The gradual increase in violence caused by confrontations between armed criminal groups and by police operations in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro (in this case, with greater scope and lethality) has terrifying effects for the populations of these regions. In a simple survey by the press on the number of deaths by firearms, in the first four months of 2017, in some of Rio's favelas - such as Cidade de Deus, Manguinhos, Jacarezinho, Acari, Maré, Alemão, Rocinha, Cidade Alta and Fallet -, we identified about 120 murdered residents. In addition, 63 police officers were killed in the same period, most of them outside office hours, often reacting to criminal attacks or for being recognized as police officers, as can be seen in the 2016 Brazilian Public Security Forum Yearbook.
The war clash established by public security agents has as a historical justification the battle against drug trade in the favelas and activities considered illegal in this context. It is well known that the choice made by the State, so far, in relation to fighting against crime has, above all, provoked the intensification of an armed battle that puts the population of almost 25% of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro - 1,443,773, according to the 2010 Census - in a very dangerous place. The fight against the militia, the fastest growing criminal group in the city, that extorts residents and traders from the territories they control, is quite limited and secondary.
It happens that, at the root of this way of acting of the agents of the State, a set of negative representations about the inhabitants of the slums and peripheries is incorporated, revealing prejudice and ignorance about the rights of such population to access public policies, including the right to security. The basis of these stigmatizing representations is structural racism, which, regrettably, remains hegemonic in our society and allows naturalization and trivialized coexistence with the massive number of murders in the country. We are already reaching 60,000 deaths per year, 13% of all homicides committed in the world.
The invisibility and insensitivity to these deaths come from the fact that the victims are mainly young blacks, residents of slums and other peripheries. In general, they don’t die for something they do, but for the color of their skin. In Brazil, a black man is two and a half times more likely to be murdered than a white man. Abdias do Nascimento, still in 1977, already called this as a 'genocide', that is, the physical, constant and large-scale elimination of a specific social and / or ethnic group due to its condition. In this context, we also have a legion of women who, by losing their children or companions, “feel orphaned by these dead”, as some of them claim. They suffer from a pain that accompanies them permanently and, in addition, they tend to assume different roles, depending on their family configuration, which makes them even more socially vulnerable. However, it is these women who have increasingly sought not only to demand justice in the case of homicides, but also in times of confrontation with security agents and/or members of armed criminal groups. They are women who have been mobilizing and breaking the fear of talking about the different violence present in their daily lives, denouncing genocide and racism.
A racist society, in this sense, generates the same kind of legislation and police. For this reason, we have laws that privilege some citizens, and those that should apply to everyone only work in some privileged areas of the city. How to understand that, since February this year, the Military Police has occupied four houses at Complexo do Alemão as a military base, leaving only two months later, after a preliminary injunction required by the Public Defender's Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro? A preliminary injunction to guarantee the most basic constitutional right: the inviolability and privacy of home. How can it be natural for a Civil Police delegate to ask the City of Rio de Janeiro to install signs on public roads in the vicinity of the Maré favela, where 140,000 people live, with the words "risk area"? Both actions, one from the Military Police and the other from the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro, start from the assumption that the populations of Alemão and Maré, that is, about 250,000 people, are potential criminals, offer risk to society and, therefore, they must carry the stigmas and suffer the consequences of acts that do not directly concern them.
Brazilian democracy is not at risk only when thousands of women are murdered for their gender; when there is a constitutional coup and social rights are being withdrawn by a congress without moral or political authority; when intolerance grows against indigenous people and Afro-Brazilian religions; or when we perceive sectors of the judiciary at the service of an authoritarian political project in agreement with the mainstream press. Democracy also becomes an empty concept when popular social groups have extirpated their basic right to life, when police without command, without limits in the law, dominated by hatred and the permanent desire for revenge, turns the favela residents into enemies to be controlled, watched, punished, beaten or killed. The struggle for democracy has never been more urgent in Brazil and, even more urgently, in Rio's favelas. Therefore, within what is possible for us to do, we must mobilize and seek the involvement of the entire city to carry out, together, the March of Maré and other initiatives for the right to life and the end of violence in the favelas.
The March of Maré
In 2016, 16 people were murdered in Maré due to armed conflicts between criminal groups and the police. Schools and health posts were closed for twenty days. Unmeasured violence that made the daily lives of all residents, especially children, a nightmare, prevented from circulating on the streets, having shortened their full right to education, and that of people who needed access to medical care.
In 2017, in Maré, in just four months, 18 people were already murdered, two of them policemen, and dozens of others were injured. Schools were closed for 13 days, while health posts were closed for 19. But these are not the only institutions affected: all local organizations, commerce and individuals are affected by these appalling confrontations. The levels of stress, depression, heart attacks and hypertension problems have grown at an alarming rate, creating a territory for sick, anxious and suffering people. The use of psychotropic drugs, legal and illegal, has been increasing considerably as a way to medicalize this pain. This context can also be recognized in many other favelas in Rio de Janeiro, such as Alemão, in recent weeks.
As a result, institutions such as schools, neighborhood associations, traders, churches and individual residents, mobilized themselves to create the “Enough of Violence, another Maré is possible” forum. The forum's objective is to create conditions to face the various forms of violence present in the favelas, specifically the conflicts between armed civilian groups and war actions, without legal basis and respect for life, carried out by police forces. The favela cannot be the arena of meaningless war, which generates pain, revolt and death.
The first major action of the Forum, which is permanent, will be a march on May 24 for all the favelas, which will culminate in an act bringing together all people who believe that another Maré is possible. In this sense, we invite everyone who wants to assist in this process. We are mobilized by our indignation and certain that we can and must unite to make visible the violence that is occurring in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. If you also believe in that, join the chain.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forumbastadeviolencia/
Email: bastadeviolencianamare@gmail.com
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
This article was originally published at Folha de S. Paulo on May 19 of 2017
