{"id":73720,"date":"2023-05-07T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=73720"},"modified":"2023-05-31T11:04:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T14:04:46","slug":"rio-de-janeiros-governor-of-massacres-as-an-affront-to-the-right-to-the-favela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=73720","title":{"rendered":"Rio de Janeiro\u2019s \u2018Governor of Massacres\u2019 as an Affront to the ‘Right to the Favela’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Original<\/a>
Original art by David Amen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

The ‘right to the favela’\u2014a social, political and pedagogical position in defense of the right to life, development, and rootedness in the favelas\u2014is disrupted daily by the ‘right to public security’ in Rio de Janeiro. For this article, we heard community organizers reflect on Governor Cl\u00e1udio Castro\u2019s public security policies during the 2022 election process.<\/em><\/p>\n

The ‘Right to the Favela\u2019 is a concept<\/a> developed collectively, but spearheaded by Marielle Franco<\/a>‘s office\u2014the beloved Rio city councilor who was brutally assassinated on March 14, 2018\u2014to kick off a process of public discussion and policy proposals aimed at responding to the urgent, concrete needs of favelas and urban peripheries of Rio.<\/p>\n

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Seminar on the Right to the Favela at the Mar\u00e9 Museum in 2017 with Marielle Franco (dressed in white) in the middle. Photo: Brian McNamara<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The right to the favela centers the right to life\u2014<\/em>in turn contemplating all other rights, like access to education, adequate housing, culture and leisure, work, food security, the freedom to come and go, being recognized as an integral part of the city and being able to remain in one’s community, and the right to public security within favelas and homes, since home invasions without a warrant are the current operational model for police in the favelas.<\/p>\n

For this article we interviewed five community organizers and heard their outlook for the second term of Governor Cl\u00e1udio Castro<\/a> while he was still a candidate for re-election. All five support the reform of Rio’s public security policies as a central concern for the effective fulfillment of the right to the favela<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the community organizers interviewed, the policy of confronting drug trafficking with a logic of war undertaken by the State under the argument of \u201cfostering public security\u201d in practice prevents favela residents from accessing their constitutional rights. Alan Brum, coordinator and founder of the Roots in Movement Institute<\/a> in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, insists:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number one agenda [that the] governor of Rio de Janeiro must consider is the right to life in the favelas and not just in some parts of the city. I’m talking about the need for a significant change in public security policy\u2026 A structural change and not just one focused on policing. This means tackling public security from a different paradigm… From the paradigm that public security means ensuring a safe environment for everyone, in all places, in any place. We don\u2019t have the right to life with the current public security policy\u2026 We don\u2019t have the right to the favela.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Graffiti in Mar\u00e9 by David Amen, an artist from Complexo do Alem\u00e3o and member of the Roots in Movement Institute. Photo: Brian McNamara<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To the community organizers interviewed, the right to the favela was brutally violated over the past four years of Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s federal administration as it removed even the “right to breathe” for the poorest and favela residents during the coronavirus pandemic<\/a>. In Rio de Janeiro, Governor Cl\u00e1udio Castro\u2019s re-election clamps down on democracy and makes citizenship a condition without legal effects<\/a> in the favelas.<\/p>\n

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Alan Brum at the Roots in Movement Institute’s headquarters. Photo: CEPEDOCA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIf you talk to someone [who works] in education, they end up talking about security, and that just goes on and on [no one trying to help develop the community from any sector manages to get things done]. When you try to develop and carry out projects in the areas of culture, leisure, employment, you end up stumbling on public security because in the favela it’s what grants, allows, or impedes access to all other rights. We need real public security, a public security practice seen from a different perspective. One that understands what security is, and not this current security project that\u2019s existed for decades and that’s only gotten worse in Castro\u2019s administration. A project that makes everyone living here in the favelas hostage of a state of siege\u2026 What I’m talking about, is understanding that police operations in the favelas, the way they\u2019re carried out today [by the Rio governor], expose us to death<\/a> and remove everything from us: each and every right.\u201d \u2014 Alan Brum<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reelected with 58% of the vote in the first round of the last elections<\/a>, Cl\u00e1udio Castro was inaugurated as Rio de Janeiro governor on the same day as President Lula on January 1, 2023 at a ceremony at the Tiradentes Palace, former seat of the Rio Legislative Assembly, in downtown Rio (read the full inauguration speech in Portuguese here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In December, the Regional Electoral Prosecutor’s Office requested the annulment<\/a> of Castro’s and his vice governor Thiago Pampolha\u2019s<\/a> electoral ticket for abuse of political and economic power in hiring the Ceperj Foundation and Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) for electoral gains, as well as alleged illicit campaign expenses. However, the ticket denies any wrongdoing. \u201cWhat draws attention is the volume of cash withdrawals directly at the tellers’ counters in branches where payments were made to beneficiaries associated with political parties and candidates from Castro’s coalition,\u201d reported CNN Brasil<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Governor Cl\u00e1udio Castro receiving official confirmation from the Regional Electoral Court (TRE). Photo: ALERJ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elected with electoral support from former president Jair Bolsonaro, Castro is the politician responsible not just for the increased number of police massacres<\/a> in Rio de Janeiro\u2014including the Jacarezinho Massacre<\/a>\u2014but is also the governor responsible for the highest rate of lethal police action in favelas over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

