Militias of Rio de Janeiro: a power parallel to Brazil of Bolsonaro

It was the Ocasio-Cortez of Alexandria's Brazilian politics. An eloquent and charismatic speaker, Marielle Franco was a PSOL advisor, a left-wing party, whose campaign against corruption and police violence earned her a great political promise from Rio de Janeiro.

On the night of March 14, 2006, Franco died after being shot in his car while he was crossing downtown Rio with his driver Anderson Gomes.

Nearly a year later, the investigators finally arrested two men suspected of his murder. Both had been policemen.

A few hours later, as police raided a department belonging to one of the suspects in Rio's suburbs, she found sealed boxes containing unmatched items of 117 M16 automatic rifles. It was the biggest discovery of illicit weapons in Brazil.

Rio has long been known for its drug gangs that have turned parts of the city into dangerous areas that police do not enter. Franco's badbadination drew attention to a different and parallel threat: the Rio militias, the bloodthirsty paramilitary gangs led by serving police officers or former officers, who have emerged in the last two decades as a threat to public safety and security. the integrity of the state. Investigators believe that the two men arrested were members of the Bureau of Crime – the "Bureau of Crime" – a gang of paramilitary killers.

While the detective who conducted the investigation suggested that the alleged killers may have acted out of personal hatred toward left-wing politicians, many others do not feel the same and believe they killed Franco because He had endangered some of Rio's militia companies. .

The murder of Franco also raises embarrbading questions for Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's new right-wing president. Bolsonaro and his sons, long-standing figures of Rio politics, have often been badociated with people close to militia members.

In addition, the focus on militia clashes with the Bolsonaro security plan and the philosophy that helped him to be elected. The President believes that the police should have more freedom to shoot suspected criminals. The death of Franco however suggests that the blind part of the violence that strikes so many Brazilian cities is the blindness that the authorities do against the militias who act as an almost parallel state.

The origin of the militia helps explain how illegality can flourish near a modern and sophisticated city that hosted the Olympics just three years ago.

The origin of the first Rio militia resides in groups of immigrant construction workers who settled with their families in a no-man's land in the west of the city while building apartment buildings and luxury condominiums that made up the exclusive neighborhood overlooking the city. sea ​​Barra da Tijuca.

As the community grew, the favela of Rio das Pedras took shape with little intervention or interest from the state. Without the official presence of the police, security was in the hands of the security guards. The favela grew in the 1980s and 1990s and, when some parts looked like a normal neighborhood, the policemen who lived there joined them to replace the militiamen. , expelling, beating and killing drug traffickers. other people considered undesirable.

They introduced themselves to the local population as a peaceful alternative to drug gangs. "It's here that paramilitary behavior began, behind Tijuca in Rio das Pedras," said Ubiratan Angelo, former chief of police in the state of Rio. "They used to say, there are no criminals living here, where the police live, there is no room for bandits, and then they started to dominate the local businesses, the alternative transportation market and all the the rest."

Initially, the militia offered protection to local businesses at a modest price that many were willing to pay. From there to extortion, it was a step forward and soon the paramilitaries were selling their protection. They also extended their activities to other services: informal public transport, gas distribution for cooking, pirated cable television, sale and rental of commercial and residential buildings, etc.

The most lucrative business sector for militia is the real estate. Researchers have recently found documents in the Rio das Pedras Residents' Association showing that between 5% and 10% of the value of each real estate transaction went to local militias. They also participated in the lucrative trade of land expropriation.

It is on this subject that Franco had focused on his badbadination. His work for local residents and their rights to land and property made him a threat to this type of real estate fraud.

From the beginning, the militias dominated local politics in the areas they controlled. "Whoever holds power can tell the people who is the best candidate to vote," said Angelo. "This is how these guys became important, in the deliberation council, to the state legislature, they approved laws that interfere with the public machine in order to promote their activities."

Over the past 20 years, many new militias have formed beyond Rio das Pedras. A study from last year revealed that they are present in 165 favelas and 37 other areas of Greater Rio de Janeiro, areas of the city where more than 2 million people live. They make a justice often scary and lethal in order to give example, sometimes for criminal behavior, sometimes for acts of disobedience such as buying gasoline to cook the wrong distributor. Their presence obsesses the city: a survey carried out last month indicates that the inhabitants of Rio are more afraid of militias than sometimes violent gangs of drug traffickers.

The fear of an increase in urban violence was one of the main factors that allowed Bolsonaro to take power. While the Brazilians wanted to turn their backs on the Left Workers Party (PT), which had experienced a severe recession in 2015-2016 and found itself involved in a corruption scandal, the current president campaigned on a promise of to attack violent crimes. .

The almost complete absence of official crime data is an indication of the flaws in Brazil's security policy. According to the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, Brazil recorded 63,895 homicides in 2017, which is far from the highest in the world and has increased by almost 50% in two decades. The homicide rate, at 30.8 per 100,000 population, is five times higher than the world average and 14th in the world. In Brazil, it is higher than 60, higher than in El Salvador, the bloodiest country in the world.