The lawmaker states that Governor Cláudio Castro’s operation was “a massacre carried out in secret” and calls for an independent forensic investigation.
Originally published in People's Dispatch.
State legislator Marina dos Santos of the MST, together with nine other opposition lawmakers, submitted a request to open a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) to investigate responsibility for “Operation Containment”, which left 121 people dead in the Penha and Alemão complexes in northern Rio de Janeiro. In an interview with Conexão BdF on Rádio Brasil de Fato, she argued that the Rio legislature should investigate the illegalities and abuses of the police action, considered the deadliest in the history of the state and the country.
“We see this CPI as a CPI of the massacre, not just of the operation. It is also to examine the entire public security process in Rio de Janeiro, which lacks a serious, responsible project that places people’s lives and dignity at the center,” the legislator said.
Marina criticized the conduct of Governor Cláudio Castro of Bolsonaro’s far-right Liberal Party and the Secretary of Public Security, Victor Santos, noting that information was concealed and there was no transparent planning.
“Governor Cláudio Castro has said many fallacies, many lies about this process. He uses death, he uses coffins to build a political-electoral stage, preaching massacre and terror,” she claimed.
The legislator also raised suspicions that the operation, allegedly prepared over the course of a year, was carried out irregularly.
“If there was planning, it was the planning of a massacre carried out in secret. An operation done privately, without coordination among authorities, without intelligence, and which turned Rio into a war zone,” she said.
Evidence of torture and disabled cameras
During the interview, Marina revealed that her office had received reports of signs of torture on victims’ bodies, as well as reports of decapitations and knife wounds.
“There is a great deal of illegality, many signs of cruelty. Bodies stabbed in the back, tied to explosives. Families are having to enter the forest to look for bodies,” she reported.
She also questioned the lack of transparency in forensic work and the absence of footage from officers’ body cameras.
“The Secretary of Security himself said that the cameras of the 2,000 police officers were turned off. How is that possible? There are clear intentions to hide what happened,” she stated.
Because of this, the legislator announced that she had sent requests to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Human Rights, and the Human Rights Commission of the Federal Chamber, requesting oversight and an independent forensic investigation into the deaths.
“The biggest criminals are not in the favelas”
Marina also pushed back against the narrative that violent operations provide security for the population.
“Who in the city feels safer after this massacre? Organized crime is not only in the favelas. The biggest criminals do not live in the communities,” she criticized.
According to her, the security model based on armed incursions is a failure.
“What we saw was more insecurity, uncertainty, and mourning. Public security cannot use death as its main tool, but rather the defense of everyone’s lives,” she said.
The legislator stressed that social movements have called for a public demonstration to denounce the violations and demand structural change.
“It is necessary to build a public security model in which the defense of life and dignity are at the center,” she concluded.
This article was written by Adele Robichez, José Eduardo Bernardes, and Larissa Bohrer, and was translated from an article originally published in Portuguese on Brasil de Fato.
Dr. Nicole Price is the Forbes Books author of Spark The Heart: Engineering Empathy In Your Organization.
Nick Encalada-Malinowski is Director of the Civil Rights Union campaign at Vocal-NY.
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