Brazil 2014: A World Cup of security?

Updated 14 June 2014

Brazil is a strange place to be with less than a month before the FIFA World Cup kicks off. Back in 2006 I witnessed people colouring the streets yellow and green many weeks before the first game started. The same fervour anticipated the 2010 tournament. But this time everything seems different. The colours are missing.

When the World Cup was awarded to Brazil in 2007, enthusiasm spread throughout the country. For a long time international commentators saw the bid’s success as the logical consequence of a rapidly growing Brazilian economy. It was certain that one of the most beautiful tournaments in history would be hosted in the nation where football is part of the cultural fabric.

But since the FIFA Confederations Cup protests last year, when a million angry Brazilians protested on the streets for better health care, education, security and public transport, much of the enthusiasm has evaporated.

People are not against football, but against the ways in which FIFA, cooperating with central and local government, is organising the tournament. Too many things have gone wrong: dead workers on construction sites, favela clearances, infrastructure delays, hurried gentrification, and a number of stadia built that are bound to become white elephants.

Too many Brazilians feel betrayed. In 2007 the government promised that relatively little public money would be spent to finance the World Cup. Most investment would be private. But in 2014 taxpayers will pay a bill for one of the most expensive football events ever staged while so many more important improvements of services such as hospitals or education have been neglected.

Among the reasons why World Cup spending has reached such astronomic proportions are the high security demands of sport ‘mega events’, which clash with an already complex domestic security situation in the Brazilian metropolis.

Global security models

Mega event security follows global models that have been progressively standardised since the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. After 9/11, the spending on security at sport mega events has exploded. Now the host countries of events like the World Cup and the Olympic Games must meet absolute requirements.

They include the use of the latest security and surveillance technologies, often provided by transnational security corporations; domestic deployment of the army; and the control of public space by private security consortia.

These standardised models perceive crime and crime control as something technical, static and calculable. In this way risk management and the attempt to control uncertainty have become the main task in the ‘total security’ of sport mega events. Thus the emphasis on intense technological and militarised security gives the impression of a readiness to fight a spectacular war rather than to protect the event itself.

Over 50,000 homicides each year

What happens when the security spectacle arrives in a country like Brazil? International terrorism has not been a major problem in the country so far. But, since the transition from military dictatorship in the late 1980s, the domestic security landscape has become highly complex.

Homicide rates are indicators of violence in Brazil: every year over 50,000 people are victims of murder. Armed street violence structures everyday life in many parts of Brazilian cities. Territorial gunfights pitching drug traffickers against the police, lynch justice, and armed robberies are part of the normal scenery.

Prisons are overcrowded, inmates live in inhuman conditions and the justice system cannot deal with the backlog of trials. Standard responses to crime cannot cope with everyday violence.

Rio as a military fortress

Brazil has invested almost 2 billion Reais (some 660 million Euros) in security preparations for the World Cup. In all 12 host cities, centralised and integrated control and command centres combine the armed forces, the military, federal and civil police as well as other emergency units who are working together under the same roof for the first time.

This cooperation is a step in the right direction. The World Cup security plan for Rio de Janeiro was presented on May 20 in a demonstration of how Rio de Janeiro will be transformed into a militarised fortress. There is no doubt that the city is trying everything to organise safe football games. Fan groups coming to cheer their national teams will be well protected within the security perimeters of the stadia.

Overall 20,000 men will patrol the streets of Rio de Janeiro and will secure strategic hot spots such as airports, energy supply centres, the stadia and places like Copacabana where tourists gather. 5,300 soldiers, 8,132 military police personnel, 2,000 federal police agents, 464 civil police delegates, 1,600 municipal guards and 1,000 firemen will be working on the ground for a peaceful event.

These new measures supplement the increase in policing that has taken place in Rio de Janeiro since 2008. ’Pacification units’ of the military police (UPP) have occupied many favelas in an attempt to put an end to local drug traffic and the frequent gunfights between rival groups and the police.

Although the Rio de Janeiro state government insists that these units are not part of the security plan for the World Cup and the following Olympic Summer Games, it is clear that the sports events have been a catalyst for that strategy.

But in April this year, after several deadly attacks on UPP officers, the former Rio de Janeiro governor, Sérgio Cabral, indicated that the strategy was in trouble by calling for President Dilma Rousseff to send national troops to help the city. As a result, armed forces occupied the Maré favela complex by the highway that connects the Tom Jobim international Airport with the city centre.

Recent riots

It is not just the missing colours in the streets that make Brazil a strange place to inhabit these days. It seems as if any critical situation could break the relative silence. A month ago, in the favela Pavão-Pavãozinho just above Copacabana, a well-known dancer was found dead with a wounded body and bullet holes.

Favela inhabitants suspect that officers of the local UPP killed him. On April 22nd an outraged crowd rioted in the famous Ipanema and Copacabana neighbourhood. Cars were burned and the hotels instructed their guests to remain inside. For FIFA, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and the government, surely this is the kind of scenario they fear the most.

The question remains: will the global security models imposed on Brazil and adapted by the government cope with the complex, local situation? Is it enough to put the army on the streets and occupy favelas without trying to promote a deep cultural and social change on all sides of the conflict?

Brazilian crime complex

There is a ‘Brazilian crime complex’ with three main elements related to culture, the state and the economy. A ‘culture of crime’ is built on the long tradition of violence in Brazilian history, popular culture and politics. Far too often, politicians have activated fears and promoted a language of violent confrontation in response to crime in order to gain support.

Such discourses also promote the readiness of ordinary people to use violence themselves. In turn, the culture feeds a ‘state of crime’ where violence has been institutionalised, sometimes among police in the shadows of military dictatorship.

In consequence Brazil has one of the highest rates of people killed by police officers worldwide. But police working conditions, inadequate training and low income tell another story which does not justify their actions but sheds light on the nature of urban conflict in Brazil.

A third dimension of the complex, the ‘economy of crime’ describes the corruption inherent in Brazilian society. Security, justice and freedom appear to be negotiable and granted to those that can pay, and denied to those that cannot.

Street protests are always haunted by the culture, politics and economy of the Brazilian crime complex. Police forces do not always deal with mass demonstrations in a democratic way and parts of the crowd, organised in so called ‘black blocks’, do not see any other response than a use of the culture of violence.

What will this mean for the World Cup experience? During the four weeks the ball is rolling on the pitch, we will certainly be expected to accommodate ourselves to a heavily-armed security presence around the stadia and at popular tourist spots in the host cities.

Sweet taste of protest

Will the tournament pass off peacefully? Many have doubts. The sweet democratic taste of last year’s protests is still in the mouths of the people. Although the latest demonstrations have been much smaller, activists are convinced that the World Cup days will bring more onto the streets, showing Brazilian dissatisfaction to a global public.

The Brazilian government now finds itself in a difficult situation: on the one hand they are obliged to provide a safe and beautiful World Cup. On the other hand they cannot be seen to repress the freedom of expression of ordinary citizens claiming their rights in the streets while the world is watching. A real dilemma arrives in the year of presidential elections.

Colours may eventually appear and there are hopes of a World Cup without major incident. But the Rio streets may think otherwise.