By Samantha R. McRoskey

From Volume 5, Issue 2 – Spring/Summer 2010: Spotlight on Security

Abstract

This article examines the ability of Olympic planners to foster lasting security and prosperity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by considering the complex history and causes of violence in the city and comparing them to plans already in place for the 2016 Olympic Games.  It will discuss the long-term implications of these initiatives and suggest actions that might further the goal of long-term security.  If Olympic coordinators are able to achieve this goal, they can set a precedent to draw other emerging nations into the Olympic circuit and set a standard for security planning and execution that can be used to improve security in other vulnerable locations around the world.

Introduction

On October 17, 2009 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, just two weeks after the city was selected to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, a flurry of early-morning gunfire brought a police helicopter spiraling down in flames in Morro dos Macacos, one of the city’s favelas, or slums.[i] Three policemen were killed during the botched raid.  The clash between rival gangs and police left twenty-one dead and several civilians wounded.  Hours of riots ensued, resulting in damage to city buses and vehicles.  Amid the fallout, Brazilians and members of the international community began to question Rio’s preparedness to host a safe Olympic Games.

During Rio’s presentation to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last September, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, a Brazilian member of the IOC, described the games as an event of “certainty, celebration, and transformation[ii]”—the ushering in of a “new Brazil” with a booming economy and growing middle class. Yet given the reality of Rio’s social dynamics and security challenges, these rhetorical plans for long-lasting peace and prosperity continue to ring hollow.  In order for the upcoming games to spark lasting change in Rio, security efforts must acknowledge the unique social, geographic, and economic facets of security threats in the city.  Equally important is understanding how the approach to security in Rio compares to security at recent Olympic Games.

This article will examine the ability of Olympic planners to foster long-term peace and prosperity in one of Latin America’s most celebrated – and most dangerous – cities.  It will consider the complex causes of violence in Rio de Janeiro and compare them to the security and development plans already in place for the Olympics.  Based on this analysis, the article will discuss the long-term implications of these initiatives and suggest actions that might further this goal.  If Olympic coordinators follow through on a plan that addresses the interrelated, underlying causes of violence in Rio, they can initiate enduring change and set a strong precedent to draw other emerging nations into the Olympic circuit.  They can also set a standard for security planning and execution in other vulnerable cities around the world.

Recent Olympic Security: Vancouver and Beijing

Rio is not the first Olympic Games where security has been a top focus and budget priority.  Surpassing all before it in size and scope, security at the Vancouver Olympic Games of 2010 cost an estimated USD $1 billion and included a 15,000-person force of Canadian military, Vancouver police, U.S. security forces, and private contractors to guard the city by air, land, and sea[iii]. Vancouver marked a transition into an unparalleled era of Olympic security in terms of cross-national cooperation, planning, and spending.  The scope, however, was limited—the majority of funds and efforts aimed to maintain calm during the two-week event and did not address longer-term security concerns.

While the strength of the effort in Vancouver was impressive, the limited longer-term impact raises some concerns.  For one, a prominent human rights group comprised of academics and parliamentarians, the Citizens’ Summit Against Human Trafficking, denounced in February the failure of Olympic initiatives to address organized crime and human trafficking, a persistent problem in British Columbia.[iv] Increasingly, when countries bid for hosting duties, Olympic Games are promoted as a platform to boost the profile or to fortify safety and infrastructure of cities—all in the name of paving the way for future prosperity and stability.  Such was the rhetoric during Brazil’s presentation to the IOC.  Eduardo Paes, the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, echoed the growing belief that sporting events are a vehicle to draw attention to social problems and overcome them; the games kick off “the change that will accelerate my vision for the city,” he said, a vision that included a safe destination for tourists and a strong economy.[v] He used Rio’s preparations to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup to strengthen his argument.  Paes went as far as to say, “The Games’ master plan is the city’s master plan—they are one and the same.”[vi]

