Rio's militias: Security at a price

INTERVIEW / Cláudio Ferraz

Comunidad Segura invited Delegado Cláudio Ferraz, Head of the Special Investigations into Organized Crime Unit (Draco) of Rio de Janeiro State's Civil Police force, to talk about militias, as the paramilitary presence is known in his city. Ferraz, who is currently investigating militia activities in the state, stressed the challenge posed by its links with politics.

What are the militias?

Militias are groups that exert control over specific areas. Today 'militia' is a term we use for groups of police officers or agents of the state who control certain areas and who present themselves as defenders of the local population, against the action of the drug trade. This is because it has become a convention to see drug traffickers are a great security threat.

We define militia as groups of police officers who exert territorial control, tecnically, the term describes any group that exerts control over territory, even drug traffickers. The militia members who pose as denfenders of a certain region are acting in the very same way that drug traffickers are.

How do the militias make their appearance, historically?

There is a single reason for the emergence of the militia in our case: inefficiency on the part of the state. At some point in our history, the population was being subjugated by drug traffickers and caught  between the violent confrontations between them and the police. This lack of security, and the lack of access to the justice system, led the population to see these groups of rogue policemen as mythic problemsolving figures, as if they possessed some kind of exotic wisdom. But the truth of it is that what these groups are after is simply money and power.

What role has the local population played in this emergence?

The population does not want the militia, the drug traffickers, or anyone for that matter who will limit their freedom. Neither are they desirous of a police state with 500 armed men in their community, what they do want is security.

What is shocking to me is the absolute control they have been able to exert over certain areas, to the point of organizing illegal squatters and invasions, picking the people who will take part, and defining the central power holders. They exert their power through murder, through violence and by dominating the politics and the commercial activities in the region.

Why have militias in Rio de Janeiro grown so much over the past 18 months?

There are favelas (shantytowns) that have been created by the very people interested in having territorial control. It is great business, and it is also a throwback to a previous era: you carve out your piece of the land and then start charging for the services rendered at that location. This is one of the reasons behind the growth of the militias over the past few months. The great factor behind their growth however, is the fact there is no standard across the city, no general standard in the provision of security or criminal justice. That is why we get these groups of “paladins”, much like it happens elsewhere around the world. If there is a breach somewhere, it will be filled.

Is it related to the increasing repression of drug trafficking?

Actually, it is possible that overall levels of consumption of illegal drugs have dropped. The drug market has changed with the arrival of synthetic drugs on the one hand, and of “esticas” or drug selling points outside the shantytowns. Consumers do not want to go to the shantytowns now to buy drugs because of all the violence.

Shantytowns lost a lot of their attraction, and this is an additional factor. The repression has  caused a context of such belligerency that one could say it even generated a certain aura of romanticism around militias that emerged claiming to reduce the brutality in the area. It is a response of sorts to the population that pressures for a solution, because of the constant clashes, it served to incense the police into attacking with growing force.

And how do the militias relate to authorities?

In 2005 there was an upsurge in brutal violence because these groups began to dispute the market and to compete for political support. There are militias that support federal congressmen, and there are those that provide indirect support for senators, state representatives, city representatives. These groups also benefit from political support, they define who wins elections in specific areas, and have the power of life and death over entire communities. It is a reign of terror. Murders are committed for symbolic reasons, so as to generate absolute terror.

Is is possible to compare the relation between the police and the militia, and the relation between the police and the drug traffickers in Rio shantytowns?

Firstly we have to admit that the militias are made up of agents of the state. This undenyably generates before us a great problem. For example: We have here a milita that controls the entire Zona Oeste (West Rio de Janeiro) commanded by police officers who, in turn, have a congressman and a city councilman. They are police officers who work where you live, who know your routine, know who you are. For example, if you are going to arrest a drug trafficker in a community (shantytown) in the North Rio de Janeiro, you will hardly find him in a shopping center at the (affluent) South Rio de Janeiro area. You will, though, find militia men in these places. I have already had to go to elite spots in Ipanema and Leblon to make arrests. They are habitues. There is a background in common. They know where you work and more, how you work. They have supporters among politicians, there are groups in the Justice system behind them. In other words, its a whole different ball game. And it gets increasingly dangerous, because they are pressed ever harder to defend their sources of cash, which is hardly negligible, and they are forced to do so by any means necessary.  The risk levels are much greater. We usually say, as police officers, that it is easy to go and arrest “flip flops”. (Traffickers in shantytowns, sport flip-flops, police officers boots.)  They are two separate worlds. You go there, you arrest the guys in flip-flops and there is a distance between you. Now a militia made up of police officers is quite something else. He is part of your métier, he knows how you work, he knows your thinking, he understands the type of logic at work in your trade. It is really quite something else. Very different. And infinetely more risky.    

How are the militias seen publicly?

As far as the general public is concerned the story goes that the militia is fighting the drug trafficker. I will grant that a few simple-minded people may imagine that they are in fact fighting the drug trade. But, for example, we have records of military police officers who rape, kill, rob and hire ex-cops expelled from the police force for having committed crimes, who hire criminals, to work as partolmen in their territory. This is how you subjugate a place completely. And since power was not legitimately obtained, it is exerted through force. Certainly despite what they say, what is going on is not fighting the drug trade.

It goes this way: the population wants security, peace, freedom and order. How they get it is not a problem. So any group that enters a community (shantytown) to take it over will be rejected. But, on the other hand if someone comes in to reduce the levels of violence, this person will find support. Locals want peace and tranquility, but they have given up on asking for it. What does a local inhabitant think? He tells himself : “If they come here and offer me less barbaric violence, I am content”.

Read more: The interview in full with Claudio Ferraz, in Portuguese.

Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi