The governor of the Brazilian state, Cláudio Castro, presented the “integrated city” pilot program in a press conference on Saturday, in which around 500 million real (about 81 million euros) are to be invested in the favelas Jacarezinho and Muzema from Monday. Among other things, social and infrastructure projects as well as “more effective” police operations are to be financed from this. At least 28 suspected members of drug gangs were killed in Jacarezinho last May in the bloodiest police operation in Rio’s history.
The program will be expanded to other parts of the city later. Last Wednesday, the presence of the security forces in the two quarters of the pilot project was significantly increased with the deployment of around 1,300 police officers. Rio’s Mayor Eduardo Paes told journalists that he had only been informed about it the night before. The administration of the metropolis was also not involved in the planning of the “integrated city”, but he wanted to support the projects.
According to reports in the Brazilian media, residents of the affected favelas complained that there had been no dialogue with them about the new program. For some experts, it was therefore also unclear to what extent the new projects would differ significantly from previous actions to pacify the favelas – for example, the deployment of so-called pacifying police units (UPP) recently failed. In no other country in the world do so many people die in police operations as in Brazil.