Militias replacing drug gangs in Brazil’s favelas
Armed militia gangs are replacing drug organizations as the main criminal enterprises in the slums of Brazil.
Despite Brazil’s economic growth, Rio’s slums, or favelas, have proliferated, and now may number more than 800. The militias have multiplied with them, as battles with drug gangs have taken a toll on legitimate police forces.
Low morale and pay have prompted police officers, firefighters and prison workers to moonlight as militia members, police officers and criminologists who have studied them say.
The militias have filled a vacuum of authority by promising residents security in exchange for payments and the chance to take over a host of illegal businesses — including controlling the supply of water and natural gas, running gambling machines, pirating cable television connections, and of course, the drug trade.
For many communities, the militias are the lesser of two evils. They gain sympathy from residents because they battle Rio’s “barbaric” drug dealers, said Claudio Ferraz, the chief of the Rio state police organized crime unit, known as Draco. But the militias are replacing one form of criminality with another, he said.
“They are an attack on the principle of democracy, they are a cancer, a tumor,” he said.
