Brazzil

It might be 5 pm of Monday afternoon. I was coming back from a late lunch. The waiter warns me in the restaurant that a curfew had been decreed in Avenida Paulista. Exaggeration of some journalist, I told myself.  While paying, the waiter warned me that the curfew had been extended to Higienópolis, my neighborhood. Well, now things were getting a little too far.

At Angélica Avenue, there was something odd. We could feel a jittery traffic, people itching to go out not to come in. Close to  Buenos Aires square, I bump into a couple of female friends. "What are you doing here? You should be home." Frightened, they were running to their apartments. They also alerted me to the fact that we were under a curfew and that the curfew had been decreed by the organized crime. "Total nonsense" - I muttered as I kept walking carefree.

I decided, however, to pay closer attention to the world around me. Bars getting closed, schools and stores also closing their doors, even the shopping malls locking up. I reconsidered what the waiter had told me. All seem to indicate, this was a honest-to-good curfew.

I walked to my maître-traiteur, I thought about buying some champagne to celebrate the stalemate. Closed. The bakery is across the street, I went there. There were throngs of people getting in line, amassing supplies as if we were in time of war. I gave up. After all, I had enough wine in my cellar to endure many prolonged states of siege. And a day-old bread can always be eaten today.

I got home muttering against the foolishness of a government that feeling impotent in face of  banditry, decides to order a curfew just to pretend that it is doing something. I turned on the TV: reports and alarming interviews, authorities finding out the obvious, that is essential to get rid of the cell phone among the inmates to end this terror wave in São Paulo, which in the last 48 hours resulted in 86 corpses, more than half of them policemen. But there is no word on curfew. I looked then on the Internet. Nothing at all.

The closest mention I could find was a news item at the Terra site. The stores on Teodoro Sampaio street, in the west zone of São Paulo, and on 13 de Maio plaza, in the south zone, had closed their doors. According to shopkeepers, the order to close the doors had come from the policemen patrolling the area.

All seem to indicate, that the rumor spread around town and the firms started to send their employees home. Many buses were not circulating  and the bus stops were filled with frightened people anxious to get home. Traffic tripled and jams became as bad as those on Fridays. Cell phone lines got congested and the devices became mute.

The Paulistanos are afraid, say the newspapers. Nothing of the kind. About 30 years ago, Veja magazine - maybe it was Realidade, I can't remember - had this headline: "São Paulo, the fear capital." Since then, Paulistanos have learned how to deal with fear. Nobody is immune from theft, kidnapping or murder in this city.

We are not safe either in the street or in extreme security condominiums. The Paulistano has just decided to keep on living. If something happens what can be done? In a state that doesn't offer any guarantee of minimum security to its citizens, crime is not a crime, but bad luck.

Now that the organized crime decided to show who's the boss in town, the ones afraid are the authorities. The Paulistano is just a tad apprehensive. After all, if the police don't feel secure, how can I, common citizen feel secure?

Marcola, the outlaw believed to be the leader who ordered the attacks against  the police, was quite clear when talking to a police chief: "I can go into a police station and kill a policeman, but a policeman cannot go inside the prison to kill me because the state has the duty to protect me".

Behind his challenge is the peace of mind of a criminal with safe-conduct from NGOs and entities linked to the so-called Human Rights movement, plus the complicity of politicians and leniency of  judges. He knows that, if he suffers as little as a scratch, Security Secretaries can be beheaded and they might even have to face a jury. As for policemen he can order their killing at ease. No human rights entity will denounce a policeman's death.

The Paulistano lives well with fear. Who hasn't yet learned how to live with fear is the police. To share their panic, without any court order, they coerced store owners to close their shops. The rumor ran across town and - for honor and glory of the banditry - São Paulo stopped.

The newspapers, even the most serious of them, can't resist a touch of sensationalism. The past day was painted as a terror day. As a matter of fact it was the day of the big fiasco. São Paulo was paralyzed by rumors, nothing more that rumors. The press shows throngs of people fleeing looking for shelter at home.

Now,  it wasn't really like that. Once bars, stores, shopping malls, schools, are closed what else is there to do but to go home? Frightened by the radio and TV sensationalism Paulistanos bestowed upon the PCC (the prison gang First Command of the Capital) a power the criminal gang does not have, that of paralyzing a city of 10 million inhabitants.

São Paulo is overdoing it. We are still far from experiencing terror. Real terror will happen when the first car bombs start to explode. When this fateful day arrives then the PCC will in fact have power over the city.

For now, the PCC's exercises its power in other instances, through the authorities. When they chose to negotiate with the Lord of the War, the so-called Marcola, the State and  the police surrendered loathsomely to organized crime. When the Lord of the War threatened the police chief saying that he could enter a police station and kill a policeman, the chief cowered putting his tail between his legs.

If it weren't enough the arrogance of the all-powerful criminal, the PCC's spokesman, attorney  Anselmo Neves, issued a new threat. If the state of São Paulo didn't accept the gang's revindications and didn't soften the severity of the Differentiated Disciplinary Regime (RDD), the tension would  increase in the coming days.

Scared, the authorities ran to Marcola's cell. The State, meekly, negotiates a cease-fire with the criminal responsible for the slaughters. With a simple call, the Lord of the War ends a conflict that two hundred thousand armed men were not able to control.

What can we expect for the coming years? Whenever the inmates revindications are not met the criminals will unleash a new wave of slaughters. Marcola is in the best place he could be: in a maximum security cell, protected by hundreds of policemen. Were he commanding the war in the battlefield he might run the risk of being wounded and even killed. Imprisoned, he runs no risk.

The State surrendered shamefully. The PCC was victorious all the way. No surprise there. If some command the crime from a São Paulo jail, others command the crime from a ministry in Brasília.

What else can you expect from a country that had recently as minister a terrorist trained in Cuba and today has as minister a woman who used to rob banks? What are we waiting to hand over a ministry to Marcola?

He at least takes his job seriously.

Janer Cristaldo - he holds a Ph.D. from University of Paris, Sorbonne - is an author, translator, lawyer, philosopher and journalist and lives in São Paulo. His e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.

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