Report: Brazil police kill 11 in raid

[Bacchus39]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080426/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_rio_violence;_ylt=AqEge8.Nr8G27vnpQ4haYRu3IxIF

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Police swarmed a Rio de Janeiro slum in search of a drug lord on Friday, touching off a shootout that killed 11 people including a 70-year-old woman, Brazil's government news agency said. Two bystanders were wounded.

Police said 10 of those killed were suspected criminals, the official Agencia Brasil news agency reported.

The raid was carried out by Rio's controversial Special Operations Police Battalion, heavily armed police with military-like training who are often accused by slum dwellers of shooting first and asking questions later.

Rio police didn't answer telephone calls Friday night seeking comment.

Brazilian media reported that bystander Jocelia Afonso, 70, died after being shot in the throat.

Another victim was identified by police as Jorge Ferreira, an alleged drug ring leader.

The Web site of O Globo newspaper reported that two bystanders were hit in the crossfire. There were no reports of injuries to the 150 officers who carried out the raid.

The police battalion involved was the subject of last year's award-winning movie "Elite Squad," directed by Jose Padilha, which claims to tell the true stories of 12 former officers from the black-uniformed paramilitary unit.

The squad's members claim to be the world's most effective urban warriors. Engaging in almost nightly gunbattles with heavily armed drug gangs, they have more house-to-house warfare experience than many soldiers. Their insignia — a dagger-impaled skull — strikes fear into residents of Rio's nearly 700 shantytowns.

Rio de Janeiro is one of the world's most violent cities, with frequent shootouts between police and gangs and an annual murder rate of about 50 per 100,000.

A record 1,260 civilians died in clashes with police in Rio de Janeiro state last year, according to a report by the state's Institute of Public Safety.

Friday's raid was carried out in the City of God slum, featured in a 2002 movie of the same name that was nominated for four Academy Awards.

[magbana]

1. And this is why Brazilian cops and military make such great . . .

killing machines, otherwise known as peacekeepers" in Haiti Check out: "Brazilian military's experience comes full circle in Haiti."

http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_20_8/2_20_8.html

"For an answer we have to look at the reporting of Pedro Dantas of the Brazilian daily Estadão de Hoje. Dantes wrote, "Army sources confirmed that techniques employed in the occupation of the Morro da Providéncia favela are the ones Brazilian soldiers use in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti." 1 Raúl Zibechi, a member of the editorial board of Montevideo's weekly Brecha, would later conclude, “This admission by Brazilian armed forces largely explains the interest of Lula da Silva's government in keeping that country's troops on the Caribbean island: to test, in the poor neighborhoods of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, containment strategies designed for application in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and other large cities.” 2 Zibechi’s article does not fully explain, however, that the process began with the Brazilian military applying brutal tactics from their own historical experiences in the slums of Haiti upon their arrival in 2004.

The learning curve of the Brazilian military for controlling poor urban populations was only accelerated by their experiences in Haiti. The military and police apparatus in Brazil already had a long history of using violence and terror towards solving the complex social challenges of the slums, known as favelas, in their own country. According to Brazilian anthropologist Alba Zaluar in April 2004, "Their approach is one of relentless confrontation with the poor communities. This military posture dates back to Brazil's dictatorship and will never win the loyalty of the favela against its own kind." 3 To fully understand the importance of this statement it is necessary to briefly touch upon the historical role of Brazil's military and police forces."

[Bacchus39]

2. the UN should withdraw from Haiti

since Haiti has until recently always enjoyed peace and prosperity.

[magbana]

3. Setting Record Straight on UN Peacekeepers in Haiti

Since your tongue-in-cheek comment about the UN peacekeeping effort in Haiti might lead some to think that its presence there is a a good thing, I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to set the record straight.

Since well before independence of the country in 1804, the overwhelming majority of Haitians have had neither peace nor prosperity. This is largely due to embargoes, ransoms, occupations, and strutural adjustment schemes inflicted upon Haiti by foreigners.

Why is the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, what are they doing there,and have they brought any peace and prosperity to the people of Haiti?

-MINUSTAH, unlike any other peacekeping mission in UN history, was not deployed with a peace agreement to enforce. Why? MINUSTAH is a proxy army for the US and was never meant to play the traditional role of peacekeeping by serving as a neutral party between two warring factions. Its primary function, as stated in its UN Security Council resolution, is to “support” the Government of Haiti and, specifically, the Haitian National Police. Of course at the time of MINUSTAH’s deployment to Haiti, in June 2004, the “Government” was a de facto government selected by the US, France, and Canada after the kidnapping of President Aristide by the US. The collaboration between Haiti’s illegal government, the Police, and MINUSTAH was the intended first step to deal with their initial problem in Haiti at the time: elimination of Haitians who support President Aristide. Had it not been for MINUSTAH, the US-installed government would have fallen in a week. Instead, these collaborators worked well together and with overwhelming force managed, in a two-year period, to kill 8,0000 – 10,000 Aristide partisans. Some peace, huh?

-MINUSTAH is an occupation force representing the interests of the coup makers and Haiti’s minuscule elite class. The UN is doing very little development work and many of the advances made in Aristide’s administration have been lost. Prosperity? Yes, but for Haiti’s elite class only

-Currently, MINUSTAH’s duty is to keep Haiti quiet and contained so that the next part of the grand plan can unfold. This will consist of expansion of the manufacturing industry where ample advantage will be taken of near-slave wages, expansion of the tourist industry, and of greatest importance, US strategic positioning vis-à-vis Cuba, Venezuela and other points around the Caribbean Basin.

-And why would Brazil head up this bloody occupation? Well, urban target practice to help out in the favelas back home and the dim hope of a seat on an expanded UN Security Council. All of this is discussed in the article I referenced in the post above.

-Is MINUSTAH presence helpful to the people of Haiti? Definitely not.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Snotty sarcasm falls flat when it's not reality based, wouldn't you say? Some people could

desperately use some time spent learning about conditions they can't grasp. That would take time away from their obsession with butting in, of course, and it could be they lack the self discipline to do any reading on their own.

Crude, idiotic, loutish mockery is a poor substitute for intelligence.

You've probably noticed that there are a couple of odors here who seem driven to step in and attempt to slur, revile ALL countries which have been the targets of U.S. aggression when the people chose leftist leaders.

They come to a leftist message board to gibber in their hopelessness, their idleness about the countries right-wing leaders have used U.S. resources to torment relentlessly, and whose citizens they have slaughtered.

Nothing lower in the universe.