Drugs, Violence, and Tourism in South America's Largest Favela

"You cannot buy drugs on this tour," our guide repeated, specifically to a British patron who could not fathom the $20 price tag (50 Reals) on a gram of cocaine. A heavily tattooed carioca was leading us through Rocinha, the largest favela, i.e. shanty town, in South America. We followed her along the winding sidewalks that seemed to burrow through houses, balanced precariously atop one another. What was once, and still is, a haven for drugs and violent crimes is now a tourist attraction, safe enough for the gringoest of us to wander around taking pictures of the insides of strangers' houses. Rocinha, though, is an exception. It is one of the most developed favelas in Brazil, with a bank, a McDonald's, a newspaper, and its own TV station.
Rocinha, meaning "hilltop allotments," was founded in 1929, the houses built atop the hills overlooking the wealthy boroughs Gavea and Sao Conrado; a stone's throw from the touristy Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. It was founded in 1929, by immigrants from the northeast. They were often poor, and the land in the hills was unclaimed. Soldiers returning from war were also allowed to settle there. Residents of favelas don't need government approval to build their houses, and they construct them themselves, wherever there's room - hence the haphazard style of the stacking of buildings up the mountainside. Residents don't pay taxes, and they take their electricity straight from the power lines, no bills paid. In return, their government is the drug gang. Petty crime is low, but violence can explode.
The iron fists of drug gangs rules the favelas, mafia-like. The three leading drug groups often competing for the favela top spots are the Friends of Friends (Amigos dos Amigos, or ADA), Red Command (Commando Velho CV) and the Third Command (Terceiro Comando). The transitions of leadership within and between the groups and is often cinematic, even slapstick. But the people who are dying are real.
Take Eduíno Eustáquio de Araújo, for example, more commonly known as Dudu, and incidentally, widely rumored to feed his enemies to his pet alligator. He led the Comando Velho (CV), which controlled Rocinha in the late 1990s and early 2000s, until he went to jail in 1999.  His successor, Luciano Barbosa da Silva, also known as Lulu, took over as leader of CV and of Rocinha. But when Dudu escaped from jail in 2004, a battle overwhelmed Rocinha, on Good Friday, no less. Dudu and his band of rebels, Lulu and his CV supporters, and the police waged a three way battle on the streets of Rocinha; Dudu's camp tried to reclaim key "bocas" (drug dens), Lulu's tried to hold onto them, and the police tried to keep both down (although, as our guide said, the police usually stay out of the favelas' and their leading drug gangs' business. Perhaps, she suggested, because they take a cut of the drug money. Nowhere did I find this corroborated, only from the mouth of a lifelong Rio resident and 4-year Rocinha tour-guide. Also common sense.).
The police gunned down Lulu as well as his accomplice, Ronaldo Arauja Silva. Another well publicized victim was Telma Veloso, a mother of three, who would not give her car up as Dudu tried to high-jack it. He shot and killed her.
Then there's Jose Carlos dos Reis Encina, better known as Stepladder. He was Dudu's predecessor as head of the CV and the leader of Rio's cocaine trade in the 1980s; he was killed September 23rd, 2004 by a man on a motorcycle who swerved in front of his car and shot him several times with a rifle. More extraordinary though was his escape from the Ilha Grande prison on New Year's Eve, 1985. Ilha Grande is another tourist attraction, an island for surfers, sunbathers, and hikers. No cars are allowed and it is only accessible by boat. But high in the hills was the Candido Mendes prison (demolished in 1994) and during the recreational hours, in broad daylight, one of Stepladder's accomplices, widely known as "Fatty" swooped down on the prison yard in a helicopter and lifted Stepladder to freedom.
There is also the slaughter that ravaged Benfica prison on May 29th, 2004. Inmates belonging to CV overtook the guards by capturing 26 hostages. They were protesting being held in the same vicinity as members of their rival group, the Third Command. What followed is a reported sixty-two hours of slaughter, where they staged mock trials and executions. The unfortunate victims suffered being burnt to death and/or beheadings. A football game reportedly broke out with one of the decapitated heads.
