Sao Paulo - Brazil - illegal drug dealers gangs and chaos

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May 17, 2006

SouthAmerica: According to an article published today by a major newspaper in Sao Paulo - For 85 percent of the population in Sao Paulo the violence affected their daily family routine.

From Friday night to Tuesday they burned 111 buses and many companies stopped running their buses because they were afraid that they would be burned as well – as a result making life very hard for 83 percent of commuters.

About 77 percent of the people in Sao Paulo are worried about the safety of their family and friends during the current gang war that the drug dealers are waging against the police.



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“Para 85%, a violência afetou rotina da família”
A Folha de Sao Paulo – May 17, 2006


A rotina da família foi afetada pela onda de violência de anteontem na opinião de 85% dos entrevistados pelo Datafolha. Foi a rotina mais afetada quando se tenta aferir o impacto dos ataques no cotidiano do paulistano.

O transporte aparece logo em seguida, em conseqüência dos 111 ônibus incendiados e das linhas que não circularam por temor de que os veículos fossem alvos de ataques. A locomoção foi afetada pela ação do PCC na opinião de 83%. Já a rotina do trabalho foi alterada segundo 72%.

A rotina que sofreu menos alteração foi a dos estudos: 61% dizem que não mudaram o seu dia-a-dia nessa área, apesar das dezenas de escolas e universidades que dispensaram os alunos.

A apreensão quanto à segurança de parentes e amigos deixou 77% dos paulistanos muito preocupados. Apenas 7% dos moradores da capital declararam não ter preocupação.

Inseguros e com medo, muitos tentaram entrar em contato com familiares por telefone. A sobrecarga no sistema provocou uma pane no sistema de telefonia celular e impediu muitas ligações de serem completadas.

…A grande fonte de informação para os paulistanos foi a TV: 80% recorreram a esse meio para se informar, de acordo com o Datafolha. Muitos canais suspenderam a programação normal para enfatizar a cobertura da crise; outros adotaram flashes durante a programação.

Muito medo

Para 46% dos entrevistados, os episódios dos últimos dias causaram "muito medo", enquanto 33% citam "pouco medo" e 21% "nenhum medo". Entre as mulheres, o percentual das que dizem ter sentido "muito medo" atinge 60%. Já entre os homens esse índice cai pela metade --31%.


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The only reason there is so much violence connected to the drug business is because it's illegal. Prohibition did not work for alcohol and it will not work for drugs because of the same reasons. There will always be a demand and at a certain price there will always be a supply.

The violence is a result of the profitability being so high that people will risk their own life and take the lives of others in pursuing those profits. And the only reason the profitability is so high is that the supply is artificially restrained (and monopolized) due to the fact that the government makes it illegal.

Has anyone ever heard of drug violence in Amsterdam?

This is just another example of the failures of government. They promise something that they can't deliver to win votes and then proceed to create a multitude of negative unintended consequences.
 
Quote from jem:

I will rent the video. I thought I had seen it. But now I am not so sure.
More...

FYI it's on the IFC channel next Tuesday and Wednesday.
I just set a reminder.
 
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AAAintheBeltway: Interesting conclusion. Why shouldn't the same logic apply to terrorists?


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May 17, 2006

SouthAmerica: Because these drug gangs are not terrorists in the sense that you want them to be.

They are gangsters like the Sopranos or in real life they are like all the Cosa Nostra families that are a part of normal American life for the last 100 years.

Before I came to the United States the most famous Americans that I could name were Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and and many others. Even tough many of these fellows were not born in the United States, but they were the most known Americans around the world.

Going back to your question:

What is a terrorist?

Should we destroy the place from where they come from?

Who decides which group is a terrorist group?

When you use the term terrorist you are using a very vague term that means different things to different people.

According to the United States - Hamas is a terrorist group - and so what?

Today you are a terrorist group and tomorrow you are in charge of the of the government in a country.

Begin was a terrorist before he became prime minister in Israel and won the Nobel peace prize. Arafat was the same story.

Remember the American terrorist Timothy James McVeigh?

