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  Sao Paolo: Laboratory of Violence

Sao Paolo Laboratory of Violence

By Ralf Hoppe

Part 4: "This city is ours"

Elvira de Souza says she saw Marcola once. She calls him vain but beautiful. He loves the poor, she says.

Maierowitsch draws a pyramid: Marcola is on top, followed by roughly 80 "leading officials" who command an estimated 4,000 "sergeants." Then there's the base of the pyramid, which is broad and consists of sympathizers who pay the organization out of fear or respect.

Those who want to rise in the PCC hierarchy are given two "godfathers," look after that person all their lives. Elvira's godfathers are the favela-bosses from Javaquara. Elvira was baptized with a glass of liquor poured over her head. Then she received an elaborate handwritten membership certificate, a 16-point code of conduct that talks a lot about honor.

Then Elvira no longer had to pay rent. She entered a six-week training course for nurses, where she specialized in treating gunshot wounds and had to assist a surgeon with operations, as well as caring for fever patients. In return, her husband Fumega was transferred to a better prison cell. The new one had about 20 inmates in it, instead of 30, and he slept in one of the beds instead of on the floor. Elvira's children received schoolbooks.

Since this year's civil war, though, the PCC is more than just a shadow welfare state -- according to Maierowitsch it has a political reputation; it's become a brand like Mercedes or al-Qaida. An organization builds internal coherence through fear and trust, he says, and the message of the violent "demonstration" was simple: This city is ours.

Violence is a centrifuge

People from the upper classes, like de Nadai, can't move through Sao Paolo the way they used to. His wife Sandra flies to Daslu just to go shopping, and his sons, Fernando and Fabricio -- when they don't take the helicopter -- drive a silver S-500 Mercedes with bulletproof windows. They'd rather travel without bodyguards, but their father won't let them. The city center has a nickname: "Crackolandia," or Crack Land.

De Nadai's younger sister Mariangela was held up on the street in 1993 in broad daylight. The kidnappers probably just wanted to carry out a sequestra relâmpago. Such "blitz kidnappings" involve taking the hostage to a bank teller, where he or she withdraws all the money on their account before being kicked down and left to lie there. These kidnappers forced Mariangela into their car and drove off, but crashed into a delivery truck. They escaped, but left Mariangela behind with a broken neck.

She spent 14 months in the intensive care unit of Sao Paolo's Albert Einstein Hospital. De Nadai arranged for doctors to be flown in from the United States, and he engaged dozens of private detectives. To no avail: His sister died, and her kidnappers were never found.

He learned from that experience, he says.

Violence works like a centrifuge. It separates out the various elements of society. Giant metropolises like Sao Paolo split up into different social strata -- they develop a criminal underworld that forms a society of its own, replicating the state system. One layer above this criminal underworld is the middle class, a thin segment of society that does everything it can to close itself off, and above the middle class is the segment of the rich and the super-rich. It's only logical that millionaires should seek safety even higher up, by stepping into helicopters.

Or, into artificial cities. Across from Daslu there used to be a small mountain on the west bank of the Rio Pinheiros. Now there's a hole in the ground, and inside, an army of construction workers in yellow helmets feed the hole with tons of concrete and core wire. If investors have their way, a total of €640 million ($813 million) will disappear into the pit, which is Brazil's most expensive real estate project -- a fortress for the upper classes.

This will be a new Sao Paolo, a Sao Paolo from the fourth dimension, which will avoid contact with the rest of the city. The plan is for an enormous residential, shopping and office complex with nine skyscrapers, surrounded by palm trees and parks, equipped with eight cinemas and the largest sports complex in South America. Only those with an anuual income of €150,000 ($190,000) or more will be allowed to purchase an apartment there. The smallest will have an area of 240 square meters (2,583 square feet), the largest, 780 square meters (8,396 square feet). This real estate project is a bid to escape the penetrating power of the PCC.

Elvira de Souza has never heard of it, but she would probably see the project as a sign of success -- an indication that the rich are afraid, as she expects them to be.

She's just asked her son-in-law David to find an easy-to-handle weapon, and she's made sure the favela bosses understand what she intends to do. She tells them it's her right to take revenge.

Is she really serious?

One evening David brings home an Indumil revolver, the Cassidy model, with a long barrel. Elvira de Souza then has to face the fact that she's underestimated her shadow state. On the very same evening her two godfathers pay her a visit. They don't stay long. They speak quietly, remain friendly. But they let her know they want neither maverick behavior nor unrest in the favela.

Elvira de Souza understands what they mean. It's a new era. She won't kill her neighbor. Or maybe she will, eventually. The war isn't over yet, after all.

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