Brazil: violence in (merged thread)
IHT, 11 Apr 07: Rio governor requests Brazil army intervention to quell violence
Quote:
Gov. Sergio Cabral Filho has formally requested that the army intervene to contain the violence that has been spiraling out of control in Brazil's most famous city....
...Silva planned to meet with army officials Thursday about the operation. Rio — one of the world's most violent — is scheduled to host the Pan American Games in July....
Police in Rio Try War Tactics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010502741.html
Quote:
"They probably thought we were going to leave like usual," Cunha said from the school, which has become the headquarters of Rio's latest experiment in urban policing. "But this time we're staying."
The police have regularly launched large operations in Brazil's favelas, or slums, in their battle against drug gangs over the years, but authorities say the occupation of Santa Marta, a relatively small, contained neighborhood, is part of a new approach, a pilot project for the future of crime fighting in this violent city. Brazilian police officers are attempting counterinsurgency tactics similar to those used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- setting up small bases occupied around the clock inside violent neighborhoods, developing intelligence by living among their adversaries, and using government funds to rebuild broken areas and generate goodwill.
"Santa Marta is like a laboratory for policing a conflict area," said Antônio Roberto Cesário de Sá, a senior official in the office of the public security secretary of Rio de Janeiro. "The idea is to rescue a territory that until now has belonged to a drug-dealing gang."
Can the ink spot really work?
Quote:
The problems with long term emphasis patrols is that the justice system has a single input, various storage mechanisms, and various outputs. Hundreds of cops arresting hundreds of crooks all process through just a few judges and courts. So anything like a "surge" (ick) in domestic law enforcement won't work for very long. Law enforcement is not a military operation regardless of all those M4 toting SWAT teams who keep trying to "wage war" on crime.
Selil, I had my doubts about the ink spot for other reasons, but your thoughts just added to my doubts. In many countries (ours included) the court and detention system is overwhelmed, so even if we're successful on the COP, surge, end of the problem, we eventually (sooner rather than later) come a point where this strategy collapses upon itself.
The concept of the ink blot strategy is to pacify one area at a time, and then push out to an adjacent area and pacify it. To enable this to work we need a legal system (and ideally a rehabilitation system) that can handle this surge of detentions, which will probably be the long pole in the tent. If it is only one gang in one area, then this strategy will probably work, but the problem in Brazil is large scale.
It is easier to deal with an insurgency usng this strategy where you can mobilize the nation's resources, employ the military, etc. to deal with what we hope will be a relatively temporary problem.
If there is a lesson here, then it appears to be nipping the problem in the butt before it gets to this level. Goes back to the broken glass theory of law enforcement. It will be interesting to see how this play out over the next few months.
Consider a couple of quotes ....
from the OP article.
Quote:
from OP link
About 10,000 people live in Santa Marta, a warren of 1,000 to 2,000 shoddy houses threaded with narrow concrete paths and perched on a hillside so steep that many residents ride a tram to get up the slope. About 50 to 60 drug dealers operate here, residents estimate, and the graffiti of the gang in charge -- "CV" for Comando Vermelho, or Red Command -- scar walls. Those are modest numbers, given the scope of the sprawling city -- an advantage for a police operation that employed just 150 men in the initial push. The small favela also has few entrances and is bordered by jungle, rather than blending into other slums.
A bit light on the "insurgent-counterinsurgent ratio", but as David correctly states, this was more of a police than a military operation (with favorable geography, to boot).
More important than the manpower ratio is the question of how long the government is inclined to keep the police presence - 10 months, 10 years, etc. In the long run, will Santa Marta become a pacified colonia ? - after all, even Colchester had its down before its ups, as David can attest better than I.
At least to some inhabitants, the police effort has survived its authoritarian phase, but has yet to win over them - perhaps, a question of valuation of principles in Bob's World terms.
Quote:
from OP link
Nata Maravilha Nael, 48, a school security guard who grew up in City of God, said even the residents who want the officers in the neighborhood describe such police excesses as speeding through the narrow streets in armored vehicles, screaming at residents and demanding bribes.
"It's an abuse of power," he said. "They're like criminals themselves."
