SAO PAULO VIOLENCE





DIRCEAU PORTUGAL/AP PHOTO
Prisoners hold a guard hostage with a knife at the Campo Mourao, in Parana, Brazil, on Monday, May 15. Masked men attacked bars, banks and police stations with machine guns, gangs set buses on fire and inmates at dozens of prisons took guards hostage in an unprecedented four-day wave of violence around Sao Paulo that left more than 80 dead by Monday.


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Sao Paulo violence calms
May 16, 2006. 02:45 PM
ALEXANDER RAGIR
ASSOCIATED PRESS


SAO PAULO, Brazil - The unprecedented crime wave that killed at least 97 people and terrified the 18 million residents of South America's largest city seemed to be waning Tuesday as stores reopened and bus service


SAO PAULO, Brazil - The unprecedented crime wave that killed at least 97 people and terrified the 18 million residents of South America's largest city seemed to be waning Tuesday as stores reopened and bus service was fully restored.

Officials found the bodies of 13 inmates after quelling rebellions at dozens of prisons in and around Sao Paolo and retaking control of the lockups, according to Brazilian media. Local reports also said three suspected criminals were shot to death in a Sao Paulo suburb by police after the trio opened fire and hurled a grenade.

The death toll in the rioting, set off by a gang's fury at prison transfers, included 39 officers and prison guards killed since Friday and four civilians caught in the crossfire between police and criminals.

A homemade bomb was set off outside a police station in the city of Tremembe, about 145 kilometres northeast of Sao Paulo, destroying a car but causing no injuries.

Sao Paulo nonetheless appeared to be returning to normal Tuesday morning, a day after it was paralyzed by dozens of bus torchings that prompted businesses to close. Overall there were only a few reported attacks Monday night and Tuesday compared with 181 in the previous four days.

Bus service, which keeps commerce alive in the city, was fully restored after panicked drivers took Monday off over fears they might be attacked, leaving 2.9 million people scrambling to find a way to work.

Stores that were shuttered before dark Monday had reopened. But traffic was light, with many people apparently avoiding work and keeping their children at home.

Through the night, heavily armed police stood guard around the sprawling city as authorities announced a tight clampdown on the gangs that launched the attacks on police stations, bars and banks.

"We're at war with them, there will be more casualties, but we won't back down," state military police chief Col. Elizeu Teixeira Borges said.

Near hastily shuttered businesses in a blue-collar neighbourhood, a dozen officers with shotguns and pistols said they did not fear gang attacks that already killed dozens of their comrades.

"We'll be here waiting," said a grim Officer Edvan Oliveira, his finger resting on the trigger of his shotgun. "We want them to come."

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva offered to send 4,000 elite troops to restore order, but Sao Paulo state Gov. Claudio Lembo said Monday the help wasn't needed even as the chaos prompted the stock market to cancel late trading.

By late Monday night, all 73 prison rebellions had been quelled. The tally of dead in overnight violence from Sunday to Monday was almost exclusively suspected gang members killed in shootouts with police.

The violence was triggered Thursday by an attempt to isolate leaders of the First Capital Command gang which controls drug trafficking and many of Sao Paulo's teeming, notoriously corrupt prisons by transferring eight of them to a high-security facility in a remote part of Sao Paulo state. Leaders of the gang, known as the PCC, reportedly used cellphones the next day to order the attacks.

Officials were worried the violence could spread to Rio de Janeiro, where 40,000 police were put on high alert and extra patrols were dispatched to slums where drug gang leaders live. There were also sporadic reports of violence in other cities in Sao Paulo state, including the killing of a prison guard hit by 20 shots, Globo TV reported.

Police in Sao Paulo said at least 91 people had been arrested since Friday night, when gang members began riddling police cars with bullets, hurling grenades at police stations and attacking officers in their homes and afterwork hangouts.

In the bus attacks, gunmen ordered passengers and drivers off and torched the vehicles. There was no mention of injuries in the dozens of bus burnings.

The PCC was founded in 1993 in Sao Paulo's Taubate Penitentiary and became involved in drug and arms trafficking, kidnappings, bank robberies and extortion.

It staged a massive prison uprising in 2001 in which 19 inmates died, and attacked more than 50 police stations in November 2003. Three officers and two suspected gang members were killed and 12 people injured in those attacks.



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Brazilian gang continues offensive
May 15, 2006. 11:14 AM
STAN LEHMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS


SAO PAULO, Brazil - A criminal gang's bloody wave of attacks on police continued Monday, raising the reported death toll to more than 70 in four days of violence that have started to choke normal life in South America's largest city.

A wave of prison uprisings also continued across Sao Paulo state and the Brazilian news media reported that the federal government was preparing to send troops to restore order in the region.