In practice, these Olympic development and security strategies have rarely encompassed the human, national, and transnational security concerns of developing nations, even though many threats that nations face on a day-to-day basis are reflected in the micro-context of Olympic Games.  Coordinators must protect the host country’s citizenry, foreign athletes, and tourists from all over the world; they must secure national borders, ports, and territory from internal and external terrorist threats; and they must prevent clandestine activities from thriving in the presence of large groups of foreigners. The great advantage of security for Olympic Games is that planners are given years to develop proposals and a substantial budget with which to execute them.  Ideally, such time and resources allows nations to address security threats at their source and to reconfigure city dynamics in order to weaken the causes of violence and illegal activity. This ideal, however, has not been realized in Vancouver or Beijing.

Information from the most recent Olympic Games suggests that rather than root-out threats, plans sought merely to contain and even conceal violence. For the February games in Vancouver, U.S. and Canadian forces prepared for every type of “worst-case scenario,” including the detonation of a dirty bomb, an anthrax attack, severe weather, and a public health evacuation.[vii] They were equipped to deal with almost any disruption to the competitive atmosphere during those two weeks, as evidenced by a successful response to a bomb threat days before the Games.[viii] Yet they turned a blind eye to persistent and less visible security problems.

Never among the chief concerns of security planners was one of Canada’s—and Vancouver’s—most pressing problems: human trafficking.  In 2007, scholars at the University of British Columbia warned that during the Olympics, Vancouver’s ports would be especially susceptible to an influx of enslaved women, brought into the already-bustling “trafficking hub” to serve Olympics tourists.[ix] Detecting human smuggling would have required a more tailored approach to surveillance at ports of entry, in addition to monitoring at a distance for terrorist activity.  Despite ensuring a Games free from a terrorist attack, the effort overlooked the longer-term problem of the clandestine sex industry.

Likewise, efforts to transform Beijing’s appearance into that of a safe, thriving city meant displacing and concealing challenges posed by opponents to the Chinese government.  Communist Party leaders removed government dissidents, activists, migrants, and beggars from sight, often through forced eviction and imprisonment.[x] Paradoxically, the opportunity to boost political legitimacy by executing a flawless event depended on officials’ ability to sanitize oppositional rhetoric and remove activists from public view.  Chinese intelligence used e-mail and telephone surveillance to suppress political organizing.  In this way, China sidestepped an opportunity for real change.

The approach to security in Vancouver reinforced the increasing importance security forces are placing on technology and surveillance.   In China, the approach was one of containment, to keep disruptions out of sight.  Both instances demonstrate a failure to capitalize on Olympics-related planning and resources to institute long-term change and confront each city’s unique security problems.  Failing to address the underlying social, economic, and political problems that motivate violence results in more than wasted money—it also leaves cities and ports susceptible to security concerns after the Games, considering the increase in tourism and trade that results from Olympic exposure. The long-term consequences could be devastating for countries like Brazil, which seek stability and prosperity.  It is possible to avoid the pitfall of a shortsighted security strategy and to implement true change only if planners have an honest grasp of the underlying causes of violence.  Rio’s approach to Olympic security thus far will demonstrate the importance of planning for the long-term.

Historical Origins of Violence in “The Marvelous City”

One glimpse of Rio’s glistening beaches set against jagged mountains conveys how Rio earned the moniker “A Cidade Maravilhosa,” or The Marvelous City.  Rio lies close to the coast, a white sandy border curving around a wide bay.  From north to south, mountains surround Rio; at night the coastline dances with light and behind it, set back against the mountain basins, the city’s favelas glow.  Beneath this surface of beauty, however, lies a less picturesque side of the city.  Plagued by violence, Rio’s favelas have a homicide-by-gun rate of 240 per 100,000—comparable to a country in a full state of war.[xi] Tourists are invariably warned to stay in certain areas and leave valuables at home when visiting.

Rio’s desire to shed its image as a dangerous paradise was evident in its bid for the Olympic Games.  After awarding Rio the Olympic bid, IOC President Jacques Rogge hailed the city’s selection as an “opportunity to deliver the broader aspirations for the long-term future of the city, region, and country . . . [and] hasten the transformation of Rio de Janeiro into an even greater global city.”[xii] Chief among these aspirations is to solidify it as a tourism mainstay and revitalize the city’s economy.

