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Duck and cover: Three survival lessons for Rio’s traffickers

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By Andrea Varsori

A man passes by a group of soldiers participating in a security operation in Rio de Janeiro. (Antonio Lacerda EPA Shutterstock)

Being a criminal in Rio de Janeiro has never been a safe business, but this year it’s more dangerous than ever. On February 16, Brazil’s federal government seized for itself the administration of security in the state of Rio, normally an exclusive domain of the state government. President Michel Temer signed the decree, declaring that this “extreme measure” was necessary, as organised crime had become “a metastasis spreading over the whole country… [that] almost took over the state of Rio”. This act marked the beginning of an unprecedented federal intervention in Rio de Janeiro’s public security. Although the Armed Forces have often operated in Rio against crime, they always did so in cooperation with the state government. Temer, however, decided to entrust them with this intervention. Thus, they now have command over the local security forces: a situation that has never been seen since the end of the military dictatorship and the adoption of the current constitution, thirty years ago.

Notwithstanding the new power relation determined by this move, it is not yet clear what results these extreme measures will achieve. Although, on paper, the intervention has the leeway to bring an even fiercer fight against organised crime, it is bound to meet formidable resistance from Rio’s well-established criminal groups. The most visible – and most targeted – among these groups are the drug trafficking alliances, called “factions”, whose main business is dealing in marijuana and cocaine from heavily defended drug-selling points inside of the city’s slums (favelas). Rio’s factions have learned many hard-fought lessons from the city’s past history of Armed Forces involvement in security affairs.

From the outset, the federal intervention was not meant to impose purely hardline security policies. The federal government announced also that it would bring about a sweeping reform of the local police forces, with a particular attention devoted to uprooting corruption. However, what has been done up to now has yet to live up to these statements. The operational mode of the security forces, mostly consisting in raids by tactical elite battalions or short-lived occupations, has not changed at all in the past months. The only exception to this are the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs), Rio’s experiment with “counter-insurgency” (see Muggah & Mulli 2012), which have been downsized by the interventor, due to lack of manpower and loss of local control. So far, the promises of vast security sector reforms have only produced a “strategic plan” that took four months to be written and put forward no long-term ideas.

At the same time, the federal government marketed its intervention as an opportunity to carry out a harsher crackdown on organised crime by imposing fewer restraints on the use of force. For example, ministers called for sweeping investigation and search powers, possibly covering entire neighbourhoods. Although these ideas were soon discarded, the very nature of having soldiers operating against crime inherently means less oversight from judicial authorities. Allegations against members of the Armed Forces, in fact, can only be examined by military judges, a fact that may lead to eventual impunity according to Amnesty International. At the same time, authorities seemed to recognise this, admitting that “undesirable things, even injustices” could occur during the intervention. For this reason, too, Army Commander Eduardo Villas Bôas asked that a “Truth Committee”, similar to the one established in 2011 to investigate crimes committed during the military dictatorship, should not take place in the future; a request contested by human rights groups and prosecutors.

To a trafficker, all of this may look like really bad news. In reality, there is likely to be little despair among criminals in Rio. Over the past 25 years, faction members have learnt a few lessons that will make them weather the storm. And where these lessons might not allow individual criminals to live another day – one of the main effects of intervention has so far been a 46% yearly increase of deaths following police intervention – their businesses will most likely live on.

The first lesson is, simply, to hide. This is not so different from what insurgents and rebel fighters do in asymmetric conflicts, a similarity that has not passed unobserved among some practitioners in the Brazilian Army (for example, Alessandro Visacro, former commander of the 1st Special Forces Battalion, noticed it in his book Irregular War). Traffickers have the advantage of not wearing uniforms or distinctive signs. Factions admittedly have names, symbols, and mottos that strengthen their identity but most traffickers learnt long ago that, in general, it is better not to display your gang membership in public. In a set of instructions reportedly drafted in the early 1980s, avoiding tattoos was already one of the twelve most important rules of the “good bandit” (see Amorim, A irmandade do crime, 2015, 167). This means that, in general, traffickers are indistinguishable from other teenagers/young adults living in a favela. They can thus easily ditch their weapons and blend in among local residents if they are being pursued. This fact, coupled with the advantage of hidden defensive positions and extremely complex terrain, makes it extremely difficult for security forces to recognise suspects. Only intelligence and investigative work allow to overcome these obstacles: exactly the kind of advantages that Army soldiers, who come from all over Brazil, cannot reap.

