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| Brazil Prison Riot Ends; 15 Dead |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 02/21/2001 |
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Brazil's largest prison riot in history ended with at least 15 dead and many questions about just who's truly in charge of the nation's penitentiaries - the state or organized crime. The uprising by the First Capital Command organization, or PCC, started Sunday afternoon at Sao Paulo's huge Carandiru prison complex and spread to 28 other prisons in the state before negotiators regained control Monday. In Carandiru, some of the 10,000 inmates took guards hostage and held nearly 8,000 visitors inside. 'It was a carefully planned operation by an organization that exerts its influence over inmates in other prisons,' said Marco Vinicio Petreluzzi, Sao Paulo's public security secretary. The inmates demanded the return of 10 PCC leaders who were transferred from Carandiru to other facilities on February16 after stockpiles of ammunition, knives and cellular phones were found in their cells, he said. 'The uprising was clearly the organization's way of getting back at us for the transfer,' said Petreluzzi, calling the transfer part of a government effort 'to dismantle an organized crime group that wants to control the prison system.' After nearly 24 hours of tense negotiations, authorities persuaded the rebellious inmates at all 29 facilities to release the hostages and visitors - many of them family members. 'None of us considers ourselves hostages, we could have left whenever we wanted, but we preferred to stay inside for fear there could be a repeat of the massacre of 1992,' Clara Martin Kalil, an inmate's wife, said in reference to an operation to quell a riot at Carandiru that left at least 111 inmates dead. Officials had made it clear they would not return the PCC leaders to Carandiru, and the uprising ended peacefully. Most of the violence appeared to take place between prisoners. But authorities were investigating the deaths of two inmates at Carandiru who may have been killed when police returned fire. The riots threw a spotlight on the PCC and its increasing influence in the state prison system, which holds more than 90,000 inmates. The state is about the size of Oregon. 'With the rebellion, the PCC has shown that it has become a parallel power and that the state's prison system is completely bankrupt,' Simoes said. 'The government has only itself to blame,' he added. 'Because its focus is on repression instead of rehabilitation, the prison system is fertile ground for the PCC and its growing influence.' |
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