The causes of violence in Rio de Janeiro are multiple and intertwined.  Certainly, they are tied up in Brazil’s long history of slavery and urbanization.  When Brazil became the last country to abolish slavery in 1888, it had already begun a process of rapid urbanization as a growing class of free slaves and rural migrants flowed into the cities to work as wage laborers in the export industries for coffee and other agricultural products that were being transported by rapidly expanding railroads.[xiii] While no longer enslaved, most of the urban poor were not landowners— they were either denied the right to buy land before abolition or unable to afford purchase prices of public lands required by the Land Law of 1850.[xiv] So began a proliferation of squatter settlements on the mountainsides overlooking the city and coastline, a slow build-up evident in the tiered floors of stacked cinderblock homes in Rio’s favelas.  Today, estimates put more than one million of the city’s 6.1 million residents in some 1,000 favelas.[xv]

In the early 1970s, a growing market for marijuana in Rio caused drug dealers to band together in small cartels, corroding the political influence of community organizations that had previously served as brokers with city authorities.[xvi] With the introduction of Colombian cocaine into the port city during the 1980s, favelas became the locus of illicit trafficking, and violence escalated as new gangs competed for control of profitable routes and territory.  Since the inception of the large-scale drug trade, violence in the region has increased over 54 percent.[xvii]

Today, owing to the natural barriers of the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, officials are tempted simply to contain violence up in the hills, away from the city center.  Recent efforts to construct walls around the periphery of Rio’s favelas, which are being called “eco-barriers” by city planners and “apartheid” structures by critics, signal an approach of containment.[xviii] Signs of this type of strategy are also evident in the positioning of Olympic venues far down the coastline and in secure pockets of the city proper.

Map 1[xix]

Map 2 [xx]

(Dark zones indicate favelas; gray shading indicates mountain gradient.)

Four regions of the city will be used for Olympic events (as seen in Map 1): Barra, Deodoro, Maracanã, and Copacabana.  Already incorporated into the city’s plans for a series of hosting duties that includes the 2007 Pan American Games, the 2011 World Military Games, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the government strategically selected these locations in an effort to construct facilities in perceived high-growth parts of the city that will later be converted into apartment buildings and upscale retail facilities.  The placement of Olympic facilities near the southern coast and in less-developed parts of the city suggests a commensurate movement of capital and labor to those areas; their positioning at a distance from the favelas (red zones are as seen in Map 2) casts doubt on what Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral called a program of “engagement” with Rio’s poorer areas, rather than “containment.”[xxi]

Just how the plan will promote social integration in city life is not yet clear.  A strategy to build up infrastructure in high-growth areas must not seek to further segregate the city into productive and underprivileged zones; rather, it should engage the city’s marginalized people as workers and community members.  Merely containing violence and poverty will threaten the long-term potential of this important port city as a center of tourism and trade.  Planners should capitalize on the $700 million in domestic financing—and over $530 million already earmarked for security—for Olympic development to promote economic and social integration between the city’s rich and poor.  This will require understanding the nuances of violence beneath the surface of a volatile city.

Violence in Rio de Janeiro: A Complex Legacy

In recent years, scholars, political officials, and favela residents themselves have advanced theories to explain the violence that permeates the slums and the city.  For some, increased gun control would reduce crime.  In the last decade, the Brazilian government has attempted to decrease violence by reducing gun supply and demand and by improving stockpile controls.  The Disarmament Statute passed in 2003 by the Brazilian Congress has been partially effective in curbing gun-related deaths by tightening gun-ownership controls, outlawing the possession of firearms in public, and encouraging hundreds of thousands of voluntary gun handovers.[xxii]

At the conclusion of an eighteen-month arms buyback program, initiated under the Disarmament Statute, 459,855 small arms had been collected—an estimated three percent of total private holdings in Brazil.[xxiii] While successful in taking guns out of the hands of civilians, the program had little impact on “criminalized guns.”  Instead, the program sought to reduce the likelihood of in-home, accidental, or domestic assault-related shootings, and thus did not directly target arms used in illicit dealings and street violence.

