File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-sy.9707, message 106


From: "Curtis Price" <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date:          Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:12:18 +0000
Subject: AUT: (Fwd) Thieves run wild during Brazilian police strike


This posting gives me an excuse to relay a quote which I've 
already sprung on a couple list members. 

"On the barricades, a houseburglar will be more valuable than a 
Plehanov"
- Alexander Bogdanov

Bogdanov was a Bolshevik who was very critical of Lenin and nearly had 
him expelled from the Bolshevik Party.

Curtis

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sun, 20 Jul 1997 11:20:14 -0700
From:          NewsHound <NewsHound-AT-hound.com>

Reply-to:      NewsHound-AT-hound.com
Subject:       Thieves run wild during Brazilian police strike



NewsHound article from "STRIKES" hound, score "62."



Thieves run wild during Brazilian police >>strike<<

BY MICHAEL CHRISTIE

BRASILIA (Reuter) - Thieves are running amok in the northeastern Brazilian
city of Recife, taking advantage of a policemen's >>strike<< to rob at
will, newspapers and officials said Sunday.

The newspapers said Pernambuco state governor Miguel Arraes requested extra
army reinforcements  Saturday to try to bring calm back to the state
capital.

``A wave of violence has brought Recife to a stop. Without police in the
streets, criminals took over the capital of Pernambuco yesterday, robbing
people and shops and machine-gunning automatic cash machines,'' Globo
newspaper wrote.

Officials acknowledged that the city, a popular international beach resort,
had been plunged into chaos.

``What the newspapers say is basically true, but I can't confirm any
details,'' an official at Recife police headquarters said, declining to
give his name.

The wave of violence peaked Saturday.

Bandits blocked a viaduct early in the morning, demanding ''tolls'' from
drivers. In the afternoon, a group of about 50 adolescents rampaged
unhindered down one of Recife's main shopping streets, mugging passers-by
and robbing shops.

And the underground railway stopped calling at a station in a notorious
slum because of the lack of security.

Brazil's policemen's >>strike<< began last month in Belo Horizonte, capital
of the state of Minas Gerais, where one person died when strikers fought
military police. It has since spread through 15 of Brazil's 27 states.

Tensions came to a head again Thursday in Alagoas when >>striking<< police
traded shots with troops guarding the state's legislative assembly. At
least three police officers were injured.

Police representatives say they are desperate.

``We are tired of being hungry. We are tired of living in the slums,'' said
Cpl. Wilson de Oliveira Morais of the Association of Soldiers and Corporals
of the Military Police.

``We know we are causing chaos, but we are desperate,'' he told Reuters in
a telephone interview.

In Sao Paulo, the military police were recently granted a 34 percent pay
rise, taking the basic monthly wage to $560. But elsewhere, such as in Rio
de Janeiro, the monthly wage of a recruit is less than the official minimum
wage of $114.

The states, which set and pay police wages, are unable to pay extra after
years of financial imprudence.



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