Government by Militia - Brazil

There is a very fine line between violent gangs and militia who rise up to step into replace an ineffective government or are sucked into the vortex of a political vacuum where leadership has absconded or been removed. The Mafia had its roots in providing locals with governing structures in old Sicily. A militia that is wildly successful and completely replaces an incumbent government obviously becomes a government that may someday face the same fate. In the Tribal District of Western Pakistan and so many Afghan provinces, literally the only government the locals see is that sort of local warlord led militia, sometimes a pan-national force like the Taliban and sometimes just a local bully with perks.

While we think we know where all the militia ride high, I’d like to drill down on three regions in a series of blogs – Kurdistan (most of which is in northern Iraq), the Islamic vs. Christian militia of Nigeria, and the “peacekeepers” of the big slums – favelas – in major Brazilian cities. Today, in my first blog on this subject, I begin with Brazil and specifically Rio de Janeiro where the World Cup will be played in 2014 and where the summer Olympics will be held in 2016. As a backdrop, Brazil has money, gobs and gobs of money that will only flow with increasing richness as the two major off-shore oil fields (discovered in 2007 and 2010, respectively), each with at least 8 billion barrels of petroleum (and maybe much more), begin pumping their bubbling crude. So Brazil has the money to deal most effectively with its impoverished urban areas, and the government appears to be sufficiently enlightened to deploy that newfound wealth to solve such basic problems.

The issue is, however, that before such crudités were discovered, the favelas were functioning inner cities that slipped out from direct government control, imposing their own rules and regulations to their citizens. And there were and continue to be legendary “death squads” that operated quite freely within the favelas, crushing out drug trafficking and other illegal activities by becoming effectively judge, jury and executioners for what they perceive to be illegal activities. Murder is the only punishment meted out, even young children have been assassinated, and judges and prosecutors seeking retribution against such vigilantes often wind up riddled with bullets.

“Officials have been lauded for reclaiming lawless areas from drug traffickers in various favelas across a sprawling metropolitan area with 11.8 million residents. But the image of a city on the mend has been undermined by the actions of its own security forces, particularly the spreading militias composed largely of active-duty and retired police officers, prison guards and soldiers… These groups function like a criminal offshoot of the state. According to judicial investigations, they extort protection money from residents, operate unlicensed public transportation, charge commissions on real estate deals, mete out punishment to those who cross them and, most alarming, carry out extrajudicial killings.

“Alba Zaluar, an anthropologist at State University of Rio de Janeiro who studies public security, sees the militias occupying a paramilitary role by going well beyond the line of lawful policing. Their power is expanding, according to research she oversees, with 45 percent of Rio’s favelas under the control of militias in 2010, up from 12 percent in 2005… A 2008 legislative investigation of Rio’s militias led to the arrests of several officials tied to the groups, including legislators, councilmen and senior police officers. The Rio militias, together with death squads formed by police in neighboring São Paulo, have been responsible for hundreds of murders each year and impunity in these cases remained the norm, according to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report. ” New York Times, January 9^th.

Will the new, cash rich Brazil figure out how to root out the violence, corruption and vigilantism that plagues its major cities? Will it do it by creating new housing with concomitant job opportunities to change the lives of those forced to eke out their livelihoods in the favelas? Will it have the power to investigate and successfully prosecute the militias, most of whom are themselves in the law enforcement sector? Both? Leave it alone but appear to be solving the problem or…..

I’m Peter Dekom, and local tyranny of the disenfranchised is often ignored by everyone but those directly involved.