THE Minister of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Lewandowski, and the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Claudio Castro, announced this Wednesday (29) the creation of an emergency office to combat organized crime in the state. The objective is improve integration between the federal and state spheres.
Coordination will be shared between the national secretary of Public Security, Mario Sarrubbo, and the secretary of Public Security of Rio, Victor Santos.
“It is a forum where the forces will talk to each other, make decisions quickly until the crisis is overcome. This is the embryo of what we want to create with the Public Security PEC that is being discussed in the National Congress. We want to bring together federal, state and even municipal forces in confronting this scourge”, said Minister Lewandowski.
The idea is that actions are “100% integrated” to overcome bureaucracy and respect the competencies of each body, according to the governor of Rio.
“Trying to eliminate barriers so that we can actually provide public security that serves our true and only client, which is the citizen,” said the governor of Rio.
The measurement takes place after Operation Containment in the Alemão and Penha complexes, which left more than 100 people dead. THE action is considered the most lethal in the country’s history. In retaliation, criminals linked to the Red Command blocked streets in several parts of the city, with vehicles crossed and barricades.
Lewandowski said that the federal government will increase the number of Federal Highway Police by 50 agents on the roads and the number of intelligence agents in the state. Experts and vacancies in federal prisons were also made available, should the state government request them.
The meeting at Palácio Guanabara, seat of state power in Rio, took place after the governor Cláudio Castro demands more support from the federal government in combating criminal organizations that operate in the state. According to Castro, the state is acting “alone in this war”.
On the same day, Lewandowski said he had not received a request for help from the governor for the operation. The minister recalled that, at the beginning of the year, the governor of Rio was at the Ministry of Justice and Public Security and requested the transfer of leaders of criminal factions to maximum security federal penitentiaries, and was granted.
“Narcoterrorism”
THE The Rio government has frequently used the expression “narcoterrorism” to refer to organized crime. Asked about the term, the Minister Lewandowski said that it does not apply to the reality of the state.
“One thing is terrorism, another thing is criminal factions. Terrorism always involves an ideological issue. Political action, social repression with sporadic attacks. Criminal factions are made up of groups of people who systematically commit crimes that are capitulated in the Penal Code. Therefore, it is very easy to identify what a criminal faction is based on the results of their actions”, said the minister.
The minister said that the legislation clearly establishes the classifications for criminal organizations and terrorist groups.
“These are two types of action that cannot be confused and, on the part of the federal government, we have no intention of combining them”, he adds.
GLO
Lewandowski and Castro ruled out the possibility of using the Armed Forces to act in state security, through the decree of Guarantee of Law and Order (GLO).
“We did not express ourselves in this sense [a favor ou contra]. The GLO is provided for in article 142 of the Federal Constitution. It is an exceptional operation, which depends on a request from the governor, let’s talk here about the governor or the local authority who recognizes the inability of local forces to overcome a crisis situation”, said the minister.
Castro also denied having considered requesting the measure.
“That [GLO] it came to light only because I spoke about the issue of armored vehicles, which we had requested on three other occasions and were denied because there would be a need for a GLO. The situation of security forces in Rio de Janeiro today is completely different from that of 2018. Today we have a capable state security force”, stated the governor.
