In Rio, military intervention leaves behind a troubled legacy

[Judi Lynn]

Multimillion-dollar operation exacerbated 'confrontation, shootings' and fuelled surge in police killings, critics say.

by David Child & Mariana Simoes
3 hours ago

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Last year's military intervention coincided with a record high number of people killed in police operations in Rio de Janeiro state, according to Rio's Public Security Institute (ISP), with 1,375 such fatalities between February and December.

The data revealed a nearly 34 percent jump from the same period in 2017 and ensured that 2018 became the bloodiest year on record since the ISP began collating figures two decades ago.

From March of last year onwards, as the intervention kicked into gear, nearly one in every four people killed in Rio died at the hands of the state, prompting New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) to slam the "trail of death" carved out by the military's deployment.

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Witzel has pledged to "slaughter" criminals by using helicopter-borne snipers to target and kill anyone carrying a rifle, even if they were not shooting their weapons, and warned that Rio would "dig graves" for criminals under his watch.

His rhetoric aligns with Bolsonaro's, a former Rio congressman, who sees more guns as the answer to reducing crime in a country where a record high 63,880 homicides took place in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available.

The 63-year-old is keen to give police "carte blanche" to kill suspects and said during his successful storm to office in October's election that a "good criminal is a dead criminal".

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/rio-military-intervention-leaves-troubled-legacy-190113111823106.html

Everyone knows who the criminals are.