Thousands of protesters gathered in a Rio favela hit by fire this week. deadliest police operation in Brazilian history demand an investigation into the killings and an end to security policies that have turned working-class neighborhoods into “war zones.”
At least 121 people, including four police officers, were killed Tuesday in police attacks on Complexo da Penha and Complexo do Alemao, two large tapestries of favelas in northern Rio. The operation made international headlines when dozens of mutilated bodies were dumped at the entrance to one of these favelas.
On Friday afternoon, white-clad demonstrators gathered at Vila Cruzeiro's soccer field to condemn the violence and demand the ouster of Rio's right-wing governor, Claudio Castro, who ordered the offensive. One woman carried the green and yellow flag of Brazil, smeared with red paint, on her shoulders.
“We don't want Rio de Janeiro blood. We must stop this blood that is being shed in Rio de Janeiro,” protester Raimunda Leone, who lives in a nearby community called Chapadao, told favela news agency Voz das Comunidades. “No mother wants to see her son stretched out on the ground, riddled with bullets.”
As the group moved through the community's bullet-riddled streets, singing and chanting, its leaders held up a banner that read: “Favela Lives Matter.”
“We all feel empty,” said Jurema Werneck, director of Amnesty International Brazil. “It's so sad to see what's happening in our communities. It's terrible what the people who live there are going through… Those who live in war zones will understand this pain, this despair and this uprising.”
Earlier in the day, security chiefs defended their operation, with civilian police chief Felipe Curi calling it a legitimate response to the “expansionist fury” of the Red Command drug gang, whose heavily armed foot soldiers control the region.
“We have received incredible feedback on the operation from favela residents praising [us]Congratulations [us] “and asking for more operations like this,” Khoury said, insisting police had dealt a “serious blow” to the crime group and were “close” to catching its local boss.
Khoury said 78 of the 99 victims identified so far had some kind of criminal history. In a clear sign of the Red Command's growing influence throughout Brazil, at least 21 of those killed were from three Amazon states: Amazonas, Pará and Mato Grosso.
But there was anger at Friday's demonstration as local residents and civil rights activists condemned what they called a massacre targeting the disadvantaged favelas, which are predominantly black.
“Their pain is my pain,” Priscila Barros, a resident of a favela called Jacarezinho, told Voz das Comunidades, holding a sign that read: “Basta!” (Enough!). Until this week, Jacarezinho held the record for the deadliest police operation ever, with 28 people killed there in May 2021.
“I’ve never seen so many bodies at once and I hope I never see it again,” Werneck said. “Claudio Castro has blood on his hands – and this is not the first time. But this time he has gone far beyond what we could have imagined.”
Security experts also condemned the operation as a senseless bloodbath that will do nothing to end Rio's 40-year drug conflict.
Silvia Ramos, coordinator of the Center for Research on Public Security and Citizenship in Rio, called the “catastrophic, tragic and savage” crackdown in the favelas an “international disgrace.”
Ramos said many thousands of “poor young black men from the favelas” have been shot dead since the 1980s during countless police operations that have failed to bring lasting peace. “[Rio’s governors] we know and we know what it is [operation] absolutely nothing will change, not even an ounce, when it comes to the position of the Red Command in Rio or in Brazil… In a month, the Red Command will be as organized, and maybe even more organized, than it was before,” Ramos predicted.
Cecilia Oliveira, a security specialist whose group Fogo Cruzado (Crossfire) tracks gun violence, called the operation “a portrait of a government that has replaced politics with spectacle.”
Yet while many are outraged by this week's massacre, much of Brazilian society and its media applauded the killings, as did many prominent right-wing politicians positioning themselves as hardline “law and order” candidates ahead of next year's general elections.
Several conservative presidential candidates flew to Rio on Thursday to bless the operation.
“In my opinion, he was wrongly called the deadliest [operation] when it should be considered most successful,” said Romeu Zema, governor of Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second most populous state.
Castro said authorities had no choice but to “neutralize” the armed “narco-terrorists.” “I encourage anyone to carry a rifle in any city, such as Paris, London, Barcelona, New York or Frankfurt, and try to stay alive for more than 20 or 30 seconds. In these places, a person with a rifle is considered a terrorist,” Castro told reporters.
Khoury said security chiefs had “nothing to hide” amid claims many of those killed were summarily executed. One dead man was beheaded and his head was displayed on a tree in the hills above Vila Cruzeiro.
Khoury denies the involvement of security forces. “Who said the police cut off the head?” He said, arguing that traffickers may have beheaded the man “to get press attention.”