A gun-buyback facilitated by churches and NGOs might be successful among those concerned with safety, but less so among those who value guns for their symbolic appeal.  Recent research by sociologist Patricia Silveira Rivero examined the “economic values, meanings, and values attributed subjectively, and the impact [of firearms] on the dynamics of power” by comparing average prices of firearms in illegal and legal markets in Rio.[xxiv] Her results show a dramatic increase in previously licensed firearms being seized in criminal activities during the mid-1970s and again in the early 1980s.  These spikes coincide with surges of marijuana and cocaine trafficking and indicate drug traffickers’ need for increased means of protection and intimidation as business booms.  Data corroborates Rivero’s findings, showing an increase in weapon firepower over time, with a steady increase in seizures of assault rifles and sub-machine guns.[xxv] The role that power, prestige, and control play among the players in favela conflicts renders the problem resistant to solutions that appeal to rationality like the gun buyback.

Corruption among civil officials has grown along with the illegal firearms trade in Rio[xxvi].  Pablo Dreyfus, coordinator of arms control projects for the NGO Viva Rio, argued that gun seizures have been counteracted by a surge of clandestinely made firearms, often manufactured under the auspices of ex-military personnel.  In 2006, São Paulo police shut down one such illegal workshop manufacturing sub-machine guns for domestic distribution.[xxvii] Diversion of registered weapons from the legal market by corrupt police and illegal dealers is also a persistent problem: 21 percent of guns seized between 1951 and 2003 at crime scenes had been legally licensed at some point.[xxviii]Moreover, homicide maps have shown that murders by firearms are clustered around areas where police stockpile and supposedly confiscate weapons.[xxix] If Olympic planners seek to address Rio’s violence through improved policing, then they must understand the role that police corruption plays in sustaining it.

Another link in the causal chain of the illegal weapons trade is social status and family.  Rivero’s interviews with military policemen revealed that weapons play a fundamental part of the “macho culture” and “warrior ethos” of the force.  Police officers also acknowledged the hazards of the job, including the possibility of  “hit[ting] innocents,” which they viewed an unfortunate cost of their duty to “exterminate evil.”[xxx] Similarly, a favela youngster revealed: “There’s no way not to have contact [with guns]. Today it is normal. Today you even see kids with guns in their hands.”[xxxi] With fewer opportunities—economic, educational, and vocational—children turn to a family tradition of violence and crime. Thus, if Olympic planners desire long-term change, they must not rely solely on aggressive tactics, but seek to shift well-established social norms within the ranks of the police and the city’s slums.

The socio-economic roots of violence only heighten this need.  Limited access to land and education have prevented many favela dwellers from qualifying for living-wage jobs.  Low social mobility combined with geographic isolation has created a strong counter-culture among the favela’s marginalized residents.  This culture portrays criminal activity as an economic means to prosperity and a political response to a society that offers few opportunities for legitimate work.  In the 1999 documentary, Notícias de uma Guerra Particular (News from a Personal War), one drug trafficker echoed this sentiment by justifying his involvement in the trade because “humble work” would not be enough to support his family.[xxxii] Lack of viable income-generating alternatives and economic incentives play a substantial role in luring people into violent professions, which cannot easily be abandoned.

On the other hand, the appeal of economic incentives and political counter-culture does not does make all favela residents criminals.  As such, a growing number of researchers, such as Michel Misse, contend that traditional causal chain studies usually stop at one of three analytical dead-ends: poverty, drugs, or the impunity of the criminals.[xxxiii] He reveals the contradicting evidence, which on the one hand characterizes crime as a rational choice whereby individuals calculate the risks and non-criminal alternatives, but on the other recognizes the intricacy of power and symbolism that violence has in identity creation among the marginalized.[xxxiv] In short, the causes of favela violence are not straightforward.

