a lot of factors that are required in order to make an operation like those in Santa Marta and especially Cidade de Deus (which is the larger of the two favelas by far) succeed, including better preperation and more personnel, as well as a real willingness on the part of the police and the local and state governments to help build that infrastructure. The complexities of launching a successful "war on drugs" in the favelas are numerous (and that's not even addressing the issue of whether fighting such a "war" by attacking the supply-side, which only further complicates matters). There is the fact that some residents do want a stronger police and state (i.e., non-police governing body) presence in the favelas while others who aren't in any way involved in any kind of criminal activity do not. What is more, it is incredibly difficult to control all members of the police, and Brazil's police have continued to act with impunity, often times turning into militias that simply take over the vacuum of the traficantes they've forced out of the favelas. And, then there's the issue of treating anybody who's poor as a criminal:

The police have shut down popular dance parties [in Cidade de Deus], and several residents said they do not feel comfortable being outside after dark anymore, because of the risk of being accused of criminal activity.
"It's going backward. They're acting aggressively against normal people," Nael said. When the criminals were here, they didn't mess with normal people."

The police, like the majority of Brazilians, often treat poverty as a crime unto itself, and the marginalized in Brazil face numerous social, economic, political, and racial stigmas based simply on where they live. Unfortunately, it seems that this stigma thus far is playing a major role in obstructing any progress on the part of the police. The fact that many residents are turning on the police's presence, and that complaints of maltreatment and the implicit understanding as any favela resident as being "criminal" underlines many of the complaints above. For all the factors that need to fit together to make any police effort like these new efforts in Santa Marta and Cidade de Deus sustainable, perhaps the most important and most difficult is creating a shift in the mentality within the police forces (and society in the grander scheme of things) that treats the poor as inherently criminal. Until this stigma goes away within the police forces, I can't help but think that the police will undermine any new tactics and any efforts to establish an acceptable state presence in the favelas by antagonizing the majority of residents who live in the favelas and who are not connected to criminal activity in any way whatsoever.

The Ongoing Case of Human Rights Violations and "Disappearances" in Brazil

While I'd like to see some more research that can back up the claim that 9000 people have been "disappeared" in Rio over the last 24 months, there can be no doubt that the police commit dozens of gruesome murders every month (and probably every week) in the favelas. There is no question that Brazilian police's continuous war against and murding of poor and marginalized in Rio is nothing short of a major human rights disaster, and one that gets ignored far too much both inside and outside of Brazil.

Brazil's Media: Ignoring Its Role In Supporting Police Violence and Racism Yet Again

Quite awhile back, I discussed how Brazilian media always justified police murders of innocent civilians in the favelas by referring to all the dead as "traficantes" or "bandidos." By using these criminal terms, the media simultaneously reflected and reified racist and classist attitudes that held the poor as responsible for their own situation while uncritically dehumanizing the innocent victims in the favelas.

In an absolute stunner, O Globo has apparently caught on to this, running a headline right now (11:05 PM EST on Saturday) claiming "No Rio, mortos em confrontos com a polícia são sempre ‘bandidos’" ("In Rio, the dead from police confrontations are always "bandits"). The report goes on to discuss how reports of violence and the dead from the favelas always treated the dead as criminals, even when they were not. This recognition that the police were and are violating basic human rights in the favelas and that innocent civilians are killed on a daily basis in the favelas would seem to be progress.

However, in true Globo fashion, nowhere in the article does the media conglomerate take any blame or accept any responsibility for the media's portrayal of the dead in the favelas. The article conveniently scapegoats the police, saying that the police always claimed that the dead were all "bandidos," and thus the media simply had been misinformed by the police.

I don't buy this for a second. Again, O Globo is the largest media conglomerate in Brazil, and one of the largest in the world. Any organization with any true journalistic standards, even an organization with standards as dubious and corrupt as O Globo's, could and should ask questions, be critical of police reports, do detailed in-depth investigations to see if the one side of the story they were given was true or not. O Globo did none of these things, yet it can't even accept the responsibility for this, despite numerous chances. Indeed, already in the second paragraph of the article, while discussing the 2002 murder of a sixteen-year-old student who was, of course, declared to be a "traficante," Globo glosses over its complete failure to investigate anything. The article mentions this case, and comments simply, "Nobody investigated [it]." ("Ninguem investigou.") This would have been a perfect chance for O Globo to try to at least admit that they have failed to ever be critical of any police reports that painted all the poor as traficantes while ignoring numerous human rights reports that chronicled in great detail the murder of civilians in the favelas. O Globo could have done this, could have taken advantage of this opportunity, right here, right now. But it doesn't. Instead, it simply says that "nobody investigated," and then moves on, continuing to blame the police instead of taking even one second to criticize itself for having spent decades simply swallowing what police reports said as the cops tried to cover their own tracks, and then regurgitating these same reports to the public en masse via television, newspapers, and magazines.