The second lesson is that outside forces are often not powerful enough to occupy all the irregular and dense space of a favela. Trafficking factions in Rio have therefore repeatedly demonstrated that it is possible to weather the initial effects of military occupation, carve marginal spaces for business, and eventually fight to regain lost territory. This is what has happened in the past seven years in favelas (or groups of them, complexos) such as Rocinha or Alemão. Although both these areas were occupied with Armed Forces assistance and then “pacified” through deployment of UPPs, over time traffickers managed to create areas in which the police was increasingly reluctant to operate, and in which they could again display and deploy weapons. As a consequence, police estimates from August 2017 showed that UPPs still had full control over only 5 of 39 favelas. Of the four UPPs present in Alemão, two had lost more than 55% of their territory, with a third having lost 35,4%; in Rocinha, another estimate from September 2017 showed that 51,6% of the territory was outside the reach of regular police forces.

This can equally be the case when Armed Forces are involved. The recent occupation of Complexo da Maré, an ensemble of 16 favelas, shows just that. The Armed Forces occupied Maré for 15 months, between April 5, 2014 and June 30, 2015. The operation involved 23.5 thousand soldiers, around 85% of those deployed in the UNSTAMIH mission in Haiti, and costed R$559,6 million (around £113,5 million pounds). These resources secured 674 arrests and 1.356 reported seizures of drugs, weapons, and vehicles. Whilst in that period the occupation decreased murder rates by 75% and trafficker profits by 79%, faction presence still did not come to an end. Traffickers at first hid inside the Complexo, exploiting their local knowledge and networks and observing the soldiers’ behaviour. Then, they started teasing them with regular shootings and the occasional grenade. On average, soldiers experienced two attacks daily and the Army even suffered its first casualty on home territory since 1972. Midway into the occupation, traffickers were able to establish areas of armed control where they could display weapons, check on who was coming in and out, and even carry out attacks on each other. It is perhaps no wonder that some soldiers cheered on their buses when they handed Maré back to the local police force. The latter then quickly returned to the old modes of operation. Just a week after the end of the occupation, the Military Police deployed tactical elite battalions like BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion), with a 20-year-old man hit by a stray bullet during the operation.

Even on those rare occasions when hiding and carving up spaces has proved impossible, there is still one last viable option: escape. This was notably the effect of the occupation and installation of UPPs in some favelas, like the Complexo do Alemão. Following an intolerable string of attacks against police stations, buses, and ordinary citizens, Rio’s security forces decided to occupy the area, as intelligence alleged that the orders to carry on the attacks came from the leaders of the Red Command faction hiding there. On November 28 2010, 2.600 police officers and soldiers proceeded to occupy the Complexo, which, by that day, was hosting traffickers from there as well as from outside; these had already escaped through a forest from police operations nearby. While there were several shootings in the preceding days, with 37 people killed between November 21-28, most Red Command members present in Alemão managed to escape again, this time through a minor exit road.

Security forces did little to prevent this, as the “pacification” of Alemão was already a major task and required by itself all available resources. The traffickers who escaped, however, emigrated to another vast favela in the area, Jacarezinho; and then, when that favela was occupied, too, they migrated to Covanca, a favela in the Western zone of the city, where they overpowered the local paramilitary group and established their business. Other traffickers left for cities in the metropolitan region, like Niterói, Macaé, and Japeri, that were untouched by the pacification process. This migration reproduced on a metropolitan scale what happened in Latin America at large as a result of U.S.-directed drug eradication policies, whose efforts to destroy coca plantations in one state normally resulted in the displacement of production to neighbouring countries. This is the so-called “balloon effect”: a long time enemy of law enforcement agencies that has effectively arrived in Rio, too.

Drug factions have learnt these three lessons (hide, fight, escape) the hard way. Over the past ten years, many of their members have opted for one or more of these courses of action; those who did not have been either arrested or killed. It is likely that those who remain under this new occupation will continue to act according to them, unless the Armed Forces and the police evolve tactically and strategically. However, the predominance of incursions and short occupations, even in “pacified” areas, points to the unlikelihood of an operational change. Given this context, traffickers know enough to make themselves, or at least their business, survive well beyond the end of this intervention.

