Two strategies are contending in Brazil for how to take down the drug cartels, which have established de facto control over many impoverished slums (favelas) in Brazil’s cities: One focuses on brute military force, the other on targeting cartel money laundering.
This policy brawl came to the fore on Oct. 28, when a military-style assault involving some 2,500 special forces and police officers was launched against Comando Velho drug gang operations in two huge favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro, resulting in 121 deaths. The raid was ordered by the state Governor Claudio Castro, a political supporter of the convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro (whose cause has been supported by the Trump family). Governor Castro and seven other Bolsonaro-allied governors from the Bolsonaro camp are now promoting the raid in their electoral campaigns as proof that they are “tough on crime.”
Photos of the poor and predominantly black inhabitants of the favelas, lining up the dead bodies on the street to be identified, went viral internationally. What did the raid accomplish? It was no surprise (amassing a force of 2,500 in a dense urban area cannot be hidden); alerted gang members had burned cars, buses, buildings, further wrecking the favelas; the so-called “kingpin” who was the purported target of the operation was long gone; and fewer automatic weapons were seized than people killed, along with some insignificant amount of drugs.
Everyone recognizes that the cartel threat is real and massive. “We cannot accept that organized crime continues to destroy families, oppress residents, and spread drugs and violence throughout cities,” President Lula da Silva stated after an emergency cabinet meeting on Oct. 29. But, he added, “we need coordinated efforts that strike at the heart of drug trafficking without putting police officers, children, and innocent families at risk.”
