Some of Rio’s poorest rally on posh beach to plead for peace

Rio de Janeiro: Hundreds of residents from Rio de Janeiro’s ultra-violent favelas descended on the posh Copacabana beach area Sunday to plead for an end to lethal shootouts between drug traffickers and police.

Against a backdrop of weekly, often daily shootings of innocent people in military-style police operations, the demonstrators said Rio’s rich and powerful should stop looking away. "Coming here is the only way we can get the attention of the authorities," said Sergio da Silva, 52, a member of the community association for Jacare favela, standing amid a crowd of 400 on the avenue outside Rio’s iconic Copacabana Palace hotel.

"People have a lot of difficulties. It’s hard on the children. There are shootouts and people are shot," he said. "There are a lot of children who are lost to the drug traffickers and to using drugs."

Favelas -- poor, mostly unregulated neighborhoods dotted around the city -- are home to almost a quarter of Rio’s population. Many have become ghettoes where outsiders are afraid to enter and whose residents lack many basic rights and services.

Drug traffickers control swaths of the favelas, which often consist of warrens of alleys and small houses on steep hillsides, with difficult access. Police periodically mount raids, and when firefights ensue, stray bullets from assault rifles tear through densely populated areas.

Many favela residents say they fear the police more than the drug gangs. "They’re inexperienced and treat people roughly," da Silva said. "They shoot out of fear, but you can’t shoot when there are children around."

Amnesty International and other rights groups accuse officers of frequently using torture and extrajudicial killings, while police advocates point out that the officers themselves face huge peril.

More than 80 police officers have died this year in Rio de Janeiro state -- a sort of low-intensity war. Those growing up in the favelas say they are victimized not just by physical danger but by the lack of decent education and basic services, such as sewage treatment.

"Teachers don’t want to work there because there is shooting all the time," said recent graduate Matheus Concesao, 20, from Cidade de Deus. "In my school, I have only one teacher," said Agatha Rodrigues, 19, also from Cidade de Deus, which was made famous by the 2002 movie "City of God."

The head of the Alemao favelas association, Marcos Valerio Alves, 49, said he hoped the unusual appearance of hundreds of favela dwellers in Copacabana would wake people up. "You have to think of violence in its wider sense," he said. "A lack of kindergartens is a kind of aggression, a lack of sewage treatment is a form of aggression. So is not having work or education or pastimes." "Political parties should look at us through different eyes."