 

This piece was originally published on the Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (SHOC) blog, The Informer. The original version of the piece can be read here

 

Andrea is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, as well as the Editor-in-Chief of Strife Journal and Blog. His research focuses on urban armed groups in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In particular, he seeks to explain their resilience through an evolutionary/ecological lens, by analysing the history of their internal changes. Andrea holds an MA in International and Diplomatic Sciences from the University of Bologna. You can follow him on Twitter @Andrea_Varsori.

Image Source: http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-brazil-military-police-20180227-htmlstory.html

Peacekeeping in Haiti: a laboratory for pacification in Rio de Janeiro?

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By Christoph Harig:

Soldiers of the ´Pacification Force´ searching a car in the Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro, 2014. Photo: Marcelo Horn/GERJ (CC 2.0)

With contingents of up to 3200 soldiers, over twice the number of the country’s current contribution to the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the Brazilian Armed Forces are at present occupying large parts of the favela agglomeration Complexo da Maré in Rio de Janeiro. After the mission in Alemão and Penha (Operação Arcanjo, November 2010 – June 2012), this is the second occasion on which the Armed Forces have significantly contributed to the Pacification programme.

Critics as well as proponents have argued that Brazil’s leading role in MINUSTAH served as a ‘laboratory’ for tactics used in such internal military deployments. Some even claim that ‘Armed Forces’ actions in the hills of Rio cannot be comprehended without the prior experience in Haiti [1]. Yet these interpretations of the ‘Port-au-Prince-Rio connection‘ often fail to recognise that domestic experiences, doctrines and tactics significantly shape actions in Haiti.While the Peacekeeping mission clearly serves to test and refine existing techniques, deployments in Rio also prepare soldiers for being sent to Haiti.

Whatever the case about the origins of certain approaches, the more important question is whether these military operations contributed to sustainable improvements in the area of public security.

Brazil has dominated the military component of MINUSTAH since its inception in 2004, being the largest troop contributor and constantly providing Force Commanders. Under pressure from the USA, Canada and France,[2] the mission hesitantly increased robust measures against gangs in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.

Numerous civilians died during the first violent incursions into neighbourhoods such as Cité Soleil. Still, MINUSTAH subsequently managed to significantly reduce civilian victims while progressively occupying gang-controlled areas by the end of 2007.[3] The Brazilian contingent has taken most of the credit as its battalions were in charge of Port-au-Prince’s most critical areas.[4]

Moreover, a Brazilian Force Commander introduced the tactic of establishing pontos fortes (strongholds), whereby troops try to conquer strategically situated buildings in gang-controlled neighbourhoods. These strongholds then serve as bases for establishing a permanent presence in the area and are widely considered as a crucial factor for MINUSTAH’s military success.[5]

Rio’s Polícia Militar reportedly sent a delegation to Haiti in order to assess the potential use of pontos fortes and then implemented this counterinsurgency-inspired approach in the very first occupation of the Pacification campaign.[6] So far, this would support the idea of Haiti as a laboratory for Rio. But a less widely known military occupation of the favela Parque Roquete Pinto, part of the Complexo da Maré, between 1994 and 1995 already employed comparable tactics.[7] Moreover, Brazil’s dominant role in MINUSTAH is intrinsically linked with its military’s prior experience of dealing with gang violence in poor urban environments.[8] Examples include Operação Rio in 1994, when approximately 1500 soldiers invaded and occupied more than 50 favelas for about two months.

Aside from similarities in counterinsurgency tactics, the legal status of soldiers in current internal missions seems to be inspired by the participation in MINUSTAH. Referring to alleged abuses of soldiers during Operação Rio, Defence Minister Jobim later proposed that future internal missions should take place under comparable juridical protection for troops as during UN Peacekeeping. Fittingly, some suggest that the Army only consented to Operação Arcanjo in 2010 after being legally assured that possible cases of soldiers’ misbehaviour would not be tried by civilian courts.[9] This is another – if more debatable – ‘Port-au-Prince-Rio connection’. Internal military missions in pre-defined areas and limited timeframes are constitutionally allowed. Federal governments had crucially expanded the legal scope for such ´Guaranteeing Law and Order´ (GLO) operations before MINUSTAH commenced.

Apart from a diverging legal framework for respective rules of engagement, most would agree that military “tactics, techniques and proceedings”[10] in the MINUSTAH and GLO operations are essentially the same. Yet claims regarding the use of Haiti as laboratory for Rio tend to focus on the combat-intense early stages of MINUSTAH. In fact, the Brazilian contingent mainly focused on police tasks like patrolling or establishing checkpoints after ending gang domination in 2007. Despite MINUSTAH having the second largest police contingent of all current UN missions, Brazilian troops are often visibly policing their area of responsibility.[11]

With planned cuts to the military component of MINUSTAH from June 2015, this regular presence of soldiers cannot be maintained. Nevertheless, most Brazilian contingents have gained extensive experience in patrols and through interaction with the civilian population.

Estimates suggest that between 60 and 90%[12] of soldiers deployed in Rio’s Pacification have also been to Haiti. However, synergies between MINUSTAH and Pacification do not only go in one direction: soldiers first participating in Pacification perceived it as intense training for the tasks they would later face in Haiti.[13] The Brazilian Army fittingly emphasised that selecting personnel for the mission in Maré not only took soldiers´ previous experience in MINUSTAH but also Operação Arcanjo into account. In both types of missions, soldiers are predominantly carrying out tasks such as patrolling, arresting suspects, searching for drugs and weapons or stopping and searching vehicles as well as persons. Combined with sophisticated preparation in dedicated training centres (CCOPAB and CIOpGLO), this not only creates capabilities related to combat in urban environments but also in typical police tasks.

But episodes of soldiers actually instructing Rio’s Pacifying Police Units (UPPs) in the proper treatment of citizens in the Maré are not necessarily proving the military´s policing skills. They rather demonstrate the lack of adequate training for Rio´s notoriously violent Polícia Militar.

From a strictly military perspective, the mutually related actions in Port-au-Prince and Rio have arguably been quite successful. Both MINUSTAH and Operação Arcanjo have significantly restricted overt gang rule in urban areas.[14] Yet the population in both places occasionally accused soldiers of misconduct. Moreover, the frameworks in which military operations are embedded so far have not overcome the problems they sought to solve. Armed groups in Port-au-Prince remain a constant threat to Haiti’s stability. The ill-prepared, insufficiently equipped and understaffed National Police frequently abuses the population and will probably not be able to provide security after the withdrawal of MINUSTAH.

In addition, civil society groups increasingly perceive the extended presence of foreign soldiers as an occupation which does not serve the locals’ interests. In Rio, the recent surge in fatalities from shootouts in the Complexo do Alemão and other ‘pacified’ favelas is evidence of the Pacification programme’s many shortcomings.

Using soldiers in police roles may have enabled robust short-term security measures in the run-up to large events such as the Football World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games 2016. Yet these attempts will be futile without the authorities´ commitment to establishing a state presence that goes beyond repression and serves elementary needs of the population.

Christoph Harig is PhD student at the Brazil Institute, King’s College London. He tweets @c_harig. His recent article ´Synergy effects between MINUSTAH and Public Security in Brazil´ provides a more thorough discussion of some of this blog post’s topics.

NOTES

[1] Marcos Cintra cited in Mateos, Simone Biehler, “Ajuda ao Próximo e ao Distante,” Desafios ao desenvolvimento 8/65 (2011)

[2] Fernández Moreno, Marta, Carlos Chagas Vianna Braga, and Maíra Siman Gomes, “Trapped Between Many Worlds: A Post-Colonial Perspective on the UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH),” International Peacekeeping 19/3 (2012): 385

[3] For a detailed overview on the use of offensive measures and a discussion of its consequences, see Cockayne, James, “The Futility of Force? Strategic Lessons for Dealing with Unconventional Armed Groups from the UN’s War on Haiti’s Gangs,” Journal of Strategic Studies 37/5 (2014): 736–69.

