Could police strikes spread in Brazil?
鈥� A version of this post ran on the author's blog, riorealblog.com. The views expressed are the author's own.
Carnival starts in less than two weeks, with 250 percent more porta-potties.聽 And possibly a dearth of police.
Rio de Janeiro鈥檚 military (street) and civil (investigative) police forces, and its firemen are threatening to strike starting on Friday.
The moment couldn鈥檛 be better 鈥� or worse. The military police of the northeastern state of Bahia are currently on strike, with聽army troops surrounding聽strikers holed up with their families in the state legislative building. The US consulate has advised putting off travel to Bahia, a prime spot for Afro-Brazilian Carnival celebrations, and Globo TV reported today that tour operators have seen a聽ten percent cancellation rate.
In Rio, police are posting frenetically on Facebook (most links in Portuguese), with not much on the possibility of a strike (or on demands or the politics involved).
Governor S茅rgio Cabral , but the police are still poorly paid 鈥� with many themselves living in favelas 鈥� and, perhaps, most important, fully aware of their importance in the new Rio. Crime is down and real estate values and tourism are up, largely due to the police pacification program, which started in 2008. The security program places high concentrations of police in select favelas to root out armed drug traffickers (in English), reports the Monitor.聽 The program now extends to 19 favelas.
鈥淲e work so you can live safely in the South Zone鈥� a shock troop officer in the recently-occupied Vidigal favela boasted to RioRealblog, just a couple of weeks back. But the cops aren鈥檛 only protecting the upper classes. In Rio鈥檚 pacified favelas 聽many people have let down their guard and developed new habits and behaviors; without enough police, criminals could easily start to retake territories and start a wave of revenge on those they consider to be traitors.
Rio鈥檚 security forces have a meeting scheduled with Cabral tomorrow. A demonstration is planned for Thursday in Cinel芒ndia, with the strike tentatively set for Friday.
--- Julia Michaels, a long-time resident of Brazil, writes the blog , which she describes as a constructive and critical view of Rio de Janeiro鈥檚 ongoing transformation.