Clearly implied in Rio Governor Sergio Cabral’s “concerns about security” at the IOC presentation was the reality that violence is not contained to the favelas.  Traffickers, gang members, and users who cannot make ends meet turn to the city to meet their needs.  Muggings, hijackings, and murders spill over to streets and public transportation systems throughout Rio with disturbing frequency.

In addition, the sheer number of enforcement actors involved renders efforts to curb violence all the more tenuous.  Both the civil and military police have roles in investigations and policing. The former is more renowned for corrupt involvement in the drugs and arms trade and the latter for conducting violent raids on drug gangs. Newer to the scene are organized vigilante militias that seek to banish drug traffickers. They function much like a mafia, extorting local business owners and the informal market to finance salaries, and then offering protection.  Early militia groups were affiliated with the military police, although more recent manifestations are not affiliated with the police, gangs, or traffickers; in essence, these vigilantes have displaced efforts by the government to rid the slums of violence.[xxxv] Territorial disputes have also become more common and violent as the number of groups vying for control increases.  The civilian population in the favelas can become complicit in maintaining the status quo, because drug lords often moonlight as community leaders and purveyors of protection and social services like loans, medicine, and employment.

The number of interrelated historical, social, economic, and political factors that cause and sustain favela-generated violence necessitate a response commensurate with the intricacy of the problem.  Olympic security-related solutions must acknowledge this complexity and take into consideration the efficacy of solutions attempted in the past.  If the gun buyback principle were to be targeted at criminal firearms, then the approach should address the symbolic aspects of gun culture through, for example, educational programs for young men in Rio’s favelas.  Until the interrelated causes are reflected in the Olympic planners’ response, there will be no viable alternative to the status quo. Hence, Olympic planners’ ability to address this dynamic reality depends on an integrated response.

Sport and Security: Capitalizing on the Olympic Experience

In what would serve as the undercurrent to the entire Brazilian presentation to the IOC, Governor Cabral proudly declared: “change is happening, and happening as a result of sport.”[xxxvi] The absence of any security incidents during the Rio’s 2007 Pan-American Games served as Cabral’s evidence to prove the efficacy of a new model of policing, featuring a single line of command for all units of police and special forces.  According to Cabral, the new model ensured that problems were “rooted out by the people and the police together.”[xxxvii] He claimed the work is already showing positive results, but insisted more needs to be done.  Brazil is showing new enthusiasm for security efforts. In the days following the deadly raid in October 2009, Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva authorized $60 million to be used for security and technology improvements for Rio police.  And, though he did not say how it would be spent, Cabral quoted a budget of $3.5 billion over four years toward security improvements in Rio.

The IOC’s evaluation of Rio’s selection as host in 2016 reiterated the committee’s concern for “safety challenges” and asserted that the city is “undertaking an ambitious project to enhance the resources, technology, and training of its police force by 2012.”[xxxviii] This task will be undertaken by the Brazilian National Public Security Secretariat (SENASP), which will establish a “security directorate” for Rio 2016, with personnel from the police force and other government agencies working together to develop security operations.[xxxix] SENASP officials said that operations will benefit from the infrastructure and security partnerships from the Pan-American Games, the 2011 Military World Games and the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The SENASP presentation to the IOC cited increased public safety and reduced crime as a result of this “change in approach.”

Increased funding for policing is central to combating violence, but the types of changes they finance is just as important.  Buying more weapons for the police force, for example, may only exacerbate the arms race already in effect between police and gang members; certainly adequate weaponry is needed, but funds must also be directed toward problems internal to the police force, like corruption.  The formation of a multilateral task force is a step in the right direction, as it will increase police accountability to various government agencies.