[4] Sotomayor, Arturo C., The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper. Civil-Military Relations and the United Nations. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 137

[5] Dorn, A. Walter, “Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping: The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), 2006–07,” Intelligence and National Security 24/6 (2009): 814

[6] Skype conversation between Tenente Coronel C.A. de M. Cavalcanti (Doctrine Advisor at the Brazilian Peacekeeping Training Centre) and staff/students of King’s Brazil Institute, 20.11.2014.

[7] Interview with General Glaucio Lucas Alves, conducted by author´s PhD supervisor Dr. V. M. de Carvalho, 4 October 2014

[8] Kenkel, Kai Michael, “South America’s Emerging Power: Brazil as Peacekeeper,” International Peacekeeping 17/5 (2010): 653

[9] Amorim Neto, Octavio, “Democracy and Civil-Military Relations in Brazil.” Paper presented at Meeting of the Brazilian Political Science Association, Brasília, 6 August 2014: 19.

[10] Pinheiro, Alvaro De Souza, “A Segurança Pública, o Exército Brasileiro e as Operações de Garantia da Lei e da Ordem,” Estudos e Pesquisas 322 (2009): 6

[11] Skype conversation between Coronel Vinícius Ferreira Martinelli (Commander of the 20th Brazilian military contingent in MINUSTAH) and staff/students of King’s Brazil Institute, 13.11.2014.

[12] Kenkel, Kai Michael, “Securing South America’s Peace Operations Acquis Post-MINUSTAH,” in South America and Peace Operations. Coming of Age, ed. Kai Michael Kenkel. (London: Routledge, 2013): 194

[13] Q&A‑Session with Major Garcia during visit to 4a Brigada de Infantaria Motorizada, Juiz de Fora, 26.02.2014

[14] Cockayne 2014, 764; Hoelscher, K., & Norheim-Martinsen, P. M., Urban violence and the militarisation of security: Brazilian “peacekeeping” in Rio de Janeiro and Port-au-Prince. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 25/5-6 (2014), 966

The paradox of Brazil’s militarised public security

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By Christoph Harig:

POST - Harig_The Paradox of Brazil's Militarised Public Security
President Dilma Rousseff visiting the military ‘Pacification Force’ in Rio’s Complexo do Alemão, 2011.

Brazilian politicians have promised that the country would inherit lasting improvements from the World Cup. Among the many contested possible legacies, it is almost certain that the Armed Forces further enhanced their capability of performing domestic missions. About 57,000 soldiers took part in the 150,000-strong security force – the largest in the tournament´s and Brazil´s history – and primarily carried out tasks such as protecting critical infrastructure or preventing terrorism.[1] The military attracted significant investments for this purpose and are meant to prepare for large upcoming events, such as the Olympic Games.[2] As the police failed to deter protestors from blocking the bus of Brazil´s squad shortly before the tournament, the government swiftly resorted to a ´contingency force´ of 21,000 soldiers, planned to be on-call in case the police were on strike or otherwise not able to guarantee public order.[3] Troops were then protecting airports, hotels and streets used by football teams, foreign government officials as well as the heads of FIFA. For the duration of the tournament, the government therefore issued a ´preventive´ Guaranteeing Law and Order (GLO) measure,[4] which enables the military to take over the operational control of the police.[5] Using Armed Forces instead of, or in addition to, an arguably unreliable police, however, is not confined to large events. It is a recurring pattern and democratic ´leftist´ Brazilian governments have even trivialised internal missions in recent years.

Since the end of the military regime in 1985, troops have not only protected elections, the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the UN Earth Summit in 1992 and the visits of different popes, but also repressed strikes as well as manifestations and kept the landless movement from invading the farm of President Cardoso´s sons.[6] The on-going pacification programme and associated occupations of favelas in Rio de Janeiro is just one among many cases of a military-backed fight against crime. Praised for its innovativeness, Rio´s pacification strategy largely just repeats prior approaches: the idea of expelling criminals and occupying favelas with force as well as the ensuing intent to develop stronger ties between communities and the police dates back to the 1980s;[7] around 1,500 soldiers invaded as well as occupied more than 50 favelas in 1994.[8]

What is actually new about military engagements during pacification and large events is the juridical framework which has been adjusted to the Armed Forces´ demands for legal security and a wide room for manoeuvre. According to the 1988 Constitution, it is a secondary role of the military to guarantee law and order when asked to do so by any of the constitutional powers. However, detailed regulations were missing and the legal situation of internal deployments in the 1990s has often been uncertain. Today, the decision-making process has been clarified and troops have certain legal security for possible cases of ´collateral damage´.

