The city of Rio de Janeiro is no stranger to violent crime, but the events that unfolded in October shocked even hardened observers of Brazilian society. Drug-trafficking gangs operating in a Rio favela shot down a police helicopter circling above, leading to an outbreak of violence that would leave over 40 dead.
Occurring mere weeks after the city celebrated the capture of the 2016 Olympic Games, the events cast doubt on whether Rio should host such a prestigious event against a backdrop of such violence and insecurity.
Few cities in the world contain such extremes of opulence and poverty, of hedonism and misery, of joy and insecurity as Rio de Janeiro. Most people with a passing knowledge of world affairs and culture are aware of Rio’s many delights: Carnival, beautiful beaches and the beautiful people that inhabit them, dancing and partying until dawn, Sugarloaf Mountain and the statue of Christ the Redeemer that overlooks it all.
Equally they are aware of the many problems that plague carioca life. Brazil has one of the most unequal distributions of income in the entire world and Rio society is a microcosm of this; rich cariocas live in luxurious gated communities, spend money on shopping, restaurants and clubbing and generally do not venture out of this privileged bubble.
Meanwhile the majority poor are crammed into sprawling shanty-towns or favelas that dot the mountainous outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Basic necessities like water, electricity or even the rule of law are here considered luxuries.
Nor can it be said that this issue affects a tiny, marginalised portion of Rio society. Enrique Arias, who in 2006 investigated and wrote a book on the favela inhabitants of Rio estimates that up to two-fifths of the city’s inhabitants live in favelas, with varying levels of development, permanency and living standards.
For many years the favelas have been ignored by governments and security forces as an unsightly blight on the country. This left a power vacuum graciously filled by drug traffickers and organised, almost paramilitary-style gangs. These rule with an iron fist, as well as being in perpetual, bloody conflict with rival gangs and the military police.
For residents of the favelas, such clashes are part of everyday existence. The rule of law is almost inverted here. It is the gangs that provide everyday law and order; crime between residents is not tolerated, and the penalties are stiff- death is often the final punishment for repeated, even petty offenders.
Gangs often function as a shadow government and welfare service- there are documented cases of favela residents enjoying free shuttle services to work courtesy of the money funnelled into the neighbourhood through drug sales.
The state and federal police forces, on the other hand, are invariably and often with good reason seen as the enemy. Many residents’ only interaction with the police will be through violent dawn raids; where little effort is made to distinguish between a prospective gangster and an innocent person simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Often these attacks will be intentional- there are reports of police elements acting as rogue death squads, summarily executing favela youths suspected of petty crime or begging. The figures involved are staggering: in 2007 a report released by the Insitute of Public Security alleged that police forces had killed 1,330 people in the city “resisting arrest” in a single year. By way of comparison U.S police killed 347 people in the whole of the country in 2006. And this number is growing, as the figures of 2007 show a 25% increase on the previous year.
An Economist report written in the aftermath of October’s violence claimed that police are increasingly likely to take justice into their own hands; to simply kill a suspect on the spot rather than go through the bureaucracy of the judicial process.
It was against this backdrop that violence exploded on the weekend of 17th October. Rival gangs from favelas Morro dos Mocacos (Monkey Hill) and Morro de San Joao (St. John’s hill) had been engaged in a long standing violent conflict, over who controlled the supply of drugs in the area.
When police finally intervened, leaving 10 residents of Morro dos Mocacos dead, the response was swift; the police, and not the rival gang, were the enemy. There followed a weekend of bloodshed severe even by carioca standards. Alongside the downed helicopter, ceremoniously burnt when discovered and containing two lifeless officers, some ten buses around the city were ignited.
A handful of favela residents spoke to local media sources as the violence unfolded. “We were terrified,” Cristina Soares,17, told the Rio tabloid newspaper Extra as she fled the area yesterday. “The children were so scared they wanted to leave the house in the middle of all the shooting. Later on things are going to get even worse.”
Mario Vilson, another resident of the Morro dos Macacos, told the news website Terra that he had been woken up by the sound of shooting. “This war has been going on for 20 years and will never end,” he said. “It’s very sad. I just don’t know when we will have peace.”
The shootouts and police raids that followed left 17 people dead over the weekend, including three police officers. This number rose to 42 by the end of the week, as Police continued military-style raids to gain some form of control over the situation. Locals described scenes as a “warzone”, and by the following Monday over 4,500 extra officers were patrolling the streets, heavily armed and ready to respond to further violence.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of the violence is the resigned indifference shown by favela residents. This attitude is typified by 11 year old Vito Ricardo, who witnessed shoot outs while cowering in a doorway. “It scares me, but I am used it by now” Ricardo told reporters, continuing to say that the violence had prevented him from going to school that day. Moments later a bullet struck a building close to where Vito was hidden.
With the Olympics refocusing world attention on Rio, Brazilian officials are obliged to act against the conflicts that so damage its reputation. President “Lula” da Silva has been at the forefront of this fight; days after events unfolded he pledged to reinforce security, claiming that, “We are ready to make every sacrifice necessary to remove the stain on the nation’s character these people (narcotraffickers) cause”.
Subsequently US$58m of government funds was pledged to the Rio State Government to help fund this fight against criminal elements in the favelas. But this will be funnelled into rearming the military police- for new weapons, armoured trucks and other implements which will allow them to dispatch traffickers with greater efficiency.
“Now the cost of security will be very high, but it will be worth it,” said Rodrigo Pimentel, a former police captain in the special operations unit of Rio’s Military Police. “Let’s be honest. One more helicopter that falls down in Rio de Janeiro or another slum invasion could seriously raise the chances of the Olympics and World Cup pulling out of Brazil.”
Another fear is that the money will be directed into shoring up security in the tourist traps of Ipanema and Copacabana, as well as the more affluent neighbourhoods of Zona Sul. Arias dubs this “the traditional upper-class carioca sport of aspiring to be European while literally ‘forgetting’… the large swathes of urban poverty that form part of the city’s daily life”. Neither will the money tackle the startling poverty and inequality which to a youth growing up in a favela makes a life of crime so attractive.
The Olympics are a fantastic opportunity for Rio de Janeiro to confirm itself as a global cultural and sporting centre. The events of October, however, make it painfully obvious that beneath the glittering surface lies a broken society in serious need of reconstruction. And this will not be realised through superficial adjustments, “forgetting” and hiding the favelas away from the eyes of the world.
Without this the lives of so many Brazilians will remain in the hands of violent drug traffickers, liable to revolt against the rule of law at the slightest provocation. One picture that emerged from the recent confrontations encapsulates the challenges faced by the authorities and inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro.
It is a young man, presumably involved at some level with one of the drug trafficking gangs. He is sneering contemptuously at the photographer, and has fair reason to do so; his body is positioned at the foot of a heavy duty machine gun, which from his vantage point at the top of a hillside favela is pointed directly and unerringly at the city below.