Armed clashes with a high lethality rate have become commonplace in the state of Rio. The escalation of violence has generated perplexity and revolt. We are overcome by a feeling of collective incapacity when we do not see prospects for a reversal, in the short term, of the critical point where we are.
As in other times, there are some questions to be made: what are the origins and assumptions that historically support the pattern of confrontations between public security agents and members of armed groups in favelas and peripheries in Rio? Why does a significant segment of society believe and endorse this form of action by the police, that disregards the rights of those who live in slums and peripheries? What to do to establish protocols of respect and principles, in a democratic state of law, for all the population?
There are many issues that we can relate when looking at the loss of sensitivity about the value of life in Brazil. We are a country that records more than 61,000 homicides a year, with 6,200 of it in Rio de Janeiro - the vast majority due to firearm shots. Recurrently, these murders follow an ethnic-racial, age and social pattern: the majority of those murdered are young, black, living in slums and peripheries. Perhaps this tells us a lot about the reasons why we haven't really mobilized as a society yet, to demand that the war state in which we live does not represent us (or should it represent?).
When looking at a specific portion in the city of Rio - the 16 favelas of Maré - we are faced with a picture that illustrates the critical state of violence. The 2017 data on armed clashes in the region systematized in the Bulletin for the Right to Public Security in Maré, prepared by Redes da Maré, are as follows: last year there were 42 homicides and 57 injured. The conflicts caused schools to close 35 days; and 45 closed days of health posts. Looking at these numbers, it is impossible not to realize that residents of slums and peripheries have been exposed to a level of suffering and disrespect that must end.
If we did a map of homicides in Rio, we would identify that the 6,200 homicides a year take place in areas considered peripheral. It is in these circumstances that we unfortunately identify that public security policy in the state is ruled by the idea that we are experiencing a war and, therefore, there is an enemy army: the inhabitants of slums and peripheries. It is undeniable that public security agents do not distinguish between the population residing in these areas and people who are in illegal activities, acting, in some situations, in armed groups.
The State justifies the high rate of violence and the violations that affect residents by the need to repress armed groups that control drug selling points. What we see is the increasing demand for heavy weapons with a high degree of lethality, both by the security forces and by these groups. Increasingly, the predominance of a thought imposed by the logic of the notorious "war on drugs" is reinforced. Now, is it not the time to look at the judgment we have on the drugs issue? Is it not urgent, at this moment, to reflect on the harmful effects resulting from the lack of prioritization of this agenda, with regard to the decriminalization and legalization of drugs? How do we get rid of our prejudices regarding this point, which divides us as a society?
If we start to open up for reflection, perhaps we could look at another observation: the degree of lethality that weapons provoke. This is a traffic that moves a lot of money and its points of sale are not found on peripheries. In fact, that is where they are taken. Why don't we have intelligence to dismantle this network? Isn't it time for the Federal Police and the Coast Guard to articulate and act together to reduce the inflow of arms into the State of Rio?
Without looking at some of the issues exposed here, we can hardly change the routine that has been implemented, in Rio de Janeiro, by public security agents, working in the favelas and peripheries through sporadic incursions in so-called police operations. These incursions, which mobilize different structures of the Military and Civil police, have meant a high expenditure of ammunition and result, almost always, in deaths of residents and police, in a scenario that generates hopelessness, fear and lack of respect for human dignity.
What level of cruelty will we need to reach for this violence to end?
Eliana Sousa Silva
Director and founder of NGO Redes da Maré, researcher in public security and visiting professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP
Article originally published at O Globo on February 9 of 2018
