The dark side of the World Cup

The World Cup is coming to Brazil, but at what cost? AFP Photo/Christophe Simon Source: AFP

As World Cup fever grips the world, take 60 seconds to get to know the host country a little better with some fast facts about Brazil

• Brazil's government introduced program to reduce crime before World Cup
• In the last few months tensions have arisen
• One journalist describes favelas as a war zone
• Police shoot and kill five people every day in favelas

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW.

THIS week football lovers from around the globe will travel to Brazil for the FIFA World Cup, as last minute touches to stadiums and pitches are completed, or in many cases remain incomplete.

But amid all the excitement and carnival magic of o jogo bonito — the beautiful game — there are ugly cracks appearing in a brittle and gaudy exterior.

The estimated 500,000 international visitors attending the World Cup may be aware of the darker world that exists in the slums that surround major cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Fortaleza and Manaus.

What they may not know is that despite the government's six-year efforts to stamp out the violence in these shantytowns — or favelas — before the World Cup, the underbelly is thriving, with shootings by police and drug lords running rampant.

For decades, Brazil has battled drugs, crime and corruption in its poorest areas. In order to eradicate the drug trafficking and reduce the homicide rate in these dangerous neighbourhoods, Brazil deployed a police 'pacification' program (UPP) in 2008.

Residents of the Paraisópolis Favela burn a car to protest the killing of an innocent man by military police. The police say the resident was a criminal fugitive. Photo: Alex Vieira Source: Flickr

These policing measures have been, in many ways, a success. UPP-controlled favelas have seen a 50 per cent drop in homicide rates in Brazil.

But in the last few months, as preparation for the World Cup intensified, violence in the favelas started to rise. Shootings by gangs and police are now occurring far more frequently, and the 2014 Human Rights Watch report states that despite UPP implementation "police misreporting and other forms of cover-up persist".

According to the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, 1,890 people died during police operations in Brazil in 2012. The forum claims police were responsible for 362 killings in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and 165 killings in the state of São Paulo in the first six months of 2013.

This equates to an average of five people killed every day by Brazilian police.

The UPP has been trying to keep the peace in the volatile favelas of Brazil, but residents say they are trigger happy. Source: Supplied

Reports by Human Rights Watch claim the UPP police commonly and openly carry out extrajudicial executions on drug traffickers and innocent civilians, yet the UPP say all victims are either criminal or cooperating with criminals.

Many residents fear the UPP who patrol the favelas and claim that the UPP shoot and kill "anyone who looks suspicious" without asking questions first. Those in the favelas say this includes innocent children, or children who are guilty of minor crimes, and do not deserve death as a punishment.

The 'shoot first, ask later' policy of the Brazilian police has proven deadly for favela residents. AFP Photo/Marcio Ferreira dos Santos Source: AFP

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE BELOW

Four months ago a disturbing photograph was released on social media. It showed the bodies of six boys, aged between 10 and 16, who had been shot dead on a favela stairway. The shooting was the result of an operation driven by Military Police on the favela Juramento, north of Rio de Janeiro, on February 4, 2014.

Two people were injured, in addition to the six boys killed, during the gunfire. In total, police seized four rifles, two pistols, five grenades, ammunition and drugs. It's a story that is repeated often in these favelas, but — as always — there is more to the story than meets the eye.

This shocking photo was allegedly posted by the BOPE elite police on their Facebook page as a warning to drug lords. Source: Supplied

News.com.au spoke to Spanish journalist, Eduardo Sotos, who has been a correspondent in Brazil for the last two years, freelancing and acting as a translator in the favelas around Rio de Janeiro. Mr Sotos described the atmosphere in favelas as a war zone.

"It's war logic. The UPP are in war and the people of the slums are their enemies," he said.

Mr Sotos said the killing of the six boys was a "vendetta" for the assassination of two UPP police members of the Alemao favela, reportedly shot by a drug gang. One police member was a young woman studying psychology called Alda Rafael Castilho, whose murder made international news.

"It is said that the drug dealers that killed them were hidden in Juramento [favela] and police went there to execute them the day after," Sotos said. But it has never been proven whether the teenagers were in fact drug dealers or connected to the gang.

The military police were allegedly responsible for the killing of six teenage boys in Juramento favela. Source: Getty Images

Community journalists and Juramento residents claim that three of the six boys were innocent, while three were black-listed for minor drug crimes. Sotos doubts that the boys were responsible for the killing of two UPP officers, but says their deaths were a "warning" to the drug dealers.

"There is no doubt of a case of state terrorism, but I repeat, this war has been going on for years," he said.

Sotos explained that many favela residents are shot because they are involved in drug trafficking, but he admitted that gun battles between drug lords and the UPP also resulted in "casualties of war", with innocent men, women and children injured and killed.

At times, the innocent victims are caught by stray bullets in gun battles between gangs and police. Other times the UPP or BOPE (elite Special Forces unit) shoot what Sotos describes as "an innocent resident who has a perceived association with drug dealers".

The BOPE are Brazil's deadliest police, who can 'shoot to kill at any criminal threatening both civilian or member life. Source: Getty Images

"Drug dealers are everywhere in the favela," Sotos said. "People are very scared to walk outside, but they have been living with it for years."

According to Sotos, drug dealers used to occupy street corners and "work" an area. But since the UPP was implemented in 2008, drug traffickers have disappeared behind the flimsy walls of the favela houses.

"When the UPP patrol their district, they are in hiding," Sotos told news.com.au. "They can climb through windows into people's houses and hide from UPP there. But if the police enter by force, search your home, and find a drug dealer there, they will shoot you as well."

In these cases, the police publicly claim the victim "was involved with drugs" and no investigation is launched into their death. The 2014 Human Rights Watch report claims police often remove bodies before a crime scene can be established to hide the evidence.

If this is the case, there's no one stopping them. The report stated: "state criminal justice systems rely almost entirely on police investigators to resolve these cases, leaving police largely to police themselves."

A recent documentary by independent media agency Publica called I died in the Maré investigates the claims of innocent civilian deaths at the hands of police.

Only a few of such cases have been documented in Brazilian media.

"The media doesn't report the stories because there are too many killings," Sotos said. "They don't care because it's not where the tourists are. And yet, there are people dying every day."

The favelas of Brazil are so crowded that it's easy for drug dealers to hide. Photo: Dany13 Source: Flickr

Links to the World Cup

The violence has raised questions about direct links between police killings and the World Cup, with some people claiming the UPP was deployed to clean the streets of Brazil and make the favelas safer for tourists.

Mikkel Keldorf is a Danish journalist who spent time in Brazilian favelas making a documentary. He was due to cover the World Cup, but chose to leave early, saying "my Cup ticket has blood stains of street children".

Many journalists in Brazil have dubbed Keldorf a "sensationalist" journalist, and dismissed his documentary as "poorly researched".

Sotos, who was interviewed by the Danish journalist, said that Keldorf needed more proof to link the street killings directly to the World Cup, and says he should have investigated more cases and interviewed the families of victims in his documentary.

"Mikkel was only here for five months. I have been here for two years, and see things for what they are," Sotos said. "This [violence] has been going on in Brazil for decades, and it will continue after the World Cup too."

Mikkel has refuted Sotos' claims, telling news.com.au that he actually spent 14 months in Brazil - studying in the country for seven months in 2012 before returning for another seven months over 2013-14.

BOPE police officers patrol the streets of favelas in search of criminals. Photo: Fabio Motta/Agencia Estado/AE Source: AFP

But Sotos says that links can be drawn between the UPP's eradication of the favela drug lords and the World Cup.

The UPP project was presented in 2008 by the new governor of Rio Sergio Cabral, and the new Secretary of Security, Jose Mariano Beltrame. According to Sotos, Sergio Cabral won the elections because he had the best favela pacification plan to guarantee the success of the World Cup and Olympics.

Before the UPP "it was literally impossible to make tourists safe in a city controlled by narcos [drug dealers]," Sotos told news.com.au. "Even the timing of UPP was calculated to fit with the World Cup."

A typical favela street. Photo: Gabriel Cabral Source: Flickr

The government planned to install 12,500 UPP soldiers in 40 favelas before the World Cup in June 2014.

To the claims that police are killing to clean the streets, Sotos firmly states that the UPP are not planning to kill innocent people.

"They have a plan to respond to drug dealers," he said. "The pacification of the favelas involves an agreement between the UPP and drug dealers. When the drug dealers break this agreement and shoot at police, they call for back up. Then the BOPE comes in the dead of night and kills people.

"The killings are to warn the drug dealers and restore peace."

But the line between authority and corruption is blurred, and many Brazilians mistrust the UPP. The recent Amnesty International Global 'Stop Torture' report found that 80 per cent of Brazilians fear police authority, as compared to 44 per cent average in the rest of the world.

44 per cent of the world do not feel safe from torture when taken into custody. Image: Amnesty International Source: Supplied

Fear of torture is highest in Brazil, with 80 per cent of Brazilians fearing police authority. Image: Amnesty International Source: Flickr

For Sotos, the future for favela safety looks bleak.

"In many favelas in north part of Rio de Janeiro the UPP are going to fail. They don't have the money," he said. "The government said to people that the UPP was for the World Cup and meant to last. It won't last."

A young man living in the Rocinha favela, the largest favela in Rio, wrote about his fear of the BOPE and UPP police.

"It's difficult to see who are good and who are corrupt when it comes to the police. We have suffered so much abuse and oppression from the majority of the police so it blurs the lines when it comes to who the good ones are."

If you are travelling to Brazil for the World Cup, read the government travel warnings.

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