The police have shut down popular dance parties, and several residents said they do not feel comfortable being outside after dark anymore, because of the risk of being accused of criminal activity.
"It's going backward. They're acting aggressively against normal people," Nael said. "When the criminals were here, they didn't mess with normal people."
Nothing new here - we've heard it here so many times in regard to "real" armed conflicts.
It seemed to me to be an illustration of how the counterinsurgent's values (reduction of principles to practice) become the governing criteria for success or failure.
A lot of lessons in that article
Excellent post Bourbon, the article/letter you attached addresses a lot of topics we surfaced over the years in the SWJ council, and it probably is a prediction of what urbanization throughout the developing world will look like in the very near future.
The attack sounded very familiar to the Mumbai attack in some respects, but involved more of a swarming approach, than an infiltration of one team.
I'll have to read it in depth later, but a couple of quotes caught my eye,
We frequently approach the ideology of insurgent and insurgent like groups with a degree of western naiveity where we assume (population centric approach) that everyone simply wants democracy and our economic system. If we can give them that, they'll turn their guns into plows, etc. That is B.S., many of them are as loyal to their cause as we are to our country.
Quote:
Prisoners were attracted to the group because it brought order to their lives and gave them purpose, protection, and power. There were obligations. P.C.C. followers lived by its laws under penalty of death. Those who formally joined became “Brothers” for life. They were initiated with a baptism involving water, and had to sign a 16-point manifesto that still serves as the P.C.C.’s constitution.
In this case it is somewhat difficult to attack their strategy. :wry:
Quote:
“So the Command is a revolutionary movement?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so jump ahead and tell me what you are fighting toward. Let’s say you win your revolution and take power. What kind of Brazil do you want to build then?”
A smile flickered across his lips. He said, “We do not think about winning. We rebel against the government more to give a response now than with a vision of the future in mind.”
A government official,
Quote:
The lack of control is much larger than that. It extends to the favelas and, more important, to the office towers where global money flows. People see this, or they should. São Paulo is not alone. Consider all the other Third World cities, consider Moscow, consider L.A. The P.C.C. is just another inhabitant of the growing feral zones. I said, “But isn’t it possible that this is a level of chaos that São Paulo can continue to live with? With all its fortifications and armored cars? Doing business with the world?”
Brazil police step up Rio gang violence drive
The BBC has had a couple of reports on a new police "surge" (sorry, could not resist that) into gang territory; link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11838472
There are linked stories and the Marine Corps have provided the police with logistic support and a small number of APCs (M113 in the photos seen).
A band-aid to fix a dysfunctional city.
A critical comment on 'Pacifying Rio', which has some interesting points I have not seen before. For example the Brazilian foreign policy goals being expressed in their military role in the UN Haiti mission, with the lessons learnt coming home.
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensec...-security-oper
The harsher side of Brazil
Amidst the limited reporting here of the protests against bus fare rises and then with a wider theme a report on how Brazilian police can act:
Quote:
A security force operation in northern Rio de Janeiro has left eight people dead, as the country struggles to contain a popular uprising partly fueled by police brutality.
I suspect this fact may explain a lot:
Quote:
a Special Operations Battallion (BOPE) sergeant was killed
Not seen these figures before, they are rather sobering:
Quote:
Police in Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil's two biggest cities, have killed 11,000 people in the last ten years - in 2008 one person was killed for every 23 arrested, compared to the US police average of one death per 37,000 people arrested.
Link:http://www.insightcrime.org/news-bri...favela-protest
If you're thinking of visiting Brazil for the World Cup in 2014, time to rethink?
Downside for pacification: a torture indictment for one
Not unexpected I fear, the opening passage from a NYT report:
Quote:
A Brazilian police officer who spoke at a technology conference in New York on Tuesday about the potential of a new smartphone app to aid in the “pacification” of Rio de Janeiro’s lawless favelas was indicted the same day by prosecutors back home in connection with a notorious case of torture and murder by her unit in July.
Link:http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...new-york/?_r=0
The lady officer did return home. Yes being a police officer in such places is very hard, torture is not the response.
