VZCZCXRO2531
RR RUEHRG
DE RUEHRI #0353/01 3001734
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 271734Z OCT 09 ZDS
FM AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5146
INFO RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 1428
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 3551
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 0002

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 RIO DE JANEIRO 000353 
 
C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (TEXT PARA.2 AND PARA.6) 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SOCI SNAR PGOV BR
SUBJECT: A VISIT TO A PACIFIED FAVELA 
 
REF: a) RIO 346, b) RIO 329 
 
RIO DE JAN 00000353  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: On 16 October 2009 Principal Officer and consulate 
officers joined Rio State Secretary of Security Beltrame and police 
officials for a visit to Dona Marta, the first favela formally 
considered "pacified" under the state government's Favela 
Pacification Program (ref b).  Along with Dona Marta, four other 
favelas are considered pacified at present.  Rio police entered the 
Dona Marta favela in December 2008, pushing out drug gang members 
who had dominated the area, establishing community policing and 
introducing public utilities and other services into the community. 
Dona Marta now appears generally calm and secure, with a permanent 
Pacification Police Unit (UPP) presence in place, but Beltrame said 
additional services and assistance to the favela's population needed 
to consolidate gains are lagging.  The experience with Dona Marta 
seems encouraging thus far, but also points up, per comment below, 
some lessons going forward: i.e., that favelas will have distinctive 
characteristics that must be taken into account, that there is a 
pressing need for additional civilian agency and NGO support for the 
FPP, and that the momentum crucial for the FPP's success over time 
will require, in Beltrame's own assessment, successful pacification 
of 30-40 favelas (out of more than 1,000 in Rio) where gang 
dominance and violence are most severe. End summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) On 16 October, one day before an outbreak of widespread 
drug gang violence in Rio's northern zone (ref a), Principal 
Officer, accompanied by Rio State Security Secretary Jose Mariano 
Beltrame and by state police and consulate officers, visited Dona 
Marta (aka Santa Marta), the first Rio favela to be formally 
considered "pacified" under the state government's Favela 
Pacification Program (ref b).  Four other favelas are currently 
considered pacified, i.e., mostly free of gang activity and with the 
population accessible for city services and social assistance.  Home 
to an estimated 15,000 persons, the Dona Marta favela climbs a steep 
hill directly above the Botafogo area of the city's affluent South 
Zone.  It is a maze of improvised brick and plywood dwellings, 
spread along twisting, narrow paths (recently improved with concrete 
surfaces).  The favela fits within a relatively compact space 
bordered by two walls that separate the favela from an ecological 
preserve.  A funicular-type street car on a track runs along one 
side of the favela.  The Dona Marta favela was occupied by 
authorities under the FPP plan in December 2008, and Beltrame 
explained that state authorities had followed closely the FPP model 
in entering Dona Marta.  (Comment. This approach is reminiscent of 
"clear, hold and build" in U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, as 
discused in ref b. End comment.)  After Beltrame personally visited 
the favela to advise residents that the police "were coming in and 
coming to stay," state military police, spearheaded by the Special 
Operations Battalion (BOPE), entered Dona Marta in late 2008, 
resulting in some confrontations (accounts of the level of violence 
vary) with local elements of the major Rio drug gang Commando 
Vermelho (Red Command) which controlled the area.  Most gang members 
ultimately fled, and the gang leader who had ruled the favela for 
many years was arrested and transferred to a maximum security 
prison.  His house - situated on commanding high ground in the 
favela - has been turned into a police observation post. 
 
¶3. (SBU)  Within a month from the initial police invasion, Dona 
Marta was free of gang dominance, Beltrame said.  State authorities 
established a Police Pacification Unit (UPP) station in an abandoned 
crhche building at the summit of the favela, with 120 UPP police 
officers full time (2x 12-hour shifts) in the favela.  The UPP 
policemen are specially trained in the community policing techniques 
that, under the plan's doctrine, are intended to win the trust of 
the local population and increase their access to civil services and 
governance (ref b).  Utilities companies brought regular electrical 
power and sanitary plumbing to the favela for the first time, and 
Dona Marta residents willingly paid the new utilities bills, since a 
documented history of paid city services can enable favela residents 
to claim legal title to the property on which their makeshift 
dwellings are built, Beltrame explained.  Beltrame lamented, 
however, that other services and projects that needed to come into 
the favela quickly to consolidate hope for a better future within 
the population were not materializing rapidly enough.  He stressed 
both civilian agencies in the state government and civil society 
groups needed to be more directly and broadly engaged in the FPP; 
"the police cannot do it all," he added. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  Walking through Dona Marta with Beltrame and the UPP 
station commander, a female military police captain who appeared to 
be a beloved figure to many of the favela's children, PO noted a 
general sense of calm (many favela residents were away at jobs 
during the weekday morning, and mainly children, young mothers and 
elderly persons were in evidence).  Starting at the UPP station, PO 
saw police volunteers giving classes in karate to several children 
and adolescents from the community, and also coaching soccer on a 
field built by the police next to the station.  In a grim reminder 
of life in Dona Marta before pacification, one wall of the former 
crhche-turned-UPP station was pockmarked with gun shots - Beltrame 
indicated it had been an execution site used by favela criminals. 
 