To hedge against domineering internal interests, Brazil has taken the positive step of contracting private security advisors. In December 2009, the security firm of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani committed to being a “long-term” security consultant to Rio.  Equally important in achieving long-term security is a comprehensive approach to security that is considered part of the overall Olympic development effort.  Policing—arguably a more reactive than proactive agent in crime-solving—should be just one facet of the security plan.  The addition of infrastructure improvements, job creation, and strengthened civil society organizations would comprise a comprehensive approach that truly utilizes the Olympics to kick off a secure and prosperous future.

Moving toward a long-term approach to security

Moving toward a new era of security in Rio de Janeiro should include a reconfiguration of the term “security” itself.  It should not merely be reactionary and seek to contain threats, but include strategies to actively prevent them.  Based on the complexity of Rio’s security problems and the plans announced thus far to address them, there are three areas to which planners should direct their efforts: policing, infrastructure, and social programs.

First, in terms of policing, Brazilian officials have already laid out plans to fortify policing technology and weaponry, engage external security consultants, and step up community policing efforts.  Of these efforts, the last two will be most crucial to long-term stability.  The perspective of an external security advisor will help Rio’s forces see their vulnerabilities and offer an outsider’s view on planning and budgeting.  In addition, Olympic planners should consider enlisting contracted security personnel to initiate their community outreach in the short-term, along with outside informants in key sectors of business and society, such as shipping, customs, and ex-military, who can communicate with police response teams.  Certainly, private security forces are not completely unbiased, and the debate over private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has been widely documented.  Police corruption in relation to the drug and arms trades is, however, one of the principle obstacles to eradicating violence in Rio, emphasizing the need for oversight and input from an unbiased external party.

The role and organizational structure of such advisors is flexible.  For instance, since 9/11, the NYPD has employed public-private partnerships in which businesses deemed potentially “attractive” to terrorists—for instance, the shipping industry—help the police evaluate customer transactions for suspicious activity.[xl] Similarly, private security advisors could encourage oversight for certain police posts, missions, or personnel particularly susceptible to corrupt involvement with traffickers in Rio.

Second, security improvements should not be considered distinct from Olympic development efforts; rather, they should be streamlined to meet the common goals of economic revitalization and integration of the city’s marginalized population.  None of Brazil’s presenters to the IOC elaborated what a strategy of “engagement” with the city’s poor might entail.  To fulfill their promises and benefit the city in the long-term, planners need to outline their specific labor needs to complete Olympic development projects and systematize recruiting of these jobs in targeted favelas.  Transparency in this effort will be essential to signaling viable economic alternatives to people who might otherwise seek involvement in the illegal market.  Furthermore, there must be more emphasis on long-term job creation in the post-Olympic, “high-growth” areas of the city that can permanently divert poor workers into the formal economy.

Finally, there should be a forum through which Olympic planners can engage with government agencies and civil society organizations already involved in faveladevelopment and crime reduction to discuss how each party’s efforts can be best utilized.  Such a task force would outline how short-term Olympic development plans can be streamlined into long-term improvements in city dynamics.  One organization that would benefit from a seat at that table is the Pacto Pela Cidadania (PAC), a partnership between a non-profit dedicated to democratization of inequalities in urban zones and the Caixa Econômica Federal, Brazil’s largest state-owned bank. PAC’s goal is to integrate favelaresidents into Rio’s society and economy through improved infrastructure.[xli] Through PAC projects, six favelas will benefit from over $182 million set aside by the government to construct homes, schools, public amphitheaters, and a state-of-the-art tram to improve access to the city.  Employing from within the favelas is a primary goal of the project, and something that could inform Olympic planners.  They might also benefit from the ongoing research on social integration and violence produced by the PAC’s research center.  This is but one example of how Olympic planners can connect with other city organizations to ensure that financial resources and expertise are maximized; to avoid duplicative efforts; and to capitalize on the Olympics to achieve long-lasting prosperity in Rio.

