Free Tropic of Chaos by Christian Parenti Page A

crime, gangs, and chaos rather than a coherent insurgent foe.
    When I was in Rio in early 2010, about ten of the city’s roughly one thousand favelas were undergoing pacification. The people of the favelas were of a mixed mind about the occupations. The gangs, however, were not pleased, and they were taking revenge on the larger society by firebombing commuter buses down “on the pavement,” as nonfavela Rio is called. “Whoever has the guns is the law,” explained Claudio Carvalha, president of the resident association in Do Morro dos Cabritos. For years this favela was subject to a constant struggle between the CV and a rival gang, Amigos dos Amigos (Friends of Friends).
    â€œWhen one of theirs was wounded, they would dump the guy—bleeding, half dead—at the association, and we were expected to take them to the hospital,” explained Claudio.
    In Dona Marta, the first favela occupied back in November 2008 and said to be a showcase of social programs, I met a group of unemployed young people. They may or may not have been enrolled foot soldiers of the CV, but they saw the occupation as all stick and no carrot.
    â€œThey are just beating people up,” said a short, tattooed twenty-three-year-old named Max. He wore red shorts and plastic flip-flops and leaned on the wall of the old wooden shack where he lived with his wife, Amanda. A small radio blared a tinny stream of baile funk, essentially Brazilian hip-hop, as Amanda did dishes by an outdoor tap just off one of the main stairways. A few other young men, shirtless and wearing baggy shorts in the heat, gathered as we talked.
    â€œMost people just want the cops to go away and find someone else to harass,” said Amanda. “They treat us like criminals. They force us inside after eleven. If you have what they think is too much money, they take it from you.”
    â€œThey push us around when we leave or enter the community,” said another guy, his arms heavily tattooed, who went by the nickname The Moor. “They take us in for minor crimes; they kick us, grab our crotches, search
us, kick in our doors, beat us up. They do whatever they want. And we can’t fight back, or we get killed.”
    â€œThis whole ‘social vision’ is not well thought out,” said Max. “They promised day care, clinics and jobs. But all I see are cops.”

Blowback Brazilian Style
    Scholars argue that Brazil’s crisis of violence is rooted in its history of slavery and frontier conquest. This is true, but more recent origins lie in the country’s intense economic inequality and the violent class struggles it has provoked. Workers’ organizations were long met with brutal repression. From 1964 to 1985, Brazil suffered outright military dictatorship and a decade of “dirty war”; from that age of rebellion and repression, it now experiences a form of blowback. In this history, we see two elements of the catastrophic convergence at play: neoliberal economic restructuring and Cold War violence.
    The story of the largest and oldest Rio gang is rooted in the armed struggle of the Cold War, specifically in the story of right-wing military dictatorship and the Marxist resistance to it. According to its veterans, the Comando Vermelho was founded during the mid-1970s in the Cândido Mendes Prison on Ilha Grande, when captured guerrillas were housed with common prisoners.
    Like most Latin American countries in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Brazil saw the rise of urban guerrillas opposing economic exploitation and political repression. In 1968, commandos from the tiny MR8 even managed to kidnap the US ambassador, Charles B. Elbrick. The man who coordinated the kidnapping, Fernando Gabeira, is now a famous journalist, author, and leftist politician. The film Four Days in September is based on those events. Another prominent former guerrilla and political prisoner of that era is Dilma Vana Rousseff, Brazil’s