Militia’s in Brazil Now Control Geographical Majority of Rio

Rio has long been famous for the drug gangs who have made parts of the city no-go areas for outsiders including the police. Franco’s killing has focused attention on a different and parallel menace — Rio’s milícias, the murderous paramilitary gangs led by serving and former police officers that have emerged over the past two decades as a threat to public security and to the integrity of the state…

As their community grew, the favela of Rio das Pedras took shape with little intervention or interest from the state. With no formal police presence, security was provided by justiceiros, or vigilante gunmen. The favela expanded in the 1980s and 1990s and, as parts of it acquired the look of a regular city neighbourhood, police officers living there banded together to take over from the vigilantes, expelling, beating and killing drug dealers and other people they considered undesirables. They presented themselves to the local population as a peaceful alternative to the drug gangs. “That’s where the behaviour of the militiamen began, behind Tijuca in Rio das Pedras,” says Ubiratan Angelo, a former Rio state chief of police. “They used to say, no criminals live here — where the police live there’s no place for bandits. Then they began to dominate local businesses, the market for alternative transport and all the rest.”

Rio de Janeiro’s militias: a parallel power in Bolsonaro’s Brazil – Financial Times


Brazil has endured a crippling recession and a massive amount of political and social turmoil in the last 5-6 years. AFP has reported that domestic militias effectively control over half of Brazil’s largest city, Rio. The current group of militias are distinct from drug gangs, in that their primary means of income seems to be real estate and any involvement in the drug trade seems to be tangential or nonexistent.

The intriguing part of this story is the effect a power vacuum has on a populace. Even in the modern world, the response has been much the same as throughout history. Unfortunately for the anarchists, the inevitable result of a power vacuum is the rise of a power structure. The militias seem to be largely constituted of former police and law enforcement individuals as a response to the rampant drug gangs in the favelas since the 1970’s. There are lessons to be learned here as we continue to hurtle towards civil unrest and at the state and federal government level the control seems to be slipping. The creation of this essentially parallel government is a result of the government not being able to fulfill its obligation and provide safety, order and an acceptable level of dispute resolution. The people of Rio de Janeiro found another source for those…and one has to wonder as things deteriorate in the US if the population will be faced with similar questions. Are we so different here?

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4 Comments

  1. Anonymous October 20, 2020 at 18:27

    5

  2. Joe Brackhan October 21, 2020 at 15:31

    The United States is a bit different than Brazil in the sense that the average American is much more heavily armed than the typical Brazilian. We are in a much better position to dictate what type of power structure arises as replacement for diminishing state and federal power. Hopefully, Americans will begin to think of things in terms of what colonial or even pre-war between the states America looked like. An America in which the role of government is much more oriented to protecting those inalienable rights which have been granted to us by God. We don’t need any other rules, and in that sense, that is what is meant by Anarchy. It is derived from the Greek: An, meaning “No” and Archos, meaning “ruler”. Anarchy means no ruler. At present, we are beset by a tremendous excess of rulers at all levels of government.

    • Jesse James October 21, 2020 at 15:38

      Anarchy is a transient state TO something stable (generally a dictatorship). The people who make the argument that God somehow intended us all to shuffle around without direction conveniently forget the entirety of the discussion he had post-Genesis about government and rulers.

      I admire your faith in the American people, I know too many to consider the inherent goodness of Americans anything other than a fantasy. Most Americans can’t articulate or even begin to comprehend the concept of ‘limited government’ circa 1789 let alone deal with the reality of such a system. YMMV.

      Thank you for the read and your thoughts though, sincerely.

  3. Johnny Paratrooper October 24, 2020 at 08:31

    What’s interesting about this is how it is perfectly “status quo”.
    There is no difference between the cops, the gangs, or the militia arresting drug dealers, killing bad guys, and mandating licenses for taxi drivers.
    It’s the same thing. The only difference is someone has claimed “OMG this is an outrage, we need more oversight”.
    Oversight on what? I bet these neighborhoods and bars are 100% nicer than many cities in the U.S..

    OMG LOCALS TOOK CONTROL AND ARE BUILDING A CIVILIZATION!!!
    What the communists really want is a bunch of drug addict women they can turn into sex slaves and they want the men in prison raping each other.

    A true communist fantasy is the end of normal human behavior.

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