- Title: BRAZIL: Rio launches new pacifying police unit following violence wave
- Date: 1st December 2010
- Summary: CHURCH IN MACACO SLUM EXTERIOR OF STATION WHERE POLICE PRESENTED WEAPONS AND DRUGS SEIZED IN ALEMAO SLUM DURING THE WEEKEND RAID VARIOUS OF TABLETS OF MARIJUANA AND COCAINE SEIZED BY POLICE RIO DE JANEIRO SECURITY SECRETARY JOSE MARIANO BELTRAME SHOWING TABLETS OF MARIJUANA TO REPORTERS BELTRAME TALKING TO REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) RIO DE JANEIRO SECURITY SE
- Embargoed: 16th December 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Brazil
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: Police
- Reuters ID: LVA986UH2D4M4Z6FPM5RTMCVRRIK
- Story Text: A new unit of Rio de Janeiro's so-called "pacifying police" was launched on Tuesday (November 30) at a slum where a police helicopter was shot down about one year ago.
The unveiling of the new Police Pacification Unit, or UPP, at the Macaco slum comes two days after a massive operation took control of a notorious favela following a week of violence that killed nearly 50 people in the city.
Rio State Governor Sergio Cabral announced some 230 police officers will serve the Macaco community's 27,000 residents to prevent drug gangs from entering the slum, considered one of Rio's most violent.
Drug traffickers were driven out of the hillside shantytown about two months ago following a series of police raids.
Macaco is the thirteenth slum in Rio to receive a pacifying police unit, which were pointed out as the cause of last week's violence wave, as drug lords pushed out of their home turf by the initiative lashed out at police.
During the ceremony, attended by many local residents, Cabral pledged to regain control of all of Rio's slums.
"We will continue to recover all territories and it will be warfare because when you fight for a territory it's war; when it is conquered then comes peace," he said.
The UPPs combine community-based policing with amenities such as soccer fields and free wireless Internet to win over hearts and minds in areas where the state previously had little, if any, presence.
While the recent efforts to regain control of the city's drug-ruled communities have been applauded by most Rio residents and slum dwellers, it has also raised doubts about its effectiveness. Rio has about 1,000 favelas and establishing similar units in all of them would imply multimillion-dollar investments and thousands of new police recruits.
Only a few miles away from the Macaco slum, police officials presented tons of drugs and weapons seized during their massive raid at the Alemao slum on Sunday.
Over the past two days, police made a record seizure at the vast favela which included 135 weapons, 33 tons of marijuana, 235 kilos of cocaine and materials used to weigh and pack drugs.
Rio's Security Secretary, Jose Mariano Beltrame, said the operation had freed Alemao residents from a "drug-gang dictatorship."
"All the objects you are seeing here imposed a dictatorship of silence, they forced 350 to 400 thousand people into slavery. This is what will be over initially; this is what we ended and this is what we will not allow to go on being done," he said.
Dozens of suspected drug traffickers, including two alleged gang leaders were arrested during Sunday's raid.
Rio officials have pledged to set up a pacifying police unit at the Alemao by the first quarter of 2011 and have asked the army to help secure the community until then. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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