Jair Bolsonaro's policies may end up strengthening mafia-like militias in Brazil
year mysterious trucks started dumping industrial waste at a precolonial archaeological site in Duque de Caxias, an industrial city of 900,000 people some 24km north of Rio de Janeiro. Environmental activists thought they knew who was behind it. Over the past decade, their battle to protect local nature reserves and the poor people who live near them has become a battle against criminal groups known as militias.
Militias evolved out of citizen-led vigilante groups that emerged in the 1990s to tackle drug gangs, says Mr Alves. Today they are de facto mafias. They thrive in the power vacuum of Rio’s peripheries, offering what Mr Alves calls “false security”. They are popular with politicians thanks to their talent for getting out the vote. Police officers among their members help them to thwart investigations. Their political ties help them to filch public money.
By contrast, the authorities are weak. A federal judge was murdered in another part of Greater Rio in 2011. A police delegation sent in February to investigate land-grabbing in Duque de Caxias concluded that officers could not do their work without risking their lives. According to Julio José Araujo Junior, a federal prosecutor, “our goal, frankly, is not to resolve the situation but to keep it from getting worse.
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