{"id":24009,"date":"2015-08-25T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=24009"},"modified":"2015-08-25T13:58:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T16:58:20","slug":"favelas-and-the-olympics-whose-legacy-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=24009","title":{"rendered":"Favelas and the Olympics – Whose Legacy Is It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em>\"PT\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the original in Portuguese published in Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo,\u00a0click\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Rio\u2019s favela residents share their views of the 2016 Olympics and of the pacification\u00a0process of the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs)<\/a>.<\/h3>\n

Embedded in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, one of the biggest agglomerates of favelas in Rio,\u00a0there is a municipal library, a center for digital inclusion<\/a>, and a 3D cinema<\/a>. They are part of\u00a0the Morar Carioca<\/a> program, announced by City Hall as the\u00a0primary social legacy of the 2016 Olympic Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With an expected budget of R$8.5 billion (US$2.4 billion), the program was\u00a0launched in 2010 with the ambitious promise of upgrading\u00a0all of the more than 700 favelas\u00a0in Rio by 2020<\/a>, bringing paved roads, street lights, running water and sewerage,\u00a0as well as schools and social facilities.<\/p>\n

On the morning of July 2, when Folha<\/em> was to visit Alem\u00e3o, a gunfight between police of\u00a0the local UPP and supposed traffickers made the Municipal\u00a0Secretary of Housing cancel the appointment. \u201cIt\u2019s not safe,\u201d stated\u00a0the press office.<\/p>\n

On that day a 27-year-old housewife was hit in the chest by a stray bullet on the pavement\u00a0outside her house. An 11 year old boy took a shot to the leg as he returned home from a\u00a0game of soccer. He went into surgery\u00a0and he\u2019s doing fine.<\/p>\n

The episode isn\u2019t unusual: over 15 days between\u00a0the end of June and the start of July 2015, at\u00a0least one person was killed and five injured by stray bullets in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a><\/p>\n

This statistic reveals the knot that ties the destiny of the most underprivileged areas of\u00a0the city to a security policy which is more and more under scrutiny, whether due to the lack\u00a0of preparation of some of the police officers, or because it wasn\u2019t accompanied\u00a0by a significant increase in the amount of quality public services on offer\u2014the\u00a0so-called UPP Social<\/a>\u2014as promised.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are talking about a core, structural,\u00a0project. But, because UPP Social never left the drawing board<\/a>, the\u00a0police were left on their own, and they can\u2019t solve the issues of poverty and inequality,\u201d\u00a0summarized Guiseppe Cocco, professor of political theory at the Federal University of\u00a0Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).<\/p>\n

For Roberto Alzir, special sub-secretary of security for large events, \u201cevery shot, every\u00a0confrontation, every bit of bad news on public security are steps backwards in the effort\u00a0made since 2008 to implement the UPPs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alzir believes, however, that these incidents shouldn\u2019t happen during the Olympics, when\u00a0the presence of police, armed forces and federal police will increase across the whole city.\u00a0\u201cOur challenge is to turn this into a permanent sense of security,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For some residents, however, the feeling is one of segregation. \u201cThe governments are not\u00a0concerned with the security of the favela. Deep down, they want to protect society from the\u00a0people here. With this, the Olympics has created more distance than inclusion,\u201d concludes\u00a0M\u00e1rio S\u00e9rgio de Souza, member of the favela NGO\u00a0CUFA<\/a>, in Vila\u00a0Kennedy<\/a> in Rio’s West Zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the entrance point to the city, that\u2019s why they\u2019re worried about us,\u201d says Janna\u00a0Salamandra, from the Theater of the Oppressed<\/a>, in Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>, which\u00a0borders access routes to Gale\u00e3o, the city\u2019s international airport. \u201cThe army left here\u00a0without being replaced by the UPP. They only put police posts around the edge of the\u00a0favela. Nothing here, inside. Who are they protecting?\u201d<\/p>\n

For S\u00e9rgio Magalh\u00e3es, president of the Brazilian Institute of Architects (IAB) and creator of\u00a0the Favela-Bairro program<\/a> [precursor to Morar Carioca, launched in 1994], the favelas are still a priority subject\u00a0for public security:\u00a0\u201cWhere today there is almost hegemonic police presence it\u2019s because the civil part of the\u00a0government is almost non-existent. The UPP has it\u2019s problems but it\u2019s still the best solution\u00a0that\u2019s been found so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a>
Click on the map to visit original article and interactive map of UPPs in Portuguese.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Where is the legacy?<\/h3>\n

In this\u00a0context, even with less than\u00a0a year to go to\u00a0Rio 2016, there is still a lack of clarity\u00a0regarding what can be considered an Olympic legacy for these areas, which are home to approximately 20% of the population of the city.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the government\u00a0maintains that the Brazilian Olympics have been the catalyst\u00a0behind efforts and resources, such as urban development, mobility<\/a> and security<\/a>,\u00a0that will\u00a0particularly benefit residents of these communities.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, residents, activists and researchers have denounced the events which\u00a0have legitimized forced evictions<\/a>\u00a0in favelas, real estate speculation<\/a> and construction which\u00a0do not serve local priorities\u2014where basic sanitation<\/a> invariably occupies the top of the list.<\/p>\n

The Mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes<\/a>, states that around R$4 billion (US$1.15 billion) has been spent on urban development in favelas as part of the Morar Carioca\u00a0program.<\/p>\n

The president of the IAB, an organization which mediated\u00a0the contracting of 40 architecture firms to design urban solutions for Morar\u00a0Carioca,\u00a0says the program faded out after 2013<\/a>, when the contracts with the architects were all\u00a0canceled without explanation<\/a>. He points out that now the process is being managed by\u00a0contractors.<\/p>\n

The Mayor argues that the program needed to remove \u201cthe exaggeration of the architects…\u00a0I gave assurances that it would be put into the works. And now IAB says that Morar\u00a0Carioca\u00a0has ended<\/a>. It hasn\u2019t ended. But the money for architects has ended. The works are in full\u00a0swing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Gentrification<\/h3>\n

Construction has also been used to justify the eviction\u00a0of communities. \u201cThe Olympics\u00a0have acted as a catalyst for arguments that are used to legitimize the process of\u00a0removing favelas. They occur with complete lack of participation from the residents,\u201d says\u00a0Alexandre Mendes, former public defender and professor of law at the State University\u00a0of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).<\/p>\n

He cites the example of Vila Uni\u00e3o de Curicica<\/a>, whose\u00a0residents were informed of the removal of 700 houses for the construction of the TransOlympic\u00a0BRT line<\/a>, considered a legacy of the Games. After protesting the planned works, they managed, after negotiations, a reduction\u00a0in the removals to just 190 houses.<\/p>\n

In the case of another BRT line, the TransOeste, Mendes says that there wasn\u2019t any\u00a0dialogue: the favelas Vila Harmonia<\/a>, Vila Recreio II<\/a> and Restinga<\/a> were wiped from the\u00a0map of the city. Many residents were relocated to places where their journey back to the\u00a0affected area of residence takes more than two hours, in houses developed by the federal\u00a0government\u2019s Minha Casa Minha Vida<\/a>\u00a0program, which have been criticized for poor quality\u00a0construction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Vila<\/a><\/p>\n

Mayor Eduardo Paes denies that there have been any forced evictions. There are\u00a0however videos shared on social media which document the actions of the local\u00a0government, as well as complaints made by the UN and by MIT\u2019s (Massachusetts Institute\u00a0of Technology) research network on displacement<\/a>, in the USA.<\/p>\n

According to the City, the only case linked to the Games is that of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a>, which\u00a0neighbors the Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca, and which has been targeted with attempted evictions\u00a0by the public authorities since 1993.\u00a0Almost a third of residents who live there are still resisting removal, among the debris\u00a0of the other buildings, semi-demolished by the authorities. The area is considered to\u00a0have some of the highest potential for valuable real estate in the city.<\/p>\n

As well as the Games\u2019 lack of social legacy for favelas, the residents also question the\u00a0wasted opportunity in terms of sports for this section of society.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in the biggest favela close to the epicenter of the Games, and I don\u2019t know of a single Olympic project being developed here, whether by the City, State, or federal government or the Olympic Committee,\u201d says Leonardo Bezerra, teacher of physical\u00a0education and founder of the Sport, Health and Citizenship Project<\/a>, which gives football\u00a0coaching to adolescents in\u00a0City of God<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original in Portuguese published in Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo,\u00a0click\u00a0here.\u00a0 Rio\u2019s favela residents share their views of the 2016 Olympics and of the pacification\u00a0process of the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs). […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":24013,"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":[1293,1736,1288,1330],"tags":[9,225,231,280,32,600,187,65,327,147,37,5,15,10,40,535,145,4,38,612,39,592,21],"writer":[1783],"translator":[1784],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-1736","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-translation","11":"tag-9","12":"tag-barra-da-tijuca","13":"tag-city-of-god","14":"tag-complexo-da-mare","15":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","16":"tag-cufa","17":"tag-favela-bairro","18":"tag-gentrification","19":"tag-legacy-myth","20":"tag-morar-carioca","21":"tag-north-zone","22":"tag-olympics","23":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","24":"tag-real-estate-speculation","25":"tag-restinga","26":"tag-sanitation","27":"tag-upp-social","28":"tag-vila-autodromo","29":"tag-vila-harmonia","30":"tag-vila-kennedy","31":"tag-vila-recreio-ii","32":"tag-vila-uniao-de-curicica","33":"tag-west-zone","34":"writer-fernanda-mena","35":"translator-alice-lupton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24009","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=24009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24009"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=24009"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=24009"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=24009"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=24009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}