Pubdate: Sun, 20 Oct 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Larry Rohter

IPANEMA UNDER SIEGE: RIO'S GANGS FLEX HARDER

RIO DE JANEIRO - AS voters here pick Brazil's president next Sunday, they 
can expect to have more than the usual election observers watching them. 
The governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro has asked that the soldiers who 
patrolled the streets here during the first round of voting on Oct. 6 be 
deployed again to protect citizens from the threat that criminal gangs will 
interfere with the election.

Gov. Benedita da Silva wants to prevent a repetition of the "Black Monday" 
of Sept. 30, when stores, schools, banks, offices and markets in this city 
of 5.8 million were forced to close on the order of jailed gang leaders 
unhappy with their living conditions. Gang members also burned buses, 
paralyzing public transport.

To echo the words gang members scrawled on a building that day, criminal 
organizations have become a "parallel power" here, with enough firepower 
and money to intimidate even the government. Few were surprised, for 
example, when the police recently discovered that one jailed gang leader 
had been trying to acquire surface-to-air missiles, presumably for use 
against police helicopters, and had somehow obtained a large quantity of 
Iraqi dinars to do so.

"The population sees criminals throwing grenades at police cars, police 
stations being shot up by machine guns and tracer bullets zipping over 
buildings," said Moacir Duarte, a researcher on public security at the 
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. "Since there is not an appropriate 
response from the public security forces, the people have lost faith and 
have a justifiable fear."

To the estimated 1.5 million people who live in the city's favelas, or 
hillside squatter slums, the problem is hardly new. Over the past 20 years, 
the growth of the drug trade has enabled criminal groups like the Red 
Command or Friends of Friends, commanded by bosses with street names like 
Little Freddy Seaside and Elias the Madman, to take physical control of the 
favelas and impose their will on residents.

What now frightens Cariocas, as residents of Rio call themselves, is the 
realization that the gangs can shut down the entire city, including rich 
neighborhoods like Ipanema and Copacabana. Gangs tortured and murdered a 
prominent investigative journalist in June and in recent months set up 
checkpoints on streets at night to rob or kidnap motorists.

"On Sept. 30 a border was crossed," said Zuenir Ventura, a newspaper 
columnist who chronicles life in Rio. "Everything that the middle class has 
always observed from afar suddenly descended the mountain to take over the 
asphalt, and the result was fear, a generalized panic like I have never 
seen in this city."

Last week there was more of the same. Gang leaders broke into the police 
radio system and threatened to kill Governor da Silva, herself a product of 
the favelas. In one night, gunmen fired a fusillade at the governor's 
palace, threw a hand grenade at a large shopping center and attacked police 
stations and patrol cars.

Rio's residents are now debating how to respond, and it is clear they are 
confused. Suggestions include more government spending on services in poor 
areas, the legalization of drugs and demands on radio call-in programs to 
"kill all the bandits."

In 1985, when 21 years of military dictatorship ended, concerns over public 
security were seen as masking a far-right agenda. But because the situation 
has decayed so drastically, that is no longer the case, even among leftist 
candidates. Polls conducted during the current presidential campaign show 
that voters rank public security as the second most important challenge 
facing the country, exceeded only by the economy. Indeed, the security 
issue is blamed in part for the defeat of Ms. da Silva, who took office 
only in April, in the vote for governor.

Ms. da Silva, of the leftist Workers' Party, had expected her popularity to 
rise after Elias the Madman was captured last month and charged with the 
murder of the journalist, who was tortured and decapitated.

But any benefit she gained appears to have been dissipated by Black Monday 
and by later news reports indicating that the authorities had known from 
intercepts of cellular telephone conversations that a show of gang strength 
was coming.

"Blackout on the South Side, everything has to shut down, all the commerce, 
everything is going to be paralyzed," the jailed gang leader Marquinhos 
Niteroi had ordered, according to a transcript of an eight-minute phone 
call to an underling. "We're going to show them that we've got the power 
and they don't."

Ms. da Silva became a target of organized crime precisely because she had 
taken away privileges - air-conditioned cells, mobile phones and catered 
food - that jailed bosses gained through intimidation and corruption. She 
had also promised to put more police on the streets and to offer them 
better training and salaries. The state's various police forces are widely 
regarded as corrupt and inept.

Now, the worst may be yet to come. Jose Augusto Rodrigues of the State 
University of Rio de Janeiro says public nervousness and rumors are likely 
to encourage organized crime groups to believe they have more power than 
they do, as was indicated by a statement issued last week in the name of 
the Red Command.

"In the event the appropriate measures are not taken, then yes, we will 
once again shut down commerce in Rio de Janeiro," the group warned. "Those 
store owners who open their doors will see what we are capable of, for we 
shall surely make clear our position."
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D