Sambodian DMZ: “Demilitarization Debate Revived After Televised Cop on Cop Labor Riot”

WAR AMONG THE SÂO PAULO POLICE (ANGELÍ, Folha de S. Paulo): "Check it out, bro, we better get ourselves over there. After all, SOMEONE has to impose order in this town."

“This is a debate that should have taken place long ago, but which has been blocked by the military police lobby, allied with the Army — let us not forget that the PM is a reserve Army force — which has a great interest in keeping the police militarized,” said Bicudo.

Para Hélio Bicudo, confronto entre polícias reacende debate sobre unificação: The online legal affairs magazine Última Instância interviews Hélio Bicudo, a leading human rights advocate, over a proposal to unify the two São Paulo police forces.

The state, like all Brazilian states, has a state judicial police, working for the public prosecutor and the Judiciary, and a state military police, ostensibly under the control of the civilian Executive, but which has proven to be utterly resistant to any type of democratic, civilian oversight over the years, as you will read below.

It is a peculiar arrangement. The Manual of Police Reporting produced by the Comunique-se trade magazine (good job!) explains the legal basis for the arrangement:

Por força do parágrafo 5o do artigo 144 da Constituição Federal, “às polícias militares cabem a polícia ostensiva e a preservação da ordem pública”. Define-se como polícia ostensiva o policiamento fardado, responsável pelas ações preventivas para a garantia da segurança pública. De acordo com o parágrafo 4o do mesmo artigo, “a apuração de infrações penais, exceto as militares”, cabe às polícias civis, mas não é incomum ver-se policiais do Serviço Reservado da PM – os populares P-2 ou secretas – participando nem tão discretamente da coleta de informações, para orientar o policiamento ostensivo, e isso às vezes se confunde com os trabalhos de investigação que seriam de competência dos policiais civis.

I will translate that later. This was the article in which the military dictatorship insisted that the military continue to be characterized as “guardian of the constitutional order” — a significant loophole that would seem to have weakened civilian control of the military considerably.

Bicudo — who received death threats for investigating death squad activity by São Paulo police — writes:

O confronto entre policiais militares e civis ocorrido em São Paulo nesta quinta-feira (17/10) deve colocar novamente em debate a questão da unificação das corporações, com a desmilitarização dos agentes de segurança do Estado. Essa é a opinião do jurista e ex-vice-prefeito da Capital Hélio Bicudo. “Não existe segurança pública de verdade com duas forças, cada uma caminhando para um lado diferente”, afirmou.

The clash between military and state judicial police in São Paulo last Thursday ought to revive the debate over unifying the two forces and the demilitarization of state law enforcement and public safety agents. That is the opinion of former São Paulo deputy mayor Hélio Bicudo. “There is no real public security with two police forces, each of them pursuing their own path,” he said.

Para o jurista, sempre existiu muita resistência à questão, especialmente por parte dos militares. “É um debate que já deveria ter sido feito, mas que não aconteceu por causa do lobby da Policia Militar, aliada ao Exército —não podemos esquecer que a PM é uma força de reserva do Exército—, que tem grande interesse de manter a polícia militarizada”, disse Bicudo.

For the legal expert, there has always existed resistance to the proposal, especially from the military men. “This is a debate that should have taken place long ago, but which has been blocked by the military police lobby, allied with the Army — let us not forget that the PM is a reserve Army force — which has a great interest in keeping the police militarized,” said Bicudo.

And focused on the manos as an “internal enemy” to take the place of Communism in order to keep the hog heaven of the hard men alive.

Sambodia Election Season: “Kassab’s Winning Pathos Appeal”

Cabeça de Cuia interviews a University of São Paulo expert on the “emotional appeal” in campaign advertising, who corroborates my wife’s analysis of the current mayoral race: the advertising blitz planned and underwritten by supporters of Gilberto Kassab (DEM-PFL) has been exceptionally professional.

Especially given the widespread and negative perception left by the incident reported widely by Brazilian TV news, shown above.

Mayor Kassab lost control of himself today while inaugurating a health care unit in Pirituba …

He verbally assaults a protester who says his factory was closed by the “Clean City” law, which banned all outdoor advertising, and threatens to physically assault him. News cameras zoom in tight on the poor protester weeping.

Message: “Kassab is a cartoonishly truculent filhote da ditadura.”

Since then, however, the gaffe-prone mayor has been reined in tightly by his handlers. The reversal of fortune can properly be called a “Bubbaesque Monicagate recovery” on a lesser scale — mutatis mutandis — I think.