Rio de Janeiro has a decades-long history of police massacres. But under Castro\u2019s first administration\u2014which took over the office following Wilson Witzel\u2019s impeachment<\/a>, for whom Castro was vice-governor\u2014the state lived through 39 massacres with 178 deaths by police<\/a> in just 15 months, according to a study by the Fogo Cruzado Institute<\/a>, which gathers data on armed violence, in conjunction with the Study Group on the New Illegalities at the Fluminense Federal University (Geni-UFF<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The deadliness was so intense that the executive director of Amnesty International Brazil<\/a>, Jurema Werneck<\/a>, stated in an interview with DW Brasil<\/a><\/em> that \u201cGovernor Cl\u00e1udio Castro\u2026 seems to be seeking to implement a public security policy, that he never developed, into a policy of massacres.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her interview with the German publication, Werneck also highlighted that the governor seems to want \u201cto confuse the population,\u201d as \u201che has the obligation to ensure public security for all, but he\u2019s been putting a massacre in the place [of security]\u201d which hasn\u2019t \u201cresulted in anything except piles of bodies\u2014and dead police too.\u201d According to the Study Group on the New Illegalities, operations<\/a> are considered police massacres<\/a> if they result in three or more civilian deaths and have direct participation by public authorities.<\/p>\n

Claudio Castro: The \u2018Governor of Massacres\u2019<\/h3>\n

Favela community organizers reveal the practical impacts of living under a regime of State terrorism<\/a> which deprives residents of their constitutional rights through a routine of intensive police operations. Public security is central to everyone’s daily life and exerts a high degree of influence on favela residents\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

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Gizele Martins wearing a Mar\u00e9 Mobilization Front t-shirt. Photo: Mar\u00e9 de Not\u00edcias<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt [public security] ends up being the priority because we\u2019re dying from gunshots from helicopters during police operations. Our lives are paralyzed with each operation. So that’s where we end up putting all our efforts. There\u2019s no other way to survive. We end up putting various other factors and rights to the side because the public security issue disrupts everything! Because when we talk about public security we\u2019re talking about militarization and control\u2026 about killing favela populations. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: all our efforts and forces go toward this debate because we\u2019re being shot dead. But I mean it when I say that not having water killed as many people as gunshots in 2020 [with the Covid-19 pandemic]. Not having a well-ventilated home killed as much as gunshots. So when we talk about genocide, we\u2019re talking about how the favela is controlled, affected, and violated in every sphere of human rights.\u201d \u2014 Gizele Martins<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The testimonial comes from Gizele Martins<\/a>, journalist, grassroots communicator, human rights activist with a Master’s degree in Education, Culture, and Urban Peripheries, and resident of the favela Morro do Timbau<\/a> in Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>. Author of the book Militarization and Censorship: The Fight for Freedom of Expression in the Mar\u00e9 Favela<\/a> <\/em>which resulted from her master’s thesis<\/a>, the researcher reports on the workings of a hindered citizenship and the State\u2019s policy of death during police operations in favelas.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice operations paralyze life in the favela: for those who die, for those who lose a life, and even for those who don\u2019t die because they can\u2019t go to work, they can\u2019t study\u2026 On police operation days we have no Internet and no cell phone access because the signal drops. This is control. All other spheres of rights are taken away from us during operations. During the operation that began on Monday [November 25, 2022] for example\u2026, we spent the whole week with our lives being dictated and marked by that operation.\u201d \u2014 Gizele Martins<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And she asks:<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever wondered what happens after a police operation? Whole families scrape money together to bury their dead and we fight for forensics that never happen. People go to health centers and family clinics with depression, panic attacks, anxiety, strokes. People miss work and have to make up the time as many workplaces don\u2019t understand the situation. We flunk a grade or miss years of study. Surgeries can’t be done after we\u2019ve waited three, four, five, ten years for an appointment to get that surgery\u2026 And worse still there\u2019s the psychological<\/a> terror: hearing the noise of a helicopter arriving in the favela at 4am\u2026 Look, I don\u2019t have words to describe what that\u2019s like. That infernal noise, the gunshots… The noise of armored police trucks<\/a>, armored police helicopters, people shouting in the favela. People dying, and afterwards there’s this silence in the favela, which is really weird. Everything stops. We lose life. This has a name. It\u2019s State terrorism.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Frans\u00e9rgio Goulart, coordinator of the Right to Memory and Social Justice Initiative (IDMJ<\/a>), police operations can be classified as State terrorism because Rio\u2019s public security policy selects \u201cspecific territories\u201d for war operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can say that the State’s public security policy is terrorism because it creates public enemies [the favelas] stemming from racism<\/a>. The State promotes terrorist actions in these territories alone to advance genocide in majority Black areas. This terror ranges from denying access to food and health, to the rifle pointed by police officers who are backed by the courts.\u201d \u2014 Frans\u00e9rgio Goulart<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Goulart explains that State terrorism always operates in residential territories with a majority Black population \u201cstemming from a political project designed between the absence of health, education, food, and the presence of police.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Map of voting results for Cl\u00e1udio Castro across Rio de Janeiro state. Photo: G1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite the rise in lethal force in the favelas and the high number of massacres, Cl\u00e1udio Castro beat his opposition candidates in 91 of the state’s 92 municipalities<\/a>. Gizele Martins recalls that Castro won \u201cthe election carrying out a massacre in Mar\u00e9\u201d just six days before the first round in the 2022 elections.<\/p>\n

The slaughter was carried out with the use of armored trucks and helicopters and involved the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE<\/a>) and Special Resources Coordination (CORE<\/a>)\u2014the Rio de Janeiro Military Police and Civil Police\u2019s elite squads\u2014on September 27, 2022.<\/p>\n

At the time, investigative news site The Intercept Brasil<\/em> was in Mar\u00e9<\/a> and reported: \u201cterrified residents tried in vain to convince police that there were people at home who were workers and not criminals. One of the state agents responded saying, \u2018F*ck you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Image still from The Intercept<\/em> video-report showing the police invasion of Mar\u00e9 on the eve of the 2022 elections.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even so, Castro won the elections in electoral zones surrounding favelas<\/a>, such as electoral zones 21, 161, and 162 which cover the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o and Complexo da Penha<\/a> favelas, neighborhoods Olaria<\/a>, Ramos<\/a>, Bonsucesso<\/a> and surrounding area, which includes Complexo da Mar\u00e9, in North Zone<\/a>. He also won in the 179th Electoral Zone which covers the Rio das Pedras, City of God, and Gard\u00eania Azul favelas in the West Zone<\/a>, as well as in peripheral areas in the Baixada Fluminense<\/a> (see the voting results in each electoral zone across the state here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Though it is difficult to pinpoint the reason for Castro\u2019s appeal in the regions most affected by his deadly policies, Frans\u00e9rgio Goulart believes voters in favelas and peripheral areas tend to elect extreme-right politicians due to the phenomenon of faith and prosperity theology<\/a> common to the neo-Pentecostal evangelical churches which increasing numbers belong to.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since the arrival of neo-Pentecostalism in the favelas, [we have] the building of a more individualistic and meritocratic ideology, expressed in the Old Testament<\/a> as an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It\u2019s not by chance that [the phrase] \u2018a good criminal is a dead criminal<\/a>\u2019 has gathered strength and the election [had the outcome it did]. The terrorist State combined with the neo-Pentecostal church have strengthened this ideology, saying our own people as responsible for the violence and not the State.\u201d \u2014 Frans\u00e9rgio Goulart<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Machine for Violating Rights<\/h3>\n

On November 25, 2022<\/a>, the joint operation by the Military Police<\/a> and Civil Police<\/a> in Complexo da Mar\u00e9 drove residents to despair. Starting at 4am, the operation was marked by aggressive action by the security forces, deaths, and violence towards residents.<\/p>\n