Timothy James McVeigh responsible for the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 where hundreds were injured and 167 men, women and children died when a truck loaded with improvised explosives was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building as federal offices began business for the day.

Before his terrorist attack in Oklahoma McVeigh had been living in Fort Riley, Kansas.

What should have been the US reaction regarding the McVeigh case? Destroy the entire state of Kansas because that was his home before he did his terrorist attack?

In Brazil we are not dealing with terrorists we are dealing with gangsters and criminal gangs and a death squadron workers very well in that environment.

A death squadron it is just a dozen people doing the hard work and eliminating a cancer.
And they do their job 2 or 3 people at the time until the job is done.

You don’t have to kill all of them – after the death squadron kills a reasonable number of these criminals the rest of these guys get the point and they stop their nonsense.

We are not taking about getting rid off nice people here - we are talking about getting rid off real dangerous animals. Brazil has past experience in that area and the people in Brazil know that the death squadron works very well to reduce a rampant crime wave.

It is time to take our cities back in Brazil from these criminal gangs.


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Futures-Shark: he only reason there is so much violence connected to the drug business is because it's illegal. Prohibition did not work for alcohol and it will not work for drugs because of the same reasons. There will always be a demand and at a certain price there will always be a supply.

The violence is a result of the profitability being so high that people will risk their own life and take the lives of others in pursuing those profits.


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May 17, 2006

SouthAmerica: I agree with you.

Profits, Profits, and more profits is behind the illegal drug trade and the only way to fight back it is by legalizing these illegal drugs and take away 100 percent of the incentive of the drug trade. When there is no money to be made they all go out of business.

You can’t only legalize the illegal drugs the governments also have to flood the market and take any profit there is in the drug production and distribution system.

Zero profit = out of business.

But we need to reactivate the death squadron in Brazil for other reasons as well.

These gangs have to be put out of business because they are causing havoc in Brazil.

They also kidnap people to ask for money to return the members of their family in one piece. They come with guns and attack you inside of your own house or apartment.

Enough is enough. It is time to get rid off these criminal gangs and their members before start affecting trading and tourism in Brazil.


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Even the logic is twisted.

You seem to be saying it is okay for Brazil to kill the sopranos but the U.S. may not target for death people who might be plotting nuclear and biological attacks because you have trouble defining the world terrorism. Tell you what.

You define what is an acceptable target for Brazilian death squads and we will define what is an acceptable target for our war on terror. If you do not like it than become anti death squad in print and on these pages.
 
They are going crazy in Mexico too.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-05-17-06-12-44

search on "drug lords".

Mexico is the future of any current socialist economy in South Am. They revolted early last century and put in ..... guess what... drum roll..... wage and price controls!! Yes, and they destroyed the middle class and impoverished the underclass and allowed corruption to completely dominate them. Ignorant and demented sons of demented women [that means dumb sons of bitches, I am trying to learn diplomacy] are still railing against the capitalism in the US and advocating all countries travel the same grand route as Mexico, and Russia, and all the other completely failed states.

If all those economies to the south of the US are so unproductive such that US drug purchases are providing enough income for people to war against the governments, then the answer for them is to gut the socialists that drive all their political thinking and get their economies going.
 
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May 18, 2006

SouthAmerica: When I was reading the Financial Times today and started reading the enclosed article I just could not believe that the Brazilian government is letting these people get away with murder.

My family ruled and they were the most influential family in Sao Paulo politics for over 100 years and I know what my ancestors would think of the current state of affairs in Sao Paulo – it is not acceptable to continue this way and I am sure that if they still in power today they would not let these gangsters get away with all the stuff that they have been getting away for quite awhile.

All I can say is that today there is a complete lack of leadership and common sense among the elected officials who are governing Sao Paulo.

This article makes me sick about the current state of affairs in Sao Paulo regarding the power that organized crime has today. Sao Paulo is where I was born and a large number of members of my family still living there.