The Road Ahead

Brazil’s President Lula proclaimed to the IOC that the honor of hosting an Olympic Games would “boost the self-esteem of Brazilians,” who are confident in their growing prosperity but fear that lingering inequalities and violence will hold them back.  Brazil and Rio have much to gain economically and socially from a successful Olympic Games, but they also stand to lose if the “transformation” so avidly promoted by politicians is not realized.  Planners now have time, resources, and talent on their side, but the 2011 Military Games and 2014 World Cup will test their progress.  The use of the Olympic Games as a platform for promoting stability in emerging nations rests on Rio’s ability to effectively implement lasting security strategies. To accomplish its goal, the city must develop an approach that involves cooperation and a nuanced understanding of the complex causes of violence.

Julia Taylor Kennedy served as the lead editor of this article.

About the Author

Samantha R. McRoskey holds an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University, where her studies focused on economic policy and development issues in Latin America. She has lived and worked in both Mexico and Brazil.

Endnotes

[i] For more detailed coverage of the event and on recent favela dynamics see Lyons, John. “Brazil Assigns $60 million to Bolster Rio Security.” The Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009 available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125598614951794945.html; Anderson, Jon Lee. “Gangland.” The New Yorker, October 5, 2009;  Anderson, Jon Lee. “Through Rio’s Favelas, Guns Drawn.” The New Yorker Online, October 20, 2009.

[ii] Remarks by Carlos Arthur Nuzman, Brazilian IOC member. (June 2009) Video Transcript of Brazil’s Presentation to the IOC, Copenhagen, Denmark.

[iii] Johnson, Kevin. “Security Tab for Vancouver Olympics nears $1 billion.” USA Today. December 9, 2009. Available at http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/vancouver/2009-12-09-security_N.htm.

[iv] See relevant media and research from the Citizens’ Summit on Human Trafficking, including a report by the Canadian Criminal Intelligence Service on organized crime, at http://www.emancipationnow.com/media.html.

[v] Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro. (June 2009) Video Transcript of Brazil’s Presentation to the IOC, Copenhagen, Denmark.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Johnson, Kevin. “Olympic security doesn’t stop at Canadian border.”  USA Today, February 8, 2010. Available at http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/vancouver/2010-02-07-olympic-security_N.htm.

[viii] Zhu, Helena. “Vancouver Bomb Scare Before Winter Games.” Epoch Times, February 11, 2010. Available at http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/29511/.

[ix] Ibrahim, Magda. “Human Trafficking in Vancouver.” Immigration Watch Canada, September 20, 2007. Available at http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=2220&MMN_position=92:90. Also see “Faster, Higher, Stronger: Preventing Human Trafficking at the 2010 Olympics.” The Future Group, 2007.

[x] Elizabeth C. Economy and Adam Segal. “China’s Olympic Nightmare.” Foreign Affairs. 87: 4 (July/August 2008).

[xi] Lucas, Peter. “Disarming Brazil: Lessons and Challenges.” North American Congress on Latin America. 41: 2 (March/April 2008): 27-31.

[xii] “Rio de Janeiro Elected as 2016 Host City.” Press Release. International Olympic Committee. Available at http://www.olympic.org/en/content/Olympic-Games/Candidate-Cities/Elections-for-the-2016-Games/.

[xiii] For more Brazil’s industrial and urban development, including the early breakdown of the slavery system in Brazil see:  “A Tropical Versailles.” In Schultz, Kirsten. A Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1821. New York: Routledge, 2001.  For more on industrialization and the coffee trade Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee County1850-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957.

[xiv] For more on the Land Law of 1850 and other land policies see “Land Policies: The Land Law, 1850, and the Homestead Act, 1862.” In da Costa, Emilia Viotti. The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

[xv] Anderson, Jon Lee. “Gangland.” The New Yorker, October 5, 2009.

[xvi] Arias, Enrique Desmond. “Faith in Our Neighbors: Networks and Social Order in Three Brazilian Favelas.” Latin American Politics and Society. 46: 1 (2004) 1-38.

[xvii] Dreyfus, Pablo, Marcelo de Sousa Nascimento, and Luis Eduardo Guedes. “Voluntary Small Arms Collection in a Non-conflict Country: Brazil and the Experience of Rio de Janeiro.” Small Arms in Rio de Janeiro: The Guns, the Buyback, and the Victims.(December 2008) Geneva: Small Arms Survey: 27.

