BRAZIL-HUMAN RIGHTS: Witness Protection Programme Needed

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 19 1996 (IPS) - Witnesses willing to testify to murders committed by organized groups in Brazil risked losing their liberty, and often their lives, while the killers continued to roam the streets, according to human rights groups.

This role reversal aggravated the impunity that characterized Brazilian administration of justice and encouraged violence, said lawyer Christina Leonardo, president of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Brazilian Center for the Defense of the Rights of Children and Adolescents.

Leonardo gave the example of Vagner dos Santos, 24, who sought political asylum in Switzerland last year after he suffered repeated assaults and threats. He even attempted suicide by slitting his wrists as a way to force the judicial authorities to protect him.

dos Santos was a survivor of a notorious massacre in July 1993 when gunmen slaughtered eight children sleeping near the Candelaria church in downtown Rio de Janeiro. He escaped with three gunshot wounds to his face and became the principal witness in the court case that followed.

His testimony helped identify four of the suspected killers: three military police officers and a blacksmith moonlighting as a private security guard. The case has dragged on for nearly three years and the trial of the first suspect is scheduled later this month.

dos Santos worked the streets as a car cleaner. He was sleeping near 72 other children and adolescents in Candelaria plaza when they were jolted awake by gunshots. Although he was taken to a “Witness House” created by authorities to protect people like do Santos he maintained he was frequently threatened and suffered one attempt on his life.

To avoid his being killed, NGOs finally convinced the Ministry of Justice to intervene to protect him and send him to Switzerland.

The international media picked up the story of the Candelaria massacre and the private efforts of prominent sculptor Ivone Bezerra de Mello to help Brazil’s street children. This “guardian angel” also reported being hounded by unknown men and she said that on three occasions, men pointed weapons at her and threatened to kill her if she “opened her mouth.”

She said she stil receives telephone threats and is followed by strangers on the streets.

“They don’t know what I know,” Bezerra de Mello explained, adding that she was frightened even though she considers herself a brave person.

Survivors of the Candelaria killings were still living on the streets along with the growing number of street kids who now total around 2,000 in Rio de Janeiro alone, the artist said.

Without an effective program to protect witnesses, “it’s impossible to improve justice in Brazil,” declared Leonardo, who worked with prosecutors investigating another 1993 massacre in the shantytown of Vigario Geral in northern Rio. But two months ago, a judge released 18 of 51 policemen accused of participating in the slaughter of 21 people in the ‘favela.’

Their release increased fears of possible reprisals among witnesses and relatives of the victims, said Joao Costa, communication coordinator for the NGO Peace House, which is active in the favela.

Peace House founder Caio Ferraz is yet another victim of the violence. Facing death threats, he left the country to study in the United States and considers himself in exile.

State legislator Paulo Melo, himself a former street urchin, declared that “a witness here turns into a prisoner, with restricted liberty”who can be sentenced to death by organized extermination groups.

Melo said Brazil needs a witness protection programme such as those in the United States and Italy that created new identities for witnesses and allowed them to settle in new places.

He maintained witnesses who risked their lives to assist the prosecution deserved total protection. If not they could suffer the fate of an adolescent survivor of another massacre of six children in the Nueva Jerusalén favela who received no help and then disappeared.

Melo said he finally discovered her working as a prostitute. She was “cynical about society” and felt unprotected and disillusioned about the failure of the government, and a popular local TV star Xuxa to follow through on offers of help.

The legislator said it took him two and a half months to convince her to testify about the case. He also managed to get her a job in a town in Brazil’s interior, where he hoped she was now safe from assassins.