November 09, 2006

May 2006: In revenge for a wave of killings by Brazil’s all-powerful gangs, police take to the streets and gun down 492 people in one week. Six months on Sao Paulo is still paralysed with fear. Tom Phillips reports from a city on the brink of a civil war

The taxi driver squints uncomfortably. “It’s like fire there,” he warns ominously, as I pass him the address on the eastern limits of Sao Paulo.

Welcome to the periferia of Sao Paulo; the impoverished outskirts of one of the world’s largest cities, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the megalopolis in search of gold streets have been abandoned to their own dismal fate.

We have come to Jardim Santo Andre to meet 23-year-old Maria Dinauci de Lima, until four months ago a happily married mother of two from Ceara, in the northeast. When Sao Paulo exploded into violence in May, temporarily bringing her adoptive city to a standstill, she found herself at the epicentre of the storm.

The driver drops us at the entrance to the shanty town where she lives, alongside a concrete, pollution stained housing estate. Reluctant to go any further, he directs us vaguely down a series of dirt tracks which lead out on to a sprawling urban wasteland. The area was once a landfill site, but now houses thousands of immigrants fleeing poverty in the northeast.

Maria is changing the nappy of her four-month-old son when we arrive. She climbs the concrete steps that lead to her small house and directs us into her sparsely decorated bedroom. A neatly made double bed and two cots are her only furniture apart from a new TV, from which President Lula – himself a northeastern immigrant to Sao Paulo – is waxing lyrical about his attempts to aid Brazil’s dispossessed.

”I didn’t even know what was going on in Sao Paulo,” she remembers, seemingly confused by our interest in her husband’s death. “I just heard shots and everyone here started shutting their doors. I closed mine; too, I was so scared. But I never thought it had to do with him.”

She soon found out from neighbours that, in fact, it did. Maria left her house in panic and headed for the hospital, where she was barely able to recognise her 29-year-old husband, Lindomar Lino da Silva, the owner of a hair dressing salon. He had been shot twice in the forehead.

Sao Paulo has, in just over four months, been transformed into a city of fear. The four day offensive in May by local gangsters temporarily turned one of the world’s great financial capitals into a virtual ghost town. Armed criminals went on the rampage in both the city and the interior of the state, touting automatic rifles and machine guns, hunting down policemen and prison officers and hurling petrol bombs at public buildings. Hundreds of buses were set alight, leaving the streets virtually empty and the transport system in chaos.

In a matter of days, 23 law enforcement officers were gunned down across the state of Sao Paulo –– more than in the whole of 2005. And when the attacks began to subside on May 15, the police reaction began.

Human rights groups have since demanded a thorough investigation into police actions after nearly 200 people died in suspicious circumstances that week. Many believe that a systematic revenge campaign was sparked by the attacks –– that, stunned by the assault on their colleagues, members of Sao Paulo’s police force took to the streets with the intention of exterminating the new enemy.

The violence was unprecedented in scale, even for a city like Sao Paulo, renowned for its high crime rate. So bloody were the attacks that politicians, media outlets and academics alike have, in its wake, begun describing the start of an ‘urban guerrilla war’. It is a drastic and problematic conclusion –– yet one which is in many ways borne out by numerical comparisons with official war zones.

Among the dead was Maria’s husband Lindomar, who one neighbour (too scared to make any type of statement) believes he saw being executed by a military policeman. The distinction between war and organised crime means little to Maria, perched on the bed she once shared with her husband. “All I know,” she says, with an air of resignation, “is that I’m on my own now and I have to raise these two alone.”

To understand the recent wave of violence in Brazil’s economic capital you must visit the so- called ‘Park of Monsters’. Located in Taubate – an unremarkable town in the interior of Sao Paulo best known until now for its manufacturing industry – the Parque dos Monstros is the birthplace of the group behind May’s attacks: a crumbling sky prison complex, number 746 Marechal Deodoro Avenue. These days the tiled roof of a picturesque white chapel peeks over the barbed wire perimetre fence, offering little hint of the bloodletting from which Brazil’s most feared crime group was born.

It was mid of August 31, 1993 and, here at Taubate’s Casa de Custodio (Custody Centre), a now legendary football match between two rival prison gangs was about to commence. The atmosphere was tense as the convicts limbered up in the jail yard.

