{"id":17973,"date":"2014-09-23T11:47:11","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T14:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=17973"},"modified":"2016-04-01T08:37:38","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T11:37:38","slug":"what-went-wrong-with-the-upps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=17973","title":{"rendered":"What Went Wrong With The UPPs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the original in Portuguese by Jorge Antonio Barros published in O Globo, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Misconduct, all too common among the troops, cannot be swept under the rug\u00a0in the favelas, where\u00a0residents are\u00a0tired of being oppressed\u00a0between the cross\u00a0and the rifles<\/h2>\n

Three years after Governor S\u00e9rgio Cabral’s re-election in the first round was attributed to the victory\u00a0of the community policing program in the principal\u00a0favelas of Rio, the UPPs (Police Pacification Units)<\/a>\u00a0lose ground\u00a0just as the elections<\/a> approach. The State\u00a0Security\u00a0Secretariat itself submitted a report to the Elections Tribunal noting that\u00a041 areas of the State of Rio de Janeiro that are dominated\u00a0by drug traffickers or militias to the point that access to democracy is impeded. Only candidates with a connection to crime or agreements with criminals have access to these areas. The number 41 is symbolic. It is greater than the number of UPPs, currently at 39.<\/p>\n

\"RECONQUISTA\"<\/a>The most emblematic case is perhaps that of the\u00a0Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a> and Complexo da Penha, where eight of the 39 UPPs are located. The police operation that took Alem\u00e3o from drug traffickers, with decisive help from the Marines’ armored tanks, will be four years old on November 25. It was the result of one of the largest police sieges ever realized in Rio. On the occasion, criminals were even given an ultimatum to surrender,\u00a0but gang leaders escaped\u00a0without a trace. One of them is known as\u00a0Pez\u00e3o (Bigfoot), curiously\u00a0the same nickname as the governor, who is\u00a0prohibited from campaigning in the area. The same area where, after the war operation of 2010, Brazilian and Rio state flags were hoisted.<\/p>\n

The prohibition of Pez\u00e3o and other governing candidates from campaigning in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o could even\u00a0work in these candidates’ favor. After all, these are candidates who were rejected by the traffickers because they represent\u00a0a threat to crime. Yet, no.\u00a0The imposition\u00a0of the traffickers signifies that, in the last (or first) case scenario, criminals did not lose control of that territory, as the government proclaimed\u00a0and as many residents ended up believing.<\/p>\n

The army’s occupation and efforts to ‘clean’ the territory to be taken over by State troops\u00a0amounted to nothing. Even without brandishing rifles\u00a0and\u00a0armed only with pistols, the drug traffickers returned to power after daring attacks, including the killing of several officers of the UPPs. Something went awry there, as well as in Rocinha<\/a> and the Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>. Of the 41 areas out of state control [i.e. safe for democratic voting],\u00a010\u00a0have UPPs.<\/p>\n

While the UPPs were not entirely new<\/a>\u00a0(the precursors\u00a0of community policing in the favelas were the Ostensive Policing Detachments or\u00a0DPOs, and the Community Policing Posts or PPCs\u00a0of the 1960s and 70s), the fact is there was a drastic\u00a0reduction in homicides with the retaking of certain areas. In some places, the traffickers withdrew\u00a0organized one strategic withdrawal, hiding rifles, munitions and drugs.<\/p>\n

The UPPs were a smart response\u00a0on the part of the government. But they may\u00a0have an expiration date if not accompanied by social\u00a0investments. In the case of the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, the City\u00a0announced that [the community] had received\u00a0nine schools and remodeled another, built a Nave do Conhecimento (Knowledge Ship community learning center), implanted three Family Clinics and an UPA (urgent care clinic), remodeled a healthcare center and implemented\u00a0the housing program\u00a0Morar Carioca<\/a>, benefiting\u00a044,600 residents. Are the people perhaps ungrateful<\/a>?<\/p>\n

For the UPP to become consolidated the ongoing monitoring of police training and performance\u00a0are also crucial. The project needs to be evaluated and the diagnostics need to feed back into the planning. Misconduct, all too common among the troops, cannot be swept under the rug\u00a0in the favelas, where residents are tired of being oppressed<\/a>\u00a0between the cross\u00a0and the rifles, whether those of\u00a0drug traffickers or the police. The torture and disappearance<\/a> of bricklayer\u00a0Amarildo<\/a>, by\u00a0the UPP in Rocinha<\/a> in June, 2013–just two\u00a0years after the establishment of that UPP–opened up the floodgates of criticism of the program.<\/p>\n

So what after all has gone wrong with some of the UPPs?<\/a> This is the question the state government should have asked well in advance of the sacred hour\u00a0of vote-casting. If it\u00a0had sincerely\u00a0sought answers, it\u00a0may have realized that the UPP was a good solution, but imposed\u00a0from the\u00a0top down<\/a>, greased by the aseptic packaging of\u00a0marketers, without taking into account a critical aspect in a democracy: permanent\u00a0dialogue with citizens<\/a>. This channel would certainly open doors and\u00a0build\u00a0a culture of peace<\/a> that would definitively overthrow\u00a0the culture of\u00a0drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

Jorge Antonio Barros is a journalist for O Globo covering Rio’s preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the original in Portuguese by Jorge Antonio Barros published in O Globo, click here. Misconduct, all too common among the troops, cannot be swept under the rug\u00a0in the favelas, where\u00a0residents are\u00a0tired of being oppressed\u00a0between […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":11310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1277,1288,1330],"tags":[280,32,595,25,918,1682,1781,15,725,12],"writer":[1427],"translator":[110],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uppwatch","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-translation","10":"tag-complexo-da-mare","11":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-human-rights","14":"tag-military-police","15":"tag-nave-do-conhecimento","16":"tag-opinion-2","17":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","18":"tag-policy-recommendation","19":"tag-rocinha","20":"writer-jorge-antonio-barros","21":"translator-lee-weingast"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17973"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=17973"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=17973"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=17973"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=17973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}