TERRORISMBrazil’s Dangerous Flirtation with Counterterrorism
The main conversation about terrorism in Brazil is focused on mistaken efforts to label criminal groups as terrorists. This is dangerous, as the term “terrorism” contains within it a power to dress state repression as a proportionate response to emergency. Brazil should not adopt the term “ counterterrorism,” and all that it implies and permits, to address the very serious – but very separate – problem of organized crime.
American pop star Lady Gaga delivered a free concert to over 2.1 million revelers on Copacabana beach in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in May. Those attuned to security concerns saw a policing and public safety nightmare.
And shortly after the concert, Rio de Janeiro’s civil police secretary, Felipe Curi, announced that the worst realization of this nightmare had almost come to pass. An improvised bomb attack targeting fans had been thwarted thanks to police intelligence.
A loose group of conspirators from across Brazil, gelled across chat apps and other social media by anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments, planned to murder civilians. The intention was to send a political message about resisting what they see as “indecency” and “social decadence”.
Given the setting, volume of media coverage and possibility of a panicked stampede, Brazil had surely avoided the worst terrorist attack in its history.
For an attack to qualify as “terrorism”, it must be carried out for explicitly political purposes – motives akin to reshaping society violently or agitating for self-determination through force.
Yet, a month after the thwarted Copacabana attack, the main conversation about terrorism in Brazil is focused on mistaken efforts to label criminal groups as terrorists.
In late May, Brazil’s Congress fast tracked a bill that would broaden the definition of terrorism to include the actions of criminal organizations and militias. This is on the basis that their routine practices of “imposing territorial control” are designed to spread “social or widespread terror”. The bill is overly vague and extremely dangerous.
Brazilian Organized Crime
Equating organized crime and the violence it produces with “terrorism” is somewhat understandable. Organized gangs in Brazil, such as Comando Vermelho (CV) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), control vast expanses of territory, and civilians ultimately pay the price.
However, as endemic as organized crime is in Brazil, these groups strive for self-enrichment. Their violence is used solely to either protect or enhance this goal. Neither CV nor PCC have any political motive that would qualify their actions as terrorism.
The government already has legal ways to deal with criminal groups, but it has been hard to achieve lasting, positive results using these methods.
Should the actions of criminal organizations be reclassified as terrorism, a new suite of measures will become available to the state’s repressive apparatus. This will be true for the current government and future administrations.