I had not realised the pacification effort was partly privately funded:
Quote:
In August, the embattled Brazilian business tycoon Eike Batista — whose annual contributions of nearly $10 million had paid for U.P.P. equipment, uniforms, weapons, ammunition and training — withdrew his financial support for the project.
Pacification was a dream of the residents that became a nightmare
The title comes from the closing line in the linked article, which was headlined:
Quote:
Gang gunfights loom over Rio de Janeiro's World Cup preparations
It appears that not every favela likes pacification:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...parations.html
Out of the mountains into the slums?
On the topic of Kilcullen/"Out of the Mountains" would Brazil's hosting of both the FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics represent a great opportunity to see how the "conflict entrepreneur" and un/self-governed spaces issues are dealt with?
To me, Brazil's favelas seem like the best laboratories to see how megaslum governance and management solutions play out(or don't).
Such as the Brazil's Pacifying Police Unit(UPP).
If there's one place I'd like to be on the ground to learn and understand in the next two years would be Brazil's favelas.
Out of the mountains into the slums?
This thread is at the suggestion of Flagg. Using David Kilcullen's latest book and theory - what will happen in Brazil's slums / megacities / favelas in the next two years when two international football events take place there?
Can the Kilcullen theory be applied? So watch and comment on Brazil as an example.
There are a number of relevant threads. Notably The David Kilcullen Collection:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=12934 and the Brazil violence in (merged thread), which has a number of news reports on the usually para-military policing of the favelas:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2602
There is the small example of into the slums cited by Kilcullen, the multinational effort to detain a drug lord in Jamaica:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=10451
Mexico of course already has an increasingly violent problem:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5370
It is worth reading a recent SWJ article A Proposed Framework for Appreciating Megacities: A US Army perspective:http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...-perspective-0 One of the authors commented:
Quote:
We've looked at the recent favela ops, and certainly there is a lot to study there.
Flagg's post will come first after the thread is created.
Time to be friendly in Rio: goodbye pacification
A new Governor for the province and a new policy:
Quote:
If those in charge succeed, the controversial top-down term "pacification" may soon fall into disuse. Instead, police have announced that they are reaching out to civil society to help them do a better, less violent job of keeping Rio safe.
Link:http://www.insightcrime.org/news-ana...licing-at-last
Amid Rising Violence Rio Continues to Implement Pacification Program
A short article, it starts with:
Quote:
Outbreaks of violence in one of Rio de Janeiro's major favelas are raising questions about the long-term effectiveness of
Brazil's controversial pacification program, even as plans to expand the program continue.
Link:http://www.insightcrime.org/news-bri...cation-program
Out of the mountains into the slums: Rio
Just how Rio copes with the threat of violence is a recurrent theme here, let alone how the 2016 Olympics affects this. Today IISS had an event today 'Urban Warfare in the ‘Marvelous City’: Securing Rio from the Gangs', with two speakers and the podcast is one hour long:http://www.iiss.org/en/events/events...rio-gangs-58a9
The event's chair Nigel Inkster referred to David Kilcullen's book, hence the title.
One speaker didn't make it and her book is due out soon. From an IISS email:
Quote:
Juliana Barbassa is an award-winning journalist and author. Her book, Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink, is based on her years in Brazil as a correspondent for the Associated Press and will be published in July 2015. She was born in Brazil, but has lived in Iraq, Malta, Libya, Spain, France and the United States. She is currently based in Switzerland.
There is thread on Brazil and violence into which this maybe merged:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2602
Can 'monsters' be a trusted police?
Two articles appeared today via Twitter on BOPE, the military police unit, one is a commentary following a death. Its starts with:
Quote:
The investigation of an elite police unit in Brazil for allegedly trying to cover up the disappearance of a Rio de Janeiro man may represent an opportunity to restore the public’s trust in the rule of law, and perhaps repair the reputation of a controversial program to pacify favelas.
Link:http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/a...te-police-unit
The second is an interview of a convicted BOPE member:
Quote:
A former military police officer in
Brazil talks about the culture of violence that permeates the force, and how this can dehumanize those who initially joined in order to serve and protect the public.
Link:http://www.insightcrime.org/news-ana...eates-monsters