Militias Control Quarter of Rio Neighborhoods, Almost 60 Percent of City Territory

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Rio de Janeiro’s militias currently control 25.5 percent of the city’s neighborhoods, covering a total of 57.5 percent of the city’s territory. The three main criminal drug factions – ‘Comando Vermelho’, ‘Terceiro Comando’ and ‘Amigos dos Amigos’ – together control a further 34.2 percent of the neighborhoods and 15.4 percent of the territory. In total, some 3.7 million Cariocas live in a community controlled by some criminal group, the equivalent of 57.1 percent of the population.

This is the result of an unprecedented study on the expansion of criminal organizations in the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro by the ‘Novos Ilegalismos’ Study Group (GENI/UFF), ‘Fogo Cruzado’ datalab; USP’s ‘Núcleo de Estudos da Violência’; ‘Pista News’ digital platform and ‘Disque-Denúncia’. The figures are from 2019 and according to the researchers are impressive for the rapid growth of militia groups, which only began to organize in the early 2000s. The ‘Comando Vermelho’, ‘Terceiro Comando’ and ‘Amigo dos Amigos’ drug racketeers, on the other hand, had been established since the early 1990s.

To reach these figures, researchers used a total of 37,883 denunciations that mention militias or drug trafficking received by the police ‘Disque Denúncia’ hotline number. This was followed by a screening for validation, building up a base of its own that was later classified according to control of Rio de Janeiro’s main armed groups: ‘Comando Vermelho’, ‘Terceiro Comando’, ‘Amigos dos Amigos’, and militias, all generically classified in the study.

The violence produced by the militias is visible in the city’s daily life and in the metropolitan region. Examples abound. On Friday, October 16th, a clash between the police and a gang accused of being part of a militia culminated in a bloodbath in Rio de Janeiro. At least 12 militiamen traveling in a convoy intercepted by the Civil Police in Baixada Fluminense died in the gunfire exchange.

This uprising comes in the context of the state’s political degradation. The governor, Wilson Witzel, is in the throes of impeachment with little chance of survival in office, buried by suspected embezzlement in the health area. Mayor Marcelo Crivella is seeking reelection with his administration riddled with denunciations and suspected irregularities and has just been declared disqualified, but may run until the last resort. One of his main competitors in the capital’s election, ex-Mayor Eduardo Paes, was indicted by the Prosecutor’s Office for having received R$10.8 million in slush funds in the 2012 campaign. The indictment stems from the plea bargaining of Odebrecht executives in Operation Lava Jato.

Critical issue

“The issue of territorial control is critical to understanding the issue of public safety in Rio de Janeiro,” says researcher Daniel Hirata, one of the study’s coordinators. “To think of any public policy in this area it is essential to hold and understand this mapping. The majority of the population is affected by this logic that governs the disputes among the criminal groups here.”

According to the researcher, criminal drug factions are older and have taken over more central and fragmented territories in key regions of Rio de Janeiro. In turn, militias operate in highly populated areas on the borderline of urban expansion in the city and metropolitan region.

Another data worthy of note in the survey is that 25.2 percent of the Rio de Janeiro capital’s territory is still in dispute among criminal factions. It is a territory where 2.6 million people live, or 41.4 percent of the city’s population. Thus, 98.1 percent of the municipal territory is either occupied or disputed by criminal organizations, according to the study. In all, 98.5 percent of residents live in these areas. According to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) Census, Rio de Janeiro had a population of 6.3 million in 2010 and the projection for 2020 was 6.7 million people.

As for the number of inhabitants, militias also control a larger universe of Rio residents: there are 2.1 million people in the neighborhoods under their rule, equivalent to 33.1 percent of Rio’s population. The ‘Comando Vermelho’ controls neighborhoods with 1.1 million inhabitants, the ‘Terceiro Comando’ 337,000 people, and the ‘Amigos dos Amigos’ 48,000 people.

Metropolitan Region

In the Metropolitan Region, militias control 21.8 percent of neighborhoods. The ‘Comando Vermelho’ controls 23.7 percent. The ‘Terceiro Comando’ controls three percent, while the ‘Amigos dos Amigos’ run 0.3 percent. Another 18.1 percent of neighborhoods remain the target of armed groups. In the Baixada Fluminense suburbs north and west of Rio, the militia holds 3.6 million residents in the territory under its control. The ‘Comando Vermelho’ has hegemony in an area comprising 2.9 million residents. A little over 4.4 million Rio residents live in neighborhoods that are still the target of dispute.

“According to the map, the militias also get into violent territorial disputes and operate in increasingly extensive territories, where they illegally control these neighborhoods, charging extortionate taxes on the markets for basic services such as water, power, gas, cable TV, transport and security, in addition to the real estate market,” says Hirata.

Electoral Violence

The data are particularly troubling in the context of municipal elections. The widespread violence of militias, criminal factions and extermination groups and police has long mingled with politics in the controlled territories and, once again, haunts the elections. On Saturday evening, October 17th, 57-year-old candidate for city council Domingos Barbosa Cabral was shot dead in a bar. Ten days earlier, candidate Mauro Miranda da Rocha, 41, was also shot dead in the region. Both were known to the police for carrying illegal weapons.

In the 2016 elections, 15 candidates were killed in Baixada Fluminense and the metropolitan region. By July that year, nine candidates and pre-candidates had been killed.

It was only last week that the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police Secretariat announced it had set up a task force to fight organized crime in Baixada Fluminense and thus allow, in the words of Civil Police Secretary Allan Turnowski, the holding of a “free election” in the region. “The purpose of this task force is to stifle the militia and allow a free election in the Baixada Fluminense, with candidates freely moving and the people choosing their candidate by free vote,” Turnowski said.

Source: El País