Favelas

What is most fascinating and also disturbing to me is the favela situation. A favela is the Brazilian term for shanty town or slum. The largest favela in Brazil, Favela Rocinha is home to some say up to 400,000 residents. That's a possible 400,000 people with no formal address. Miles of slums. Until 2006 this favela was controlled by the largest of the three criminal factions in Rio: CV or Comando Vermelho, which is Portuguese for Red Command. With state-of-the-art arms they govern the majority of the favelas with a stern hand. Don't be fooled, this is not some two pence operation, the CV have 60,000 gang members (same as the number of Vodafone UK employees!) making them the largest street gang on the planet. The organisation was founded in 1969 in the prison Cândido Mendes, on the Ilha Grande island (see Feb 07 blog), as a connection of ordinary cons and political prisoners who were members of the Falange Vermelha (Red Phalanx), who fought the military dictatorship.

During the entire 1990's the criminal organisation was at it's strongest, but today the principal leaders have been arrested or are dead, and the organisation is not as strong. The second largest faction Amigos dos Amigos (ADA, Friends of Friends) arose from a conflict between the Comando Vermelho and Terceiro Comando , Terceiro Comando being the third main criminal faction and another principle rival of ADA and CV. ADA controls many drug selling points in the North and West zones, while CV control pretty much the whole South.

You can walk into a well organised favela and be pretty sure no harm will come to you providing you behave and cooporate entirely. The guns are extremely alarming although are not for gringos, they are for rival gangs; especially the largest and most dangerous gang in Rio - the police.

I have yet to experience a visit first hand. I have avoided the seemingly voyeurish favela tours in favour of a real experience.

There are armed guards stationed at the entrance to most favelas. They will search you for weapons and ask what the nature of your visit is. If you answer that you want drugs, they will point you in the direction of the favela's aptly named 'mouth' where the drugs are distributed. The point is, they want to sell their drugs and if you have the money to buy, they would rather sell you their product than rob you and risk execution from the powers to be. They would also be in a lot of trouble with the police if a gringo was murdered. Police have a tendency to react to these killings with ferocious vengeance. Last year a bus full of people was burnt while in service; 10 people were burned alive. The police responded with bulldozers, destroying multiple homes in the favela, home to the guilty party.

Some view the factions as modern day robin hoods; through selling their drugs to the rich segments of society and supporting the poor. These factions are famous for providing much needed resources such as support for day care, medicine for the sick, and money for the poor. They also have been known to build asphalt roads, host huge parties, and even sponsor other recreational spaces and activities, such as football pitches. These groups normally maintain a very high level of control over social behavior, strictly prohibiting street crimes such as rape, muggings, and break-ins within the favela.

Despite the low incidence of street crime in favelas, the frequency of gun battles between police and rival gangs in these communities present real dangers. Police and drug traffickers co-exist in a very complicated balance of power that involves a high level of corruption and cooperation. Even so, police invasions of favelas such as Rocinha are common, and the results can be dramatic and intense large-scale gun battles. To be fair the factions are also infamous for murder, gun smuggling and torture. The standard practice, should you be discovered as an undercover cop, is to be incased with tires up to their neck, the tires dowsed in petrol and set them alight. The effect is savage, carbonising the body allowing the victim to stay alive while feeling and smelling their own flesh melt. Nice.

What the media fail to show us in England is the reality that there is civil war going on here. I wonder if George Bush even knows where Rio is let alone what a favela is...