Battle for favelas: Brazil’s militarized ops inside urban enclaves
The death of 56 civilians in the latest large-scale military police operation in S?o Paulo’s metropolitan area paints a bleak future for the decades-long tug-of-war between favelas, gangs and state security officials.
On April 1, authorities in S?o Paulo, Brazil, announced the end of a four-month military police operation. Dubbed “Opera??o Ver?o” (Operation Summer) the operation began as a way to safeguard tourists and residents during the summer months from criminal activity along the coast of Santos, S?o Vicente and Guarujá. This stretch of the bay is a known hotspot for heightened criminal and gang activity in no small part due to its proximity to the port of Santos, Latin America’s largest port.
In early February, following the fatal shooting of two military police officers in Santos and Guarujá , the operation intensified. By the end of the four-month crackdown, 56 civilians had been killed , 1,000 people arrested and at least 3,000 officers deployed. A report to the U.N. from S?o Paulo’s police ombudsman examining such operations found extrajudicial killings and illegal practices are rife.
According to senior Factal Editor Irene Villora, the strong-arm tactics practiced by Brazil’s security forces in the country’s favelas is not a new phenomenon.
“The reality of these areas — something that they all have in common — is that disproportionate police response has been applied for decades without really resulting in a real solution to the problem,”?Villora?said.?“There’s a lot of inequality across the country so a lot of people still see a heavy handed police response as the only approach to maintaining security.”
A similar operation in July 2023 in the same area of S?o Paulo left at least 26 civilians dead, with favelas in other cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador seeing similar quick-fire operations resulting in deaths, the tactics homogenous.?
S?o Paulo’s Governor Tarcísio de Freitas has continued to back the military police. He argues that a zero-tolerance to drug trafficking and criminal activity discourages territorially dominant gangs such as the Primeiro Comando Capital and Comando Vermelho that are becoming vital for illicit international routes and underground markets and also for recruits or small gangs vying for space.?
While supporters argue unchecked police power brings security to the favelas and brings crime down, statistics show otherwise.
While robberies dropped by a quarter in the Baixada Santista area of the S?o Paulo state between December and February, fatal police shootings went up by at least 86 percent .
Villora said these operations have led to a lot of frustrations within the local population.?
“Not only has there been no improvement in the past few years as the situation continues to be quite endemic, favela inhabitants and civil rights activists have been very, very critical about these police operations.”
Local civil rights activists such as favela-born Marielle Franco , whose 2018 assassination drew attention to the conflict, argue that there are underlying racial components to police operations such as Ver?o.
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“One of the aspects that civil rights activists have highlighted over and over, that can't be ignored, is the racial subtext of these dynamics and these operations,”?Villora said. “The majority of favela households have a low-income Black population and there's been this tendency by successive local governments in highly criminalized areas to target them through their speech.”
A significant number of people killed in police shootings in Brazil are Black, inequality studies show . Franco argued police operations are in effect continued military sieges aimed at repressing the favela population, resembling a penitentiary system. Demonstrators including the Black rights movement have also denounced Opera??o Ver?o.
The federal government under former President Jair Bolsonaro and now President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has kept focus on tackling criminal organizations in favelas. Fatal police shootings rose under Bolsonaro . Now, under Lula, the army has been given the green light to patrol and manage port and airport security in Rio de Janeiro and S?o Paulo with increased intelligence and surveillance, with a further investment of 900 million Brazilian reals ($173 million) through 2026. However, analysts say the status quo is likely to remain in place.
“It's hard to see a short-term future in which police would change their tactics,”?Villora said. ”Brazil had two decades of military dictatorship. ?I think there's a lot of resistance to change this model and I think it's a case of years and years of the system perpetuating this model and also very ingrained beliefs inside the military that force is the only way.”
Less than two weeks after Operac?o Ver?o ended, a new police operation was announced following the kidnapping of a military police officer in Guarujá in Baixada Santista.
Written by Jaime Calle Moreno. Edited by Halima Mansoor.
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