Pubdate: Thu, 23 Jan 2003
Source: Guardian Weekly, The (UK)
Page: 3
Copyright: Guardian Publications 2003
Contact:  http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/GWeekly/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/633
Author: Alex Bellos  in Rio de Janeiro
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

FILM SHOWS VIOLENCE OF RIO'S GANGSTER CHILDREN, BUT THE REALITY IS FAR WORSE

For the four officers, it was a routine patrol. Their police car was 
cruising along one of the main roads in Rio de Janeiro's North Zone last 
week when it was ambushed.Thirty men armed with shotguns, pistols, rifles, 
submachine-guns and grenades attacked the car, killing two of the policemen 
and, by mistake, a 51-year-old woman in a passing bus. The ages of the gang 
members, one of the city's most feared drug factions, said police, were 
between 10 and 25.

As the Brazilian film City Of God opened in the US last weekend, the 
horrors of Rio's urban violence are reaching a mass international audience 
for the first time. But the reality is worse. Since the late 1970s, when 
most of the film takes place, deaths in the slum shanty towns, or favelas, 
have skyrocketed, drug gangs have become better organised and better armed, 
more children have become involved, and at a younger age.

The situation is so bad that gunshot deaths in Rio have exceeded those in 
conflict zones, including Colombia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Uganda, 
according to the study Child Combatants in Organised Crime to be published 
next month. Almost 3,000 people in Rio, a city of 5.8 million, are shot 
dead each year. Only Angola is more violent. An estimated 11,000 young men 
are now involved in armed drug gangs in Rio, with about half under 18.

Luke Dowdney, author of the study, which is part-sponsored by Unesco and 
the Department for International Development, said: "Rio has now reached a 
situation where children's involvement with guns is comparable to 
situations in major world conflicts. Even though only 1% of the community 
is involved, the entire community is affected."

For Sgt Paixao, who refused to give his first name, a colleague of the 
slain officers, police are grossly ill-equipped. "The drug gangs have every 
sort of gun now; they have weapons made for military combat - assault 
rifles, ground-to-air rocket-launchers. They play around with grenades as 
if they are toys. And many of them are eight, 10, 12 years old," he said. 
"They attack us because they want to demoralise the state, to show that 
they are powerful. A few months ago they killed a policeman who was on his 
own in a cabin, as if they were doing it just for fun."

City Of God is the translation of Cidade de Deus, a 1960s housing project 
on Rio's outskirts. During the 70s it turned into a favela. The film, based 
on a book by a former resident, Paulo Lins, charts the emergence of armed 
drug gangs with the arrival of cocaine in the favelas in the late 70s. Rio 
has about 800 favelas, containing more than a million people.

Alba Zaluar, an anthropologist who has studied favelas for 25 years and 
whose research formed the base for Lins's book, said the main change since 
the 80s has been that drug gangs started to be interested in political 
power inside the favela, as a way of asserting military control over their 
territory. Now almost all favelas are controlled by one of three drug 
factions. "In the 1980s traffickers  were called 'owners of the 
selling-points'. By the 1990s they were called 'owners of the favela'."

The worst violence now happens between factions, which makes Cidade de 
Deus, controlled by one faction, less dangerous than many other disputed 
favelas.

Dowdney said that boys as young as 17 are in control of entire favelas. He 
said this was because children can manipulate small-calibre guns and they 
are fast. At 25 you are likely to be either dead or in prison.

Many police say that if they saw a child first they would shoot because "a 
child is much more likely to shoot back". Almost 4,000 under-18s were 
killed in Rio between 1988 and 2002, more than eight times the combined 
number of Israeli and Palestinian children killed in the same period.

Many youngsters in the favelas were not at all shocked by the film City Of 
God. In Mare, one of the most violent areas of the city, Vitor da Silva, 
17, said he thought the film was quite soft. "It just shows what it used to 
be like. Now it's much more  violent. It's easier to get guns. Before, the 
fighting was just against police, now it's between factions. It's easier 
for kids to get killed. The other day the traffickers killed a [sexual 
abuser] by cutting out his eyes, and cutting off his nose, ears and legs 
and parading them through the favela. They were shouting 'Who wants to eat 
meat soup?'. You didn't see that in the film."

Despite the difficult situation, there are a few initiatives that aim to 
give young boys other opportunities than joining the gangs. Dowdney, a 
former student boxing champion from his days studying anthropology at 
Edinburgh University in Britain, has set up a boxing club in Mare. All 
members must go to classes where they are taught about citizenship.

Mirian dos Santos, a social worker at the boxing club, said that the 
majority of the boxers have had past involvement with cocaine gangs. Boxing 
helps them, she said, because it gives the boys a way to channel the 
violence that they live with in the community.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager