RIO DE JANERIO, Brazil - A heavily armed, 3,000-strong security force backed by helicopters took control of Rio’s largest slum in a major operation to expel drug traffickers and prove Brazil can be a peaceful venue for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Elite police and Navy commandos encountered little resistance as 18 armoured vehicles boasting grenade launchers and machine guns led the invasion of the Rochinha favela in the early hours.
Police hoisted the Brazilian flag in both Rocinha, which has a population of 120,000, and the smaller neighbouring slum Vidigal, in a statement that government authority had been restored.
Sitting atop the road linking central Rio to the western districts where the Olympic village is due to be built, Rocinha has been under the control of drug gangs for three decades. - It has typified Brazil’s deathly, drug-fuelled slum culture - an image the country is anxious to dispel before it received millions of visitors for world’s two biggest sporting events and as it strives to take a more influential role in global affairs.
- But by mid-morning, locals were chatting animatedly in snack bars and on the streets, while dozens of armed police officers moved among them.
Sergio Cabral, the governor of Rio state, spoke of “an historic and emotional day for all of Brazil and principally for Rio”. - Police said they seized 13 rifles, with telescopic sights and ammunition, as well as a grenade and an unspecified quantity of marijuana.
- Authorities said it took just 90 minutes to seize control of Rocinha. Police simultaneously overran the neighbouring Vidigal slum, also previously dominated by the Friends of Friends drug gang.
- Huey helicopters swarmed over the slum, crisscrossing the hill and flying low over the jungle surrounding the slum, as police hunted down suspects who might have fled into the forest. By evening, police said they made just four arrests.
People peeked from their windows and stared as armoured personnel carriers roared up streets. Rifle-toting officers from the BOPE police unit, made famous by two "Elite Squad" films, trained their weapons down narrow corridors.- Down a side alleyway, police discovered a house they said belonged to the No. 2 gang leader, Sandro Luiz de Paula Amorim, known as "Peixe," who was captured by police a few days earlier when they encircled Rocinha with roadblocks.
- In stark contrast to the impoverished shacks around it, Amorim's three-story home was outfitted with a large whirlpool bath, swimming pool, huge aquarium, high definition TV and just one book: the ancient Chinese military text "Art of War."
Both slums sit between two of Rio's richest neighbourhoods, and Rocinha's ramshackle homes climb a mountainside covered in Atlantic rain forest. Police methodically cleared alleys and streets on their way up steep, winding roads. Last week saw the capture of Rio’s drug kingpin Antonio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, also known as Nem, who was caught hidden in the trunk of a car leaving Rocinha, along with several accomplices and corrupt policemen who was protecting him.
Source: Agencies, Video Al Jazeera
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