Brazil: ‘War’ erupts in São Paulo

Eyewitness report from a city in shock

A WEEK-LONG wave of violence between police and a notorious criminal
gang in São Paulo, Brazil, has left over 170 people dead. As TONY
SAUNOIS reports from a shocked city this ‘war’ is rooted in the
country’s corrupt and brutal criminal justice system and the extreme
divisions of wealth and poverty.

"A DAY in Baghdad" was how many journalists and commentators in
Brazil described Sunday 14 May. Throughout the state of S‹o Paulo Sunday
was the culmination of three days of unprecedented violent attacks and
killings.

Machine guns, hand grenades and other heavy weapons have been used by
those involved. In a co-ordinated series of attacks, carried out with
military precision, 153 assaults have taken place on police stations and
eight banks. Around 150 buses have been burnt-out prompting the bus
companies to withdraw hundreds more buses from service causing chaos for
an estimated 3 million workers in the city and state of São Paulo.

By Monday evening, thousands were stranded at bus terminals and bus
shelters with no idea of how to get home. One of the city airports has
now been closed because of a bomb threat.

The outbreak of violence has been unleashed by one of the most
notorious organised crime groups in São Paulo – the Primero Comando da
Capital (PCC – First Command of the Capital).

At the same time these attacks took place, up to 80 co-ordinated
uprisings were underway in a series of prisons and detention centres.
Hostages have been taken in the prisons. Little short of a war is taking
place between the PCC and the brutalised, corrupt Military Police.

On Monday morning in São Paulo, helicopters, many of them police
ones, constantly flew over the city hovering like giant flies over
prisons and detention centres. Most workers and young people have been
shocked at the scale and degree of the violence. It has provoked
widespread fear amongst the population. The normally packed streets and
highways were totally deserted by 10pm on Monday night.

Members of Socialismo Revolucionario (the CWI in Brazil) driving
through the city centre after a meeting were almost alone in the city
centre passing heavily armed Military Police units and those with no
homes to go to who as usual slept under the flyovers of city centre
motorways. It was almost like driving through a deserted city.

Although most of the attacks have been concentrated on Military
Police units, workers and students alike, are afraid of being caught in
the cross-fire. One of the attacks on a police station took place in
Taboão near the offices of APEOESP, the teacher’s trade union.

In some schools; students, parents and teachers have been afraid
because of the presence of police cars, which could attract attacks by
the PCC. In response to these threats, APEOESP, led by members of
Socialismo Revolucionario, have urged teachers and students to leave the
schools while the threats continue. A mass meeting of teachers has been
called by APEOESP to discuss these threats and how to confront them.
Some schools and universities have been suspended. APEOESP was amongst
the first workers’ organisation to respond to this crisis.

Show of strength

The attacks by the PCC are a show of strength in response to the
decision of the state to move imprisoned members of the PCC, including
some of its leaders, to the maximum security prison of Presidente
Venceslau (named the "Parque de los Monstros" – the Monster Park – by
the PCC).

Brazilian prisons are notoriously brutal. Life inside for the 60,000
prisoners in the state of Sao Paulo is a modern version of Dante’s seven
circles of hell. Once inside prisoners are just left to rot. They are
ruled by criminal gangs who are in a power struggle for control over
them. Beheadings of rival gang members make up the punishment dished out
to opponents.

The PCC is one of the most powerful of the organised gangs in São
Paulo and is involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping and other criminal
activity. Such gangs exist in Rio de Janeiro and other cities.

The PCC is organised along the lines of a military, guerrilla
organisation with its own central chain of command, central committee
and even its own constitution.

In some of the favelas (shanty towns) where it operates it acts
almost as a "police force" stopping criminal activity against the local
population but ensuring that it controls the drug market there and in
other areas.

Amongst a layer of the youth in the poorest areas on the periphery of
the city it is even seen as a semi-radical alternative to the state.

