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Travelling to Rio



 
 
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  #61  
Old March 14th, 2004, 01:06 AM
P E T E R P A N
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Dead reporter unmasked Rio's macabre underworld

http://www.namibian.com.na/2002/june...2682E9E71.html

Thursday, June 13, 2002 - Web posted at 10:20:39 am GMT

Dead reporter unmasked Rio's macabre underworld

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, June 13 (Reuters) - The murder of a leading
Brazilian reporter who worked on a story about sex abuse and drugs in
a Rio de Janeiro slum shone a spotlight on the thin line dividing the
city's normal life from macabre underworld where drug gangs reign.


Answering accusations by reporter Tim Lopes' relatives that his
employer Globo television had failed to protect him, Globo editors
said Lopes was reporting in a public place, in a popular neighborhood,
and not on a clandestine event.

Indeed, hillside shantytowns that sprawl above the city's picturesque
skyline are home to hundreds of thousands of people who live in misery
but earn their bread honestly working as cleaning maids, waiters and
elevator boys in the city.

But dozens of gangs of gun-toting hoodlums who run the lucrative drug
and arms trade also operate in the slums.

Lopes, winner of the prestigious Esso prize for television journalists
last year for a report on an open-air drugs market, was this time
investigating a tip-off from residents of a slum about drugs and sex
abuse during wild dance parties.

Lopes, 51, had entered the Cruzeiro slum four times, twice reporting
with a hidden camera.

On June 9, a week after Lopes went missing, Rio police said a drug
lord known as Elias "the Mad" had tortured him and then shot him to
death.

Police arrested four suspects on Sunday and received the evidence from
them. Elias, who received his nickname for his extremely violent
methods, is at large.

Charred fragments and traces of blood were found in a cave near the
slum last week.

RISKY ASSIGNMENTS

Lopes' brother-in-law Andre Martins accused Globo of sending Lopes to
risky assignments and failing to protect him.

"He risked a lot, but he always acted on Globo's consent, fulfilling
its orders. It's the channel that has to evaluate risks, not the
reporter," Martins, in tears, told Reuters.

Workers Party parliamentary deputy Carlos Minc said some 700,000
people among Rio's 8 million live in slums run by drug gangs "in a
land without a state."

"They have the law of silence, curfew and have to produce foot
soldiers for gang wars," he said. "It's a return to barbarian times."

Drug gangs often outnumber and outgun the police force, and police are
accused of being on the bandits' payroll.

"The important thing is that residents were looking for help in the
media and not public authorities ... and it seems that we now cannot
do our work anymore," said Francisco Otavio, a colleague of Lopes who
also reports on crime.

"There used to be certain respect for journalists up the hill (in the
slums) that allowed peaceful coexistence, but now we run the risk of
turning into a Medellin," Otavio said, referring to the crime-ridden
Colombian city notorious for being the base of a drug cartel.

Lopes' murder was the first killing of a journalist from a nationwide
media outlet by drug gangs in Brazil, and prompted expressions of
indignation and concern by local and international media
organizations.

KILLINGS AND DANCE PARTIES

DNA tests of the remains and blood will be ready this week, police
said, but evidence points that it was Lopes' body been burnt in the
cave after he was shot, police said.

Detective Sergio Falante said the cave served as the venue for
killings in which victims' bodies are squeezed into several car tires
filled with gasoline and set on fire.

"Bandits call it a microwave and use it quite a lot with their
enemies," he said. "It was hard to tell whether we were dealing with
human remains before we found teeth in the mess."

Congressman Minc likened the method to those in Nazi death camps.
"Those who stand up against crime are being burnt in the oven, like in
Auschwitz," he said.

At the same time, police said on Wednesday they had found another body
in a clandestine slum cemetery and they were checking if that could be
Lopes.

Globo said Lopes was investigating a tip-off from slum residents that
drug gangs were hosting wild dance parties, known as "bailes funk," at
which drugs and sex flowed freely to lure new clients from the city
below.

"It seems they organized some kind of an erotic show in which they
offered young girls from the favela," Otavio said.

Bailes features loud music similar to rap, sometimes with songs that
call for killing informants or police, and youths staging mano-a-mano
fights to its beat.

WORKING ON THE EDGE

Lopes' colleagues and police said the journalist must have had an
agreement with the drug lords in order to simply enter the slum.
Strangers are not allowed in, and it is not uncommon for trespassers
to never return from a slum.

"You have to protect yourself by a treaty with the slum lords, but I
imagine filming with a microcamera wasn't part of any treaty," Otavio
said. "Tim always worked on the edge."

Just as in the case of the drugs market, Lopes, who was married and
had a son from a previous marriage, took a spy camera that can be
hidden in clothes on his latest assignment, his colleagues said.

"I'm sure bandits marked him to die since his program about the drug
market, which brought serious damage to them," said Falante, adding
that the slum where the first story was filmed and Cruzeiro were run
by allied gangs.

The Association of Brazilian Newspapers said Lopes' death would not
stop investigative reporters from doing their jobs.

"We declare that this tragedy will not stop us. As a tribute to our
slain colleague and to all Brazilian journalists, we reiterate the
commitment to truth that is our very reason for being," it said in a
statement. Nampa-Reuters





"B H" wrote in message ...
I think PETER PAN refers to my posting about crime/pickpocket aviodance
guide in a thread
further down here (rec.travel.latin-america).
I was the one who experienced the problem with the self-appointed parking
attendant.
I think there are at least two kinds of parking attendants. Official ones (I
think I have heard
that they have som kind of cloth or id to be sure they are official) and
self-appointed ones.
The one I met certainly looked highly unofficial to say the least. But from
there to say that
he is into some organised crime and mafia is taking it a bit far (but of
course I do not know that).
Can anyone shed some light on the facts here? Are there official and
self-appointed parking
attendants, or just official ones in Rio? I think I know the answer, but
would like a more
qualified statement than my own here.

Borge

"Kurko" wrote in message
news
3. In 3rd world countries there are JOBS like parking attendants. These
guys have
actually licence to operate as such (atleast in Rio they do). There is no
MAFIA involved here, just some people trying to get their livelihood with
honest way (read
not robbing the tourists).

  #62  
Old March 14th, 2004, 01:17 AM
P E T E R P A N
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Brazil's Escalating Role in the Drug War

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia122.htm

July 15, 2002

Brazil's Escalating Role in the Drug War

by Ronald J. Morgan

Brazil began bolstering its border security almost as soon as Plan
Colombia surfaced in 1999. After three years of military expansion,
the Brazil-Colombia border is bristling with new installations. Among
them is a new air force base, a naval base, and a set of border
platoons stretching from Tabatinga through an area known as the Dog´s
Head, where Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil meet. A new jungle brigade
based in the Amazon city of Tefe provides support for the 2,500 troops
stationed along the 1,000-mile border. These ground forces are
supplemented with naval and marine units as well as aircraft at the
new Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira airbase.

The Brazilian military has also been busy putting in new roads,
bridges, schools, health clinics, water wells and riverboat docks
throughout the heavily indigenous area with a population of some
100,000. The Brazilian buildup, part of a revamped older border
development program know as Calha Norte, includes $14.5 million in
military security spending and $10.5 million in social development,
most of it spent in the Colombian border region.

The government has also dispatched to the border a 200-man federal
police task force known as Operation Cobra to further bolster security
and fight drug trafficking. Brazil says its programs are preventive
medicine aimed at protecting the Amazon and that most activities are
directed at controlling drug trafficking, stopping illegal logging,
and clearing out poaching gold miners.

As early as 1996, Brazil and the Raytheon Corporation began
constructing a $1.4 billion radar system called System for Amazon
Surveillance (SIVAM). Announced with much fanfare at the 1992 Rio
Earth Conference, the project is about 70 percent complete and will be
inaugurated in Manaus on July 25. This system uses radar stations, air
reconnaissance and some satellite support to monitor air traffic,
maritime movement, border activity, and intercept communications of
all types. SIVAM will also keep track of weather patterns and land
use, while making rural telecommunications in the Amazon more
efficient.

While originally designed to save the Amazon rainforest from various
types of abuse, it is expected that its Manta FOL-type reconnaissance
abilities will also be used to stop drug pilots from entering Brazil
and provide timely information to border units. The Brazilian air
force estimates that some 200 planes flew into Brazil illegally in
2001 and is calling for the government to issue a shoot down
regulation similar to the type in place in Colombia and Peru. Last
year, the U.S.-Peruvian program resulted in the accidental shooting
down of a missionary plane.

Brazil stressed that it was not interested in becoming part of the
U.S.-backed Plan Colombia when the border buildup began. In October
2000, Admiral Hector Blecker, Brazil's assistant chief of
intelligence, told the Brazilian congress that while it was obvious
the probable impact of Plan Colombia would require Brazil undertake
police, environmental and social action programs in the border area,
"the idea of a multinational military operation in the Brazilian
Amazon is unacceptable."

During the congressional hearings it was stressed that the
environmental impact to the Brazilian Amazon from Colombian aerial
spraying, and the possible use of a mycoherbicide could destroy
legitimate crop production along Brazil's jungle rivers. Blecker is
concerned that "chemical agents such as glyphosate and biological
agents such as fusarium oxysporum in the Putumayo and Caquetá rivers
will flow into the Ica and Japura rivers respectively."

But just as the United States originally claimed that Plan Colombia
would confine itself to fighting drug trafficking but is now expanding
to include counterinsurgency operations, Brazil role in the war on
drugs has also experienced mission creep. Recent air, land, and sea
maneuvers along the Brazil-Colombia border involving 4,000 men sent a
clear signal that Brazil intends to use force to keep guerrillas and
drug traffickers out of its territory.

United States involvement on the Brazilian side of the border is also
ratcheting up. In September 2001, Brazil signed a bilateral letter of
agreement with the United States for counternarcotics activities that
call for mutual cooperation and U.S. aid for Operation Cobra and other
counter drug trafficking operations. The agreement also pumps funds
into the newly created National Secretariat for Public Security, which
has unified control over Brazil's Federal and local police forces.

Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, while still officially
claiming that Brazil is not involved in Plan Colombia, strongly
endorsed Colombian President Andrés Pastrana's decision earlier this
year to terminate the demilitarized zone granted to the rebel
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Cardoso also called the
election of Alvaro Uribe in May a "clear example of the vigor of
democratic ideas in South America."

Despite Brazilian contentions to the contrary, South America's biggest
and most prosperous country is slipping deeper into the drug war and
the Colombian Conflict. In March, Brazilian military officers visited
the Pentagon where they exchanged views with U.S. officers and gave
presentations on Brazil's border security and development program.

On a recent visit to Brazil, Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state
for the Western Hemisphere, expressed Washington's desire for
internationalizing intervention in Colombia's conflict, "We think that
the threat to Colombia's democracy is a common threat not just to the
United States and Brazil, but to the whole Hemisphere. And, if
countries are worried about the spillover effect of, say, 'Plan
Colombia', they should be even more worried about the effect of not
stopping the terrorists and the narcotics traffickers inside Colombian
borders."

Operation Cobra is also growing in scope and sophistication. In
December, Brazil opened a regional intelligence center at Tabatinga
whose mission is to sort through intelligence on border activities,
which it will then share with Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and the United
States. Additionally, Brazil has completed work on seven new police
installations along the border stretching from Tabatinga to Vila
Bittencourt.

Brazil has both shed blood and suffered casualties along the Colombian
border. In February Brazilian troops attacked a boat with suspected
FARC guerrillas, killing six persons near Apoporis. The same month a
Brazilian soldier disappeared under unclear circumstances. In March,
197 indigenous persons of the Maku nation sought refuge at Vila
Bittencourt charging that the FARC had threatened them. During
maneuvers in May, Brazilian soldiers suffered two casualties--one
wounding of a soldier outside Tabatinga apparently involved
Colombians, while another soldier disappeared along the Rio Negro.

Colonel Roberto de Paula Avelino, who manages Calha Norte from a
campus-like building in Brasilia, downplays the incidents, claiming
the border area is fairly quiet despite the FARC presence on the
Colombian side. He also believes that a major incursion by uniformed
FARC guerrillas is unlikely, "I don´t think the FARC is interested in
making a new enemy."

De Paula Avelino's analysis stands in sharp contrast to recent
statements about Colombia's illegal armed groups made by Reich, "If
these people work to ever gain control over larger parts of Colombian
territory, I think there is no doubt that they would take their
business, which is narcotics and terrorism, to other countries. I
don't think they are only interested in taking control by force of
Colombia. I don't think they know any borders. Terrorists sans
frontiers, to coin a phrase."

Not surprisingly, the FARC disagrees with Reich's analysis. Oliverio
Medna, the FARC International Committee representative in Brasilia,
said FARC commanders have been ordered to keep their troops out of
neighboring countries. "We are hoping for reciprocity from the
neighboring governments. Reciprocity in what sense? If we don´t cause
problems in the territories of the neighboring countries, that their
governments will abstain from intervening and getting mixed up in the
internal affairs of Colombia. We are not a problem for any state other
than Colombia."

Medna claims that talk of FARC border incursions is part of a policy
aimed at discrediting the rebel group, "If a tree falls in the
Ecuadorian jungle, they says its the FARC's fault. If in Peru a cow
shows up dead in the morning, it's the FARC. Our plans do not include
intervention in the territory of any country."

Alcides Costa Vaz, an international relations professor at the
University of Brazil, says Colombia is not a hot political issue in
Brazil, "Issues of national security have ranked very low on the
domestic political agenda. There is not a very strong position in
public opinion. The last few years economic issues have ranked very
high." He went on to stress that, "So far Brazil has resisted the idea
of having a active role," but if Colombia asks for regional alliances
and cooperation, Costa Vaz believes Brazil will probably cooperate.

Whatever the semantics, Brazil is involved in the Colombian conflict
through the sharing of intelligence and an escalation of military and
police activities inside Brazil aimed at stopping drug and arms
trafficking and preventing a spillover of the violence. This is likely
to continue even if the leftist Workers Party candidate Luiz Ignacio
Lula da Silva wins the fall elections for the presidency.

Workers Party Senator Tião Viana, who represents the Amazon state of
Acre, said the party opposes U.S. bases and U.S. troops in Brazil but
supports exchange of intelligence, training, and cooperation in
operations as long as Brazilians execute them. "In the Brazilian
Amazon there's a clandestine infiltration of groups from Bolivia, Peru
and Colombia involved in drug trafficking and clandestine wood
extraction," Viana said. "The Amazon is very unprotected. There's a
need for troops and intelligence operations."

The Cobra Program is a natural for U.S. involvement, and cooperation
between the two countries began to increase last year when DEA agents
toured Brazil's Amazon operations. Brazilian Federal Police and the
DEA also cooperated in the arrest in Colombia of Brazilian drug lord
Luis Fernando da Costa, know as Fernando Beira-Mar (Seaside Freddy)
and the bust a few months later of his top lieutenant Leomar Olviera
Barbosa in Paraguay.

According to recent congressional testimony by DEA chief Asa
Hutchinson, DEA agents in Colombia and Brazil are currently working to
capture of Tomas Molina Caracas of the 16th Front of the FARC. The DEA
is also fielding special teams of DEA and Brazilian police to
investigate money laundering. It has been estimated that as much as 25
percent of Colombian drug money may be hidden in Brazilian accounts.

Enticing Brazil into greater cooperation may be the increased
availability of funds for equipment, training, operations and
development projects, and a decade-long growth in domestic drug use
and drug-related violence. The Bush administration's Andean Regional
Initiative calls for Brazil to receive $6 million in counterdrug
assistance and $12.6 million in social development funds this year,
while a 2003 Bush administration request calls for another $12 million
in counternarcotics funds.

Recently, the presidents of Brazil, Peru and Ecuador joined together
to request $1.3 billion from the Inter-American Development Bank for
use in border social programs aimed at dealing with the spillover from
Plan Colombia. President Cardoso raised the fight against drugs to
front burner status in a national speech June 19 when he compared it
to the country's earlier struggle against hyperinflation. At the same
time the government released a study estimating that there were 1.7
million cocaine addicts in Brazil.

Both increased domestic consumption and the creation of cocaine
processing centers in Brazil are seen as potentially undermining U.S.
drug war efforts. Brazilian traffickers are building a niche for
themselves in designer drugs, while the nation's large chemical
industry provides an opportunity to obtain drug-processing chemicals.

Drug traffickers are active and powerful throughout the country. A
2001 Congressional inquiry into drug trafficking and impunity called
for the indictment of 800 persons, among them politicians and police.

Fearful that Brazil could rival the U.S. and Europe as a drug market,
the United States has been tinkering with Brazil's drug policies. It
has jointly designed with Brazil a new series of drug courts and it
finances a U.S.-style DARE school drug prevention program. It is also
backing a study of Brazilian attitudes toward drug use.

Drugs are seen as the fuel for the country's tremendous criminal
violence problem and increase in youth murders. In Rio de Janeiro some
10,000 persons are alleged to be active in local drug distribution and
street sales. According to a study by the International Labor
Organization, many of the persons involved are children. "What you
find is that since 1995 more children have taken up drug trafficking.
They start as young as eight years old," said Pedro Americo F.
Oliveira, head of the ILO Child Labor section in Brazil. "They come
from the poorest of the poor. They are one-parent families. The parent
works and the child doesn't go to school." What is the average life
expectancy for a child drug dealer? One year, says Oliveira.

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report the situation is
exacerbated by the regular use of torture and murder by the Brazilian
police forces. The gruesome killing of Brazilian Investigative
Journalist Tim Lopez by a drug trafficking gang has sparked a police
crackdown in the Rio de Janeiro favelas that may prove to be a
prototype for harsh action to come. A combined task force launched by
the federal government includes military intelligence units and the
use of combined federal and local police squads. Some people are
advocating military occupation of many of Brazil's troubled urban
areas.

The rapid escalation of the drug war in the last year by the Cardoso
administration runs the risk of exacerbating tinder box social
conditions. Costa Vaz warns that over-militarization of the drug war,
especially in poor neighborhoods, will backfire unless enforcement
programs are designed carefully. "We have a very sensitive and
dangerous domestic situation. What is going on in Rio right now is
generating a situation of social conflict. The door to civil war will
open if you bring in the military. We will not solve Colombia's
problems, we will probably reproduce them."

Ronald J. Morgan is a freelance writer who focuses on Latin America.

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal
that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).



"B H" wrote in message ...
I think PETER PAN refers to my posting about crime/pickpocket aviodance
guide in a thread
further down here (rec.travel.latin-america).
I was the one who experienced the problem with the self-appointed parking
attendant.
I think there are at least two kinds of parking attendants. Official ones (I
think I have heard
that they have som kind of cloth or id to be sure they are official) and
self-appointed ones.
The one I met certainly looked highly unofficial to say the least. But from
there to say that
he is into some organised crime and mafia is taking it a bit far (but of
course I do not know that).
Can anyone shed some light on the facts here? Are there official and
self-appointed parking
attendants, or just official ones in Rio? I think I know the answer, but
would like a more
qualified statement than my own here.

Borge

"Kurko" wrote in message
news
3. In 3rd world countries there are JOBS like parking attendants. These
guys have
actually licence to operate as such (atleast in Rio they do). There is no
MAFIA involved here, just some people trying to get their livelihood with
honest way (read
not robbing the tourists).

  #63  
Old March 14th, 2004, 01:21 AM
P E T E R P A N
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default List names most dangerous stops for business travelers

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getawa...99/dngr28.html

January 28, 1999
List names most dangerous stops for business travelers

POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES

Air Security International, a 10-year-old Houston company that
provides security services for traveling executives, has issued a list
of what it considered last year to be the most dangerous
business-travel destinations in the world.

The company's listing of travel dangers is largely based on the
detailed reports of paid agents -- including employees of airports and
international corporations, and owners of overseas businesses --
working in the field.

The dangerous destinations are divided into four risk categories:
crime, kidnapping, political violence and wars or insurgencies.

The only destination to appear in all four categories is Colombia.

That country is cited as the one with the most kidnappings, as home to
"the longest insurgency in the Western Hemisphere," and for its high
crime rate exacerbated by the cocaine trade, as well as bombings,
assassinations, guerrilla insurgencies and power struggles among drug
lords, politicians, judges and the military.

The 10 places cited for their dangerously high crime rate are
Johannesburg ("carjackings, robberies and assaults continue
unabated"), Mexico City (corrupt police and "taxi-related crime"),
Tijuana ("getting a reputation as the next Medellin"), Sao Paulo, Rio
de Janeiro, Papua New Guinea (gangs armed with high-powered rifles,
machetes, even grenade launchers), Kazakhstan ("corrupt officials and
police impostors continue to target foreigners"), Lagos (pickpocketing
to armed robbery and murder), Moscow and Colombia.

The company found a heightened threat of kidnapping in five places.
Besides Colombia, they were the Caucasus region of Russia ("extremely
common"), Mexico ("rings operate throughout the country"), the
Philippines (where it's on the decline, but still prevalent) and Yemen
(tribesmen seeking government concessions use foreigners as bargaining
chips).

The political-violence category cites Bangladesh, where labor strife
has been known to turn violent; Indonesia, where violence between
security forces and demonstrators still flares on occasion; Pakistan,
where "more than 4,000 people have died in ethnic, sectarian and
political violence in Karachi since 1995" and, yes, Colombia.




"B H" wrote in message ...
I think PETER PAN refers to my posting about crime/pickpocket aviodance
guide in a thread
further down here (rec.travel.latin-america).
I was the one who experienced the problem with the self-appointed parking
attendant.
I think there are at least two kinds of parking attendants. Official ones (I
think I have heard
that they have som kind of cloth or id to be sure they are official) and
self-appointed ones.
The one I met certainly looked highly unofficial to say the least. But from
there to say that
he is into some organised crime and mafia is taking it a bit far (but of
course I do not know that).
Can anyone shed some light on the facts here? Are there official and
self-appointed parking
attendants, or just official ones in Rio? I think I know the answer, but
would like a more
qualified statement than my own here.

Borge

"Kurko" wrote in message
news
3. In 3rd world countries there are JOBS like parking attendants. These
guys have
actually licence to operate as such (atleast in Rio they do). There is no
MAFIA involved here, just some people trying to get their livelihood with
honest way (read
not robbing the tourists).

  #64  
Old March 14th, 2004, 01:42 AM
P E T E R P A N
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Suffer the Children

http://www.bootsnall.com/travelstori...ferchild.shtml

Suffer the Children
By Craig D. Guillot

The screaming and shouting had been attracting a crowd near the corner
of Avenida Copacabana and Rua Sao Paulo. Breaking out into a
slow-paced jog, I approached the corner of the building as a small
child in tattered clothes ran past me. He fled off into the distance
and vanished into a crowd of pedestrians. My dark curiosity continued
to draw me around the corner and into the commotion.
With bare, bloodied feet slamming against the broken glass on the
concrete, dozens of children scattered like roaches from the abandoned
building. Crying, cowering, and throwing rocks at the police, they
scurried along the block as the men tried to grab hold of them. One of
the street kids' only sanctuaries had been discovered by the local
community, and it was time for them to leave.

It looked as if someone had discovered a rats' nest and they were
shaking it up to get all of the pests out. In the streets of Rio de
Janiero, Brazil, that's exactly what it was - exterminators getting
rid of the unwanted pests.

As the crowd of spectators grew, the police began to control their
tempers. A few of the older and larger kids were whacked with small
clubs, while the rest were left to flee down the street towards the
shanties that loomed in the mountains above us. There would be no
exterminations today, but the children knew that when the sun went
down, the wolves would be out to get them. As I went to sleep that
night to the symphony of gunfire, I wondered how many of those
children would wake up dead.

More than a half-million children sleep beneath the arms of Christ the
Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. They run the gamut from runaways to
orphans to toddlers fleeing abusive parents. With few options, the
children resort to whatever it takes to survive. Sleeping in the
parking lots of the Mercedes dealerships and eating out of the garbage
of the five-star hotels, they wabble the streets like lost and
abandoned animals. In the quest for survival, the children form small
gangs and bands for protection and companionship. Sharing horror
stories about narrow escapes from armed men, they tell each other new
ways to make money and bandage each other's wounds with dirty napkins
found in the gutter. Quite too often, they bury one of their friends
in an unmarked grave.

It's perfectly logical to turn to crime in such desperate situations.
Stealing to eat, some children advance in their deeds, from armed
robbery to murder-for-hire. If only by sheer numbers, they threaten to
tear the city apart, and there are those who refuse to sit by and
watch. There are an average of 1,200 children murdered every year on
the streets of Rio. They are called "pivettes" (little farts),
"undesirables," "trash;" they are hunted down, tortured and killed by
the city's mysterious death squads. It is widely known that many
business owners and police plan an active role in the squads, which
pick off the children in their sleep like flies.

The average price to have a "street urchin" killed: a mere $70.

In Ipanema, the mutilated body of a 5-year-old boy is found wrapped up
in a rug. Not far from the scene a boy walks into a hospital, bleeding
from the groin. His penis had been cut off.

When city workers went to unclog a drain during a recent flood, they
found a young girl with a slit throat. Ask anyone about the Candelaria
Massacre, and they walk away. Rio would rather you forget about that
time a group of armed men fired upon 70 sleeping children outside of a
church. It's a picture that wouldn't look too good on a postcard.

At the young age of 11, Jao is the head of his family. He and his two
younger sisters live in an abandoned chopperia which had been vacant
since the owner was sent to prison for murder. I could look into Jao's
eyes and see the cold, hard stare of a war veteran. It was the look of
a boy who had seen far too much in his short life. The two girls do
what they can during the day to scavenge food from dumpsters in the
backs of hotels and restaurants, while Jao does other things that he
would rather not tell me about. Tonight was a special night though, as
Daniella, the older sister, had found a few half-eaten hamburgers, a
stale loaf of bread, and a half-full pint of beer.

As their aching bodies grow weary, under the cover of darkness Jao and
his two sisters creep back to the shack. The two girls cuddle in the
corner on a stolen beach blanket, as Jao peeks through a crack in the
wall at oncoming pedestrians. He knows that their lives depend on his
suspicions. All across the city, beneath the view of Christ, sleep the
hundreds of thousands of homeless children. It is not just the poverty
and loneliness that haunt children like Jao. It is that the city wants
them dead.




Kurko wrote in message ...
Simply because in normal daily life its next to impossible to encounter all
these
drug lords, thieves, muggers and murderes. In Rio more annoying are
beggars, shoeshiners and all kinds of sellers not to mention "samba bands".

Rio is very beautiful city (Cidade Maravilhosa), quite safe too for
tourists as long as you understand
and obey the "rule": Don't be stupid.

Kurko

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:40:02 -0500, clint wrote:

After reading all the Rio posts, why with all the wonderful places to go,
would anyone travel to Rio?

  #65  
Old March 14th, 2004, 01:48 AM
P E T E R P A N
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default The Ghosts of Rio

http://www.bootsnall.com/travelstori...ostreets.shtml

The Ghosts of Rio
By Craig D. Guillot

Christ watched over me, high on his hill in the distance, as I
prowled the streets of Ipanema's shopping district on a muggy
September afternoon.
Behind the thick glass windows of the ritzy stores lay the products
destined for Rio's elite. Up and down the avenue cruised some of the
newest luxury cars on the market, as the upper class pranced along in
their designer clothes, gold jewelry, and cash-laced wallets. There
was a sale on gold Rolexes, and Ferrari had one of its newer models in
stock. Next door, a new shipment of Persian rugs had arrived.

I thought for a minute that I had stepped into Beverly Hills or New
York's 5th Avenue, but as I looked harder, beneath the glitter and
glamour of Ipanema, I could see something entirely different. Between
the stores and malls, stood nervous men armed with Uzis and AK-47s.
With fingers rubbing the triggers, their bloodshot eyes wandered up
and down the block.

They were on the lookout for ghosts.

Among the Porsches and BMWs creeped the ramshackle city buses, packed
with the rest of Rio's 10 million residents. Crammed like sardines in
a tin can, the desperate souls in fourth-hand clothes leered and
pointed at the commerce around them. Belching clouds of exhaust, the
buses cruised towards the shantytown favelas rising high into the
mountains. It was a cruel, teasing form of urban planning, where day
after day the poor would look down to see the world that didn't want
them; nowhere on earth does such wealth and poverty lay side by side.

Along the elaborately designed sidewalks and outside the jewelry
stores, lay the occasional motionless body. A small child was curled
up underneath a sidewalk bench, while a legless man begged on the
corner. Then there was an old woman, who lay in a pile of trash on the
shoulder of the road. With her head resting upon her hands, she slept
like a baby as cars raced past only inches from her head. A taxi
pulled up alongside of her as two women, with gold necklaces and bags
of loot, stepped right over the sleeping body.

Across the street, a group of small children, with dirtied faces and
rags around their malnourished bodies, scurried underneath the outdoor
tables of restaurants in search of crumbs. They looked just like
pigeons pecking for birdseed in a park. It wasn't long before a
bearded man with an automatic weapon chased them away like a pack of
wild dogs.

Every block or two, a body lay right across the sidewalk. I did as the
cariocas, Rio's residents, did, and stepped right over them. The
cariocas shopped for gold and talked on their cell phones, as the rest
of the city died beneath their feet. The poor simply did not exist.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a man emerge from what appeared
to be a small drainage hole. Slowly standing into a hunchback
position, he started to wobble his way onto the sidewalk. Draped in
torn, filthy rags, he had a ski mask on his head; it was tilted
sideways, so that only the right eye showed, but through the left
hole. A large tear in the rags around his body revealed what appeared
to be burnt and disfigured skin.

The man crept his way in my direction, dragging his aching feet along
the concrete as men with Armani suits and Rolex watches scurried
around him. Mothers led their children around the trail of blood,
while others trudged right on through, as if the blood were just a
puddle of water.

As the monster walked in front of the small store where I was
standing, a man with a pistol strapped to his waist came outside and
started yelling at him. All I could understand of the Portuguese was
"Leave, leave... you are f*****g up the sidewalk!"

The masked man slowly wandered into the street. Cars honked their
horns and swerved around him. A splashing sound suddenly caught my
attention. I looked back down the sidewalk: a shop owner was dumping
buckets of water on the blood.

As the masked figure made it to the other side of the street, he
dropped down onto an open area of concrete, falling on his back. The
enormous pool of blood forming from his feet made it apparent that
death was coming for him. While the sun started to set, the crowds
began to thin, so that the drug gangs and killers could take control
of the streets. After all, Rio had to meet its annual murder count of
6,000.

Taking one last look at the man, I thought that was why he had crawled
out of that hole in the first place: to die in front of everyone, in
the hope that someone would notice.

Nowhere on earth have I seen such indifference to so much suffering. I
wanted to show the man that I cared. I walked around him.



Kurko wrote in message ...
Simply because in normal daily life its next to impossible to encounter all
these
drug lords, thieves, muggers and murderes. In Rio more annoying are
beggars, shoeshiners and all kinds of sellers not to mention "samba bands".

Rio is very beautiful city (Cidade Maravilhosa), quite safe too for
tourists as long as you understand
and obey the "rule": Don't be stupid.

Kurko

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:40:02 -0500, clint wrote:

After reading all the Rio posts, why with all the wonderful places to go,
would anyone travel to Rio?

  #66  
Old March 14th, 2004, 05:41 AM
JohnM
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Travelling to Rio

In article , P E T E R
P A N writes
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americ...carnival.reut/

Three policemen killed, ten wounded in ambush in Rio de Janeiro
Monday, February 16, 2004 Posted: 10:31 AM EST (1531 GMT)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) -- Three policemen were killed and 10
wounded in Rio de Janeiro when gunmen ambushed the bus in which they
were traveling in a new outburst of violence days before the annual
Carnival, police said Monday.


Good. Now that we know where you come from (in previous threads in
rec.travel.latin-america you have been promoting an Argentinian travel
website) we know how to respond. You are a nasty troll, as I suspected,
when I pointed out the holes in your sob story.

Good thing about trolls is that they can't stay hidden for too long.

--
JohnM
Author of Brazil: Life, Blood, Soul
http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/spaver.htm




  #67  
Old March 14th, 2004, 09:16 AM
Kurko
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Travelling to Rio

Ok little fairy.

Thank you for your misinformation, now you may crawl back to the hole you
came from. NOBODY here needs your opinion anymore. We know that your
enormous EGO
got hurt while you were visiting Rio, but try to cope with it GROW UP ok.

Kurko

On 13 Mar 2004 13:32:21 -0800, P E T E R P A N
wrote:

According to the articles I was able to pull out of the net on a quick
search, the organized crimes problems are far more serious in Brazil
than any big city in the world, with ambush and shoot outs of the
police, drug lords in prison ordering shut down of business, shcools,
banks, stores, shops, gas stations...in Rio, including the touristy
areas like Copacabana and Ipanema.

In this lawless situation, my feelings are that tourists have very
high probablity of being victims of violent crimes, or just caught in
the cross fires between the gangs with machine guns, grenades, and
police, compared to other cities.

By the way, the scenaries in Rio is much poorer than many places in
North America, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean...Rio is full of homeless,
undesirables people sleeping on the streets, watching tourists
intensely for the opportunities to commit crimes! Rio also reeks of
urine and feces on every street! In the scale of 0 to 10 on the fun
index, Rio is not even a 3 compared to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San
Francisco, the Hawaii islands, the US Virgin Islands...!

I will stay away from Rio, so Kurko can happily kiss the drug lords'
*sses, obey their harsh rules, and enjoy that hell hole by himself!

Everyone is urged to come to the US to enjoy beautiful, pristine and
peaceful sceneries every season, every climate, from high mountains,
to deserts, to wide open oceans, with excellent outdoor and indoor
sports and recreations, with safe, clean, lively cities, with the best
varieties of great foods, and the company of friendly, fun, warm,
honest, civilized, law-abiding Americans!


Kurko wrote in message
...
Simply because in normal daily life its next to impossible to encounter
all these
drug lords, thieves, muggers and murderes. In Rio more annoying are
beggars, shoeshiners and all kinds of sellers not to mention "samba
bands".

Rio is very beautiful city (Cidade Maravilhosa), quite safe too for
tourists as long as you understand
and obey the "rule": Don't be stupid.

Kurko

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:40:02 -0500, clint wrote:

After reading all the Rio posts, why with all the wonderful places to

go,
would anyone travel to Rio?





--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
  #68  
Old March 14th, 2004, 02:36 PM
João Luiz
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Travelling to Rio



JohnM schrieb:

Good. Now that we know where you come from (in previous threads in
rec.travel.latin-america you have been promoting an Argentinian travel
website) we know how to respond. You are a nasty troll, as I suspected,
when I pointed out the holes in your sob story.

Good thing about trolls is that they can't stay hidden for too long.


Agora que você menciona, a coisa começa a fazer sentido.
A moeda por aqui custou a cair.

JL

  #69  
Old March 14th, 2004, 04:50 PM
P E T E R P A N
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Travelling to Rio

This stupid, nasty guy JohnM was not able to provide any information
or any arguments to defend his interests in Brazil, so he just
conveniently accuses other poster of being a troll!

If JohnM is stupid and unedcuated, perhaps he should just shut up,
lest people may suspect that he is lying to protect his pimping,
mugging interests in Rio!

JohnM wrote in message

Good. Now that we know where you come from (in previous threads in
rec.travel.latin-america you have been promoting an Argentinian travel
website) we know how to respond. You are a nasty troll, as I suspected,
when I pointed out the holes in your sob story.

Good thing about trolls is that they can't stay hidden for too long.

  #70  
Old March 14th, 2004, 04:55 PM
P E T E R P A N
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Travelling to Rio

Everyone should see clearly that this dumb jerk Kurko is acting like a
stupid, uneducated loser with his nonsense arguments and his dumb
accusations!

If Kurko's old wife got raped up her big, sagging *ss by a bunch of
drug lords, Kurko will immediately blame his wife for the crime like
any dumb loser would!

Kurko is just dumb trash!

Kurko wrote in message ...
Ok little fairy.

Thank you for your misinformation, now you may crawl back to the hole you
came from. NOBODY here needs your opinion anymore. We know that your
enormous EGO
got hurt while you were visiting Rio, but try to cope with it GROW UP ok.

Kurko

 




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