Check out this quote from Amnesty International:
“This violence is totally unacceptable but the police response has put communities at risk. The authorities must ensure that the security and well-being of the broader population comes first and foremost in any operation carried out in residential areas,” said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International’s Brazil researcher.
According to the Municipal Education Secretary, 17 schools and 12 creches have been closed in Rio this week, leaving more than 12,000 children without education. Thousands across the north zone of the city have been unable to go to work and large numbers of residents have been left without water or electricity.
“The current wave of criminal violence is symptomatic of wider failures throughout the criminal justice system,” said Patrick Wilcken.
My favorite was the leaving children without education. Oh my goodness, how dare they! A 3 year old's need to learn numbers comes before the fact that crazy drug traffickers are running around with potentially crazier police men after them. Well, Maracana should have been turned into an impromptu school so no one missed out on their education during all this.
HELLO! Which country are you talking about again?! Is it just me or if crime in a city gets this bad, don't you think a couple of days of missed school is beside the point. If you want to talk about school, talk about the amount of children who just don't go in the first place and the fact that they are not forced to. We're struggling with public safety people, don't even get us started on the faltering public education system.
And please try not to shoot residences. Thank goodness Amnesty international came out and gave that statement. I'm sure the police and drug traffickers haven't realized that they are putting other people in danger. I bet if they hadn't said anything, the people themselves wouldn't even realize they are in danger. My question is, why aren't they there, in the favela, handing out yellow jumpsuits to the drug traffickers and red ones to the policemen? Easier targets make gunfights safer for everyone. Don't forget your protective goggles.
I know that you, Amnesty International, are just trying to take care of the world. And Patrick, I bet your research is top notch. But sometimes, just on special occasions such as these, maybe you should keep your mouth shut and watch with the rest of the world. That is, unless you are physically in there, you know, trying to make sure kids are getting their education.
Maybe I'm being a little defensive. Ok, quite possibly I'm being very defensive. But to make a statement stating the obvious while managing to sound condescending, well no one talks about my city like that except for me, thank you very much!
That reminds me of a piece from Heinlein.
ReplyDelete'Mr. Dubois then turned to me. "I told you that 'juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue -- indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a 'juvenile delinquent.' But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents -- people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail."
"And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights' . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure."
So yes, we forget that peace and safety comes with duties. The Brazilian government failed in the past - shame on it. Now that they're doing the right thing to correct the situation, the good ol' egg breaking is in order. It's messy and painful, like a surgery - and yet if you don't do it the body will die.
Oh, I'm sorry...it was ok for the guy to deal the drug to the guy who slipped the ecstasy into the girls glass at the bar so he could rape her, but oh darn! The ecstasy was contaminated and the girl died...(actually happened in the USA)
ReplyDeleteYes, yes...the crime against humanity isn't the ILLEGAL drugs being sold...it's the police actually doing their jobs instead of sitting in little corner shops eating donuts...
Meh...Amnesty International... grumble,grumble,grumble...
You rule Rachel. It's a whole different thing when you LIVE here... bjs
ReplyDeleteRachel,
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on this one too...
Why won't Amnesty International talk on behalf of children being born with "Autism" or other "birth defects" from a.hole parents using drugs and crooks at Morro do Alemao selling it?
They are real victims...
Now, until they have a better idea to curb crime in Rio, they should stay out of it and zip it!
There are strong suspects that the Amnesty International has RELATIONS with the international (drug, weapons, human) traffic. Think well... it would make sense, wouldn't it ?
ReplyDeleteI received a petition from Amnesty international last week that got my whole neighborhood up in arms.
ReplyDeleteThey were defending a recently constructed favela (I swear it grows everyday) at the end of Avenida das Americas, which is being removed to widen the road to the 4 lanes on each side which were in the ORIGINAL PLANS when the road was built. The road, which suffers from ever more insufferable traffic, links Barra/Zona Sul to Santa Cruz, a poor area of the city where people legally build low income housing and pay taxes on it.
Despite the fact that many of these homes were built since the city started to remove homes in Recreio, according to the petition residents have been there for over 20years and were surprised that they were being unjustly asked to be removed.
AI goes on to further blame the removal of people living in the middle of nowhere on THE OLYMPICS!!! Let the poor, hardworking, tax payers continue to spend twice as much time in traffic because drug dealers need to continue to build homes on public land near the beach to supply the rich kids in Barra with weed!
No mention of all of the protest marches IN FAVOR of the demolaton of the favela, or the petitions local residents signed and law proposed by our senator to create "minha casa minha vida" homes in the same neighborhood, but out of the way of the road, for them (Keep the people, legalize the housing chants) Just lots of comments about how Rio is injust and hates the poor.
YOur rants are great!! I wish I had the Chutzpa to go on about this crazy town called Rio. I have felt in my skin the frustration that you (and probably many other gringos) feel dealing with the bureaucracy and hypocrisy here...
ReplyDelete