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