The operation did not follow the ADPF 635<\/a> legal stipulations regarding start and end times, as reported by newspaper Mar\u00e9 de Not\u00edcias<\/a><\/em>, and did not fulfill the ruling that ambulances be present when police action is carried out. The failure to follow these regulations \u201ccost residents\u2019 lives and the life of a police officer who was also shot in the operation,\u201d reported the community newspaper. Mar\u00e9 de Not\u00edcias<\/em> denounced:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Homicide Division (DH) did not carry out forensics in Renan\u2019s case [one of the youth killed in the operation], just like the Civil Defense did not remove the body from the area, forcing the family to put the young man\u2019s body in a wheelbarrow, take it to Avenida Brasil<\/a>, and wait around for three hours for the body to be taken away. Following many complaints and liaising with the Prosecutor’s Office<\/a> and other human rights institutions, the fire department confirmed the death, the 22nd Police Department recorded the incident, and the Civil Defense removed the body. The DH did not carry out forensics in the area or on the body, which hinders any possibility of investigation into today’s deaths in the region.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The operation affected almost all 16 of Mar\u00e9’s favelas, but \u201cthere was a concentration of very violent episodes in Nova Holanda and Parque Uni\u00e3o<\/a>,\u201d where there were a lot of serious complaints and reports of damage to property, home invasions, and damaged cars. In an interview with RioOnWatch<\/em>, organizer Jo\u00e3o Silva* already predicted Castro\u2019s re-election and return to Laranjeiras Palace, the Rio state government headquarters. Speaking days before the gubernatorial elections on October 2, 2022, he said: \u201cThe situation is kind of demotivating because looking at the favela context, my opinion is that Cl\u00e1udio Castro will be re-elected. I think he\u2019ll manage to validate this project of confrontation within and outside the favelas because people didn\u2019t know who this Cl\u00e1udio Castro character was before and still don\u2019t really know. My mother didn\u2019t know who the governor of Rio de Janeiro was. With Witzel\u2019s impeachment, everything got kind of nebulous.\u201d<\/p>\n

A resident of the Jacarezinho favela, Silva believes Governor Cl\u00e1udio Castro used public security as an election platform, since the operation took place during the electoral period.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people there don\u2019t like Castro, but I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll be back. He reinforces the discourse that [the Jacarezinho massacre] was important, that violence in the favela has reduced in some way or at least that the context changed. That after the massacre there weren\u2019t as many people moving around the area selling drugs. Despite this moment and the [sale of drugs] having returned, the discourse remains. It sticks! I really hope it doesn\u2019t happen, but I don\u2019t think the opposition candidate [Marcelo Freixo<\/a>] will win.\u201d \u2014 Jo\u00e3o Silva<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Demonstration in the Jacarezinho favela on May 7, 2021. Photo: Tatiane Mendes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Jacarezinho Massacre was the most deadly in Rio de Janeiro\u2019s history<\/a>. On May 6, 2021, in broad daylight with the operation broadcast on TV, Rio de Janeiro Civil Police killed 27 people in the city’s Blackest favela. A police officer was also assassinated in Operation Exceptis<\/a>\u201428 deaths in total. The violence of the operation was so intense it reached passengers on the subway line<\/a> passing through Jacarezinho between the Maria da Gra\u00e7a<\/a> and Triagem<\/a> stations, with two passengers taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Silva recalls that when Governor Cl\u00e1udio Castro went to the Jacarezinho favela following the massacre that kicked off the Integrated City<\/a> project\u2019s police occupation, he was met with resident demands that the State occupy the favela, not with police, but with sports courts and better social projects to generate jobs and foster sport in the community. So far, none of this has happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cJacarezinho has a huge demand from the population for sport, leisure, and cultural spaces, as well as housing. The General Electric plot is enormous and abandoned, leaving various heavy metals inside the community, but this has yet to be resolved. The community wanted it to be turned into an Olympic Village. But with the Integrated City<\/a> project it is being proposed that the plot become a new Military Police base. So, instead of coming in with sports and projects for the people, you\u2019re going to create yet another Military Police base in a community already surrounded by Police City. It\u2019s bizarre because it\u2019s a block that literally looks out [with weapons] onto Jacarezinho and Manguinhos.\u201d \u2014 Jo\u00e3o Silva<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Silva adds:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Jacarezinho we have athletes that compete in national and international events, people who were put forward to take part in the Olympics. A lot of children and youth are getting into clubs through social projects, but the mission taken up by the state is\u2026 police, massacre.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another community organizer, Rosa do Carmo*, says Cl\u00e1udio Castro was elected precisely by selling the optics of confrontation and despite little dialogue with people in the favelas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he went to Jacarezinho, he had no answers. He basically spoke for half an hour, imposed his opinion, and when we asked him about \u2018what he actually knew about living through a police operation,\u2019 he looked at us almost mockingly and said that \u2018yes, he knew.\u2019 How does he know and why? Because one day he went to sing in Jacarezinho when the police were going in and he had to hide from a shootout? You see what he did? He was there saying he understood my pain, the complexity of my pain, being fully aware that this episode isn\u2019t the same as a resident’s day-to-day life, but he used it as an example to defend the policy of death he calls public security. He used it to silence people who were showing him a real problem. And that\u2019s it. There\u2019s still no dialogue with Castro\u2019s administration. We\u2019ll have four more hard years of despair with [his new term].\u201d \u2014 Rosa do Carmo<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But while there\u2019s a lack of hope in the hearts of some favela residents, in others there are still seeds of hope for better days\u2014even if they don\u2019t believe in a complete transformation.<\/p>\n