A U.S. academic discloses the seamy network of politics, paramilitaries and corruption in Rio de Janeiro.

by enrique Desmond arias

the police launched a full-scale operation in the rocinha favela after two journalists were kidnapped and tortured by the milícias.

On the night of May 14, for security in the conti- 2008, a reporting team nent’s poorest neighbor-from O Dia, one of Rio de hoods can prove danger-Janeiro’s major dailies, was ously counterproductive. taken captive in the Favela The milícias are so firmly do Batan in the West Zone established that, until re-neighborhood of Realengo cently, any substantive dis-by a group of armed men. cussion of political alterna-The reporters were inves- tives in many parts of the tigating the phenomenon city was silenced. of milícias, which have im- The journalists were reposed a brutal form of or- leased by the milícianos der on a broad swath of with a warning that they the city’s poor neighbor- wouldbekillediftheyever hoods since emerging publicizedwhathappened eight years ago as a coun- to them. Two weeks later, terforce against Rio’s noto- the article was published, riously violent drug gangs. sparking a genuine effort But the journalists soon to curb the groups’ power. found themselves part of Until then, the gangs had the story. Their captors, been assured of benign including men who were neglect from Rio’s politi-obviously police, beat the cal establishment. Much reporters and subjected of their violence was di-them to electric shocks. rected against the poor,

The torture sessions but with the assault on the were punctuated with a media—representatives of harsh interrogation about the middle class—the po-the journalists’ back- liticalpendulumbeganto grounds and sources. As swing dramatically.

far as their captors were It was a shift that few, concerned, it was the jour- least of all the milícias nalists who were guilty of themselves, could have threateninglawandorder. predicted. The groups As O Dia editor Ana Miguez first emerged in Rio’s once recounted, one of the tor- semi-rural West Zone— turers complained, “ We places such as Jacarepagua, kill ourselves working here, Campo Grande and Santa we get shot at by bums so Cruz—but their success in that you can come here expelling drug traffickers and ruin our social project. gave them the confidence We aren’t bandits.” to move into other neigh-

Maybe not. But that is borhoods. The milícias small comfort to the peo- soon proved as brutal and ple of Rio, where even law corrupt as the forces they and order and the need ran out. Often extorting

spring 2009 americas quarterly 91