The Federal Police investigates the involvement of drug traffickers in the murder of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips. When the two disappeared, the federal government played dead. In the face of national and international pressure, Bolsonaro he blamed the victims, and the army suggested that he didn’t move because the president didn’t want to.
Once the search and investigation had begun, the efficiency of the authorities was impressed. Then, the PF prematurely ruled out the possibility of a mastermind; with the scream, he went back to investigate. The government moves in spasms, at the mercy of the pressure of public opinion.
The military is fixated on the fact that foreign powers covet the Amazon, but prefer to fight electronic voting machines rather than occupy and defend the region. When the State does not occupy the territory, someone else does – in this case, organized crime, which, instead of imposing the law, carries out international drug trafficking and illegal hunting, fishing, mining and deforestation.
The Amazon is not the only place where the State stops occupying the territory: in urban areas, there are entire regions, and even prisons, controlled by drug traffickers and/or militias. The more time that passes, the greater the power of the criminals, who are already infiltrated in the three powers of the Republic.
Rio de Janeiro is an emblematic case, a kind of manual on how the state’s omission and society’s tolerance allow organized crime to thrive. The animal game is violent, involves other crimes and corrupts the police, but for decades the state looked the other way and society celebrated murderous bicheiros in social columns and on TV shows.
“Bolsonaro defends torture, has always praised the militias, has a speech that encourages deforestation, illegal mining, hunting and fishing”
With the absence of the State, death squads composed of policemen murdered people (criminals or not) and were viewed with sympathy by a large part of society. The most notorious of these police officers, Mariel Mariscot, dated famous actresses and was treated like a celebrity.
The state allowed drug dealers to control communities and, through an irrational drug policy, armed them to the teeth. Many people saw with good eyes when the militias, made up of police officers and firefighters, expelled the traffickers and imposed their own law. But the law was the strongest, and the militiamen began to commit crimes and extort residents. In the state of Rio, they are now a bigger problem than drug trafficking.
The left turned a blind eye to criminality, the right asked for more violence and the federal government pretended it had nothing to do with it. But the patrolling of borders and main highways, the control of guns and all criminal legislation are federal. The Military Police is an arm of the Army. Criminal factions spread across multiple states.
Brazil will not reduce violence without the active participation of the federal government, but Bolsonaro is against the grain: he defends torture, has always praised the militias, has a speech that encourages deforestation, mining, hunting and illegal fishing (he himself was fined for illegally fishing) , dismantles the inspection, etc. etc.
Bolsonaro tells criminals the following: do what you want, and screw the law. It is not easy to fight crime and violence when the highest authority in the country encourages them.
Published in VEJA of June 29, 2022, issue no. 2795