The Big Guys - UPP

I spent my christmas and New Year in Rio this year! I lived at a friends house in the favela Realengo were they already have implemented the police unit UPP. So it's a safe and calm neighborhood to live in. We drove pass them everyday we were going to the city. The last day, we desided to be real tourists and ask if we could take a photo with them. But it wasn't as easy as we thought. We needed promision from the chefe. We waited for a long time, before he finally came to make sure that we only wanted a photo and that we were real tourists. And our norwegian look and language was definetly convincing enough, because we didn't just get a photo. We also got a tour around the area and he showed us their work and talked about everything they do in the favela. I actually got really surpriced over how good it was. They have classes there for people that never got their education, they have a swimmingpool that people can use and all kinds of dans classes. The police really join in with the people and spend time with them. We saw them all around in the favela, talking to the citizens there, not just being the big guys with the machine guns.




This is one of the state’s attempts to make a safer and better life for the people living in the favela. A step in the direction to people being able to come and go from there house safely. There are around a 1000 favelas just in Rio. The neighborhoods for more than 1.5 million people, 20 percent of the city population, placed in the hillsides across the city. Many of the favelas are lawless and controlled by fear, gangs of drug dealers and private militias. This of course, leads to big problems with criminality and drugs, especially in the big favelas in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 18 of those 1000 lawless favelas in Rio are there now implemented police aims, called UPP. It’s not much yet, but the government has a goal to implement UPP in 40 different favelas before they are going to host World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. Their pride! They are also investing 15 million R$ in the qualification of the Police Academy. UPP is a public security initiative from the state government. They protect the favelas and fight the drug dealers. They try to take control and make a safer place for the people in the favelas. The officers are recent graduate and specifically trained for this task. Recently (10. Nov. 2011), as they also have done before, the BOPE (A Special Operations Squad) surrounded the favela (Rocinha) and didn’t let anyone in or out. They stayed for days and searched the area for drugs and weapons. The policemen arrested the drug kingpin; Antonio Francisco Bonfim Lopes (Nem), when he tried to pay a policeman to let him out of the favela. He where unlucky and actually met a policeman that wasn’t corrupt. They also confiscated a lot of weapons. They did all this, without firing any gunshots, which is much better than last time. In 2010, it became a “war” between the police officers and the drug dealers. It ended with many people getting killed and serious debates on human rights and respect for community residents.

I think they are doing an amazing job and I'm really glad they have the football world championship in 2014 to look forward to. It makes them work harder and faster and they have a goal.