Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press
Military police officers raised the Brazilian and Rio flags atop a building in Alemão.
Published: November 28, 2010
RIO DE JANEIRO — In a quick and decisive military sweep, Brazilian security forces seized control of this city’s most notorious slum on Sunday, claiming victory in a weeklong battle against drug gangs that has claimed dozens of lives.
Silvia Izquierdo/Associated Press
Two men suspected of being drug traffickers were arrested Sunday during an operation at the Alemão shantytown.
Sergio Moraes/Reuters
Army soldiers and police took position during an operation in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
By early afternoon the military police had raised the flags of
Brazil and Rio de Janeiro atop a building on the highest hill in the Alemão shantytown complex, providing a rare moment of catharsis and celebration in a decades-long battle to rid this city’s violent slums of drug gangs.
An air of calm and relief swept through the neighborhood, as residents opened their windows and began walking the streets. Dozens of children ran from their houses in shorts and bikinis to plunge into a swimming pool that had belonged to a gang leader, even as the police searched for drugs one floor below.
“We knew about this but we were never allowed to come in,” said one child, who identified himself as Alan, age 3, as he splashed about happily.
Residents congregated around televisions in bars and restaurants, cheering on the police as they would their favorite soccer teams, even as occasional gunfire peppered the sunny skies.
“Now the community is ours,” Jovelino Ferreira, a 60-year-old pastor, said, his eyes filling with tears. “This time it will be different. We have to have faith. Many people have suffered here who didn’t deserve to.”
Drug gangs have stained the reputation of this seaside city and contributed heavily to giving it one of the highest murder rates in the world. For the past two years, the government has carried out an ambitious campaign to pacify the most violent slums and regain control of the city in advance of the 2014 World Cup and
2016 Olympic Games. The police have since wrested more than three dozen communities from criminal gangs,
installing special community police forces there.
As those communities were cleared, some gang members fled to Alemão, a violent, sprawling slum complex with some 100,000 residents that the city’s police chief, José Mariano Beltrame, called “the heart of evil.”
Last Sunday, the drug gangs unleashed a wave of attacks on city streets that authorities said was in retaliation for the pacification campaign. The battle was joined, and since then more than 42 people have been killed in urban fighting between drug gangs and security forces. The police have not said how many, if any, of their officers have died.
The authorities ordered what they said were hundreds of traffickers hiding in Alemão to “surrender with arms in the air by sunset on Friday.” When the traffickers refused, more than 15 armored vehicles blocked some 80 entrances to the neighborhood, barring residents from returning to their homes.
At 8 a.m. Sunday, some 2,600 police officers and military personnel moved in with tanks and personnel carriers. The police said they confiscated 40 tons of
marijuana, 50 assault rifles and 9 antiaircraft guns. There were no confirmed reports of any deaths.
“Today we are assured of the state’s victory and the power of the state,” said Cmdr. Mario Sergio Duarte of the military police, who led the operation.
But questions remained about how effective the raid would be and how long the authorities could maintain control of Alemão.
The police said they detained 20 people on Sunday, but they had entered the slum with more than 100 arrest warrants to execute.
Residents said that many of the criminals had left days before the operation disguised as clerks in dress clothes and walking alongside women and children.
“They are all gone now, so we are not so scared,” said Suelen de Oliveira, 21, a student.
It was also unclear how long the military and the police planned to stay, or how long they could.
Mr. Beltrame, Rio’s security secretary and the architect of the pacification program, has previously said that he did not expect to have enough officers to occupy either Alemão or Rocinha, another violent slum overhanging the city’s affluent South Zone, until next year.
At a news conference on Sunday evening, he said the police would continue to occupy Alemão but did not respond to questions about when or whether a pacification force would be installed there. “Let’s take this step by step,” he said.
Still, the nation has been captivated by the drama here like no other event since the World Cup last summer.
For much of last week, Brazilian television provided nearly round-the-clock coverage of the confrontations, and newspapers have been packed with pages of coverage every day. A news helicopter beamed images on Sunday of a Mass at the Christ the Redeemer statue, an iconic Rio symbol, where hundreds of residents and tourists prayed for the security forces.
Mr. Beltrame has said that the political will to fight back against the gangs was long overdue. For decades, a lack of day-to-day police presence in the slums allowed gangs to control them like city-states, deploying heavy weapons to protect their drug trafficking operations. Gang leaders have dispensed city services while patrolling the slums with rifles hanging off their backs.
Meanwhile, corrupt politicians and police officers took bribes and kickbacks to look the other way. Two of Mr. Beltrame’s predecessors as police chief, as well as Rio’s former governor, were convicted in August of charges including corruption and money laundering.
The citizens who rallied behind the security forces seemed to agree that enough was enough.
Sergio Cabral, the governor of Rio State, was resoundingly re-elected in October vowing to deepen the pacification program and to break the grip of the “parallel power” of the drug gangs.
But even as residents celebrated, Mr. Beltrame warned against overstating the victory.
“This is a battle within a bigger war,” he said. “We won a battle, but we did not win the war yet. “The mission will continue.”
Myrna Domit reported from Rio de Janeiro, and Alexei Barrionuevo from São Paulo. Roberta Napolis contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.
