A large police operation surrounded the Penha and Alemão complexes in
Rio de Janeiro, resulting in the deaths of dozens of people, including
four police officers, this Tuesday, the 28th. Although official sources
reported 64 deaths, the following morning dozens of bodies were
recovered by residents and family members, and the death toll may have
reached over 120, a macabre record in the long list of massacres
perpetrated by Brazilian police forces. Residents reported numerous
bodies with marks of torture and execution, such as shots to the back of
the neck, bound wrists, and stab wounds.
The line of bodies displayed in São Lucas Square, in the Penha Complex,
is visceral proof of the genocidal violence that capitalist-statism
exercises daily against Black and working-class people. The so-called
"Operation Containment," far from being a security action, reveals
itself as a meticulously planned massacre, led by Governor Cláudio
Castro (PL) with the approval of the racist ruling classes.
The operation confined the working population to their homes and closed
schools, hospitals, and city streets, leaving students and residents
unable to go to school or work. The panic instilled in the population
aims precisely to legitimize exceptional measures, repositioning the
police forces as political protagonists. The action is anything but
improvised: it is part of the genocidal and war-like policy promoted by
Bolsonaro and his allies.
The fallacy of the war on drugs
The war on drugs is a frequently used argument to promote this type of
state violence, which in reality aims at brutal and indiscriminate
repression against the poor and black population. It takes on the
appearance of combating drug trafficking, but only affects the retail
level. Meanwhile, major drug traffickers establish their drug and arms
sales schemes on the borders-under the protection and participation of
the armed forces and police-without being bothered or repressed.
The state's war tactic is clear: terrorize communities to consolidate
its control over peripheral territories. A true war on the poor, a tool
to discipline the oppressed classes and maintain the order of capitalist
exploitation, without repressing those who actually profit from drug
trafficking.
The massacre as an electoral tactic
The actions of the police forces also have a strong electoral component.
It prepares the ground for the campaign, both in the field of propaganda
and in territorial control, aiming to contain the expansion of certain
factions that have advanced into communities in the western zone (a
central electoral stronghold in municipal and state elections), for the
benefit of maintaining the electoral strongholds dominated by the
militias. In doing so, the governor guarantees territorial control in
the pre-electoral context and strengthens the support of these areas for
his political alliance. It was with the support of various political
leaders, linked to territories controlled by the militia, that Cláudio
Castro secured his last election as governor.
The issue of public safety is one of the problems that most bothers the
population, and violent police action resonates with various sectors of
the working class. State terrorism by the police forces is mobilized as
a populist instrument of "response" to a legitimate feeling, which is
the sensation of insecurity and fear, but measures like this are far
from solving any problem.
All this situation is promoted by the structural conditions of
capitalist-statism, which produces a reserve army ready to occupy the
retail level commanded by the big drug traffickers (all of them living
outside the communities and favelas) and their allies within the
chambers and legislative assemblies, irrigating political campaigns with
money from drug trafficking or the militia. While the state apparatus
mobilizes thousands of agents to invade favelas, those who truly profit
from crime remain untouchable in their luxury condominiums and financial
market offices on Faria Lima Avenue. The security policy is selective:
it criminalizes poverty and guarantees impunity for those at the top.
National and International Disputes
The operation was also used as a way to create tension and criticism
against the federal government and the Supreme Federal Court (STF),
through disregard for the Argument of Non-Compliance with Fundamental
Precept (ADPF) 635. The ADPF of the Favelas, which is being processed in
the Supreme Court, imposed rules on police operations, aiming to
minimize their lethality. The internal dispute within the state
apparatus is a dispute between indiscriminate state terrorism, a type of
state of exception defended by Bolsonaro's supporters, and the
low-intensity war defended by bourgeois republicanism, of the
Lula-Alckmin government and the STF. In both cases, the war on drugs is
not questioned-the discussion boils down to its intensity. Not a word
about the legalization of drugs or the socioeconomic situation that
organizes this trade through state structures.
It is also worth highlighting the pro-imperialist dimension of the
massacre, with the use of the term "narcoterrorist" by the governor and
his allies. It is enough to remember that the term has been used by the
Donald Trump administration to justify incursions and bombings of boats
near the coast of Venezuela and Colombia. The US has classified drug
cartels as terrorist organizations. The adoption of the term by
Brazilian authorities may open the door for US military organizations to
treat the situation as a threat, and thus establish cooperative
relations with Bolsonaro's supporters, with a view to intervening in the
country. This opens the possibility of using counterterrorism measures,
with intelligence and espionage apparatuses, special forces, and
military approaches in border areas, such as those already occurring in
Venezuela.
The massacre in the Penha Complex is not an isolated event, but part of
the same logic of domination and extermination that structures the
global capitalist and colonial order. The same doctrine that justifies
Israel's genocidal policy against the Palestinian people - where a
militarized state occupies territories, dehumanizes an entire
population, and subjects it to a continuous massacre of ethnic cleansing
- is what guides the police occupation of Rio de Janeiro's favelas.
These are two sides of the same coin: a capitalism that, in crisis,
resorts to elements of fascism, racism, and militarism to maintain its
dominance. Whether in occupied Palestine, Venezuela under economic and
military attack, or the favelas of Rio, the objective is the same: to
guarantee the accumulation of wealth by a minority and deepen social
inequality.
The massacre, therefore, is an action that combines different
dimensions: repression of the territories of the Black and poor
population, strengthening of state terrorism and experiments in
exceptional measures, electoral control of strategic strongholds,
political use of executions as a tool for mobilizing a conservative
electorate and criticizing republicanism, and subordination to
imperialist strategy in the Latin American continent.
Popular Self-Managed Power Against the Death Project
Faced with this barbarity, it is clear that it is not enough to rely on
the neutrality and common sense of state institutions. It is necessary
to build a popular self-managed power capable of confronting the state
itself, an instrument of the dominant classes, and its death project.
We defend a society without a state and without classes, where social
justice replaces repression, and where the people have direct control
over their lives and territories.
Therefore, it is urgent to occupy the streets in solidarity with the
people of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and to strengthen the
resistance against the advance of violence and the extermination policy
of the dominant classes. The overthrow of Governor Cláudio Castro is urgent!
ENOUGH OF GENOCIDE!
FOR THE END OF THE POLICE!
OUT WITH CLÁUDIO CASTRO!
Libertarian Socialist Organization
October 2025
https://socialismolibertario.net/2025/10/29/para-a-favela-as-balas/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Rio de Janeiro, resulting in the deaths of dozens of people, including
four police officers, this Tuesday, the 28th. Although official sources
reported 64 deaths, the following morning dozens of bodies were
recovered by residents and family members, and the death toll may have
reached over 120, a macabre record in the long list of massacres
perpetrated by Brazilian police forces. Residents reported numerous
bodies with marks of torture and execution, such as shots to the back of
the neck, bound wrists, and stab wounds.
The line of bodies displayed in São Lucas Square, in the Penha Complex,
is visceral proof of the genocidal violence that capitalist-statism
exercises daily against Black and working-class people. The so-called
"Operation Containment," far from being a security action, reveals
itself as a meticulously planned massacre, led by Governor Cláudio
Castro (PL) with the approval of the racist ruling classes.
The operation confined the working population to their homes and closed
schools, hospitals, and city streets, leaving students and residents
unable to go to school or work. The panic instilled in the population
aims precisely to legitimize exceptional measures, repositioning the
police forces as political protagonists. The action is anything but
improvised: it is part of the genocidal and war-like policy promoted by
Bolsonaro and his allies.
The fallacy of the war on drugs
The war on drugs is a frequently used argument to promote this type of
state violence, which in reality aims at brutal and indiscriminate
repression against the poor and black population. It takes on the
appearance of combating drug trafficking, but only affects the retail
level. Meanwhile, major drug traffickers establish their drug and arms
sales schemes on the borders-under the protection and participation of
the armed forces and police-without being bothered or repressed.
The state's war tactic is clear: terrorize communities to consolidate
its control over peripheral territories. A true war on the poor, a tool
to discipline the oppressed classes and maintain the order of capitalist
exploitation, without repressing those who actually profit from drug
trafficking.
The massacre as an electoral tactic
The actions of the police forces also have a strong electoral component.
It prepares the ground for the campaign, both in the field of propaganda
and in territorial control, aiming to contain the expansion of certain
factions that have advanced into communities in the western zone (a
central electoral stronghold in municipal and state elections), for the
benefit of maintaining the electoral strongholds dominated by the
militias. In doing so, the governor guarantees territorial control in
the pre-electoral context and strengthens the support of these areas for
his political alliance. It was with the support of various political
leaders, linked to territories controlled by the militia, that Cláudio
Castro secured his last election as governor.
