Joining drug enforcement efforts for the first time, heavily armed Brazilian army soldiers occupied two densely populated hillside shantytowns here Saturday, setting up sandbag gun positions for a campaign against powerful trafficking gangs.
The soldiers arrived in olive green helicopters and small tanks under a driving tropical rain. Friday night, the troops had set up checkpoints at entry points to five other shantytowns in Rio's beachfront area. Installed without warning, the barriers cut off weekend drug users from their suppliers.The deployment was the greatest show of army force here since the Brazilian military relinquished power to civilians in 1985. Saturday, 50 people were detained in the shantytowns, most of them because they lacked legal documents or were suspected of drug purchases or trafficking.
Normally, criminal sweeps in the shantytowns are handled by the state military police, who answer only to state governors and are widely feared by residents for their tactics of extortion, intimidation and violence.
Twenty years ago, the army was also deeply feared because it repressed urban guerrilla movements with torture and assas-sin-a-tions. Though such memories have faded for many people, the civilian leadership's decision to call out army troops underscores an impression that drug trafficking in Brazil is spiraling out of control.
President Itamar Franco announced the army would intervene three weeks ago, as a rise in crime threatened the image of the country's traditional tourist capital.
In the first 10 months of this year, Brazil's federal police seized 11.5 tons of cocaine, five times as much as in all of 1992. Since June, the police have confiscated the two largest shipments on record here - 7.5 tons on June 5 and half a ton two weeks ago.
The June shipment, apparently coordinated by the Cali cartel in Colombia, was destined for New York, and this month's shipment was bound for Japan.