Brazil sends hundreds of soldiers into a Rio slum as drug-related violence worsens

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of
Brazilian soldiers poured into Rio de
Janeiro's Rocinha slum on Friday in a bid
to help the cash-strapped state government
quell the drug-related violence that
authorities blamed for at least four deaths
and several injuries there this week.
The army deployed 950 troops in the
sprawling favela, responding to a request
from the Rio state government, Defense
Minister Raul Jungmann told local
television.
In the past week, 60 criminals are believed
to have launched an effort to dominate the
drug trade in the area, not far from some
of the city's most expensive real estate,
and shootings were reported there on
Friday morning, according to local media.
The violence in Rocinha is one more sign
of the backsliding since the launch of a
"pacification" program in 2008 to reduce
violence by pushing out drug gangs and
setting up permanent outposts in the city's
more than 1,000 favelas.
Police struggled to maintain security gains
in favelas in the run-up to the 2016
Olympics in Rio and have continued to
lose ground as a fiscal crisis in the city
and state lead to cutbacks in spending on
police and other essential services.
The military operation in Rocinha on
Friday disrupted transportation and
businesses in the area, with some schools
closing or paring back operations.
"I was going to work and suddenly the
police closed off the tunnel in Rocinha and
started to patrol with guns. There was a
panic at the mouth of the tunnel and I saw
people running and heard gunfire," one
witness told Reuters, requesting
anonymity. "I'm still shaking now."
The outbreak of violence is happening in
the midst of the Rock in Rio music festival
at the far south end of the city, which has
drawn thousands of people with musical
acts including Fergie and Aerosmith.
Broadcaster GloboNews on Friday showed
relatively calm scenes of matte green
military trucks filing down roads into the
favela, including soldiers riding on trucks
and motorcycles holding assault rifles.
There are up to 10,000 troops in Rio de
Janeiro who could be mobilized if needed,
the defense ministry said.
"We're not going to back off in Rocinha,"
the governor of Rio state Luiz Fernando
Pezao told journalists.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier and
Pedro Fonseca; writing by Jake Spring,
editing by Tom Brown)

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