Sao Paolo: Gangs attack the state on all fronts

by Collin Sick
The violence that terrorised Sao Paolo, Brazil's most populous state, has returned, with powerful criminal gangs torching courthouses, incinerating buses, attacking banks and throwing homemade bombs at police stations.

In three nights of uproar that have set large areas of the financial capital, Sao Paolo city, ablaze, police have killed at least a dozen suspects while gang members have targeted hundreds of sites throughout the state.

It is the third time in four months that urban unrest has rocked Brazil, orchestrated by a crime organisation called Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) who operate out of Sao Paolo's chaotic and overcrowded prison system.
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In July, they unleashed more than 120 attacks over a three-day span that ended with seven deaths and 60 arrests.

Arthur Ituassu, a professor of international relations in Rio, said: "The only good news about what happened in Sao Paulo is that it will ensure that public security will become one of the main issues of the presidential elections in October."

Gun crime in Brazil has spiralled out of control in recent years, making the country among the most dangerous in the world.

Murder is now the prime cause of death among young adults, who now make up a majority of the population.

Nearly half of those murders are taking place in Sao Paolo and Rio De Janeiro and from 1985-2005, the number of Brazilians murdered has grown by 237 per cent.

Against this violent backdrop there is also serious social deprivation.

Three-quarters of the country's municipalities have no cultural or leisure facilities; 96 per cent have no cinemas; 86 per cent have no theatre; 25 per cent have no library.

The latest surge in violence comes in election year in Brazil and critics of left-leaning President Lula da Silva have accused him of using the unrest for political gain.

Most observers feel the violence will hurt the chances of Geraldo Alckmin, one of Lula's main rivals in the October election.
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