Another UPP, another "victory" for...who, exactly?

On Sunday, the military police (PM) of Rio de Janeiro carried out their "occupation" of Morro da Mangueira, one of the city's most famous comunidades*. This invasion will cinch the "security belt" of UPPs - the 24-hour Police Pacifying Units - that the municipal government has placed around the city's South and Center Zones, with the well-publicized aim of "pacifying" the ten comunidades which lie in close proximity to the Temple of Futbol: Maracana stadium. (Here it should be noted that "pacifying" is a euphemsim for "forcibly expelling drug traffickers").

Note the absence of UPPs (red) in areas far from the city center,
and the belt-like formation around Maracana (yellow).

As Rio will host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later, it is undeniable that the city has some cleaning up to do. It's difficult to disassemble in a mere 3 years an international reputation of violence, drug trafficking, and poverty that has been snowballing since the late 70s when the Commando Vermelho drug faction formed. Given this insurmountable task, the city government has begun to wage a war on their most marginalized residents, criminalizing poverty and robbing comunidade residents of their homes, culture, and livelihoods. Mostly, I will be discussing the evictions and relocations of the 1.5 million-odd Cariocas who are estimated to be displaced by comunidade razings in the years leading up to these two mega-events. Today, however, I am talking about the PM's installation of the UPPs, a less sinister form of urban cleansing, but furtively destructive in its own rite.

Whereas evictions and relocations have clear-cut economic, social, and cultural impacts for affected residents, the UPPs' impact is less tangible. Part of the reason for the harder-to-detect negative fallout of the UPPs is the degree to which they have been extolled by the city's well-heeled, influential upper class who so often find themselves living just a stone's throw from these comunidades (see: Ipanema, Gavea). This praise is not without merit; violence in the middle and upper-class neighborhoods flanked by comunidades with UPPs has decreased markedly. Many comunidade residents themselves will tell you that their streets are now free of tiroteiros (gunfire) and traficantes (drug traffickers).

BOPE and PMs take Mangueira. Photo credit: Paraiba.com.br

But, where has the gunfire and drug trafficking gone? Herein lies one of the biggest flaws with the way in which the government has approached the UPP installations. While comunidades and their neighbors on the asfalto (the "legal" city fabric) may reap the benefits of reduced violence and drug trade, the fact that the UPP installations rarely - if ever - apprehend drug traffickers and arms when the PM invade is illustrative of the government's short-sighted security policies. This weekend, the Fox News of Brazil, O Globo, released an article on the recent "pacification" of Mangueira. They underscore the fact that the occupation was non-violent, and the police were able to take control of the area without incident, as well as seize 300 bundles of marijuana and 50 grams of cocaine.

All of this is true. However, what the article does not mention is that the police failed to apprehend a single firearm (unless you feel like counting one fake plastic rifle). It does call attention the to detention of four Mangueira residents (two of which were minors), but the reader is left to speculate whether or not these pitifully few arrests were actually of traficantes or just recreational drug users. What is clear is that the handcuffing of a mere four people in no way represents the scope of the Commando Vermelho's operations in Mangueira, a community of over 20,000 people. Regardless, the city's head of public security, Jose Beltrame, lauded the occupation as a resounding success.

So where did the traficantes go, with their firearms in tow? Well, given the police's two-week advance warning of the occupation, heavily publicized in the media, fleeing doesn't have to be a last minute burden for a traficante.

It's no secret that residents of Rio's working-class North Zone and distal West Zone have been experienced increased levels of violence since the installation of the UPPs (which are primarily located in the Center and wealthy South Zone). Petty theft, carjackings, and drug-related homicides in the North Zone have risen in tandem with the number of UPPs installed in the South Zone. You don't have to be a Caltech grad to determine the causality here.

If you're still skeptical, and speak Portuguese (or embrace Google Translate), I encourage you to read today's O Globo article on the PM's operation in the West Zone, which took place early this morning. What was the motive? Why, to apprehend traficantes who fled the Mangueira raid, of course!

*I have chosen to use what I consider to be a politically-correct and neutral term, comunidade, in lieu of favela