<nettime> FW: Brazil Is Getting a New Political Party: Its Base Is in State Prison

["Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net>]

>--- Original Message ---
>From: "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net>
>To:  afrofuturism@yahoogroups.com
>Date: 9/10/01 10:44:58 AM
>

>Brazil Is Getting a New Political Party: Its Base Is in State
Prison
>
>By LARRY ROHTER
>
>
>S�O PAULO, Brazil � Having demonstrated its dominance of the
prison system during a mass uprising, Brazil's most notorious
criminal group is now looking to extend its influence by organizing
a political party. Naturally, its platform calls for penal reform.The
group, the First City Command, known by its initials in Portuguese,
P.C.C., has already designated its first candidate for Congress
in next year's national elections.
>He is Anselmo Neves Maia, a lawyer here who represents leaders
of the organization. He says the group also plans to endorse
candidates in other states who sympathize with the party platform.
> "Prisoners all over the country are mobilized behind this cause,"
he said, "and I am already getting calls from them asking me
who their families should support and vote for." He added, "I
am the candidate not just of the P.C.C., which has had the courage
to rebel against the injustices practiced in the system, but
of all the thousands of prisoners in Brazil's prisons." The new
political organization is to be called the Party of the Incarcerated
Community, whose initials would also be P.C.C. Its secretary
general is J�lio C�sar Silv�rio, who is serving six years for
robbery and was described by Mr. Maia as "dynamic and enlightened,
an admirer of your Benjamin Franklin." But the director of prisons
for the state of S�o Paulo, Nagashi Furukawa, has characterized
the First City Command as a crime syndicate that controls the
trafficking of drugs, alcohol, weapons and mobile telephones
within the state prison system. The authorities say the group
also runs a flourishing "escape industry" that has resulted in
the flight of more than 1,000 prisoners since 1998 and further
enriched the group's coffers. S�o Paulo, with more than 36 million
of Brazil's 170 million people, is Brazil's most populous state.
Nearly 100,000 people, or just under half of the national total,
are being held in the state's jails and prisons. The national
government does not operate
>prisons.
>In February the First City Command organized the largest prison
rebellion in the nation's history. Using cell phones smuggled
into their cells, the group's leaders ordered their followers
in 29 prisons around the state to take control of cellblocks
and hold thousands of hostages. The uprising was meant to stop
the authorities' actions to weaken the gang.The two-day uprising
left 19 people dead, most of them members of three rival groups
competing with the First City Command for control of S�o Paulo's
prisons. Since then, officials have tried to weaken the gang
by moving its leaders to prisons outside S�o Paulo, but some
other states have balked, arguing that the crime group could
simply spread. During the rebellion the group described itself
as a prisoners' union and hung banners calling for "peace, justice
and freedom" from cell windows and roofs. In August it published
a political manifesto condemning a political system that in Mr.
Maia's words "offers the benefits of the law for the rich and
its rigors for the poor."
>The local press has quickly christened Mr. Maia "the candidate
of organized crime," but he says he does not mind the association
with the First City Command, which he likens to "a club or a
guild." He is so confident of victory in the October 2002 election,
in fact, that he boasts that he has no plans to campaign or to
spend money on posters, fliers or bumper stickers. "I figure
that every prisoner has at least three people in his family who
are voters," he said.
>>
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/09/international/americas/09BRAZ.html?ex=1001141922&ei=1&en=609589c6c13d728f
>>
>>/-----------------------------------------------------------------

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>>Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

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