As the Folha de S. Paulo reports today, there will a debate tonight on TV Record:

O telespectador que acompanhar o debate de hoje na Rede Record provavelmente vai ver a candidata Marta Suplicy (PT) esforçando-se para esquentar as discussões, como um tom de voz indignado, frases de efeito e armadilhas verbais. É provável também que Gilberto Kassab (DEM) busque uma postura oposta, quase burocrática, porque talvez o que queira, à frente nas pesquisas, é fazer com que o público pegue no sono.

The TV viewer who watches the debate tonight on Record will probably see Suplicy trying to heat up the exchanges, using an indignant tone of voice, and verbal traps. It is also likely that Gilberto Kassab (DEM-PFL) will take an opposite stance, almost bureaucratic, perhaps because what he wants, given that he is leading in the polls, is to lull the public to sleep.

These are all (credible, mind you) suppositions: The article does not actually interview campaign strategists, which might actually have been interesting and informative. The Folha is one of those newspapers that sees the “viewspaper” as the future of journalism 2.0. Which is one of the reasons we buy the Estado de S. Paulo instead. It’s more “infodense,” on average.

On 130.3 FM (the only classical station in town), we hear Marta’s radio spots: “Kassab was with Maluf, then with Pitta, and he is from the PFL. He is, according to this spot, embarrassed to have other PFL figures come support him, like ACM III.”

In other words, he is tagged as an old-school kleptocrat from a party with an authoritarian, antidemocratic history, but with a slick modern marketing veneer. Pitta was arrested for money-laundering and tax evasion recently.

Pitta said the arrest was nothing but a form of political persecution by the “KGB of Lula” designed to undermine the candidacy of Kassab. He says he plans to appeal to international human rights bodies. (He has been ordered to reimburse the public treasury for money plundered therefrom.) See

• Bathetic Sambodian Political Moment No. 9: “Celso Pitta Is Nelson Mandela (In Pajamas)”

Claudio Lembo of the PFL said in a recent interview that the party, redubbed the Democrats, is a mainstream centrist liberal democratic party, and that there exist no parties of the hard right in Brazil. In fact, that there exist no parties of the center-right. There is no Brazilian right of any kind.

This is, of course, a ludicrous claim, bordering on the delusional. Have a beer with some of these people sometime. You’ll see what I mean.

The Estado‘s obvious-belaboring analysis:

A campanha do prefeito e candidato à reeleição, Gilberto Kassab (DEM), foi mais eficiente em sua propaganda para seduzir o eleitorado neste pleito. Em entrevista à Agência Estado, Jairo Tadeu Pimentel Junior, mestre e doutorando em Ciência Política pela Universidade de São Paulo (USP) e pesquisador do “voto emocional” dos eleitores, a comunicação publicitária que focou o seu mandato foi “fundamental” para ele chegar ao segundo turno. Isso porque a gestão dele saiu de uma avaliação de 39% de ótimo e bom para 61%.

The campaign of incumbent mayor and candidate for reelection Gilberto Kassab (ex-PFL) has been more efficient in its effort to seduce the electorate through advertising in this election. In an interview with the Agência Estado news agency, Jairo Tadeu Pimentel Junior, a political science Ph.D. from USP and a researcher of the “emotional vote,” [says] advertising that focused on his mandate has been “fundamental” in getting Kassab to the runoff election. This because the evaluation of his administration rose from 39% to 61% “good or excellent” in the polls.

The Marta campaign has attempted to deconstruct this heavy, heavyconstruction of the incumbent’s public image — which includes a friendly little animated Kassab that you can download as an animated cursor, and a Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade-style balloon of His Honor in the role of a smiling Underdog — with something similar to the “don’t buy the hype, obey your thirst” campaign for Coca-Cola’s Sprite soft drink.

So far, it does not seem to have worked.

Missing from this analysis: The financial side. Who banked the advertising campaigns, and to the tune of how much? And where did the money come from?

The mayor’s party has questioned the financial probity and transparency of the challenger’s party in neighboring São Bernardo dos Campos, for example.

(The political spectrum is geographically polarized here between “center” and “periphery,” or “Red Zone” and “Green Zone,” as an Estado de S. Paulo infographic recently put it, suggesting an analogy with occupied Baghdad. The industrial ABC area surrounding the city of São Paulo proper is a “red zone,” as are the “peripheries” of São Paulo, with chronic problems of poverty and criminality.)

In rebuttal, the challenger’s party has accused the capital city incumbent of “using the public machine” in his campaign.

On which see also

• Holiday in Sambodia: “Quimby Orders City Employees to Help Jigger Polls”