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RIO DE JANEIRO,
Brazil (AP) - It's almost startling: Police officers patrolling
a shantytown's streets are relaxed and friendly, finding time
to stop for chats with residents.
Only a year ago,
the Pavao-Pavaozinho-Cantagalo "favela" was a battleground,
one of the most violent of Rio de Janeiro's 600-plus slums.
Police spent their days dodging drug dealers' bullets, and
firing a few of their own.
When they get
called these days, officers say, it's often to help with a
birth, provide medical assistance or settle family quarrels.
The man responsible
for the turnaround is Maj. Antonio Carballo of the Police Group
for Special Areas. Given command of policing the neighborhood
at a time when favela violence in Rio seemed hopeless, he was
inspired by a visit to community policing projects in Boston.
Returning to Rio
- where 21 years of military dictatorship that ended in 1985
left police with a reputation for repressing rather than protecting
citizens - Carballo was determined to make service his officers'
first commandment.
The results are
dramatic. Violent deaths fell from at least one a month in
2000 to zero and there is a newfound mutual respect between
police and favela dwellers.
For a reporter
visiting the area, a tiny police trailer used as monitoring
station offered a glimpse of life in the favela. The officer
in charge sat idly listening to a transistor radio.
It's a sharp contrast
with the city's other favelas, where police, if there are any
at all, patrol nervously, their fingers on the triggers.
"It surpassed
our expectations," Carballo said.
Resident Jose
Marques is delighted with the police presence that has brought
not only peace but more customers to his electronic repairs
shop in the heart of the favela.
"People feel
safe to walk and bring their equipment up here," he said,
pointing to television sets, microwave ovens, video recorders
and other equipment stacked up in the shop. "There's been
big growth. I have barely time for myself. But there's so much
work that I will open another shop."
Only a year ago,
things were very different in the maze of winding alleys, home
to 15,000 of Rio's poorest, right next door to the fashionable
neighborhoods of Copacabana and Ipanema.
Drug dealers ruled
the area. Nobody moved without their knowledge or, sometimes,
permission. Violence was a fact of daily life. Even children
toted weapons.
In mid-2000, when
five residents were killed in a shootout between police and
traffickers, the locals' patience snapped. Hurling stones and
setting up barricades in protest, they demanded proper police
protection.
Viva Rio, a nonprofit
organization that for years has worked to rescue Rio's slums
from drug trafficking and violence, stepped in, along with
Carballo, a military police sociologist.
Carballo recruited
a group of officers from regular police ranks and set off for
a seminar on violence and community policing sponsored by the
World Council of Churches in Boston.
There, he and
Viva Rio leaders saw successful projects such as Cease-Fire,
which deals with juvenile violence, and Peace to the City.
Shortly afterward, Boston police officers visited Carballo's
favela.
His officers received
basic training that emphasized defense and protection of citizens
and respect for their rights. But, he said, the most important
lessons came from daily experience.
"We had to
improvise and develop ourselves the sense of community police
every day," Carballo said. "We had no script. Experience
was our manual."
There were three
basic rules - no armed people allowed in the neighborhood,
no kids to be involved in drug trafficking, no abuse of citizens
by police.
But it was only
after the police unit fired one-third of its officers for bribery,
extortion and mistreating locals that people really started
to trust.
"It had a
tremendous impact," said Ruben Cesar Fernandes, Viva Rio's
president. "Both the community and the force realized
they had something different. They began to trust it. It was
a breakthrough and the beginning of a cycle that placed police
at the center of the community."
Drug trafficking
is no longer as open as it was, and police officers appear
to be at ease and in control, although some residents say privately
that the drug barons have only moved their business underground.
"We don't
say that the drug problem is over, but it has been confined
to secrecy," Carballo said.
For most favela
dwellers, the police presence has meant a new life.
A public school
complex recently opened a computer training center, which quickly
registered almost 2,400 students, mostly locals but some from
other favelas.
A job training
program has signed up about 180 youths ages 16 to 24, all in
danger of being sucked into the drug underworld.
"With the
violence that prevailed before, it would have been impossible
to have something like this," said Cristina Salles, the
program's manager.
Skeptics question
if the turnaround will last.
But Fernandes
is optimistic the new police methods can curb drugs and violence
in other areas, and Viva Rio is behind similar projects opening
this year in other shantytowns.
"A virtuous
circle has been created that is telling everybody that there
are ways to break violence," Fernandes said.
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