Despite having given up their interventionism of former times, the Armed Forces still exert significant influence in this respect. Their political power does not only derive from the transitional pact that safeguarded military interests in the new democracy; there is also a lack of political will and civilian interest that grants them enormous autonomy in core institutional affairs. The fact that it took over 25 years of democracy until the government banned the Armed Forces from publicly commemorating the coup of 1964[9] – which they still call ´Democratic Revolution´ – anecdotally highlights some issues in civil-military relations.

One would expect that former regime opponents Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula da Silva, or particularly the torture victim and ex-guerrilla Dilma Rousseff would be inclined to reduce the domestic significance of the Armed Forces once in presidential power. Yet, in the midst of some successful and other failed attempts to cut back military prerogatives, their respective tenures have strikingly increased the legal support and the scope of internal military actions.[10] In 2001, Cardoso decreed that the Army had the right to arrest suspects during GLO operations.[11] Furthermore, he empowered the military command to take over the operational control of state police forces in GLO operations.[12] Lula later extended the right of arrest to Navy and Air Force.[13] During the tenure of Rousseff, whose current re-election explicitly refers to her imprisonment under military rule,[14] the first draft of a framework for GLO operations sparked heavy criticism for including protestors and social movements as possible ´opponents´. Some polemical formulations were deleted in the second draft in 2014, but the Ministry of Defence made clear that only semantic alterations were to be done.[15] Blurry definitions now allow a plethora of internal military missions,[16] arguably even more than the first draft.

Yet, why do former opponents of military rule intensify the domestic use of the Armed Forces? A serious security problem is part of this paradox. 2012 figures indicate 29 intentional homicides per 100,000 Brazilian inhabitants.[17] As a comparison: in Haiti, where the Brazilian military´s experience in domestic issues and urban conflict is used prominently in a peacekeeping operation,[18] the figure usually oscillates between 5.1 and 6.9.[19] This is combined with a severe problem of policing. Worst of all, police forces are major perpetrators of violence and have been responsible for killing many citizens.[20] State-level Polícia Civil (responsible for criminal investigations) and Polícia Militar (used for patrols, arrests and control of public order) suffer from corruption, bad education and poor salaries. As a legacy of the last military regime, the Polícia Militar is intimately linked to the Armed Forces in terms of ethos, guidelines, and education, which many commentators see as a major reason for their violent misbehaviour.[21] Nevertheless, police-military relations are tense as governments frequently send the Army to stand in during the many constitutionally forbidden police strikes,[22] or eventually to end them by violent means.[23] Brazilian governments have tried to increase their influence on security issues by circumventing state authorities, e.g. by creating the Força Nacional that follows federal commands. However, constitutional issues as well as numerous veto players are a huge impediment in this regard.[24]

Federal administrations are thus in a dilemma over how to tackle the security problem. In spite of undertaking an admittedly complex, but necessary police reform, they pragmatically opt for the regular use of Armed Forces. This may even appeal to voters, as the public perceives the military much better than the police: Figures for 2013 show that 70 percent of Brazilians distrust the police, while over 65 percent do trust the Armed Forces.[25] Still, it is highly questionable whether the further militarisation of public security is going to solve Brazil´s problem of policing, not to speak of crime: the military is aware that not all soldiers may be immune to corruption, and troops are usually not trained for police tasks such as collecting evidence. It is particularly troublesome that GLO operations fall under military jurisdiction.[26] As military courts in Brazil usually ´protect police and military personnel accused of human rights abuses against civilians´[27], impunity is one of the major problems in the relationship between police and population. GLO operations are therefore prone to the same accountability issue. Be that as it may, the Armed Forces adjust to their ´semi-permanent´ role in public security.[28] The Army´s dedicated training centre for GLO operations was due to be extended in order to satisfy the high demand and is likely going to host plenty of soldiers in the years to come.[29]

 

___________________

Christoph Harig is a PhD student at King’s Brazil Institute at King’s College London. He is researching the militarisation of public security and the consequences of police tasks carried out by Brazilian troops in peacekeeping and internal pacification missions.

