POLITICS-BRAZIL: Crime and Violence Spur More Gov’t Reforms

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 14 1999 (IPS) - Public safety has become a crisis as a result of wide-spread violence and the expansion of organised crime, reaching the point where it is forcing Brazil to undergo a second round of government reforms.

Economic globalisation already imposed a first round, which consisted of privatising government entities, giving the State a role that is more regulatory than productive. It was accompanied by a new fiscal attitude, with cuts in government salaries and reduced support for the social security system.

Now the state apparatus is faced with the need for profound changes if it is to recover the nation’s safety and security. But there is not much clarity, and even less concensus, about what the changes should entail.

A Parliamentary Investigative Commission (CPI) on drug trafficking recently uncovered the complicity of many judges, police and military officers and financial institutions in organised crime. It also revealed that several parliamentarians were active as regional mafia bosses.

The 11 representatives on the anti-drug CPI have been applauded as the most efficient “police” Brazil has ever had in fighting the infiltration of drug traffickers. An initiative that would make the commission a permanent organisation has won broad support.

Another CPI, which investigated irregularities in the Judicial branch, gathered thousands of charges against judges for corruption, nepotism, drug-trafficking and other crimes. This stimulated a wide-reaching initiative for judicial reform, which is still being debated in the Chamber of Deputies.

The government decided a month ago to create an anti-impunity unit – with the participation of the Federal Police and judicial, tax and financial authorities – to handle the new face of international organised crime, which launders great quantities of money and has highly corruptive capabilities.

Shortly before creating the special unit, authorities had attempted to reorganise anti-drug forces, creating the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD) as a co-ordinating office capable of mobilising forces from several government ministries.

SENAD ultimately was linked to the Brazilian presidency, within the Institutional Security Cabinet, an increasingly powerful and extensive agency, led by general Alberto Cardoso.

The Cabinet also includes the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, made official Dec 7 as “an organism of the State, not the government, and without party affiliations.” Its role is to gather and analyse information in order to defend democratic institutions, according to the general.

An initiative of the Cabinet and the SENAD mobilised some 1,200 military troops and 400 police and officials from several government organisations in Operation Mandacarú. The mission began early this month in its attempts to eradicate marijuana plantations in a broad area of Brazil’s poor northeastern region.

The operation led to grumbling among members of the Federal Police, who saw their authority in the fight against the drug trade being undercut, converting the force into the simple executor of policies defined by other powers.

With fewer resources, the Federal Police alone could carry out a more effective drug-fighting operation because it would be ongoing and more secretive, according to chief Francisco Martins, who co- ordinates the force’s participation in Operation Mandacarú.

The re-organisation of the fight against organised crime could mean the duplication of effort and future conflict within the government.

The greatest efforts to contain violence and crime, especially in the big cities, are made by the state governments, which are directly in charge of public order and of Military Police (MP) forces.

The MP were responsible for massacres that put Brazil in the international spotlight as a major violator of human rights.

Among the assassinations attributed to the MP that have not yet been punished is the 1992 case in which 111 inmates were gunned down in a prison in the southeastern state of Sao Paulo, and the 1997 case in which 19 peasants were massacred in Eldorado de Carajás, in Brazil’s north.

The most recent violation, with far-reaching consequences, occured Dec 2 in Brasilia, where an MP killed a citizen and left two others blind when he opened fire on a demonstration of state employees demanding the wage increase governor Joaquín Roriz had promised.

Proposals to dissolve the MP corps are abundant, and include suggestions of uniting them with the regular police force, or completely reforming the entire public safety hierarchy.

“But we lack a doctrine that responds to the new reality” of organised crime with international connections, pointed out Clovis Brigagao, political scientist and crime expert.

The military training of police whose “goal is to kill,” an “anachronistic” Judicial branch, and the corruption embedded in such organisations make it difficult to adopt policies appropriate for “a democratic public order,” he commented.

Brazil’s armed forces reject policing functions, but find themselves increasingly caught up in such activities, often as a result of their loosely defined role in the current scenario. Operation Mandacarú and military intervention in crisis situations keep pointing them in that direction, said Brigagao.