A-Infos (en) Brazil, OSL: State Terrorism: Money for Faria Lima, bullets for the favela! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A large police operation surrounded the Penha and Alemão complexes in 
Rio de Janeiro, resulting in the deaths of dozens of people, including 
four police officers, this Tuesday, the 28th. Although official sources 
reported 64 deaths, the following morning dozens of bodies were 
recovered by residents and family members, and the death toll may have 
reached over 120, a macabre record in the long list of massacres 
perpetrated by Brazilian police forces. Residents reported numerous 
bodies with marks of torture and execution, such as shots to the back of 
the neck, bound wrists, and stab wounds.

The line of bodies displayed in São Lucas Square, in the Penha Complex, 
is visceral proof of the genocidal violence that capitalist-statism 
exercises daily against Black and working-class people. The so-called 
"Operation Containment," far from being a security action, reveals 
itself as a meticulously planned massacre, led by Governor Cláudio 
Castro (PL) with the approval of the racist ruling classes.

The operation confined the working population to their homes and closed 
schools, hospitals, and city streets, leaving students and residents 
unable to go to school or work. The panic instilled in the population 
aims precisely to legitimize exceptional measures, repositioning the 
police forces as political protagonists. The action is anything but 
improvised: it is part of the genocidal and war-like policy promoted by 
Bolsonaro and his allies.

The fallacy of the war on drugs

The war on drugs is a frequently used argument to promote this type of 
state violence, which in reality aims at brutal and indiscriminate 
repression against the poor and black population. It takes on the 
appearance of combating drug trafficking, but only affects the retail 
level. Meanwhile, major drug traffickers establish their drug and arms 
sales schemes on the borders-under the protection and participation of 
the armed forces and police-without being bothered or repressed.

The state's war tactic is clear: terrorize communities to consolidate 
its control over peripheral territories. A true war on the poor, a tool 
to discipline the oppressed classes and maintain the order of capitalist 
exploitation, without repressing those who actually profit from drug 
trafficking.

The massacre as an electoral tactic

The actions of the police forces also have a strong electoral component. 
It prepares the ground for the campaign, both in the field of propaganda 
and in territorial control, aiming to contain the expansion of certain 
factions that have advanced into communities in the western zone (a 
central electoral stronghold in municipal and state elections), for the 
benefit of maintaining the electoral strongholds dominated by the 
militias. In doing so, the governor guarantees territorial control in 
the pre-electoral context and strengthens the support of these areas for 
his political alliance. It was with the support of various political 
leaders, linked to territories controlled by the militia, that Cláudio 
Castro secured his last election as governor.

The issue of public safety is one of the problems that most bothers the 
population, and violent police action resonates with various sectors of 
the working class. State terrorism by the police forces is mobilized as 
a populist instrument of "response" to a legitimate feeling, which is 
the sensation of insecurity and fear, but measures like this are far 
from solving any problem.

All this situation is promoted by the structural conditions of 
capitalist-statism, which produces a reserve army ready to occupy the 
retail level commanded by the big drug traffickers (all of them living 
outside the communities and favelas) and their allies within the 
chambers and legislative assemblies, irrigating political campaigns with 
money from drug trafficking or the militia. While the state apparatus 
mobilizes thousands of agents to invade favelas, those who truly profit 
from crime remain untouchable in their luxury condominiums and financial 
market offices on Faria Lima Avenue. The security policy is selective: 
it criminalizes poverty and guarantees impunity for those at the top.

National and International Disputes

The operation was also used as a way to create tension and criticism 
against the federal government and the Supreme Federal Court (STF), 
through disregard for the Argument of Non-Compliance with Fundamental 
Precept (ADPF) 635. The ADPF of the Favelas, which is being processed in 
the Supreme Court, imposed rules on police operations, aiming to 
minimize their lethality. The internal dispute within the state 
apparatus is a dispute between indiscriminate state terrorism, a type of 
state of exception defended by Bolsonaro's supporters, and the 
low-intensity war defended by bourgeois republicanism, of the 
Lula-Alckmin government and the STF. In both cases, the war on drugs is 
not questioned-the discussion boils down to its intensity. Not a word 
about the legalization of drugs or the socioeconomic situation that 
organizes this trade through state structures.

It is also worth highlighting the pro-imperialist dimension of the 
massacre, with the use of the term "narcoterrorist" by the governor and 
his allies. It is enough to remember that the term has been used by the 
Donald Trump administration to justify incursions and bombings of boats 
near the coast of Venezuela and Colombia. The US has classified drug 
cartels as terrorist organizations. The adoption of the term by 
Brazilian authorities may open the door for US military organizations to 
treat the situation as a threat, and thus establish cooperative 
relations with Bolsonaro's supporters, with a view to intervening in the 
country. This opens the possibility of using counterterrorism measures, 
with intelligence and espionage apparatuses, special forces, and 
military approaches in border areas, such as those already occurring in 
Venezuela.

The massacre in the Penha Complex is not an isolated event, but part of 
the same logic of domination and extermination that structures the 
global capitalist and colonial order. The same doctrine that justifies 
Israel's genocidal policy against the Palestinian people - where a 
militarized state occupies territories, dehumanizes an entire 
population, and subjects it to a continuous massacre of ethnic cleansing 
- is what guides the police occupation of Rio de Janeiro's favelas.

These are two sides of the same coin: a capitalism that, in crisis, 
resorts to elements of fascism, racism, and militarism to maintain its 
dominance. Whether in occupied Palestine, Venezuela under economic and 
military attack, or the favelas of Rio, the objective is the same: to 
guarantee the accumulation of wealth by a minority and deepen social 
inequality.

The massacre, therefore, is an action that combines different 
dimensions: repression of the territories of the Black and poor 
population, strengthening of state terrorism and experiments in 
exceptional measures, electoral control of strategic strongholds, 
political use of executions as a tool for mobilizing a conservative 
electorate and criticizing republicanism, and subordination to 
imperialist strategy in the Latin American continent.

Popular Self-Managed Power Against the Death Project

Faced with this barbarity, it is clear that it is not enough to rely on 
the neutrality and common sense of state institutions. It is necessary 
to build a popular self-managed power capable of confronting the state 
itself, an instrument of the dominant classes, and its death project.

We defend a society without a state and without classes, where social 
justice replaces repression, and where the people have direct control 
over their lives and territories.

Therefore, it is urgent to occupy the streets in solidarity with the 
people of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and to strengthen the 
resistance against the advance of violence and the extermination policy 
of the dominant classes. The overthrow of Governor Cláudio Castro is urgent!

ENOUGH OF GENOCIDE!
FOR THE END OF THE POLICE!
OUT WITH CLÁUDIO CASTRO!

Libertarian Socialist Organization
October 2025

https://socialismolibertario.net/2025/10/29/para-a-favela-as-balas/
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