 

NOTES

[1]MercoPress. 2014. “Ejército blinda Brasil con 150.000 hombres, fragatas, radares y misiles antiaéreos.” MercoPress. Notícias del Atlántico Sur. 12.06.2014. http://es.mercopress.com/2014/06/12/ejercito-blinda-brasil-con-150.000-hombres-fragatas-radares-y-misiles-antiaereos (04.07.2014).
[2]Ministério da Defesa do Brasil. “O Ministério da Defesa na Copa do Mundo FIFA 2014.”
[3]Naddeo, André. 2014. “Hotel e ônibus da seleção são cercados por manifestantes.” Terra Networks Brasil. 26.05.2014. http://esportes.terra.com.br/futebol/copa-2014/hotel-e-onibus-da-selecao-sao-cercados-por-manifestantes,e231c706cb836410VgnVCM3000009af154d0RCRD.html (09.07.2014).
[4]Werneck, Antônio. 2014. “Militares também vão atuar nos centros de treinamento da Copa.” O Globo. 28.05.2014. http://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/militares-tambem-vao-atuar-nos-centros-de-treinamento-da-copa-12641634 (July 4, 2014).
[5]Centro de Estudos Estratégicos do Exército. 2007. “As Forças Armadas e a Segurança Pública.” Coleção Meira Mattos – Revista das Ciências Militares 15: 20–40, p.33.
[6]Mathias, Suzeley Kalil, and Andre Cavaller Guzzi. 2010. “Autonomia na Lei: As Forças Armadas nas constituições nacionais.” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais 25(73): 41–57, p.53; Zaverucha, Jorge. 2008. “The «Guaranteeing Law and Order Doctrine» and the increased role of the Brazilian Army in activities of public security.” Nueva Sociedad (213).
[7]Moulin Aguiar, Carolina, and Ludmila Mendonca Lopes Ribeiro. 2013. Old Problems and Old Solutions: An analysis of Rio de Janeiro ’s public safety policy and its impact. Rio de Janeiro: HASOW – Humanitarian Action in Situations other than War, Discussion Paper 7, p.27.
[8]Bertazzo, Juliana. 2012. “Brazilian security and defence policy under President Dilma Rousseff: transition and initial challenges.” Critical Sociology 38(6): 809–21, p.814; Reames, Benjamin Nelson. 2007. “Neofeudal aspects of Brazil’s public security.” In Comparative Policing: The Struggle for Democratization, eds. M R Haberfeld and Ibrahim Cerrah. London: SAGE, 61–95, p.73.
[9]Bertazzo, Juliana. 2012. p.817.
[10]Macaulay, Fiona. 2012. “Deepening the federative pact? The Dilma government’s approach to crime, justice and policing.” Critical Sociology 38(6): 823–34, p.830.
[11]Bertazzo, Juliana. 2012. p.814.
[12]Centro de Estudos Estratégicos do Exército. 2007. p. 33.
[13]Zaverucha, Jorge. 2005. FHC, Forças Armadas e Polícia. Entre o autoritarismo e a democracia (1999-2002). Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, p. 150.
[14]In the video to campaign song “Dilma Coração Valente”, the mug shot of Dilma´s arrest as well as other pictures of her imprisonment are shown. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k8YQCSs8es (04.07.2014).
[15]Cantanhêde, Eliane. 2014. “Após críticas, Defesa irá alterar manual para tropas.” Folha de São Paulo. 14.02.2014.http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2014/01/1402694-apos-criticas-defe (04.07.2014).
[16]Ministério da Defesa do Brasil. 2014. “Garantia da Lei e da Ordem.”
[17]Waiselfisz, Julio Jacobo. 2014. Prévia do “Mapa da Violência 2014. Os jovens do Brasil.” Rio de Janeiro: FLACSO Brasil.
[18]Kenkel, Kai Michael. 2010. “South America’s emerging power: Brazil as peacekeeper.” International Peacekeeping 17(5): 644–61, p. 653.
[19]United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2012. “Intentional homicide, number and rate per 100,000 population.” http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=UNODC&f=tableCode:1 (05.04.2014).
[20]The police have long been accused of being responsible for a high number of extralegal killings, particularly of young, male and black favela dwellers (Perlman, Janice. 2009. “Megacity´s violence and its consequences in Rio de Janeiro.” In Megacities: The Politics of Urban Exclusion and Violence in the Global South, eds. Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt. London: Zed Books, 52–68, p.54.). Between 2007 and 2012, Brazilian police annually killed between 1,729 and 2,031 people. In the same time the USA, with a similar number of inhabitants, has between 378 and 414 fatal victims of confrontation with the police (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública. 2013. Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública. São Paulo, p. 125).