As for why, even now with this article, O Globo does not step up and admit its mistakes of the past, the answer is simple. Reporting of one side of the story of favela violence (the police's) without ever actually investigating the events in the favelas was neat and easy; it fit conveniently with the political ideology of O Globo's ownership and transmissions. O Globo has always been steeped in right-wing politics, even before it hopped in bed with the military dictatorship in order to expand its control. For decades, O Globo has subtly vomited racism and classism in virtually all of its forms of expression, be it print journalism, television news, or even the novelas. This just added one more reason why O Globo did not feel the need to further investigate police claims - the police's insistence that all the poor dead had it coming, regardless of innocence or guilt, fit perfectly with O Globo's general attitude to the poor (upon whom, in a sick irony, O Globo depends largely upon for its viewership of the national evening news and novelas).

I'd like to hope that people in Brazil will start to peel some of the wool from their eyes with this report, but I know better. Those who might have been persuaded by this article knew a long time ago that there are basic injustices and human rights violations in the favelas on a daily basis; those who were not remotely sympathetic to the dead favelados, even the innocent ones, will, like Globo, blame the police and move on, never stopping to question either the media conglomerate's (or other media outlets in Brazil) coverage and treatment of the poor and marginalized in Brazilian society, nor the basic structures of racism and classism in Brazil.

Brazil Beginning to Crack Down on Police Violence in the Favelas?

I recently wrote about the police in one of Rio's favelas torturing some undercover journalists, causing outrage throughout Brazil. As I mentioned, the fact that it happened against white-collar professionals, and not that it happened at all, was the real source of outrage; such atrocities are committed against the poor frequently. And I argued that, among other things, until the government ends the culture of police impunity and begins punishing those police who use torture in any capacity, things will not improve. Yesterday, the leader of the militia turned himself in after a two-day police hunt for him. Charges haven't been filed yet, and given how the trial system in Brazil works, he may not ever be punished, but the fact that the police and the state tracked him down to force him to face charges eventually is an important step, though very small.

However, this small step was tempered by more tragic news this weekend. In an even more brutal and unforgiveable act, this weekend the military police turned three favela residents over to a drug gang; the gang then executed these residents and dumped their bodies in the garbage dump. Rio has ignited with protests against the miliarty police (who are nothing like MPs in the U.S., but rather a part of the military in the same way the army or navy are), especially in the favelas (suffice to say, the streets of Ipanema and Copacabana are probably full of tacit and overt support for the police's actions). Fortunately, in perhaps another small-but-significant step, the government is not just sitting idly by this time, as the 11 soldiers involved have all been arrested. Sergio Cabral, Rio's governor, has come out against the men, categorizing their activities as "criminal," and Lula's defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, wants the 11 officers involved punished to the fullest in the courts in order to offer an example to other militia members. Even the Brazilian Lawyers' Association (OAB) has come out (though the OAB has been a vocal opponent of these tactics for a long time). Of course, the federal police themselves are (as usual) defending themselves. The headline at O Globo at this moment (10:41 Rio time) is "Military has no regrets on deaths of the youths in Providencia [the favela]", and the story there offers an uncritical (from both O Globo's and the military's perspective) defense of the actions of the soldiers involved. Still, the level of outrage, while superficially similar to the case of torture from a few weeks ago, is important, in that politicians are becoming genuinely outraged at the continued police brutality in the favelas. It's a long journey from discursive outrage to real changes in policy, but even the outrage wasn't always there, so simply having politicians speak out against these events is an important change.