Officials said Sunday that the death toll had reached at least 52 after at least 100 separate attacks since Friday, but the Globo TV network reported that additional overnight attacks had raised the toll to "more than 70."

Most of those dead were reported to be police officers targeted by a powerful criminal gang protesting transfer of some of its leaders from their current prisons to more remote lockups.

Officials said they had arrested at least 72 suspects.

Attacks on public buses prompted many companies to halt service, stranding thousands of people trying to reach work Monday.

Officers in bulletproof vests set up checkpoints to search vehicles, and barriers were placed in front of many police stations.

Assailants attacked patrol cars, bars where off-duty policemen gather, a courthouse and a highway police outpost. The local news media reported that the assailants used guns, shotguns, grenades, machine-guns and homemade bombs.

Witnesses to the killing of police officer Jose Antonio Martinez told the Folha Online that two men wearing face masks approached as the officer was dining with his wife, shot him several times in the head and ran. His wife was not hurt.

"We can't let this pass," Nilo Faria Hellmeister, a police officer and friend of Martinez, told the news service.

A few kilometres away, witnesses said two groups of men bearing heavy calibre weapons appeared in front of a fire station and began shooting at random, killing a firefighter identified only as Alberto.

Dozens of new prison rebellions also broke out, with 41 uprisings under way across Sao Paulo state Sunday afternoon. Inmates were holding more than 229 prison guards hostage.

TV images showed the buses engulfed in flames, while Folha Online said passengers were ordered out of the vehicles before bandits set them ablaze.

Enio Lucciola, spokesman for the Sao Paulo State Public Safety Department, said the attacks and prison rebellions, planned by the First Capital Command, known by its Portuguese initials PCC, "were the most vicious and deadliest attacks on public security forces that have ever taken place in Brazil."

Lucciola said authorities were prepared for some kind of PCC attack once the transfer of its leaders became known. "But we never imagined it would be so big or ferocious," he said. "It caught us by surprise."

The rebellious prisoners, meanwhile, had not made any demands nor had they harmed any of their hostages, said Jorge de Souza, a media spokesman of the Sao Paulo Prison Affairs Department.

He said visiting relatives were inside several of the prisons but that "we don't consider them hostages because they are there to show solidarity with their jailed relatives. They don't want to leave."

The attacks were in response to the transfer of several imprisoned PCC leaders, a practice authorities use to sever prisoners' ties to gang members outside prison.

Eight PCC leaders were among 765 inmates transferred to a remote, high-security facility in the far western tip of Sao Paulo state.

The PCC was founded in 1993 by hardened criminals at the Taubate Penitentiary in Sao Paulo but remained a relatively obscure group until February 2001, when it organized the biggest prison uprising in Brazil's history.

The gang is involved in drug and arms trafficking, kidnappings, bank robberies and extortion, police say.

During a 10-day period in November 2003, the PCC attacked more than 50 police stations with machine-guns, homemade bombs, shotguns and pistols. Three officers and two suspected gang members were killed and 12 people injured in the apparent attempt to pressure authorities to improve prison conditions.

A 2001 prison uprising organized by the PCC resulted in the deaths of 19 inmates as the rebellion spread to dozens of penitentiaries and jails across Sao Paulo state.



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HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS NETWORK ACTION


To: Human Rights Defenders Network - Americas
From: Human Rights Defenders Program - Americas
Date: 11 September 2000
Duration: 31 October 2000
Country: Brazil
Network No: AMR-HRD 04/00

Action: Human Rights Defenders Network members are requested to contact the Brazilian Embassy in their country regarding death threats and attacks against human rights defenders in Brazil.

BRAZIL: Death threats and attacks against human rights defenders
Summary
Eduardo Bernardes da Silva, a worker with Amnesty International-Brazil in São Paulo, received a suspicious package at his home on 5 September. He opened it partially and found a device covered in swastikas. It is thought to have been sent by a neo-nazi group. Police confirmed that it was a bomb and destroyed it in a controlled explosion.

The next day a similar bomb was sent to the offices of the Associação da Parada GLBT, an association which organizes an annual Gay Pride march, reportedly by the same group.

On 5 September the neo-nazi group also sent letters to two prominent São Paulo human rights commission members, Renato Simões and Ítalo Cardoso, threatening to "exterminate" gays, Jews, black people and nordestinos (people from the impoverished northeast of the country), as well as those seeking to protect their rights. The group said it intends to target a number of human rights organizations on or around Brazil's Independence Day on 7 September, including Tortura Nunca Mais (No More Torture Group), Action by Christians against Torture (ACAT), Amnesty International and gay and lesbian groups.

