SALVADOR, Brazil, (Reuters) – A toll of 115 murders and widespread looting, assaults and vandalism in the past week are roiling Brazil’s third-biggest city, casting doubts over upcoming carnival celebrations and raising questions about security ahead of the 2014 World Cup.
More than 3,000 federal troops were dispatched to the northeastern state of Bahia in recent days to restore order after much of the state’s military police force went on strike last Tuesday to demand higher wages. The military police force, normally charged with routine order and security in Brazil, has stood by as criminals, some of them allegedly members of the police force themselves, have run rampant.
About 20 percent of the state’s police, or about 6,000 officers, have taken part in the strike, the government said.
The city of Salvador, the state capital known as a locus of Afro-Brazilian culture and popular as a foreign tourist destination, has borne the brunt of the spree of violence. Less than two weeks before the start of Salvador’s popular carnival celebration, which regularly draws a half-million visitors to its seaside colonial streets, the chaos is prompting residents to stay home while shopkeepers to shutter their doors and would-be visitors to cancel their plans.
Brazil’s recent economic boom has brought growing prosperity to Bahia and much of the rest of the country’s historically poor northeast but the strike and its fallout underscore what many Brazilians say remains a fragile state of preparedness in public services and institutions. The fragility, analysts say, manifests itself anytime a contingency tests reflexes for everything from natural disasters to transport strikes to organized crime waves.
“There’s a contrast here between rapid economic growth and a sluggish ability for many public institutions to evolve,” said Claudio Couto, a professor of public administration at the Fundacao Getúlio Vargas, a business school in Sao Paulo. “The government isn’t able to keep up and that shows in its overall preparedness.”
