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A new column about social issues in Brasil arrives on our website!

President Lula steps into a favela

By Damian Platt *

One Friday in March Lula stepped onto a platform in street next to the Complexo do Alemão in the Zona Norte of Rio and declared before a crowd of thousands that the safety of ordinary men, women and children must be respected by the police, even though “as we know, criminals can't be treated with flowers�. His visit to the Alemão, followed by Rocinha and Maguinhos later in the day, was to mark the beginning of a development program, valued at 1.14 Billion Reais, in the three communities. The program, called the PAC (Programa de Aceleracão do Crescimento), aims to bring improved transport, services and infrastructure to these communities.

In the case of the Alemão the historic presence of Lula was greeted with cautious optimism. The Complexo do Alemão is an enormous area of 11 favelas estimated to house over 150,000 people. Nordestinos and their descendents make up a large part of the population. Over the years it has gained a reputation for violence, first with the murder of Globo TV journalist Tim Lopes and last year with two months of battles between police and drug traffickers. Over 70 people were killed and many more injured by stray bullets. Numerous of these victims were innocent residents.

Anyone who lives in the Complexo do Alemão knows that such operations and the fighting between police and drug traffickers is not a simple question of cops versus robbers. The drug traffickers only maintain control of the community through negotiation with corrupt police, and there is an enormous amount of money to be earned through kickbacks from alternative transport schemes and other semi-legal businesses that exist in the community. In the absence of the state, it is this lucrative informal economy that maintains the status quo, for the benefit of a criminal minority, be they corrupt police or drug traffickers.

Despite the violence and the social exclusion that goes with it – there is only one school, a couple of creches and a few badly equipped health posts – the Alemão is a vibrant and friendly place. It has some of the most famous and well attended baile funk in the city. On Friday nights the Furacão 2000 sound system booms out the latest beats to thousands of dancers. It has colourful street markets and busy, well stocked shopping streets that sell almost anything: from goldfish to lingerie to building supplies and where you can stop for food and drink in one of the many bakeries, ice cream shops, pizzerias or bars. The population is overwhelmingly young (a recent poll estimated 60% to be under 32) and the streets always teem with children. High up on the Pedra do Sapo, a part of the favela which has a rural feel, visitors can take in breath taking views of the whole city – past the Igreja da Penha, the Baia da Guanabara, Ilha do Governador and over to the right, the Zona Sul and Sugarloaf.

Like most of Rio's favelas the Complexo do Alemão has a lot to offer. The people who live there are some of the hardest working in the city. But although they often travel to the Zona Sul to work, the Zona Sul rarely, if ever, travels to them. What the Zona Sul has seen of the Alemão in recent years is limited to TV images of shoot-outs. But in March, for the first time, a President of the Republic paid a visit, and that is a huge step. Now it is a matter of waiting and seeing how the promises of the PAC are implemented. People have already expressed some concerns: for one, most talk of development in the Alemão is about construction of a cable car system that is supposed to better transport for residents. But transport in the community is not a serious problem. It is possible to get anywhere within minutes by moto-taxi for 1 Real.

The cable car system is supposed to have been inspired by a visit that the Governor of Rio, Sergio Cabral, and others, made to Medellín in Colombia in 2007. They seemed to have missed an important detail: Medellín is surrounded by mountains. The Complexo do Alemão is not!

* Damian Platt is English and lives in Rio where he works with the AfroReggae Cultural Group. To find out more about the project visit www.afroreggae.org.br