[21]Costa, Arthur Trinidade Maranhão. 2011. “Police brutality in Brazil: authoritarian legacy or institutional weakness?” Latin American Perspectives 38(5): 19–32; Da Silva, Jorge. 2000. “The favelados in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.” Policing and Society 10(1): 121–30.
[22]Zaverucha, Jorge, and Flavio da Cunha Rezende. 2009. “How the military competes for expenditure in Brazilian democracy: arguments for an outlier.” International Political Science Review 30(4): 1–23, p. 17.
[23]Gosman, Eleonora. 2012. “Sube la tensión en Brasil: choques en Bahía entre militares y policías en huelga.” Clarin. 06.02.2012. http://www.clarin.com/mundo/Sube-Brasil-disturbios-Bahia-militares_0_641336016.html (04.04.2013)
[24]Constitutionally, the role of the Força Nacional is inconsistent with single states´ large authority in issues of policing (Pereira, Gerson da Rosa. 2008. “A constitucionalidade da Força Nacional e o papel das Forças Armadas na Segurança Pública.” Faculdade de Direito de Santa Maria). A proposal for a constitutional amendment (PEC 195/2012) has been designed to change Article 144 and to establish the Força Nacional as one of the regular security forces. If approved, the Força Nacional would be trained and maintained by federal authorities and would no longer depend on significant co-operation of different states (Barros, Ciro. 2014. “Pela Ordem.” A Publica. http://apublica.org/2014/04/pela-ordem/ (May 31, 2014)). However, it is unclear whether and when PEC 195 is going to be approved, as PECs require a lengthy legislative process and broad majorities in both chambers of Congress. Due to Brazil´s federal institutional structure, any reform of the security architecture depends on many stake-holders and veto-players, e.g. the military, state politicians, state police forces (Macaulay, Fiona. 2012. p.826) and politicians are particularly aware of the large voting potential of police unions (Wells, Miriam. 2013. “Why do Brazilian police kill ?” InSightCrime. http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/why-do-brazilian-police-kill (10.07.2014)).
[25]Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública. 2013. Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública. São Paulo, p.104. Since the return to democracy, Brazilian levels of trust have been much higher in the military than in the police. In general, Brazilian trust in the military is among the highest in the whole of Latin America and is accompanied by very positive attitudes towards military interventions in politics (Harig, Christoph. 2012. “Die zivile Kontrolle der Streitkräfte in Argentinien und Brasilien.” Die Friedens-Warte 87(2-3): 89–110, p.105).Even favela residents that experienced the pacification process show significantly more trust in the military than in the police (Brähler, Verena. 2014. “Oligopoly of Security Providers in Rio de Janeiro.” Presentation at LINKSCK Conference, 19.06.2014, Brussels).
[26]Brasil. Presidência da República. 2010. Lei Complementar N° 136. Brasília: Casa Civil. Subchefia para Assuntos Jurídicos.
[27]Pereira, Anthony W. 2001. “Virtual legality: authoritarian legacies and the reform of military justice in Brazil, the Southern Cone, and Mexico.” Comparative Political Studies 34(5): 555–74, p. 561.
[28]Speech of Army General Alberto Mendes Cardoso in 2003, cited in Klinguelfus Mendes, Carlos Alberto. 2012. “Considerações sobre a Força de Pacificação empregada no Rio de Janeiro.” Military Review (Julho-Agosto): 19–27, p. 19.
[29]Stochero, Tahiane. 2012. “Para Exército, ocupar Alemão é mais difícil que guerra e missão no Haiti.” G1 Globo. 15.08.2012. http://g1.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2012/08/para-exercito-ocupar-alemao-e-mais-dificil-que-%20guerra-e-missao-no-haiti.html (23.01.2014).