The PCC was formed inside the prisons in the early 1990s and some of
their rhetoric and symbols were picked up from left-wing political
prisoners and members of guerrilla organisations in the prisons at the
time. Some PCC members even use the symbol of Che Guevara.

Yet the PCC has nothing to do with the ideas and methods of the
socialist left or the symbol that Che Guevara represents for workers and
young people in Latin America. The very fact that it has captured some
support is because of the vacuum left by the failure of the leaders of
the workers’ organisations to offer an alternative and the carrying
through of neo-liberal policies by Brazil’s president Lula of the
Workers’ Party (PT).

The challenge for the new party P-SOL (Party of Socialism and Liberty
– the new broad socialist party that Socialismo Revolucionario, CWI in
Brazil, is helping to build in Brazil) is now to build a genuine
socialist alternative.

Some capitalist commentators and right-wing capitalist politicians
are using this crisis to try and smear the socialist left and link it to
such groups as the PCC. They are also using this crisis as a reason to
demand more repressive measures.

The growth and strength of such criminal organisations is a
reflection of the desperate situation facing the most downtrodden and
poorest sections of the population and the impasse in Brazil as a result
Lula’s policies.

In São Paulo over one million people are condemned to inhabit over
2,000 favelas in the most miserable of conditions. A further one million
manage to survive in broken-down flats and houses inhabited by five and
sometimes ten or more families. Here violence, drugs and despair are a
part of daily life which organisations like the PCC can feed on.

Repressive police

The attacks by the PCC are certain to provoke a brutal response by
the corrupt repressive Military Police who are preparing a massive
repressive clamp down which will undoubtedly involve shooting and
killing of innocent youth. Sao Paulo Military Police shoot first and ask
questions afterwards.

The life depicted in the film City of God is never far from the
reality facing millions in Sao Paulo. In 2000, one person every nine
hours was shot dead by the police – an average of three per day. A
detailed analysis of those killed shows that 60% had no criminal record.

The figures for 1999 reveal that 51% of the victims were shot in the
back and more than 21% had more than five bullets in them! The
overwhelming majority are black. Nothing suggests anything has changed
since Lula came to power in 2002.

This crisis is certain to have political repercussions in the run up
to the Presidential elections in October.

The São Paulo state Governor, Geraldo Alckmin of the capitalist PSDB
(Party of Social Democracy, Brazil) is standing against Lula. Although
he has stepped down to fight the Presidential election, his deputy
Claudio Lembo from the Liberal Front Party (PFL) is filling in, Alckmin
is certain to be tainted with this crisis and how it develops.

At the same time it appears that these attacks are being used to try
and intimidate the workers’ movement. The secretary of National Security
claims to have tapes of telephone conversations by PCC leaders saying
that they would attack public demonstrations.

These, he says, show that the PCC aim to attack activities of the
PSDB in such a way that the PT (Workers Party) would be blamed with the
aim of provoking greater political instability. They also, however,
claim that other demonstrations, including those by workers demanding
wage increases, would be subject to attack.

It is unclear if these recordings actually exist or are just being
used by the state government as propaganda and as a means of trying to
intimidate the workers’ movement.

However, these threats, whatever there origins, clearly illustrate
the need for the workers’ movement, especially P-SOL and the trade union
rank and file to take an independent stand in this crisis and not allow
workers and their families to be intimidated by either the PCC or the
state forces.

Members of SR are arguing for P-SOL to take the initiative and
organise a meeting and campaign against the violence and against police
repression. The workers’ organisations need to take the necessary steps
to organise the defence of workers and students. Workers’ demonstrations
must be protected by stewards.

These steps need to be part of a campaign for P-SOL that includes a
campaign for a democratically controlled police force that is run by and
accountable to the local community and the demilitarisation of the
Military Police. At the same time it is necessary to fight for a
socialist programme that can put an end to the horrific social
conditions that allow organisations like the PCC to develop.

This crisis shows the need for P-SOL to build mass support for an
independent socialist alternative that can offer a way out of the
horrific social conditions that are the breeding ground for organised
criminal groups.