International Women's Day

Bus set ablaze in drugs arrest protest

Three people were left fighting for their lives after a gang set a bus alight in the City of God last night. It's believed that the attack was a reprisal in protest at the arrest of a 19-year-old local boy caught in possession of 80 bags of cocaine. Thirteen of the 20 passengers on board were taken to hospital with serious burns.

The trouble began when youths started throwing stones at the bus to bring it to a halt as it travelled along one of the main roads into Cidade de Deus. They signalled to the driver to open the doors, got on at the front and the back and set light to cans of petrol, trapping the passengers, some of whom had to climb through windows to escape.

The attack comes just a week after authorities marked the first anniversary of the installation of a Peacekeeping Police Unit in the community and the day after the City of God hosted a huge music event to mark the 455th anniversary of the founding of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Since the police occupation began official figures show that murders have fallen from 34 to 6 and the number of drug traffickers shot dead by the police has been reduced from 20 to just 2. The number of arrests for drugs offences has risen from 54 to 185 and the number of youths taken into custody has climbed from 14 to 65. Meanwhile, school attendance is said to have risen by 30%.

Whilst a survey showed 93% of local residents approved of the police presence, 68% said they feared the drugs traffic would eventually come back.

Yesterday a further 80 military police were drafted in to the neighbourhood to keep the tense situation under control.

At your service

The boys who rule Rio’s ‘Corner of Fear’

THE TIMES, February 27, 2010

A boy steps boldly into the night traffic and waves a gun to bring the cars to a halt, clearing a path for a motorcycle which screeches into the intersection. Riding pillion is another boy, brandishing a machinegun.

Later two teenagers, also riding pillion on motorbikes, flash their guns at other motorists; nearby, a boy can be seen taking aim with a rifle equipped with a telescopic sight. Other youths wander the street smoking crack.

For residents, the junction between the busy Dom Helder Câmara and dos Democráticos, in North Rio de Janeiro, has become known as the Corner of Fear — and video footage of daily life there has shocked a nation already familiar with guns and violence.

The latest images, captured by undercover journalists from the Rio tabloid Extra, have exposed the city’s criminal youth culture in a manner that echoes the journalistic investigation featured in the film City of God.

The age of the criminals — one pistol-toting boy is 12 — is obvious cause for alarm, but so is the seeming impunity with which they act.

The video footage has provided a glimpse into the city’s underworld that hardly touches Rio’s wealthier citizens.

Local newspapers rarely show at first hand the violence that permeates the city’s slums (favelas). Since the brutal torture and murder of the journalist Tim Lopes — who was caught filming secretly in the Vila Cruzeiro favela in 2002 — Brazilian reporters have been reluctant to take their cameras into slum areas. Any reports that are filed tend to come from correspondents talking from inside armoured cars, or are images showing the aftermath of a shooting.

“What is shocking is this parallel power, the fact that they are very young,” said André Cabral De Almeida Cardoso, 41, a teacher. “They are so brazen about it.”

The journalists who captured the images were also taken aback. “Even knowing the reality of what could happen, you are still shocked by the glamour that these weapons represent in the arms of minors,” said Fernando Torres, 27, one of a team of three who spent four nights undercover at the Corner of Fear.

“These images are desolate,” said Lucy Petroucic, 56, a translator. “These boys have become little Taleban who think they have nothing to lose.”

Within hours, police arrested one of a group of bandits shown in the video and promised that changes were on the way. Luiz Fernando Pezão, Rio’s Deputy Governor, told reporters that a new police base would open nearby in May.

Lent 2010

It's Carnival!

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro has the capacity to alter the landscape in the same way that a heavy snowfall in London can leave familiar places unrecognizable and transform the way people relate to each other overnight. As the weekend before Ash Wednesday begins there is a perceptible change of mood in the air, inhibitions are thrown away and the police are strangely absent.

It's a bit like a slap-up, three-course meal which starts with informal street parties featuring itinerant brass bands, moves on to spectacular processions by top flight samba schools in the purpose built Sambadrome and culminates in masked balls in clubs and dance halls. It concludes with a city-wide hangover which leaves few people ready for the rigours of Lent. Indeed, once the champions are announced on Ash Wednesday the party recomences the following weekend for the winning school's lap of honour - a modern day add-on conjured up by Carnival commercializers.

For the first time in many years, people felt safe enough in Cidade de Deus to join the party and to take part in the parades staged by the local samba schools. The Mayor of Rio de Janeiro even paid for a stage to be erected in the main square so that residents could dance the night away.

Here Carnival is a much humbler and politer affair than in centre of Rio where tickets for the parade cost the earth, pickpocketing is rife, revellers often drink to excess and urinate in the streets and leave a nightmare of waste for refuse collectors to pick up the following day

In Cidade de Deus it's a family affair. The samba school next to church does its best to scrape together limited funds to stick as many sequins as possible onto their colourful costumes in an effort to get off the bottom of the league table in which they currently sit.

I joined the Bloco das Piranhas - or the Band of Drag Queens - for a three-hour parade around the estate. Some wondered whether I really was a priest or whether my clerical shirt was just a bit of fancy dress. It was extraordinary to see the ease with which men with wives and children donned wigs, bras, stilletoes and lipstick without batting an eyelid, save to wink at passers-by.

Carnival turns the world upside down and everyone gets the chance to be different and escape the normal constraints. Isn't the Kingdom of God supposed to be the same?

And the band plays on! Fourteen-year-old Luiz conducts the Bloco das Piranhas.

Blessing of the new Aumbry

Thanks to the generosity of the people of St. Mark's Church, Regents Park, the Parish of Christ the King has an Aumbry. The wooden cabinet was made in Brazil and features a brass relief of the disciples gathered with the Lord at the Last Supper.

It means that the Eucharist can now be reserved in church for the ministry to the sick and dying and for our silent adoration of Jesus Christ. The Bishop of Rio de Janeiro came to bless the Aumbry today and stayed on after the service for our new monthly community lunch.