This is the extravagance that prevails the drug gangs that run the favelas and that serve as their local government. No matter how cartoonish the violence seems, it has taken its toll on the residents of Rio. There were 600,000 murders in Brazil between 1980 and 2000. A comparison is often made to the murder toll in Angola during their 27 years of Civil War. Those deaths tallied to 350,000. In further statistics, two out of every 1,000 young men are killed every year in Rio.
However, Rocinha was declared a "bairro" (borough) by the city in 1992 and they are developed enough to have two radio stations, two bus routes, two grocery stores, three nightclubs, three newspapers, and a website. I climbed on the back of a motorcycle for the trip to the very top of the hill, the top of Rocinha where the highest rents of these settlements lie. Higher houses have better views and are farther from the garbage and sewage run-off (there is no garbage pickup or comprehensive sewage system).
The man driving the motorcycle weaved in and out of traffic as if he were zipping through a field of flowers. After surviving the trip to the top, we stood at the peak of the hill surrounded by shops that looked like bodegas. The street was filled with traffic and loiterers of all ages. The power lines sprouted spider webs of black cables, electricity lifted from the town to all the residents of the favela. Our tour guide pointed out a large ADA sprayed on the side of a nearby building. It was the first of many, a territorial tag.
The sidewalks could hardly be called as such, but we followed them through the mouths of a variety of stores and of course through people's houses. People stood in almost every doorway and all were exceptionally friendly. They all seemed to be used to a line of outsiders traipsing through their neighborhood. Their kind greetings probably had a lot to do with our tour guide's gregariousness, especially about the previous night's football game. Her team, Botafogo, the winning one, was tattooed on her lower back. There seemed to be a fair amount of layabouts, although the majority of Rocinha residents work in the towns below, mostly in the tourism industry or in private residences. We could stare straight into most living rooms and saw more than one child gathered around a television.
There were several children, however, in bright orange sashes. These indicated the local school they attended and told the bus drivers that their fare was waived. As we made our way down the hill, we came across several children, in school and out, most eager to have their picture taken. Many of us on the tour had digital cameras and could provide them instant gratification, a glimpse of themselves on a little screen. Further still, we entered a nursery, another testament to Rocinha's development. The children slept on one large mattress, a fan barely stirring the heat. From the top of the nursery, we caught the stunning view of the sea, the mountains in the distance, and of the upscale neighborhoods where many Rocinha residents work.
Part of the money from the tours (it's about thirty-five dollars per person) goes towards the favela, to programs like the nursery. This is a bit of a justification for a tour that is to some extent exploitive. The residents are more than friendly and more than used to tour after tour gazing at their neighborhood. But the nature of the favela - the draw of the infamous, the different kind of poverty, the drugs and violence - lead some to Rocinha for the wrong reasons. The right reason itself may be moot as the outcome is the same. One member of our tour took a picture of a little boy and showed him on his camera, clearly assuming the boy had never seen a digital one before. The boy didn't care and walked away with barely a glance.
Amigos dos Amigos (ADA) took over Rocinha after the shootout in April 2004. The leader of ADA is currently Bem Te Vi, no childish nickname to my knowledge. Violence has not died down since the ADA has taken over, even if the bairro runs smoothly on the surface. "An armed society is a polite society," as Robert Heinlein said. Rio de Janeiro is a major drug stopover between Colombia and North America; the drug trade in Rocinha runs over one million dollars a month. Violence is the natural accompaniment to excess.
Drug lords and the three main gangs were created in the 1960s. Brazil was under military rule at the time and threw leftist student radicals into the same prison as hardened criminals. Together, they formed the Red Command, the first drug gang. The students wanted to start a revolution and the favelas were their base, separated (and elevated) as they were from the rest of society. The Military Republic ended in 1985, but the drug gangs continued and the favelas grew.
Rocinha grew enough to become a tourist attraction to the steady stream of backpackers making their way through South America. Whether or not it is good for its residents, it is an indication of how far radicalism can go in Brazil. As my friend on the tour joked when he looked through the window of the nursery at the children sleeping neatly in rows, "I'll take the lot." In a way, they were for sale.