{"id":24865,"date":"2015-10-22T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T11:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=24865"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:08:07","slug":"nemesis-one-man-and-the-battle-for-rio-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=24865","title":{"rendered":"Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio [BOOK REVIEW]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

At the beginning of Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio<\/a>, <\/em>journalist Misha Glenny<\/a> recalls a tour he took of Rocinha<\/a>, Rio\u2019s largest single favela, in 2007. During the tour, his guide referred to Nem, the don of Rocinha, as \u201cthe man who keeps the peace here.\u201d Four years later in the run-up to the pacification<\/a> of the favela in November 2011<\/a>, Nem was dramatically arrested<\/a> amid flashing cameras in Rio’s South Zone. For the politicians responsible for creating the ambitious Pacifying Police Unit (UPP)<\/a> program in the city\u2019s favelas, the arrest was a flashy success story.<\/p>\n

Misha Glenny\u2019s latest book charts the incredible story of Nem, born Ant\u00f4nio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, from his early life to his entry into the drug trafficking<\/a> business aged 24 and his four years as kingpin: a long reign, given that \u201cthe average life expectancy of the Rocinha dons, once they reached the top, was approximately ten months.\u201d Nem\u2019s rise paralleled the explosion of the cocaine trade in Rio in recent decades.<\/p>\n

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

Glenny spent 28 hours with Nem at his high-security prison in Campo Grande<\/a> in Rio’s West Zone and this series of interviews form the basis for Nemesis. <\/em>The book is also the result of interviews with a wide range of individuals: Nem\u2019s family, friends and enemies, Rocinha residents and public figures, as well as police, politicians, journalists and lawyers.<\/p>\n

This range allows Glenny to show Nem\u2019s story within a wider context: the creation and history<\/a> of Rio\u2019s favelas. These communities remained largely neglected<\/a> by the State for decades and especially during the cocaine boom when \u201cBrazil became established as the transit country of choice to feed Europe\u2019s rapidly growing cocaine habit.\u201d The drug trade in Rocinha is responsible for approximately 60% of all cocaine consumed in Rio too.<\/p>\n

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

The absence of the State combined with the violent rise of the drug business in Rocinha from the 1970s onwards allowed dons like Nem to operate what sometimes seems like a state within a state.<\/p>\n

Glenny cleverly reflects on the conflict that stems from a situation where drug traffickers use violence<\/a> to hold territory while distributing some of their profits within the community: \u201cThroughout my conversations with Nem, my strong and abiding impression was that he passionately wanted to do good but that this was impossible to reconcile with being in charge of a large group of armed men and a criminal organization boasting a huge turnover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glenny quotes Nem talking about the first \u201cDon of the Hill,” D\u00eanis, in a similar way. \u201cThe drugs business occupied the vacuum left by the state,\u201d he said, \u201cotherwise this would have been a lawless territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crime statistics cited later in the book somewhat corroborate this. Nem\u2019s arrest (a mystery which Glenny picks at from many different angles) happened at the beginning of the pacification process of Rocinha. Glenny shows a nuanced view of the effect of the UPP installation in Rocinha<\/a>. \u201cThe reduction in the number of armed members of drug gangs on the streets meant that homicides in the pacified favelas were down by as much as 75%,\u201d he notes. \u201cBut it also meant that the policing function of the gangs ceased too. As a consequence, domestic violence had increased four-fold, while rape was three times more common and burglary twice as likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout my conversations with Nem, my strong and abiding impression was that he passionately wanted to do good but that this was impossible to reconcile with being in charge of a large group of armed men and a criminal organization boasting a huge turnover.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Glenny\u2019s book touches on one of the key rupture points of the UPP program\u2013the murder and disappearance of Amarildo de Souza<\/a> at the hands of UPP police in Rocinha\u2013and the perceived failure of the second, social phase of the UPP program.<\/p>\n

Glenny\u2019s book is by no means a rose-tinted view of drug traffickers like Nem. On several occasions the author highlights the macho and misogynistic culture of drug traffickers, a culture in which violence against women is common. Nemesis <\/em>shows the violence and precariousness of the drug business in Rio\u2019s favelas, mapping out the different criminal factions vying for power across the city. In this context, it is hard to believe Glenny\u2019s description of Nem\u2019s childhood as violence-free, before the boom in cocaine.<\/p>\n

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

The book also provides\u00a0interesting insight into how favelas are perceived by non-residents, inside and outside Brazil, hinting that this has an impact on their stigmatization<\/a>. Glenny\u2019s description of the media frenzy surrounding Nem\u2019s arrest might lead some to make parallels with the famous scenes captured by a similar media swarm in 2000 during a hostage-taking on a bus in Rio’s South Zone. The event was examined by Jos\u00e9 Padilha in the 2002 documentary \u00d4nibus 174 <\/em>(Bus 174)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both Glenny\u2019s book and Padilha\u2019s documentary fulfill an important function, using the two unrelated events to examine the wider tangle of circumstances and context behind the actions of individuals involved in crime in Rio.<\/p>\n

This, as well as Nem\u2019s unusual life story, is what makes Nemesis <\/em>such a fascinating read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas At the beginning of Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio, journalist Misha Glenny recalls a tour he took of Rocinha, Rio\u2019s largest single favela, in 2007. During the tour, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":24867,"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":[1277,1334,1329],"tags":[944,125,182,918,15,638,809,1555,12,156,30,1385],"writer":[1596],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uppwatch","8":"category-reviews","9":"category-by-international-observers","10":"tag-cadeamarildo","11":"tag-drug-traffic","12":"tag-government-neglect","13":"tag-military-police","14":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","15":"tag-police-occupation","16":"tag-public-security","17":"tag-redes-de-desenvolvimento-da-mare","18":"tag-rocinha","19":"tag-south-zone","20":"tag-urban-violence","21":"tag-violence","22":"writer-sarah-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24865","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\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81367,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24865\/revisions\/81367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24865"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=24865"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=24865"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=24865"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=24865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}