DISPATCHES
A hearse with the body of police officer Felix dos santos tostes, leaves the rio das Pedras favela in rio de Janeiro.
payments from local busi- when they began to op- from the state gover- the attack on the O Dia
nesses in exchange for pro- erate closer to downtown nor’s part y, Jeromi n ho journalists. On June 11, the
tection, they became an and well-offareasbecause, Guimarães, was arrested state legislative assembly
a lternate s ystem of gov- according to some, they se- on charges of leading the approved Freixo’s proposal
ernance in the neighbor- cured the main transpor- Liga da Justiça milícia. An- for an investigation. That
hoods where they oper- tation arteries leading to other withallegedlinksto day, a milícia-linked ex-ated. the sites of the 2007 Pan- the milícias was arrested plosive went off at a po-
In fact, many groups American Games. for murder. And yet an- lice station, fueling fur-enjoyed powerful support There was some coura- other leading politician, ther outrage.
from politicians who per- geous opposition. In Oc- Álvaro Lins, a member of The CPI’s investigation,
ceivedthem as alesserevil tober 2006, state assem- the state assembly and led by Vinicius George, a
todruggangs. Rio’sformer blyman Marcelo Freixo the former head of the high-ranking police offi-mayor Cesar Maia even re- of the Partido de Social- Civil Police under Gover- cer, issued 183 subpoenas
ferred to them as “self-de- ismo e Liberdade (PSOL), de- nor Rosinha Garotinho, over the next six months,
fense forces.” Some of the manded that the city’s as- was arrested by the fed- meeting with those who
groups’ leaders occupied semblyopen a Committee eral police in May 2008 had knowledge of milí-
important government of Parliamentary Inquiry for money laundering. Al- cias, and setting up an
posts, and several even (CPI) to investigate milícia legedly involved with the anonymous anti- milícia
won election to local and activities. His plea was met city’s slot machine mafia, telephone line. Through
state office. with silence. Lins had received a sub- active collaborative inves-
The milícias were able But the following year stantial number of votes tigations with the civil po-to operate with impunity the cozy relationship be- from areas controlled by lice and prosecutors, and
because they were concen- t ween the politicians and milícias. Despite this spate after two months of hear-trated in neighborhoods, the armed groups started of arrests, politicians at ings, the CPI put together
like the distant West Zone, to unravel, as prominent both the state and munici- a detailed report.
that politicians could ig- elected officials linked to pal levels balked at further- The report revealed that
nore. But they continued milícias ran afoul of the ing the investigation. milícias today dominate
to turn a blind eye, even law. One city councilman But this changed with 171 neighborhoods in the
AP PHo To/RICARDo MoRAES