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“Brazilian gang leaders take the state prisoner from inside jail”
By Jonathan Wheatley
Published: May 18 2006
The Financial Times - UK

Life in São Paulo returned to something like normal by the middle of this week after prison riots and attacks on police and property orchestrated by organised crime left 132 people dead and 53 injured between Friday night and Tuesday morning.

But many wondered what kind of normality it was. The handling of events by authorities, and especially the way they were brought to an end, suggested a lack of control amounting to a crisis of governability.

Although for the families of the victims the impact was tragic, relatively few people were touched directly by the incidents. More wide-reaching was the fear that gripped the city on Monday, as public transport collapsed - at least 80 buses were set on fire - schools and universities closed, businesses sent staff home early and rumours flashed across the internet and telephone lines that schools were being machine-gunned, that a mass attack was being prepared for 6pm that evening, and that the police or the attackers themselves would impose an 8pm curfew.

Among hundreds of testimonies was that of Beatriz Segal, an actress, who summed up the mood: "I feel extremely vulnerable. It's obvious that we are not at peace. Things will only get worse."

Most eloquent of all was an interview broadcast on Radio Record of São Paulo on Tuesday evening. Reporter Dante Rodrigues made contact with Orlando Mota Junior, known as Macarrão, a leader of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Command of the Capital, or PCC), the criminal organisation that orchestrated the riots and attacks.

Two things were remarkable about the interview. First, that Macarrão was speaking on a mobile telephone from inside prison. Second, that he appeared to confirm what many feared: the attacks ended because the PCC called them off after reaching a deal with state authorities.

"The whole situation has changed," says Bruno Paes Manso, a researcher into organised crime. "For the government to negotiate and give way is the worst possible outcome. If I was a bandit, I would join the PCC immediately. They've shown just how powerful they are."

State authorities denied having made any concessions. But they admitted having flown a lawyer and three senior police, prison and judicial officials to a meeting in prison with Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, known as Marcola, the PCC's absolute leader.

Authorities say the meeting took place so that the lawyer could assure Marcola's family that he and other leaders had not been harmed. But Macarrão and others familiar with the negotiations say other demands were met: that riot police would not enter the prisons under rebellion and that restrictions on PCC prisoners, such as a ban on visits and time outside their cells, would be relaxed.

If true, the allegations confirm the rising power of the PCC to direct events inside and outside the São Paulo state prisons system - a reflection of the situation elsewhere in Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro, where powerful gangs formed in prisons two decades ago wield power over life in prison and in the city's favelas (shanty towns).

The PCC was formed in 1993 after riot police put down a rebellion at the notorious Carandiru prison in São Paulo and 111 prisoners were killed. It protested against what Walter Maierovitch, a former senior security official, calls the "inhuman overcrowding" of Brazil's prisons, with prisoners sleeping in shifts for lack of bunk space and diseases such at tuberculosis rampant.

The PCC grew slowly at first but expanded rapidly under Marcola's leadership after 2002. Authorities continued to deny its existence but it was already showing its power. In 2001 it had caused riots at 29 prisons. In 2003 it ordered the murder of Machado Dias, a judge who had sent its members to maximum-security jails.

As the PCC's statutes make clear, it was dedicated from the start not only to fighting for better conditions but also to imposing itself on prison authorities and to providing support services to prisoners and to active criminals on the outside. Members pay monthly dues and a percentage of their criminal earnings; its income is estimated at R$1m ($467,000, €367,000, £248,000) a month.

The PCC also has political ambitions, of sorts. Before general elections in 2002 and again this year it has announced its intention to finance candidates, although no candidate has ever admitted receiving its money.

Although its political aims are not clearly stated - it says it wants "liberty, justice and peace" - it would be a mistake, says Mr Paes Manso, to underestimate its political intelligence. "It is no coincidence that the PCC has done this now, at the start of campaigning for October's elections," he says.

If the PCC wanted to embarrass presidential candidates, it has succeeded. Geraldo Alckmin, the former governor of São Paulo state, stepped down in March to run for the presidency. According to an opinion poll conducted by the Folha de S. Paulo, a daily newspaper, 37 per cent of people blamed him for the weekend's events.

