Jhe theme to Mel Gibson’s Braveheart filled the air as the man accused of helping spawn Rio paramilitary mafia movement was lowered into the grounds of a cemetery called the Garden of Desire. Fireworks exploded above our heads.
“My brother was a noble man with a beautiful heart,” said the deceased’s brother, Natalino Guimarães, as he and hundreds of mourners prepared to say their final goodbyes.
“He really was a Braveheart. I’m a Braveheart. All these people here are Bravehearts,” Guimarães said, showing the crowd outside the cemetery’s VIP chapel many caps or T-shirts emblazoned with the nickname. we fight for people who bring good and not evil.”
Guimarães’ “brave” brother was Jerônimo Guimarães Filho, a convicted former police officer, politician and paramilitary leader, who was shot dead in early August by a trio of black-clad assassins.
The murder made headlines and ended a controversial life, including nearly 11 years behind bars for his alleged role in creating the Liga da Justiça (the Justice League), which would become the Rio’s most feared paramilitary group.
Jerônimo Guimarães is now dead but his assassination will do nothing to slow the advance of the heavily armed forces in Rio Militias (militias) in the most famous city in Brazil.
In the two decades since the Guimarães brothers allegedly founded the Justice League, these groups have only grown in strength.
Rio’s three drug factions have gained international notoriety through hit films about gang life such as City of God and Elite Squad. But experts say the militias now pose a much bigger threat to the city and – because of their political ambitions and connections, including to the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro – to Brazilian democracy itself.
Last month, violence monitoring group Fogo Cruzado claimed that Rio militias now controlled an area almost the size of Birmingham, the UK’s second-largest city, where more than 1.7 million people lived. people. “They have grown massively in recent years to the point of being today the most important armed group, with the highest level of control,” said Fogo Cruzado director Cecília Olliveira.
Cláudio Ferraz, head of Rio’s organized crime squad from 2007 to 2010, called the militias “one of the greatest threats to sovereignty and the democratic rule of law in this country”.
During his Mafia-fighting days, Ferraz imprisoned hundreds of suspected paramilitaries, including Jerônimo Guimarãesand became known as Rio “militia hunter”.
A 2008 parliamentary inquiry – which recommended the indictment of more than 200 people for alleged links to militias, including then-local deputy Natalino Guimarães and city councilor Jerônimo Guimarães – dealt a blow to the groups of mafia guy.
Yet 14 years later, Ferraz said authorities had failed to keep up the pressure, allowing militias to become so dominant that a similar crackdown would be fatal. “I have no doubt that in the current environment, if I tried now to do what we were doing then, I would be eliminated,” he said.
Rio’s militias grew out of the death squads that roamed its impoverished outskirts in the 1960s and 1970s, using lethal force to suppress petty crime.
By the late 1990s, they had become highly organized gangs of off-duty police officers and prison guards who used guns to rule large swathes of the city, sought to elected and enriched themselves by selling property, stealing fuel and illegally operating services such as the bus. routes, internet and cable TV.
“Almost the only thing they don’t sell is the air we breathe,” said José Cláudio Souza Alves, a sociologist considered one of Rio’s leading experts on the subject.
Alves said Rio was now home to dozens of loosely connected militias — often called “bondes” (crews) — with a management-like hierarchy and “fabulous” authority over dozens of low-income communities.
“They get elected, they make deals, they have inside information that helps them avoid being arrested or killed. They kill each other when their deals fall apart but the state barely targets them. Look at the number of militiamen who are on trial. It’s tiny.
Initially, these groups posed as virtuous vigilantes fight to protect citizens from cocaine dealers armed with guns who sell drugs in the favelas.
The relative of a retired paramilitary, who asked not to be named, said: “In his view drug dealers and thieves were bastards and bastards are not human. So, by purifying them, he was doing a service to society.
“He thought he was a hero.”
Some militia leaders have adopted superhero names such as Batman to suggest their supposedly valiant motivations and invincibility. “What’s the only flaw in a killer?” Let him die,” Alves said. “So when they name themselves after superheroes, they’re telling you that they’ve overcome that flaw and they’re immortal. Superman doesn’t die. Batman doesn’t die. None of them die.
These days, few believe in such benevolence, with Rio’s militias accused of using fear and intimidation to extort residents and, increasingly, sell drugs themselves.
“They impose themselves through tyranny – and their goal is profit – from the start their goal has always been profit,” said Ferraz, who questioned whether “militia” was the right name for such gangs. .
“The militias are groups of civilians who arm themselves to confront a dictatorship [and fight] attacks by a totalitarian regime. This is not what is happening in Rio.
Over the years, the militias made influential friends and entered the world of politics.
“If you want to talk to a [mafia] chief today you will have to go to the municipal councils, where they manage departments. You will need to go to the state legislature. You have to go to city hall and congress – that’s where you’ll find the leaders,” Ferraz said.
“They won’t present themselves as such – but those who know, know.”
Jair BolsonaroThe family of publicly supported these groups, calling them an effective tool against crime, and well-documented links to the great figures of the militia. The mother and wife of an infamous paramilitary hitman once worked for Bolsonaro’s political son, Flávio Bolsonaro.
In a televised debate ahead of Brazil’s October 30 presidential election, left-wing leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hinted at such ties, tell Bolsonaro“He knows it’s not me who has ties to the paramilitaries and organized crime – and he knows who does.”
Bruno Paes Manso, the author of a book on the growing political weight of militias, said there was no evidence that Jair Bolsonaro was directly involved in such groups. But the president’s dismantling of gun laws had been a gift to the paramilitaries he had once defended, allowing them to further expand their already astonishing arsenals. “Rio is really in a very deep hole,” Paes Manso warned, calling for cross-party political consensus to tackle what he called the city’s most pressing problem.
Authorities say they are serious about fighting militias and last year announced the murder of a high-profile mobster called Ecko as evidence.
Ferraz said such killings were ineffective. “It’s empty rhetoric … to convince voters that they are extremely tough on crime,” he said, arguing that unless highly structured task forces with political backing are allowed to attack the finances of the groups, nothing would improve.
What is behind Guimarães’ assassination outside a community center he ran in western Rio remains a mystery. Police would have suspects the hit was ordered by a rival to one of Rio’s largest militias. A wiretap caught a gangster calling Guimarães a “nuisance” that needed fixing.
During his funeral, Guimarães’ brother denied any involvement in organized crime and the “monstrous acts” attributed to them by the “rotten press”. “My brother was a human being of the highest quality,” he insisted before his brother was laid to rest.
As the militias tighten their grip, Ferraz said he is losing hope in the city he once served, plagued by political corruption and organized crime. He feared that the militias would one day achieve a complete monopoly over Rio’s underworld.
“I want to leave… My God, it’s madness what we’ve been through here,” he sighed. “It’s a wonderful state with huge potential but unfortunately [what’s happening] is simply breathtaking.
Ferraz pointed to the four former Rio state governors who had been jailed for corruption and the senior police officers jailed for wrongdoing. Last month, Rio’s former civilian police chief, a Bolsonaro ally who was seeking election to Congress in this week’s elections, was arrested for allegedly colluding with Rio’s mafia bosses.
“Shit,” said the retired militia hunter. “It’s a catastrophe.”
Comments are closed.