Certainly, there is a long way to go still. It remains to be seen whether these police officers will be found guilty of their crimes (I'm still rather skeptical on this front, though I'm more than willing to be proven wrong), and as I alluded to in my earlier post, government responses to police impunity are only one small step in ending the violence against Brazil's poor. The government's response is unlikely to change the more deeply ingrained classist and racist attitudes of Brazil's media or the middle- and upper-classes, and no doubt, for the few politicians we hear speakign out about it, there are many more who probably agree with the police's actions. Still, it is really good to see the government taking any kind of action in cases like these, and it does mark an important step forward, even if it is a small step. I'm far from optimistic on this issue, but these two cases and the reactions of the government at the state and national level do offer a chance for what could (but also perhaps could not) become a major shift in policy towards police brutality and militia activity.

Safer, Smarter Police Tactics in São Paulo

As this article points out, while 11 homicides/100,000 residents is a relatively high homocide rate for the United States, São Paulo's 11/100,000 rate is half that of the rest of Brazil and one-fourth that of Rio de Janeiro. The explanation for this disparity between Rio and São Paulo is extremely simple:

What's made the difference seems simple but is revolutionary in a country where police often enter poor neighborhoods with guns blazing.

State police have put more emphasis on gathering intelligence about the gangs they're battling before confronting them and are trying to avoid firefights that often kill the innocent, Marzagao said. At the same time, the state has brought more social services to abandoned areas where gangs have long ruled.

That's included launching ''saturation operations'' in which hundreds of police officers and social workers occupy troubled neighborhoods for months to weed out gang leaders and establish a government presence. One such operation occupied Marques' neighborhood for nearly 90 days last year, triggering an 80 percent drop in
homicide rates there. ''Our plan is to plant the flag of the government where it's now absent,'' [state security secretary Ronaldo] Marzagao said.

The article mentions the criticisms of this effort, primarily that the results are tenuous. They may be tenuous (time will tell), but the value of actually trying to improve the infrastructure in the poor areas of São Paulo and establish a government presence where there previously had never been one (save for the invasions by federal police) is just a wonderful idea. In Rio (and, several years ago, in São Paulo), police go into favelas with guns blazing, indiscriminately shooting, leading to the deaths of hundreds of civilians who had nothing to do with the drug traffic each year. Such an approach has no final goal, no objectives to reach other than the vague "combat narco-trafficking," and only led to deaths of hundreds and even thousands with no real results.

What is more, the importance of offering of social services in this plan should not be underestimated. Many drug lords in the favelas maintain their hold on power by offering social services (health care, sanitation, electricity, cable television) to the favelas' everyday residents, providing the latter with more reason to resent the police efforts to root out the druglords. By trying to offer such services from the state's side, the program may truly undermine some of the drug lords' support within the favelas. Certainly, issues like class- and racial-identity may still help them in this regard, but it nonetheless is an important step. What is more, by uniting state-led infrastructural development with police actions, the efforts to combat narco-trafficking in the favelas gains an objective and a method that differentiates from the pointless "enter and open fire" approach still dominating in Rio.

Seeing how the São Paulo police have changed their approach and their objectives I think offers some real hope. Despite the critics, as of right now, the drop in deaths is very real, and very good. Hopefully, this will become permanent, and Rio's police (and in other cities, too) will adopt these methods as well, allowing the favelados to live a better life without the threat of random and pointless murders hanging so strongly over their daily lives.

Via Boz.

More on Jails and Police Impunity in Brazil

I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but the NY Times has finally gotten around to putting up an article that actually has some extra info not available the first time the story made its way into the North American media. For those who missed this the first time around, a 15-year-old girl was accused of petty theft, and ended up in a prison with grown men, where for almost 4 weeks, she was tortured and raped, sometimes in exchange for food, sometimes for no reason, by her male cellmates. Police not only ignored her screams for help, they shaved her head to make her look like a boy and now, in one of the worst "defenses" for any event ever, are saying it's not their fault because she has lied about being only 13.

I've written often about the horrible police system that employs murder and torture with impunity in Brazil often, but usually in the context of favelas in Rio (see here, here, and here, for example). However, it should be clear that the problem with police in Brazil is not a Rio-only or favela-only issue. They have employed torture against prisoners (particularly the darker-skinned and poorer) since at least the late-19th century (and that doesn't include slavery, which was only abolished in 1888 but which has undoubtedly had a direct social role on the presence of torture to this date). Prisoners' rights are thrown out the window in a double-standard system in which the wealthy and well-off can serve their time without ever actually going to jail (and that's only IF they are brought to trial, which in itself is extremeley rare) while the poor languish in overcrowded prisons, subject to gang violence, police violence, torture, and inhumane conditions.