Even more, 39 per cent, blamed President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, while 55 per cent blamed the judicial authorities.

Such attitudes are not surprising. Mr Maierovitch says authorities have consistently made concessions to the PCC to be able to demonstrate to the public that it is under control or has gone away. "The sad reality," he says, "is that the state is now the prisoner of the PCC."


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May 20, 2006

SouthAmerica: If what the Financial Times article said it is true – then all they have to do is install cell phone jamming devices around the prisons in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to prevent the criminals from contacting their gangs via their cell phones.

Brazil does not need to copy the American model for running their prison systems – since only defense spending is worse than the prison system spending in the United States.

It is not a good use of resources to build prisons and jails and lock up in prison over 2.1 million people. Only the American defense industrial complex system is a worse form of wasting resources and money.



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“Brazil's grim toll”
Published: May 20, 2006
The Financial Times - UK


Brazil is part of the BRIC quartet that, with Russia, India and China, is changing the world economic order. Each is an emerging superpower but still prone to state failure. This last aspect has been on grisly display in Brazil over the past week. In São Paulo, 161 people were killed, of whom (according to official figures) 107 died at the hands of police in reprisal for attacks on police stations, policemen's homes, buses and banks that were co-ordinated from inside prison by a criminal band calling itself the First Commando of the Capital.

This wave of attacks and reprisals has highlighted the mess Brazil's prisons and legal system are in. Yet the country still enjoys, despite recent market falls, very favourable conditions on international markets, and there is a danger of government complacency about reform.

Brazil's overcrowded and poorly managed prisons are at the centre of the current problem. Conditions there - highlighted in the popular art house film Carandiru - can be nightmarish, but they can also be extremely soft. Prisoners routinely use cell phones, often smuggled to them by their lawyers, and that is how gang leaders synchronised last week's attacks, launched to prevent efforts to move them to more secure institutions. Many of the criminals doing the killing had been released so they could enjoy Mother's Day.

Brazil does not have enough high security prisons to house a growing criminal population because money has been diverted elsewhere and much of what had been earmarked for prisons has not actually been spent. The legal system sometimes tilts too much in favour of human rights considerations, helping the interests of criminals and their lawyers who, for instance, cannot be searched when they enter prisons to visit clients. Nor are Brazilian police allowed to infiltrate criminal gangs in order to obtain information. This explains some of the police's frustration, though it in no way justifies their reprisals.

Matters are further complicated because responsibility for security is split between the federal and state governments. The justice minister, who sits at the top of this unwieldy structure, has a massive range of responsibilities, ranging from immigration and court reform to advising Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president, on how he should manage the recent corruption scandal that has also undermined the country's governability.

Ironically, the authorities in São Paulo state - where prison management has also been put into question by the attacks - have built new prisons. In addition, by improving policing in poorer areas and the quality of its detective work, the state government has been able to reduce the city's murder rate by half in the past six years. More of the same patient improvement is obviously necessary, especially at the federal government level. But Brazil needs urgently more reform. If the government can afford a single minister for culture or tourism, it should surely appoint one for public security, the issue that is probably the biggest concern of the less well-off.

Mr Lula da Silva may pride himself on his country's financial stability and look forward to the day when Brazil achieves an investment grade credit rating. But if Brazil is to realise its dream of becoming a developed country, its leaders must make a better fist of government, able to protect its people, sometimes from the police.


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We Americans have plenty of free speech. For example, many Americans talk about how their own journalists are out of touch and stupid.
Quote from southamerica:

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Sam123: Move to Venezuela. You'll get less hate mail there.


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May 17, 2006

SouthAmerica: I don’t think so.

I don’t believe on land expropriations by the government.

As a Brazilian I have the right to write about anything that I desire. In Brazil we have free speech.

But I don’t like what is happening in the US today regarding free speech – the Bush administration is trying to intimidate the American journalists regarding what they write when they print the dirty that is going on inside of the Bush administration.

The American mainstream media should fight-back and don’t let these guys get away with anything - we are not talking about a bunch of Enlightened People here - we are talking about a bunch of Morons.


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