BRAZIL: Organised Crime Terrorises São Paulo

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 15 2006 (IPS) - Nearly four days of violence in the Brazilian state of São Paulo have left 81 dead, including 39 police, 56 buses destroyed by fire, and eight banks damaged, while inmates rioted in 73 prisons. The wave of violence is the biggest show of power by organised crime in Brazil.

The First Command of the Capital gang (PCC) has staged more than 180 attacks in the southern city of São Paulo and nearby towns. The PCC, which emerged in the early 1990s in the prisons of the state of São Paulo, made a show of strength five years ago, when it organised simultaneous riots in 24 prisons.

Panic brought Brazil’s largest city partially to a halt Monday. Nearly one third of the city’s 15,000 buses did not circulate, after buses were set afire by gangs, mainly in the southern part of the city. Schools and many businesses were closed. An airport was temporarily shut down for two hours due to bomb threats.

The wave of prison riots extended Sunday to 10 penitentiaries in the neighbouring states of Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul, but local authorities regained control Monday, after guards killed four prisoners. The jails were badly damaged.

The state of São Paulo Secretariat of Public Security reported that 22 military police, eight prison guards, six civilian police and three municipal guards were killed, as well as four civilians, while 38 suspected gunmen died in shootouts with the police.. A total of 49 people were injured.

And according to unconfirmed reports, at least 15 prisoners have been killed – seven by fellow inmates and eight of smoke inhalation when mattresses were set alight in one of the jails

Of the 73 prisons where inmates rioted, one third were still controlled by prisoners as of Monday afternoon, and over 100 hostages – guards and family members visiting on Sunday, Mother’s Day – were still being held by inmates.

The outbreak of violence, in which the prison riots were coordinated with outside attacks on police and civilian targets, differs from past prison uprisings held to demand better conditions and protest severe overcrowding, prison guard brutality and even torture, the lack of medical attention and the excruciatingly slow pace of the justice system, Heidi Cerneka, coordinator of the Catholic Church’s Prison Pastoral group in São Paulo, whose 1,400 volunteers assist prisoners in Sao Paulo, told IPS.

This time, the murders and violence that have terrorised people across the state cannot be said to be a struggle for rights, but merely constitute a “show of power” in reprisal for the state government’s decision to transfer 756 leaders and members of the PCC to a maximum security prison in Presidente Venceslau, a town located 600 km from the city of São Paulo.

The authorities were apparently aware of plans for a huge coordinated prison uprising scheduled for Sunday, and tried to deter it by isolating the leaders. The reaction was the expanded wave of attacks and riots, by which the gang showed the state its capacity to retaliate against government measures.

“Nothing can justify so much violence, so many deaths and the spread of terror in society,” said Cerneka, whose work has brought her into close contact with the conditions in the prisons, and with the violence, poverty, high unemployment and lack of health care that characterise slum neighbourhoods in São Paulo and drive up crime rates.

São Paulo, Brazil’s richest state, accounts for nearly 40 percent of the country’s prisoners. The number of inmates has soared since the 1980s.

There are around 140,000 inmates in more than 140 prisons in the state of 37 million, which is home to one-fifth of the country’s total population of 186 million.

São Paulo Governor Claudio Lembo turned down an offer of assistance from the national government, saying the state military and civilian police had the situation under control.

Several of the police who were killed were specifically targeted, and murdered on their day off. Others died when gang members opened fire on squad cars or threw grenades at police stations.

The power demonstrated by the gang was not channeled towards the release of prisoners, but was aimed at protesting the transfer of the gang’s leaders to remote, higher security prison facilities.

By concentrating large numbers of criminals in one place, the prisons have played an important role in the growing organisation of crime in Brazil, while new technology, like cell-phones, makes it easy for leaders to coordinate the actions of gangs from prison.

The cell-phone “is more dangerous than a gun,” said a São Paulo police chief, demanding that the authorities ban all cell-phone communication in the areas surrounding prisons, in order to make it more difficult for gang members behind bars to communicate with those outside.

The PCC, the biggest gang in São Paulo, is led by Marcos Camacho, alias Marcola, who has been in and out of prison since the 1980s, and since 1990 has been serving a 22-year sentence for assault.