Even before the whistle was blown, the slaughter began. Geleiao, the hulklike captain of a team known as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Command of the Capital, or PCC) grabbed the head of an opponent and snapped his neck, killing him almost instantly. His team Cesinha pulled out a cut-throat razor and slit the throats of several others. In the ensuing fight, more lives were lost.

The PCC –– a sprawling criminal association that claims to fight for the rights of Sao Paulo’s prisoners – was born. Geleiao and Cesinha, who came to be known as the group’s fundadores (founders), had taken the first steps in creating a Frankenstein-like criminal faction which, 13 years on, would control most of the prison system in Sao Paulo as well as large tracts of the city. It took its name from Geleiao’s football team, the First Command of the Capital.

For the following eight years the PCC remained relatively unknown in Brazil, despite gradually taking root in much of Sao Paulo’s prison system, through its brutal rule of law. Those who signed up were spared. Those who resisted were often subjected to the most brutal beatings or simply killed.

Then in 2001, the so-called ‘mega rebellions’ began. It was February 8 and simultaneous riots broke out in 20 jails across the state. When the dust settled at least 20 prisoners had lost their lives –– beheaded, burnt or mutilated, as members of rival factions such as the PCC and the lesser Seita Satanica (Satanic Sect), jostled for dominance.

Even then, Brazilian authorities shied away from admitting the existence of what is now described as Brazil’s largest, most dangerous crime faction –– so powerful, in fact, that its leadership are said to enjoy personal visits from high class prostitutes, even behind bars.

News of the attacks spread like wildfire across Brazil, stamped on to the front page of every newspaper and with rolling, 24-hour television news reports providing frantic updates about what the media branded ‘Brazilian terrorism’. Parts of Sao Paulo lay completely abandoned, with a 95 per cent reduction in traffic in some of its busiest thoroughfares as residents took refuge in their own homes and bus companies pulled their fleets off the streets. It was as if a hurricane had battered the city, leaving its stunned population stranded indoors, watching the violence unfold on television, accompanied by the kind of cinematic, spine-chilling soundtrack which the country’s sensationalist news programmes so enjoy.

Virtually overnight the PCC became a household name. Its leader, Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, or Marcola, a convicted bank robber under lock and key in the Presidente Bernardes maximum security prison, 590km from Sao Paulo, became a South American bogeyman enveloped in a thick mist of fear and mystery.

I have been invited to watch a short film produced by members of the police force about the PCC. Family viewing it is not. For five minutes the film takes you on a Dantesque tour of the Sao Paulo prison system, introducing you to its inmates ––– both the living and the dead.

The PCC’s reputation as a ruthless, blood thirsty mob is not without basis. Frequent shows of mind boggling brutality mean the group is famed, above all else, for its muscle. But the PCC is far more sophisticated than many government officials have been prepared to admit: a highly organised criminal network, made up of prisoners and drug traffickers, it even has a team of lawyers, as well as tentacles that stretch right across South America. Its sprawling, Mafia like chain of command makes dismantling the group a complex task. Orders come from inside Sao Paulo’s decaying prison system, where the omnipresence of mobile phones and corrupt lawyers means the ruling council is able to issue instructions even while under guard.

Outside, a second tier of faction leaders known as torres (towers) act as the representatives of the PCC’s incarcerated bosses, controlling their lucrative drug-distribution point; which are scattered across the state of Sao Paulo. Beneath them come the pilotos (pilots) who coordinate the activities of the group’s ‘soldiers’. Finally, at the bottom of the pile, are the so-called ‘Bin Ladens’ – criminals who owe favours to the faction and can be called up as a kind of reserve force for specific missions.

The PCC’s expertise too often gives it the edge over the authorities. Among the party’s collaborators are master criminals such as the Chilean kidnapper Mauricio Norambuena, also being held in Presidente Bernardes’s 160-cell maximum-security compound.

The PCC has no lack of funds or weapons. Investigators believe its ‘business interests’ (principally drug trafficking and lucrative robberies or kidnappings) stretch well into the millions. It is thought to have been involved in the snatch of R$165m (£40m) from a bank in the northeastern port of Fortaleza in August 2005, while earlier this month Paraguayan police seized 591 machine guns and rifles on the border with Brazil, which they believe were partly destined for the PCC in Sao Paulo.

The PCC’s sheer size has given it a virtual monopoly on drug trafficking within the prison system. Some estimates say that around 80 per cent of Sao Paulo’s prison population either sympathise with or are full blown members of the organisation, paying a monthly subscription fee of around R$150 (£38). Such prisoners see membership as a form of protection from prison guards and rival factions and, perhaps, a way of fighting for better jail conditions.