And the police continue to act with impunity across the country. In this particular case, the girl and her family have been forced to relocate under a federal witness protection agency due to death threats they have received from the police, who have threatened to kill members of her family if the family doesn't "admit" the girl is 19 or 20. Indeed, when the story first broke, her father said he was told he would be killed if he didn't get the document "proving" her age to be 19 or 20, to which he said (via the media), "How can I give them a document that doesn't exist?" And the worst part in all of this is, while I have no doubt the federal government is sincere in its concern over this case and its broader implications for Brazil's prison system, the atrocities are so deep and so long-standing and institutionalized that I just really don't see any changes coming in a long time, if ever.

Amnesty Reports on Violence in the Favelas

For those who are interested, Amnesty has two reports up that are in English on the details of favela violence that I've mentioned before (here, here, here, and here, among other places). I've often been forced to link to Portuguese-language materials, so these are particularly valuable. Among other things, they mention the presence of "extrajudicial executions", police impunity, and de facto martial law in the favelas. Also, in addition to detailing the events in Rio this year, the second report offers a detailed analysis of the violence in São Paulo's favelas, something I have not touched on before. They are both very important and detailed, and worth checking out if you have the time.

"Tropa de Elite" and Public Attitudes towards Police Violence in Brazil

For the past few weeks, the Brazilian film "Tropa de Elite", a movie about the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE) of Rio's police, has dominated the theaters, the media, and popular discussion. The movie, based on a former member of BOPE's memoirs, focuses on BOPE's involvement in the favelas, allegedly trying to show how the police fuel the favela violence as well. It was so controversial and eagerly awaited that you could buy a pirated copy of the movie in July, three months before the movie hit the theaters (which, to my knowledge, is pretty much unprecedented).

Director Jose Padilha (director/writer of the excellent "Bus 174" has claimed that the point of "Tropa da Elite" is to show BOPE's complicity in spurring unnecessary violence (including torture and executions) in the favelas. While I have reason to believe that may have been his goal, society in Brazil doesn't seem to be getting the point. Instead of more realistically showing how unnecessarily violent the police in the favelas are, people are walking out of the theaters viewing the police as heroes. Many of the standard middle- and upper-class notions of life and crime in the favelas (based on nothing of reality, but rather of images from the extremely-biased media and their own class-fears) are praising the police. As the article points out, children are wanting to join BOPE. Instead of having a "Trainspotting" effect (show drug-use realistically to reveal the horrors of heroin), it seems to be having the opposite - viewers are praising the police and becoming even more entrenched in their belief that, as one individual claims, "a good criminal is a dead one," and that any measure of violence is justified in killing "criminals".

I have no doubt that a decent part of the onus falls on Padilha himself. First of all, as I said, the story is based on the memoirs of ex-BOPE officer Rodrigo Pimentel (who had a hand in the screenplay), and, for obvious reasons, makes the protagonist (portaryed by Wagner Moura) come off looking pretty good. Additionally, it's no secret that the middle- and upper-classes in Rio (and Brazil more largely) have an irrational fear of the favelas, with a notion that they are inhabited only by lazy people and crazed druglords who are waging a war on society (not very close to reality, suffice to say). These sectors need no help in trying to justify police violence against favelados. The fact that Padilha tries to "let the story tell itself" and have his audience decide isn't good enough. This approach only logically leads (and has led) to the middle-classes reifying their belief in the value of violence against the poor. Padilha himself has seemed genuinely mystified that people are viewing the police so positively in his film, and he may be sincere. But that doesn't remove from him some of the responsibility for the fact that a society that he knows quite well has read exactly what they wanted to read into his film - that he didn't exactly say, "Police violence like this is bad", whose explicitness seems perhaps silly to a foreigner's eye, still leaves some burden on him.

Nonetheless, it just shows how far from reality the middle- and upper-classes in Brazil are, and how far we have to go for social equality here. When children who live in the favelas "play" torture based on what they have seen (putting plastic bags over each other's heads, mimicking a mechanism the police use in which you suffocate until your nose bleeds, and then they question you), the violence is clearly lopsided. This is not to excuse drug lords in the favelas; they, too, are a source of violence in Brazil. But until the police stop getting a carte blanche from society for their use of torture and indiscriminate murder, films like "Tropa de Elite" will do more harm than good.