[xviii] Regalado, Antonio. “Walls Around Rio’s Slums Protect Trees But Don’t Inspire Much Hugging.” The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2009. Available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124501964322813585.html.

[xix] Concept Map. Rio 2016 Official Website. Available at http://www.rio2016.org.br/sumarioexecutivo/default_en.asp.

[xx] Map of Rio de Janeiro Favelas 2004. Diretoria de Informações Geográficas. Instituto Municipal de Urbanismo Pereira Passos.

[xxi] Sergio Cabral, Governor of Rio de Janeiro. (June 2009) Video Transcript of Brazil’s Presentation to the IOC, Copenhagen, Denmark.

[xxii] Lucas, Peter. “Disarming Brazil: Lessons and Challenges.” North American Congress on Latin America. 41: 2 (March/April 2008): 27-31.

[xxiii] Dreyfus, Pablo, Marcelo de Sousa Nascimento, and Luis Eduardo Guedes. “Voluntary Small Arms Collection in a Non-conflict Country: Brazil and the Experience of Rio de Janeiro.” Small Arms in Rio de Janeiro: The Guns, the Buyback, and the Victims.(December 2008) Geneva: Small Arms Survey: 25.

[xxiv] Rivero, Patricia Silveira. “The Value of the Illegal Firearms Market in Rio de Janeiro City: The Economic and Symbolic Value of Guns in Crime.” Small Arms in Rio de Janeiro: The Guns, the Buyback, and the Victims. (December 2008) Geneva: Small Arms Survey.

[xxv] Ibid 66.

[xxvi] For a more detailed history of the relationship between favela violence and the police, see Huguet, Clarissa and Ilona Szabó Carvalho. “Violence in the Brazilian favelas and the role of the police.” New Directions for Youth Development. 119 (Fall 2008): 93-109.

[xxvii] “Handmade guns: weapons seizures point to growing trend in Brazil.” Interview with Pablo Dreyfus. Comunidade Segura, September 28, 2006. Available at http://www.comunidadesegura.org/en/print/30431.

[xxviii] Rivero, Patricia Silveira. “The Value of the Illegal Firearms Market in Rio de Janeiro City: The Economic and Symbolic Value of Guns in Crime.” Small Arms in Rio de Janeiro: The Guns, the Buyback, and the Victims. (December 2008) Geneva: Small Arms Survey: 61.

[xxix] Lucas, Peter. “Disarming Brazil: Lessons and Challenges.” North American Congress on Latin America. 41: 2 (March/April 2008): 27-31.

[xxx] Ibid 80.

[xxxi] Ibid 86.

[xxxii] Notícias de uma Guerra Particular. Directed by Kátia Lund and João Moreira Salles. VideoFilmes, 1999.

[xxxiii] Misse, Michel. Crime e Violência no Brasil Contemporâneo: Estudos de Sociologia do Crime e da Violência. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lumen Juris, 2006: 117.

[xxxiv] Ibid 24.

[xxxv] Misse, Michel. “Mercados ilegais, redes de proteção e organização local do crime no Rio de Janeiro.” Estudos Avançados. 21: 61 (setembro 2007): 139-157.

[xxxvi] Sergio Cabral, Governor of Rio de Janeiro. (June 2009) Video Transcript of Brazil’s Presentation to the IOC, Copenhagen, Denmark.

[xxxvii] Ibid.

[xxxviii] Report of the 2016 IOC Evaluation Commission. (2009) International Olympic Committee: 58. Available at http://www.olympic.org/en/content/Footer-Pages/Documents/Host-City-Elections/.

[xxxix] Ibid 58.

[xl] Overview of “Operation Nexus” on NYPD Shield. Available at http://www.nypdshield.org/public/nexus.nypd.

[xli] A summary of PAC’s initiatives can be found at http://www.pactopelacidadania.org.br/index.php/o-projeto.