Shawn Blore
Radio Newspapers Magazines
sb@shawnblore.com
www.shawnblore.com
Tel:(55) 21-8102-4706
Shawn Blore
Journalist
sb@shawnblore.com
www.shawnblore.com
Tel:(55) 21-8102-4706
Shawn Blore
Journalist
sb@shawnblore.com
www.shawnblore.com
Tel:(55) 21-8102-4706
A NONCHALANT KILLER DEFENDS RIO-STYLE JUSTICE
By Shawn Blore | The Globe and Mail
But vigilantes provoke Brazil's outrage after recent massacre of innocents
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RIO DE JANEIRO -- The first man he killed
was riding a bicycle. "I had been
warned,
so I had my gun, with a newspaper over
top,
like this." The man demonstrates
a nonchalant
squat on the concrete stoop of his
modest
house in the Baixada Fluminense, the
ring
of poor industrial cities surrounding
Rio
de Janeiro. "When the guy rode
up, I
shot him."
The killer, who gives his name only
as Nilmo,
says he has since killed another seven
men,
a tally he considers minuscule.
"My role in the group is more
support.
There are other guys who do most of
the killing,"
he says.
The lead executioner of his group,
a death
squad that metes out vigilante justice
in
the city of Novo Iguacu on the outskirts
of Rio de Janeiro, has dispatched at
least
75 victims. All told, their death squad
has
killed hundreds.
"I'm God's lieutenant," Nilmo
says.
"The Bible says, the one to take
life
is God. I'm not God, but sometimes,
with
guys like these, you have to take them
and
send them on their way to God."
Twenty-nine was the number sent heavenward
on the last night of March by another
Novo
Iguacu death squad. The rampage generated
national outrage. The kind of homicide
investigation
rarely seen in Brazil amassed substantial
evidence that off-duty police officers
perpetrated
the massacre.
On May 19, 11 state police officers
were
charged with first-degree murder, attempted
murder and taking part in gang activity.
The widespread revulsion stemmed not
from
the fact that the killings were perpetrated
by a death squad, but because the victims
were demonstrably innocents, for the
most
part women, children and gainfully
employed
young men.
Even Nilmo was outraged. "They
killed
29 people, not one of them a rapist
or delinquent
or anything," he says, shaking
his head
in disbelief. "That's why we have
nothing
to do with cops."
No one in his 10-member death squad
is a
police officer, Nilmo says. Nor does
his
group kill the innocent. Instead, he
says,
it targets only what he calls delinquents:
thieves, rapists and vagrants.
According to Nilmo, some of the delinquents
they dispatched in the past year include
a group of three boys who were selling
soft
drugs from their apartment, and an
18-year-old
ex-con who had returned to live with
his
mother. "We don't want criminals
in
our community."
In other parts of the Baixada, death
squads
have been linked to protection rackets
that
extort money from local businesses.
According
to Nilmo, his group kills strictly
as a public
service.
"When this neighbourhood began,
women
couldn't go out on the street after
9 at
night. After it began, this business
of killing
rapists, killing thieves, killing delinquents,
all that stopped."
As to how he got caught up in the death
squad,
that's a long story.
"This passes from generation to
generation.
It wasn't me that started this."
Nilmo
stops and gives a hard stare at a younger
man hanging out at a nearby corner.
"Let's
go somewhere else to talk," he
says,
motioning to his nearby car. "Too
many
people getting curious here."
The mayor of Novo Iguacu, Lindberg
Farias,
confirms death squads are a part of
the landscape
in the Baixada Fluminense.
"It has always been a part of
the Baixada,
since the Baixada started 50 years
ago. Back
then, there were no services, no state,
no
policing, nothing," he says.
In the absence of government, death
squads
grew up as a rudimentary form of law
and
order.
Times are changing, however, Mr. Farias
says.
He points out people voted for him,
even
though he has sworn to wipe out death
squads.
The mayor's message must not have penetrated
as far as he had hoped. Nilmo, now
serenely
parked in front of a children's soccer
field,
says he voted for Mr. Farias.
Nilmo believes the mayor tacitly supports
the death squads. "He can't say
so out
loud, but he does, deep down. Even
Lula [Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva]
supports
us, even if he can't say so."
Some residents like the safety that
rule
by death squad brings.
"I leave my car out front of my
house
at night, with the keys in the ignition.
No one touches it. Try that in Copacabana,"
said Baixada resident Carlos Henrique
Barbosa,
referring to the swanky neighbourhood
in
downtown Rio de Janeiro.
Other Baixada residents, women in particular,
are less convinced death-squad rule
brings
safety. Speaking in her tiny home,
Rosa Lima
da Silva says the way young men suddenly
disappear for no apparent reason made
her
think often of leaving the area, even
before
her 19-year-old son, Jonas, was killed
in
the recent massacre.
"People disappear all the time
here,"
she says. "They're supposed to
be only
the bad ones, the criminals and vagrants.
But you never really know why they
disappear."
Shawn Blore is a Freelance Correspondent
based in Rio de Janeiro