RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Police Become Unchallenged Killers

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Aug 28 2003 (IPS) - That the police in Rio have killed 621 civilians in the first half of this year is not perhaps the worst of it; that they can do so with impunity is really worrying, Amnesty International says in a report Thursday.

Police killing of civilians in Rio has been rising steadily over the years. About 300 deaths at police hands were recorded in Rio in 1997, about 400 the following year. In 2001 the number rose to 587. "The 621 deaths official recorded this year mean that there will be more than a thousand such deaths in Rio this year if it goes on like this," Damian Platt, Brazil campaigner at the international secretariat of Amnesty told IPS.

The level of police killings in Sao Paulo in Brazil is similar, with 464 deaths recorded in the first five months of this year. "This level of killing of civilians by the police has to be among the highest in the world," Platt says. "And these are the officially recorded cases, the actual number is likely to be higher still."

Martha Deyhle de Oliveira, the mother of 18-year-old Carlos killed by the Rio police in April this year, told media representatives at the Amnesty offices in London Thursday that she will campaign for justice now on behalf of all mothers.

"I do not just blame the police," she said. "They are people from poor communities themselves, and they were only acting on orders." Her campaign, like Amnesty’s is primarily against the police system.

Martha is not alone. "I believe that the police are also victims," says a relative of Everson Gonsalves Silote, a 26-year-old taxi driver shot and killed during a police operation in the community of Borel in Rio de Janeiro on April 17 this year.

"They discriminate against residents because they have been trained to do so…I believe that if the government were to present a different image of these communities, I’m sure that the police would respect us, ending this discrimination."

There are few signs that the government is willing to act along these lines. The Amnesty report was launched on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the police killing of 21 residents of Vigario Geral, a poor community on the outskirts of Rio.

On July 23 that year eight "street children" and young adults were killed as they slept outside a church in central Rio in what came to be known as the Candelaria massacre.

"Even though there have been some successful prosecutions, particularly with regard to the Candelaria killings, ten years after the massacres many of those responsible remain unpunished," Amnesty says in its report. "Survivors, witnesses and relatives of those who died continue to suffer and to seek truth and justice."

Only two of the 50 policeman accused of involvement in the Vigario Geral massacre are in prison, Amnesty says. None of the survivors or relatives of the victims of either massacre has yet received full compensation from the state, including Wagner dos Santos, who miraculously survived both the Candelaria massacre, and a further attempt on his life in December 1994.

Amnesty International has documented evidence that the context in which these killings are taking place has not changed. "This includes statements made in public by elected officials that appear to support the killing of civilians, presenting the killings as an acceptable and necessary product of crime control," Amnesty says.

The police action comes also in the context of high levels of violence and crime. "Rio is one of the most violent cities in the world," says Platt. That has led to a "media and middle class approval of the killings as a part of a crackdown on crime. It is seen as a popular way of getting rid of undesirable elements."

The police are armed with a provision in law that labels these killings as resistance followed by death. But studies of several autopsy reports by Amnesty have showed that many were killed at point blank range, or shot from the back, Platt says. "But the police enjoy a high degree of impunity; there is rarely any follow-up action to those statistics."

In most cases the police never come to court, he says. "In such a situation we would like to see an independent ombudsman who can monitor such cases."

Amnesty points out that in 2001 a deputy in Rio’s state legislative assembly said: "Today with the question of human rights protection, some think that they can do what they want…electors have to understand my position and vote for me, knowing that as for that 17-year-old who died in Candelaria, as I have said before and as I say again, if any more die, I will pay for the coffin and reward whoever kills them."

Amnesty says any positive attempts to reform policing methods in the city have been largely abandoned.

"The organisation has always recognised and deplored the fact that Rio de Janeiro and other cities in Brazil suffer from extreme levels of urban violence," it says. "However, the Brazilian authorities must fulfil their duty to uphold the law and to protect all the country’s citizens from violence in all its forms. Only by doing this will the human rights of all Brazilians be protected."