RIO DE JAN 00000353  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
The UPP station also had a small operations center, with TV screens 
showing images from surveillance cameras posted throughout the 
favela.  Beltrame pointed out to PO several spots where traffickers 
had controlled access throughout the favela, and indicating the 
choke points and gang fighting positions had been mapped out by 
police in advance of the invasion.  A young boy from the 
neighborhood acted as guide to lead PO and the group to a rough 
patio overlooking Rio - a location that is Dona Marta's claim to 
fame, the site of the filming of a famous Michael Jackson music 
video from the 1990s.  Beltrame said that persistent rumor in the 
favela indicated Jackson's production group paid local traffickers 
to assure security for the video's production. 
 
¶5. (SBU)  Near the base of Dona Marta, Beltrame and PO waited for 
the funicular cable car that serves three stops along the favela's 
steep incline.  A large group of print and media reporters 
interviewed PO and Beltrame, indicating the high degree of interest 
in the FPP - and the way it is being perceived abroad - in the Rio 
public.  Leaving the favela and entering the first paved street at 
the foot of the Dona Marta hill in Botafogo (favela residents call 
the regular neighborhoods of the city "the asphalt"), Beltrame 
pointed out several snack stalls along the street that appeared to 
have closed down.  He said those small businesses had catered to Rio 
residents - many from the middle class - who had driven the street 
at night, seeking to buy cocaine from Dona Marta's gang dealers. 
Those small-scale merchants had actually protested to police that 
the pacification of the favela had been bad for their business, 
adding their complaints, Beltrame mused, to others doubtless 
expressed by the drug gang's customers, who had lost the "drive 
through" cocaine purchase venue afforded by Dona Marta's proximity 
to Botafogo's busy streets.  As Beltrame and PO prepared to depart, 
the president of the favela residents association approached and 
told Beltrame that "things are going well" and, despite some 
"specific problems" (NFI), the community is optimistic and will 
continue to cooperate with authorities. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Comment:  Dona Marta is receiving a lot of attention as the 
test case for the FPP, and a bellwether of whether this new 
strategic approach can actually create conditions for fundamentally 
altering Rio's abysmally violent environment for the better.  That 
may be more scrutiny than the relatively small community spreading 
on a hill above Botafogo can justify in terms of drawing clear and 
persuasive conclusions, but the experience of the FPP in Dona Marta 
in its initial seems encouraging.  The visit to the favela 
reinforced a number of observations on favelas and the FPP 
approach: 
 
--Every favela will be distinctive:  Dona Marta is the FPP 
prototype, but its relatively small size, terrain features and other 
social aspects make it a somewhat easier proposition than many other 
favelas, such as the Morro dos Maccacos, where the police helicopter 
was shot down (ref a), or the massive Complexo de Alemao, which is a 
veritable fortress of the senior leaders of the Commando Vermelho. 
Successful pacification of Complexo de Alemao will be iconic for the 
city's effort to reclaim the favelas, but also likely will be 
"traumatic" in terms of the scale of violence, according to Beltrame 
(ref b), perhaps resembling the battles in Fallujah more than a 
conventional urban police operation.  Other favelas will be nearly 
as hard.  Political leaders will have to prepare Rio - and Brazil - 
for that reality. 
 
--Police are not enough:  The FPP strategy contemplates police 
pushing traffickers out, securing favelas and winning their 
residents' confidence with the UPP.  However, it was never envisaged 
in the plan that police would also be the primary, long-term 
arbiters for provision of city services to residents, and main 
providers of volunteers for social action projects.  Yet that is 
what is happening, according to Beltrame, as civilian government 
agencies and NGOs have yet to fall in on the FPP doctrine in any 
organized and robust fashion.  In Dona Marta, with the exception of 
a few tutors and computer instructors who volunteered individually, 
police officers are doing everything from assisting residents with 
requests for utilities to coaching sports.  There is no cadre of 
civilian government and NGO personnel to handle those tasks, nor 
evidence of systematic programming for additional services (beyond 
basic light and water) on the horizon.  If such a vacuum persists, 
it will wear down police capacity and lead to frustration among 
residents in pacified favelas, threatening the initial gains in 
those areas. 
 
--Momentum is crucial:  The past week in Rio is an example of how 
events - especially sudden and violent ones - can derail best-laid 
plans for the FPP's progression.  Whatever next steps were planned 
under the FPP, the entire machinery of Rio's security structure was 
suddenly deployed in dragnet actions against favelas thought to 
house the leaders of the attack against the police helicopter, which 
captured national and world attention.  The gunmen get a vote, and 
outlasting and besting them will require a combination of 
persistence and tactical patience - a willingness to adjust and even 
delay action at times -- while remaining committed to the strategic 
 
RIO DE JAN 00000353  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
plan.  Beltrame seems aware of this, and will also pick and chose 
his fights.  Rio has an estimated 1,000 favelas encompassing 
approximately 3 million people, but Beltrame cautiously believes he 
can achieve strong momentum if he can pacify between 30-40 favelas 
with the largest concentrations of criminal activity over the next 
two or so years. 
 
¶7. (SBU) While much of the current international attention on Rio 
stems from the Rio's selection to host the Olympics in 2016 and the 
recent spectacular violence that closely followed the Olympics 
announcement, most Rio residents see the issue in even more profound 
terms.  As Rio Governor Sergio Cabral noted recently, Brazil has a 
track record for successfully securing major athletic events, but 
the greater challenge for Rio is to create a permanent change in the 
city, addressing the favelas and the profound social problems they 
present with a comprehensive and sustained strategy that can 
fundamentally alter the security environment, economy and quality of 
the life in the city for the long term. 
 
HEARNE