The assassination of Marielle Franco is the tip of the ball of violence in Brazil

The killing of the activist was part of the debate that rocked Lula da Silva's election campaign and led to the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.

March 16, 2019

In the early morning of Tuesday, March 12, they stopped Brazil two former police officers suspected of murdering a year ago Marielle Franco, leftist activist, black, bad, from a favela, as we call in Brazil the poorest neighborhoods and where live millions of people. She was known for her denunciations of violent police and militia interventions in the neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro and there is no doubt that it was not a circumstantial crime. The murder of Franco and the driver who accompanied him upset the election campaign of the former president Lula da Silva, favorite in the polls before being jailed.

A day after the arrest of former police officers, a young couple entered a school in San Pablo and murdered several students. Although this fact is not common in Brazil, this is not the first time this has happened and it should be recalled that the issue of "violence" was part of the campaign debates that led the presidency to Jair Bolsonaro.

The history of contemporary violence in Brazil still refers to the military dictatorship established in 1964 and the existence of parallel repressive apparatus, called "death squads", made up of guards or policemen who killed those who were killed. they considered criminals. One of its most famous members was José Guilherme Godinho, a member of the police who then embarked on politics with the slogan "The good bandit is the dead bandit" and who l? led to being elected deputy of the State of Rio de Janeiro in 1990..

Many militias also appeared in several favelas, fighting against each other and challenging the illicit trade of drug traffickers, becoming true armed groups with political influence, actively supporting such and such a candidate.

If it was weapons, Bolsonaro venerated them during the 2018 election process, as when he was taking a girl in his arms and gathering his little fingers simulating a firearm in front of him. a crowd that lived it. And one of his first decrees when he took power was to facilitate registration and possession of weapons.

Bolsonaro became known around the world when he voted in 2016 for the dismissal of President Dilma Rousseff, claiming that a colonel convicted by the Brazilian justice for participating in torture during the dictatorship, dictatorship that the current president denied having had, since he declared on more than one occasion that in 1964, there had been no coup d'etat militaire militaire.

The retired army captain who became president has repeatedly defended the parapublic militia and now appears to be prisoner of his own words. In all the media, militias seem to be linked to the presidential family, which, of course, will have to prove that justice is done.

That is why it is essential to know who ordered the badbadination of Marielle Franco.

Original note on CNN in Spanish