One letter reportedly read "Não esqueça que temos protecão de gente muito poderosa... O que o GRADI vai fazer? Nos prender? Estamos com muito medo. Seus babacas" - "Don't forget that we have the protection of some very powerful people.. What are the GRADI [police hate crime unit] going to do? Capture us? Oh, we are really scared. You idiots".

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
This is the second time Amnesty International in São Paulo has faced a neo-nazi bomb attack. On 27 September 1999, a group calling itself the Frente Anti-Caus (FAC), Anti-Chaos Front, planted a bomb in the organization's São Paulo office (see UA 157/00, AMR 19/11/00, 13 June 2000). A letter was attached to the bomb, attacking the organization's work in defence of gays and blacks. After this, Eduardo Bernardes da Silva began to receive telephone threats, and once a car attempted to force his motorcycle off the road as he was on his way home.

Despite leaving São Paulo for long periods of time, Eduardo Bernardes da Silva has continued to receive death threats, for example when he was temporarily transferred to the Porto Alegre Amnesty International office. On 23 June 2000, the Amnesty International wrote to the Minister of Justice asking the federal authorities to intervene, and expressing concern at claims that the police had told a neo-nazi group where Eduardo Bernardes da Silva was. Amnesty International has received no official response from the Minister of Justice.

A newly created police unit for hate crimes, Grupo de Repressão e Analise dos Delitos de Intolerancia (GRADI), was assigned to the case. However, their investigation has failed to produce any positive results and protection for those at risk has been extremely limited. Amnesty International believes that the failure of the official investigation has left all those threatened in grave danger.

For further information on these cases please see UA 157/00, AMR 19/11/00, 13 June 2000.

RECOMMENDED ACTION BY HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS NETWORK:
Please coordinate with your section on all this work.
Please send a fax to the Brazilian Embassy in your country requesting a meeting to discuss the threats and attacks against human rights defenders.
In the fax you should:
- welcome the steps taken by Brazilian authorities to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for the hate campaign against AI and other organizations;
- acknowledge receipt, where appropriate, of the letter many Brazilian embassies sent to members in reply to UA 157/00, AMR 19/11/00, 13 June 2000, which explained the steps taken by the authorities in response to the previous threats and attacks;
- state that further threats and attacks have raised additional concerns that you would like to discuss in person with the Embassy.

In the meeting you should:
- express your concern at the continuing campaign of attacks and death threats against Amnesty International, Tortura Nunca Mais (No More Torture Group), Action by Christians against Torture (ACAT), and gay and lesbian groups;
- recognize the steps taken by Brazilian authorities so far to investigate the incidents, including establishing the Grupo de Repressão e Analise dos Delitos de Intolerancia (GRADI), Hate Crimes Unit;
- express your concern that despite almost a year long police investigation, including six months led by the specially created unit, GRADI, the São Paulo state authorities are no closer to identifying and detaining those responsible for the threats and bombs;
- note that this failure has allowed those behind these crimes to extend their campaign of threats and attacks to other human rights activists and minority groups;
- urge the Brazilian government to involve federal agents in the investigations, ensuring sufficient resources and political backing, in order that those responsible are finally brought to justice;
- note that you are aware the São Paulo state authorities have been unwilling to allow federal involvement in the case and consider this lack of willingness as a failure effectively to confront the danger facing human rights activists and minority groups;
- remind the Brazilian government that ultimate responsibility for ensuring human rights protection lies with the Federal government;
- urge the Brazilian authorities to ensure the security of members of Amnesty International, Tortura Nunca Mais (No More Torture Group), Action by Christians against Torture (ACAT) and other Brazilian human rights defenders, by implementing measures that the human rights defenders themselves consider appropriate;
- state that the international community has made clear its concern for the security of human rights defenders in establishing several international mechanisms and urge the Brazilian government adhere to the principles laid out in the UN Declaration on Defenders (Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) of December 1998 and the resolution Human Rights Defenders in the Americas adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS) in June 1999.

Please also note that ACAT coordinators in many countries may wish to participate in joint embassy visits. A list of e-mail contact addresses in those countries with ACAT coordinators will be sent to you shortly. Where possible get in touch with the contact person to discuss/coordinate possible embassy visits

For those coordinators without Brazilian diplomatic representatives in your country, please incorporate the actions included in this document into those recommended in Follow up UA157/00, AMR 19/24/00, 7 September 2000 and target the authorities recommended in the UA.

In case of any doubts or queries regarding this action please contact:
Human Rights Defenders Program (Americas)
Tel: +44 20 7413 5952/5537
Fax: +44 20 7956 1157
E-mail: tmackenz@amnesty.org