The issue of public safety is one of the problems that most bothers the
population, and violent police action resonates with various sectors of
the working class. State terrorism by the police forces is mobilized as
a populist instrument of "response" to a legitimate feeling, which is
the sensation of insecurity and fear, but measures like this are far
from solving any problem.
All this situation is promoted by the structural conditions of
capitalist-statism, which produces a reserve army ready to occupy the
retail level commanded by the big drug traffickers (all of them living
outside the communities and favelas) and their allies within the
chambers and legislative assemblies, irrigating political campaigns with
money from drug trafficking or the militia. While the state apparatus
mobilizes thousands of agents to invade favelas, those who truly profit
from crime remain untouchable in their luxury condominiums and financial
market offices on Faria Lima Avenue. The security policy is selective:
it criminalizes poverty and guarantees impunity for those at the top.
National and International Disputes
The operation was also used as a way to create tension and criticism
against the federal government and the Supreme Federal Court (STF),
through disregard for the Argument of Non-Compliance with Fundamental
Precept (ADPF) 635. The ADPF of the Favelas, which is being processed in
the Supreme Court, imposed rules on police operations, aiming to
minimize their lethality. The internal dispute within the state
apparatus is a dispute between indiscriminate state terrorism, a type of
state of exception defended by Bolsonaro's supporters, and the
low-intensity war defended by bourgeois republicanism, of the
Lula-Alckmin government and the STF. In both cases, the war on drugs is
not questioned-the discussion boils down to its intensity. Not a word
about the legalization of drugs or the socioeconomic situation that
organizes this trade through state structures.
It is also worth highlighting the pro-imperialist dimension of the
massacre, with the use of the term "narcoterrorist" by the governor and
his allies. It is enough to remember that the term has been used by the
Donald Trump administration to justify incursions and bombings of boats
near the coast of Venezuela and Colombia. The US has classified drug
cartels as terrorist organizations. The adoption of the term by
Brazilian authorities may open the door for US military organizations to
treat the situation as a threat, and thus establish cooperative
relations with Bolsonaro's supporters, with a view to intervening in the
country. This opens the possibility of using counterterrorism measures,
with intelligence and espionage apparatuses, special forces, and
military approaches in border areas, such as those already occurring in
Venezuela.
The massacre in the Penha Complex is not an isolated event, but part of
the same logic of domination and extermination that structures the
global capitalist and colonial order. The same doctrine that justifies
Israel's genocidal policy against the Palestinian people - where a
militarized state occupies territories, dehumanizes an entire
population, and subjects it to a continuous massacre of ethnic cleansing
- is what guides the police occupation of Rio de Janeiro's favelas.
These are two sides of the same coin: a capitalism that, in crisis,
resorts to elements of fascism, racism, and militarism to maintain its
dominance. Whether in occupied Palestine, Venezuela under economic and
military attack, or the favelas of Rio, the objective is the same: to
guarantee the accumulation of wealth by a minority and deepen social
inequality.
The massacre, therefore, is an action that combines different
dimensions: repression of the territories of the Black and poor
population, strengthening of state terrorism and experiments in
exceptional measures, electoral control of strategic strongholds,
political use of executions as a tool for mobilizing a conservative
electorate and criticizing republicanism, and subordination to
imperialist strategy in the Latin American continent.
Popular Self-Managed Power Against the Death Project
Faced with this barbarity, it is clear that it is not enough to rely on
the neutrality and common sense of state institutions. It is necessary
to build a popular self-managed power capable of confronting the state
itself, an instrument of the dominant classes, and its death project.
We defend a society without a state and without classes, where social
justice replaces repression, and where the people have direct control
over their lives and territories.
Therefore, it is urgent to occupy the streets in solidarity with the
people of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and to strengthen the
resistance against the advance of violence and the extermination policy
of the dominant classes. The overthrow of Governor Cláudio Castro is urgent!
ENOUGH OF GENOCIDE!
FOR THE END OF THE POLICE!
OUT WITH CLÁUDIO CASTRO!
Libertarian Socialist Organization
October 2025
https://socialismolibertario.net/2025/10/29/para-a-favela-as-balas/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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