Yet while the PCC undoubtedly basks in its reputation for violence, it is also keen to paint itself as a revolutionary guerrilla group, modelling itself on the struggles of Che Guevara. It has its own set of 16 ‘laws’ and is divided into independent cells that can be activated by jailer leaders with one simple phone call. Those who have met the group’s leader Marcola, describe him as an intelligent, chillingly poetic man, whose reading list is said to include Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Machiavelli’s The Prince and Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.

And like all guerrilla groups worth their salt, the PCC even boasts its own marketing department, which seeks to portray the group not as a criminal faction but as either a human rights group fighting to improve the lives of Sao Paulo’s 142,000strong prison population, or a rebel army leading a revolucao dos pobres (revolution of the poor).

One man accused of being at the forefront of this marketing campaign is Ivan Raymondi Barbosa, a former police investigator who him self spent five months in a Sao Paulo jail (he was implicated in an international smuggling ring) and who now heads an NGO called Nova Ordem. Nova Ordem, he claims, is engaged in the battle against torture and violence in the state’s hellish prison system. Authorities, however, are investigating its links to the PCC.

What is clear is that Nova Ordem carries considerable clout with what is described as Brazil’s largest criminal organisation. Back in May, when the first round of PCC attacks were halted, one of the key negotiators was Iracema Vasciaveo, Nova Ordem’s legal representative, who was flown into Presidente Bernardes with high members of the Sao Paulo government to meet with Marcola.

We meet Barbosa at the group’s HQ in a smart office block in Sao Paulo. He is charming, talkative and clad in thick gold jewellery (one stamped with the group’s initials, NO). “We want to draw attention to corruption and physical abuse in prisons,” he says. “The abuse is so reminiscent of concentration camps that, in slang, prisons are referred to as Alemanha, or ‘Germany’.”

He clicks open an archive of photos on his desktop and begins a gory tour through a series of images that he says were smuggled out of high security prisons using mobile phones. First a deformed, swollen hand appears, with a thick line of stitches running across it. The guards, Barbosa claims, set dogs on the prisoner. Next appears a man’s back, with a series of bullet wounds. Again, he says, the guards were responsible.

On the other side of town, in the library of Sao Paulo’s public prosecutor, 42 Marcio Christino laughs off the idea that the PCC has anything to do with peace, justice or liberty. A playful, chubby faced attorney, Christino has been doing battle with the PCC since 2001 – during which time he has come into regular contact with Marcola. He views the idea that the PCC has a genuine political agenda as pure fantasy. “This is an image they want to sell to justify what they do,” he says.

As we drive into the city that evening, through a series of heavily manned police road blockades, the sky is illuminated with the red flicker of sirens. We have been told to expect a repeat of May’s violence. Instead, what we find is a security showcase.

The fear that has taken hold of Sao Paulo is not hard to grasp. Threats of new attacks appear in the Brazilian media on an almost daily basis. Sometimes they come in the form of reports of ‘police intelligence’ indicating the chance of further violence. Occasionally, however, they come directly from the PCC’s very own propaganda division.

On 12 August, members of the faction kidnapped 30 years old Guilherme Portanova, a television reporter from Globo, Brazil’s largest media network. His captors demanded the television station transmit a video and, at 12:30 pm the following day, the channel yielded. Normal programming was interrupted as a hooded spokesperson for the gang appeared on screen, against a white backdrop daubed with the phrase ‘Peace and Justice’ in black spray paint.

”The Brazilian penal system is in truth a true human deposit where human beings are thrown as if they were animals,” the man said.

Finally, as the video drew to a close, the PCC’s representative issued a stark warning, “Our fight is with the governors and the police,” he said. “Don’t mess with our families and we won’t mess with yours...”

Several weeks later another journalist – this time from a rival broadcaster – was badly assaulted in Sao Paulo. At the time, press reports made no link to the PCC, but supposedly police believe this was another attempt to terrorise the country’s media and force the PCC’s message on to the airwaves once again.

Back in Barbosa’s office, I ask if and when he believes Sao Paulo will see more PCC attacks. He furrows his brow at the question and lets out a dismissive chuckle, as though the ‘if’ part of the question has completely missed the point. “What is the PCC going to do next?” asks Barbosa. “I don’t know. I’m scared of a civil war.” — Dawn/Observer Service

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