A VISIT TO A PACIFIED FAVELA

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 RIO DE JANEIRO 000353

C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (TEXT PARA.2 AND PARA.6)

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SOCI SNAR PGOV BR
SUBJECT: A VISIT TO A PACIFIED FAVELA

REF: a) RIO 346, b) RIO 329

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1. (SBU) Summary: On 16 October 2009 Principal Officer and consulate
officers joined Rio State Secretary of Security Beltrame and police
officials for a visit to Dona Marta, the first favela formally
considered "pacified" under the state government's Favela
Pacification Program (ref b). Along with Dona Marta, four other
favelas are considered pacified at present. Rio police entered the
Dona Marta favela in December 2008, pushing out drug gang members
who had dominated the area, establishing community policing and
introducing public utilities and other services into the community.
Dona Marta now appears generally calm and secure, with a permanent
Pacification Police Unit (UPP) presence in place, but Beltrame said
additional services and assistance to the favela's population needed
to consolidate gains are lagging. The experience with Dona Marta
seems encouraging thus far, but also points up, per comment below,
some lessons going forward: i.e., that favelas will have distinctive
characteristics that must be taken into account, that there is a
pressing need for additional civilian agency and NGO support for the
FPP, and that the momentum crucial for the FPP's success over time
will require, in Beltrame's own assessment, successful pacification
of 30-40 favelas (out of more than 1,000 in Rio) where gang
dominance and violence are most severe. End summary.


2. (SBU) On 16 October, one day before an outbreak of widespread
drug gang violence in Rio's northern zone (ref a),Principal
Officer, accompanied by Rio State Security Secretary Jose Mariano
Beltrame and by state police and consulate officers, visited Dona
Marta (aka Santa Marta),the first Rio favela to be formally
considered "pacified" under the state government's Favela
Pacification Program (ref b). Four other favelas are currently
considered pacified, i.e., mostly free of gang activity and with the
population accessible for city services and social assistance. Home
to an estimated 15,000 persons, the Dona Marta favela climbs a steep
hill directly above the Botafogo area of the city's affluent South
Zone. It is a maze of improvised brick and plywood dwellings,
spread along twisting, narrow paths (recently improved with concrete
surfaces). The favela fits within a relatively compact space
bordered by two walls that separate the favela from an ecological
preserve. A funicular-type street car on a track runs along one
side of the favela. The Dona Marta favela was occupied by
authorities under the FPP plan in December 2008, and Beltrame
explained that state authorities had followed closely the FPP model
in entering Dona Marta. (Comment. This approach is reminiscent of
"clear, hold and build" in U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, as
discused in ref b. End comment.) After Beltrame personally visited
the favela to advise residents that the police "were coming in and
coming to stay," state military police, spearheaded by the Special
Operations Battalion (BOPE),entered Dona Marta in late 2008,
resulting in some confrontations (accounts of the level of violence
vary) with local elements of the major Rio drug gang Commando
Vermelho (Red Command) which controlled the area. Most gang members
ultimately fled, and the gang leader who had ruled the favela for
many years was arrested and transferred to a maximum security
prison. His house - situated on commanding high ground in the
favela - has been turned into a police observation post.


3. (SBU) Within a month from the initial police invasion, Dona
Marta was free of gang dominance, Beltrame said. State authorities
established a Police Pacification Unit (UPP) station in an abandoned
crhche building at the summit of the favela, with 120 UPP police
officers full time (2x 12-hour shifts) in the favela. The UPP
policemen are specially trained in the community policing techniques
that, under the plan's doctrine, are intended to win the trust of
the local population and increase their access to civil services and
governance (ref b). Utilities companies brought regular electrical
power and sanitary plumbing to the favela for the first time, and
Dona Marta residents willingly paid the new utilities bills, since a
documented history of paid city services can enable favela residents
to claim legal title to the property on which their makeshift
dwellings are built, Beltrame explained. Beltrame lamented,
however, that other services and projects that needed to come into
the favela quickly to consolidate hope for a better future within
the population were not materializing rapidly enough. He stressed
both civilian agencies in the state government and civil society
groups needed to be more directly and broadly engaged in the FPP;
"the police cannot do it all," he added.


4. (SBU) Walking through Dona Marta with Beltrame and the UPP
station commander, a female military police captain who appeared to
be a beloved figure to many of the favela's children, PO noted a
general sense of calm (many favela residents were away at jobs
during the weekday morning, and mainly children, young mothers and
elderly persons were in evidence). Starting at the UPP station, PO
saw police volunteers giving classes in karate to several children
and adolescents from the community, and also coaching soccer on a
field built by the police next to the station. In a grim reminder
of life in Dona Marta before pacification, one wall of the former
crhche-turned-UPP station was pockmarked with gun shots - Beltrame
indicated it had been an execution site used by favela criminals.

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The UPP station also had a small operations center, with TV screens
showing images from surveillance cameras posted throughout the
favela. Beltrame pointed out to PO several spots where traffickers
had controlled access throughout the favela, and indicating the
choke points and gang fighting positions had been mapped out by
police in advance of the invasion. A young boy from the
neighborhood acted as guide to lead PO and the group to a rough
patio overlooking Rio - a location that is Dona Marta's claim to
fame, the site of the filming of a famous Michael Jackson music
video from the 1990s. Beltrame said that persistent rumor in the
favela indicated Jackson's production group paid local traffickers
to assure security for the video's production.


5. (SBU) Near the base of Dona Marta, Beltrame and PO waited for
the funicular cable car that serves three stops along the favela's
steep incline. A large group of print and media reporters
interviewed PO and Beltrame, indicating the high degree of interest
in the FPP - and the way it is being perceived abroad - in the Rio
public. Leaving the favela and entering the first paved street at
the foot of the Dona Marta hill in Botafogo (favela residents call
the regular neighborhoods of the city "the asphalt"),Beltrame
pointed out several snack stalls along the street that appeared to
have closed down. He said those small businesses had catered to Rio
residents - many from the middle class - who had driven the street
at night, seeking to buy cocaine from Dona Marta's gang dealers.
Those small-scale merchants had actually protested to police that
the pacification of the favela had been bad for their business,
adding their complaints, Beltrame mused, to others doubtless
expressed by the drug gang's customers, who had lost the "drive
through" cocaine purchase venue afforded by Dona Marta's proximity
to Botafogo's busy streets. As Beltrame and PO prepared to depart,
the president of the favela residents association approached and
told Beltrame that "things are going well" and, despite some
"specific problems" (NFI),the community is optimistic and will
continue to cooperate with authorities.


6. (SBU) Comment: Dona Marta is receiving a lot of attention as the
test case for the FPP, and a bellwether of whether this new
strategic approach can actually create conditions for fundamentally
altering Rio's abysmally violent environment for the better. That
may be more scrutiny than the relatively small community spreading
on a hill above Botafogo can justify in terms of drawing clear and
persuasive conclusions, but the experience of the FPP in Dona Marta
in its initial seems encouraging. The visit to the favela
reinforced a number of observations on favelas and the FPP
approach:

--Every favela will be distinctive: Dona Marta is the FPP
prototype, but its relatively small size, terrain features and other
social aspects make it a somewhat easier proposition than many other
favelas, such as the Morro dos Maccacos, where the police helicopter
was shot down (ref a),or the massive Complexo de Alemao, which is a
veritable fortress of the senior leaders of the Commando Vermelho.
Successful pacification of Complexo de Alemao will be iconic for the
city's effort to reclaim the favelas, but also likely will be
"traumatic" in terms of the scale of violence, according to Beltrame
(ref b),perhaps resembling the battles in Fallujah more than a
conventional urban police operation. Other favelas will be nearly
as hard. Political leaders will have to prepare Rio - and Brazil -
for that reality.

--Police are not enough: The FPP strategy contemplates police
pushing traffickers out, securing favelas and winning their
residents' confidence with the UPP. However, it was never envisaged
in the plan that police would also be the primary, long-term
arbiters for provision of city services to residents, and main
providers of volunteers for social action projects. Yet that is
what is happening, according to Beltrame, as civilian government
agencies and NGOs have yet to fall in on the FPP doctrine in any
organized and robust fashion. In Dona Marta, with the exception of
a few tutors and computer instructors who volunteered individually,
police officers are doing everything from assisting residents with
requests for utilities to coaching sports. There is no cadre of
civilian government and NGO personnel to handle those tasks, nor
evidence of systematic programming for additional services (beyond
basic light and water) on the horizon. If such a vacuum persists,
it will wear down police capacity and lead to frustration among
residents in pacified favelas, threatening the initial gains in
those areas.

--Momentum is crucial: The past week in Rio is an example of how
events - especially sudden and violent ones - can derail best-laid
plans for the FPP's progression. Whatever next steps were planned
under the FPP, the entire machinery of Rio's security structure was
suddenly deployed in dragnet actions against favelas thought to
house the leaders of the attack against the police helicopter, which
captured national and world attention. The gunmen get a vote, and
outlasting and besting them will require a combination of
persistence and tactical patience - a willingness to adjust and even
delay action at times -- while remaining committed to the strategic

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plan. Beltrame seems aware of this, and will also pick and chose
his fights. Rio has an estimated 1,000 favelas encompassing
approximately 3 million people, but Beltrame cautiously believes he
can achieve strong momentum if he can pacify between 30-40 favelas
with the largest concentrations of criminal activity over the next
two or so years.


7. (SBU) While much of the current international attention on Rio
stems from the Rio's selection to host the Olympics in 2016 and the
recent spectacular violence that closely followed the Olympics
announcement, most Rio residents see the issue in even more profound
terms. As Rio Governor Sergio Cabral noted recently, Brazil has a
track record for successfully securing major athletic events, but
the greater challenge for Rio is to create a permanent change in the
city, addressing the favelas and the profound social problems they
present with a comprehensive and sustained strategy that can
fundamentally alter the security environment, economy and quality of
the life in the city for the long term.

HEARNE