Favela War - Law
The de jure definition in International Humanitarian Law for "internal armed conflict" may not describe precisely the violence in Rio. To address conflicts between a state and non-state internal forces, Protocol II of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts) provides for applying law of war protections to conflicts between a state’s "armed forces and dissident armed forces or other organized armed groups which, under responsible command, exercise such control over a part of its territory as to enable them to carry out sustained and concerted military operations and to implement this Protocol." Many, if not most, of the conflicts since World War II had been “internal,” that is, between a rebel or insurgent group and the state itself.
Typically, and understandably, states had resisted the application of the law of war to such conflicts, for to do so might imply legitimacy to acts of violence carried out by the non-state actors. After all, the law of war recognizes that lawful combatants may kill and engage in other acts of violence against legitimate targets. States had not wished to risk conceding such a privilege to rebels, preferring to treat them, and their acts, as criminal. Domestic law still applies. Unlike combatants in cases of international armed conflict, guerrillas do not receive immunity for their war-like acts.
The ICRC works to create "humanitarian spaces" in favela conflict areas, proceeding cautiously, first using local NGOpartners such as AfroReggae and Luta Pela Paz. In concrete examples, this had meant trying to convince gang factions to recognize certain places -- e.g., schools, clinics -- as "safe areas," working to establish mechanisms to locate and negotiate release of hostages, bringing basic supplies (including food and water) to civilians who were regularly isolated by the most extreme violence inside "favelas within favelas." ICRC also worked with former staffers of Doctors Without Borders to address treatment and evacuation of wounded or deceased persons. MSF closed its operation in the notorious Complexo de Alemao favela when it was not regularly able to fulfill its mandate of treating wounded citizens, owing to the grim fact that the lethality of the conflict in Rio's favelas leaves mostly dead victims.
Public concern in Brazil over steadily rising crime and a murder rate more than four times that in the United States had re-fueled a two-decade old debate over the question of deploying the military to undertake urban crime fighting missions. Enthusiasm for this idea increased in the aftermath of the Pan Am games, when the military carried out a support role in providing security and helped prevent any incidents from marring the games. Defense Minister Jobim, while not voicing outright support for the idea, had declined to rule it out. Various polls had consistently shown public support it.
Brazil's military had been reluctant to become involved in the war against drugs. Officers argue that, according to the constitution, it is the responsibility of the Federal Police to pursue such a war. The armed forces consider their involvement to be potentially corrupting and were loathe to become entangled in a "no-win" war. Furthermore, Brazilians, like other Latin Americans, were sensitive to United States involvement in the region and fear the United States may use the antidrug role as a rationale for an expanded presence in Brazil. From 1990 through 1993, the United States provided Brazil with approximately US$1 million a year for antidrug activities. As a result of United States Attorney General Janet Reno's visit to attend President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's inauguration on January 1, 1995, the antidrug agreement was renewed in April 1995, just before Cardoso's official visit to the United States.
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