Here's an article from column 4 of the WSJ today. I can't link, so I've posted it in full. If you don't want to read, just skip it. I feel it fits in pretty well with the discussion at hand.
<strong>A Rio de Janeiro Slum Credits
Shadowy Vigilantes for Safety
Slum Rio das Pedras Is Seen as Urban Utopia
By Residents Who Cheer Lack of Crime, Drugs
By MIRIAM JORDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
RIO DE JANEIRO -- For Maria de Lourdes Luna, home is a one-room hut shared with five relatives. The stench of sewage fills the alleys, and refuse gushes past the shanties from an open ditch after a hard rain.
Yet for her and many others, the slum of Rio das Pedras is an urban utopia -- one of the few Brazilian shantytowns, or favelas, not tormented by drugs and drug-related violence. Children fly kites and play ball free from fear of ricocheting bullets. People sleep with doors unlocked and windows ajar. Even petty crime is rare.
"There's no better place to live. This is paradise," says Ms. Luna, a 43-year-old housekeeper. "We can put up with anything -- rats, floods, trash -- as long as we're spared drugs."
Behind that tranquility and order, however, is a dark secret: Residents believe that a shadowy organization of civilian vigilantes, comprised of off-duty and retired policemen as well as ordinary citizens, keeps the peace by meting out extrajudicial killings to drug dealers and other lawbreakers. Alleged militia murders provide an ironic sense of comfort in a city so inured to drug-related violence that extreme measures aren't considered extreme anymore.
People who live in Rio das Pedras are coy about talking openly of the informal "policia." But they condone the principle of selective violence against troublemakers for the sake of preserving community peace. "It's better to have this than violence against honest folks and innocent children," says Maria Jose, Ms. Luna's sister, a mother of four who has lived in the favela for 11 years. "The only people who die in Rio das Pedras are people who deserve to die."
Once Brazil was primarily a transit point for illicit drugs produced in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. Now, it's the world's second-largest consumer of cocaine, after the U.S., according to the State Department. Rio de Janeiro's 680 slums, home to almost a quarter of the city's nine million residents, are the main battlegrounds. The teeming, hilly settlements are perfect bases and hideouts for drug rings. Drug lords control entry into most of them. At night, favela lanes crackle with firefights between police and drug gangs, whose arsenals include automatic weapons and even shoulder-fired rockets.
Children as young as 12 are recruited into the illicit trade. More than 2,000 adolescents were killed in the city last year, mostly related to drugs. Just a few miles from Rio das Pedras is the chaos of Cidade de Deus, or City of God, the subject of a film by that name that's startling American audiences with its portrayal of preteen drug traffickers who kill without thinking twice.
Rio's drug gangs recently extended their tyranny beyond the favelas, shutting down shops, torching buses and launching grenades in swanky districts. Last week, state Governor Rosinha Matheus fired the security czar and replaced him with her husband and predecessor, Anthony Garotinho. Mr. Garotinho plans a shakeup in the top brass of the police force.
Rio das Pedras -- literally, "River of Stones" -- stands in sharp contrast to the mayhem. A hodgepodge of rough-brick, two-story hovels and cardboard shacks with tin roofs, it has been one of the city's fastest-growing slums. It's now home to about 80,000 people, up from 60,000 three years ago. Bakeries, food stores, pet shops, beauty salons and ice-cream parlors attract people from outlying areas. Youngsters from nearby middle-class districts boogie at The Castle, a dance hall.
Sirlene Ferreira, a loan officer for a microcredit agency, says she doesn't venture into certain parts of the notorious Cidade de Deus in broad daylight. But Rio das Pedras is "so calm," she says, "I don't have a worry in the world."
The widespread belief in a militia "reinforces good conduct and provides emotional comfort in a place that could be just another desolate slum," says Laura Moutinho, a social anthropologist who co-authored a book about Rio das Pedras.
Josinaldo Francisco da Cruz, president of the residents' association, says that a vigilante force existed in the 1970s, but no more. Still, he notes that residents are "determined to keep the peace with whatever weapons are at their disposal."
Local police don't mince words about vigilante activity: "It is good for the community, because innocent folks aren't caught in the crossfire between armed drug traffickers and police," says Mario Henrique de Oliveira Alves, chief officer at the 16th police precinct, whose turf includes Rio das Pedras. "It's better for the police, too. We don't have to make incursions."
The police can't say how many killings occurred in Rio das Pedras last year in part because the 16th precinct is one of the few police stations in the city that doesn't store information on a computer. Anecdotal evidence suggests there were at least a few.
One apparent case of vigilantism involved Marcelo Santos de Souza, who was born and raised in the slum, and as a child enjoyed playing marbles in the alleys and soccer in the fields. But in his teens, Mr. Souza stole T-shirts and shorts that surfers left on nearby Barra da Tijuca beach. He graduated to snatching purses, wallets and cellphones. He got into drugs.
"For 10 years we tried to get him to change his ways," says Jurandir Alcides, 28, who grew up with Mr. Souza and runs a corn stall. "He was tarnishing Rio das Pedras' reputation."
It came as no surprise to relatives when Mr. Souza was killed just before Christmas at the age of 24. Peter Santos de Souza says his cousin was shot multiple times at close range and his body was dumped in a deserted lot. He and other relatives decline to finger the vigilantes and refuse to blame anyone for the murder, except perhaps Mr. Souza himself.
"He was asking for trouble," says Maria Helena Santos Pierre, an aunt who helped raise Mr. Souza. "I still believe this is the best place to live; nothing diminishes that fact." The most any of Mr. Souza's relatives will say on the subject of vigilantism is this: "It's not good, but it's better than nothing," says Clarita Pierre, a cousin. "Without it, this place would be overrun by drug traffickers."
For years, Raimundo Bezerra da Silva had been stealing from shoe shops, grocery stores and other businesses. His brother-in-law, Antonio Francisco Cosmo, says Mr. da Silva brought cocaine into the community. "We did everything we could to put him on the right track," says Mr. Cosmo, noting that he paid for driving lessons in the hope that Mr. da Silva would land a job as a driver.
One night in May 2001, shortly after closing his shop, Mr. Cosmo said he heard a gunshot -- a rarity in Rio das Pedras. He ran toward the sound, only to find the 18-year-old Mr. da Silva dead from a single bullet to the head. The family doesn't know who killed Mr. da Silva but assumes it was vigilantes.
Neither Mr. Souza's nor Mr. da Silva's family reported the deaths to the police. Residents say the last thing they want is a stronger police presence or even a neighborhood police station, because police in other slums are corrupt and have even bred violence.
Despite the poverty and filth, the absence of drug crime has created a strong sense of pride and belonging in Rio das Pedras. The pull is so strong that when the government periodically removes families from the favela's flood-prone areas and gives them housing elsewhere, many end up returning -- or longing to.
When Jaciara Santos was forced by the government to leave last year, the state gave her family a larger brick house in a new public development an hour's bus ride away. But Ms. Santos has put up a "for sale" sign and intends to return to Rio das Pedras, even if she has to live in a shack. Her new environment "is not appropriate for raising children." she says.
"In Rio das Pedras, you live in peace. People watch over the community."
Write to Miriam Jordan at miriam.jordan@wsj.com
Updated May 6, 2003
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