Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jul 2002
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2002 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Author: Kevin G. Hall

WARLORDS' PARALLEL GOVERNMENT THREATENS BRAZIL'S DEMOCRACY

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A journalist on an investigative assignment is 
decapitated and dismembered. Prominent politicians are accused of ties to 
death squads. Warlords financed by drug money rule large swaths of territory.

It sounds like Afghanistan or Pakistan, but it's happening in Brazil, a 
fragile democracy into which Americans have poured billions of dollars and 
considerable diplomatic effort. Both investments are now at risk from the 
lawlessness and the growing power of drug-financed gangs. Many Brazilians 
say theirs is a nation of two governments these days: an official one and a 
parallel state ruled by criminals.

"They have usurped the constitutional powers of the state," said Walter 
Maierovitch, a former Brazilian anti-drug czar. "In a state of law, you 
cannot have areas controlled by criminals. This is an issue of national 
security."

The poor slums and shantytowns of Brazil have long been no-man's lands, but 
the volatile mix of easily obtainable modern weaponry, corrupt police and 
the new violent swagger of drug traffickers are rattling a country that 17 
years ago was a military dictatorship.

In the favelas, or slums, of Rio de Janeiro, not far from the city's famed 
Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, drug-trafficking organizations with names 
such as the Red Command and the Third Command rule more than 1 million 
people, about one in five Rio residents. Outside Sao Paulo, South America's 
largest city, the gang-ruled slums of Jardim Angela and Capao Redondo have 
the highest murder rates in the world.

Traffickers close down streets and schools in their domains at will. They 
tax storekeepers. Power and phone companies can't work without their 
permission. Like conventional authorities, drug lords pay salaries and 
benefits to foot soldiers, often teen-agers. If police or rival 
organizations kill one, their survivors receive the equivalent of life 
insurance.

Last month, traffickers seized Globo TV investigative reporter Tim Lopes, 
Brazil's equivalent of Mike Wallace, while he was secretly filming in 
territory controlled by Elias Pereira da Silva, or "Crazy Elias." According 
to police, the powerful trafficker had Lopes shot in the leg to prevent his 
escape, then decapitated and dismembered with a samurai sword.

The message from Crazy Elias, now the subject of a national manhunt, was 
clear: Don't threaten the drug trade.

Gang assailants punctuated the message by spraying Rio's mayor's office a 
few days later with hundreds of rounds of automatic-weapons fire and two 
grenades that failed to explode. Mayor Cesar Maia pleaded vainly with the 
president for special emergency war powers to fight back, but policing in 
Brazil has not been a federal job.

In the neighboring state of Espirito Santo, a right-wing death squad known 
as Scuderie Detetive le Cocq runs rampant. Brazilian congressional 
investigators and human-rights groups think it is involved in drug 
trafficking and illegal gambling. A Brazilian congressional investigation 
found that the group, one of whose units operates legally as a police 
organization, had ties to high-ranking judges and local and national 
politicians.

The Justice Ministry's human-rights division recommended earlier this month 
that the federal government intervene in Espirito Santo because of the 
murder of a human rights lawyer and because organized crime had infiltrated 
democratic institutions. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who leaves 
office in five months, overturned that effort, prompting Justice Minister 
Miguel Reale to resign July 8.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens