Dawn on November 28, 2010. The Brazilian Special Forces, Military
Police, BOPE (Police Special Operations Unit), Forestry Police, Civil
Police, Federal Police and Army Parachute Brigade surrounded the
Complexo do Alemão, one of Brazil’s largest shanty-town communities,
with an estimated population of 150,000 and site of the country’s most
vicious drug wars. This coordinated military effort succeeded in
securing the premises within two hours, as police arrested 30 warranted
criminals and seized more than 10 tons of narcotics and weapons.
Residents raised the national and state flags to claim victory in the
“War of Rio de Janeiro.” The Complexo do Alemão, which had been
responsible for receiving and distributing 90% of the drugs in Rio de
Janeiro, was now in the hands of government security forces.
These days, just a few miles north of the multimillion-dollar
apartments of Leblon, not far from Ipanema beach, the former
“microwaves” of the Complexo do Alemão are still visible. These are
intersections where, only a year before, gangs “cooked” their victims in
stacks of rubber tires. The average family in this once war-torn
favela
earns 257 reais (US$140) a month (more than three times less than the
rest of Rio de Janeiro). Twenty-nine percent of its residents bring home
less than the minimum wage, and the average resident of this community
expects to live nine years less than his “Carioca” counterpart. Part of
this stems from an infant mortality rate five times higher than that of
the city’s wealthy Southern Zone.
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