RAPIDINHAS

Tribute
Drum's Silent 

It was a fitting death for one of Brazil's most celebrated bohemians and womanizers. Sambista Oswaldo Sargentelli, 78, had to be taken in a rush to the hospital Barra D'Or in Rio's west side, April 12, a Friday night, while taping a scene in front of Dona Jura's Bar, a setting of O Clone (The Clone), Brazil's most popular soap opera at the moment. Dona Jura, interpreted by actress Solange Couto, pay homage to the man who gave her the first chance in show biz when she was 17.

The reencounter with the mulata (mulatto girl) whom he made famous was too much for his feeble heart. Sargentelli died Saturday morning from an acute myocardial infarction, after doctors tried to implant a pacemaker. The heart was giving him trouble for some time. In 1998 he had three bypasses implanted. At that time he commented in his musical-irreverent style: "The bass drum is failing." But he did not slow down.

In the 70s, the promoter who used to call himself mulatólogo (mulattologist) had up to 40 mulatas working for him. Also known as Voz do Trovão (Voice of Thunder), Sargentelli made a career in radio and TV, interviewing personalities. Between 1957 and 1964, he hosted the show O Preto no Branco (Black on White) at extinct TV Tupi. He didn't appear on stage. The spectators could only see the interviewee and hear the presenter's booming voice. The questions were often polemical or embarrassing for the guest. Another famous show he hosted was Advogado do Diabo (The Devil's Attorney). At the time of his death, Sargentelli, also known as Sargento (Sergeant), was still hosting A Verdade de… (The Truth of…), a late-night show at Rede Brasil TV in which he interviewed personalities.

Born in Lapa, a Rio neighborhood famous for its bohemian mores, Sargentelli was raised by his mother, Maria Amélia Sargentelli. The father, Leopoldo de Azeredo Babo, abandoned his family when Oswald was still an infant and never even give him his name. Sargentelli would only meet his famous composer uncle Lamartine Babo, in 1948, when he landed a job as radio announcer at Rádio Clube do Brasil.

Sargentelli has been single since 1978 when he left his third wife, Almary, after a 13-year marriage. As for the number of children he fathered he was never quiet sure. "Inside the house," he told an interviewer from Gente magazine, "I had seven. But I have 21 children spread around." His first marriage, to Lúcia, lasted eight years; the second, to Vera, resisted 11.

His house was always full of people. He used to say that he hated to be alone. Some days, up to 11 people would sleep in his one-bedroom apartment in Copacabana. During a visit of a reporter in 1999 there were six friends living there: singer Miguel França, mulatas Aline Barreto and Renata Santana and three more people.

Memórias de um Sargento de Mulatas (Memories of Sergeant of Mulatto Girls), written by Fernando Costa and released in 1999, tells about little-known facts on his life, like the times he went to jail during the military regime for speaking his mind as a political reporter at TV Rio. The military persecution that in 1964 forbade him from working as a journalist was decisive to his new vocation of mulatólogo. His first show of mulatas happened in 1969 in Copacabana's O Sambão. The next year, he opened Sucata and then, in 1973, Oba Oba, with a show that would tour the whole world in the 70s and 80s. He made a big splash presenting Sargentelli e as Mulatas Que Não Estão no Mapa (Sargentelli and the Out-of-this-world Mulatas). This year he was working on plans to open a new nightclub in the same place Sucata once was.

In 1985, the Commission for the Valorization and Political Integration of the Black from Rio Grande do Sul accused him of racism and of exploiting black women. The charges were later dropped, however.

Some have credited him with the creation of words that have entered the Brazilian entertainment world like telecoteco, ziriguidum and borogodó. In an interview with Rio Grande do Sul daily newspaper Zero Hora, in February, he explained how these expressions came to light, "I didn't invent anything, just spread them. Time and again, radio announcers created these terms. Ziriguidum, for example, I took it from Monsueto Menezes and Ary Barroso always said telecoteco. I've also incorporated popular expressions. Balacobaco was the way to say "let's go to a ball." Borogodó, on the other hand, meant that someone was pretty. These words show the African influence in Brazil.

In the same interview, Sargentelli talked about his lifelong love for the mulata. "No one convinces me that white TV beauties know more about samba than a mulata. And I'm blond with blue eyes. I adore white women, even those American ones with their amazing mammaries, but the mulata has no match when she sambas. She kills."

Recently, Sargentelli interviewed himself in his Rede Brazil TV show.

"Do your consider yourself generous?," he asked. And answered: "If I passed the limit of generosity, I'm sorry. Now I'm in the diminutive phase: I'm the little old man, the little fluffy guy, the little sergeant. I pay neither the bus fare nor the restaurant. Ah, Christ in Heavens, how good it's to live!"

At almost 80, are you still dealing with mulatas?

I don't deal anymore because I reached my limit. Today I only think about them. Ah, how good it is to think.

Where did you get so many pretty women?

Brazil is a factory of pretty women.

Did you romance Dercy Gonçalves (a vaudeville and TV comedian)?

Of course! I saw her body going upstairs and became hallucinated. I'm from the time when boys would become hallucinated by the sight of a girl going upstairs.

In which measure is God part of your life?

God is my friend. If the heavenly father is Brazilian, He likes samba, pop music and mulata.

That's the way he defined the women he loved the most: `'Mulatas have thin waist, thick thighs, naughty little-girl face, good teeth, wide laugh, and very good smell; they shake and jiggle, making everyone's mouth water."
 

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Children 
Street Sweet Street

A recent study done by Cespi (Coordenação de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre a Infância—Coordination of Studies and Research Concerning Childhood) of the University of Santa Ursula, in Rio de Janeiro, was released and gives a current profile of an estimated 1,200 kids who live on the streets in Rio. The study followed 67 such youngsters from October, 2001 to January of this year.

One of the questions asked was what the kids found to be good about living on the streets. Words such as food, fun, money and freedom appeared in 50 percent of the responses to the question. Some of the boys responded further that having fun to them would be to perform acts of violence or using drugs; but they also said that living on the streets was the "wrong road" or it is a "vice" that is hard to let go of.

But a significant number of kids, when asked what is good about the streets, said "nothing." Among the 43 kids who answered the question, what is the worst thing about the street, 26 said "violence," 8 said "the police," 7 said "prejudices against them," 6 said "hunger," and 6 said "drugs." Of the thirty who were asked if they have ever suffered violence, all responded in the affirmative. Fifteen were victims of police violence, 3 victims of security guard violence, and 6 suffered violence from other kids. Many of the kids said that one of their worst nightmares would be to suffer the fate of "Galdino the Indian." (Galdino was an indigenous man who in 1997 was set on fire by a group of upper middle class youths who thought he was a street person.)

The research team, coordinated by sociologist Irene Rizzini, director of Cespi, didn't go through the streets to count the number of street kids in Rio, but their objective rather was to hear what the kids thought of themselves, society, their fears, plans, and dreams. The goal of the study is to help establish new public policies for this marginalized population. The researchers found that the majority of the kids want what they never had: work, a home, a family, or a place to study.

The study reveals that this portion of the population is fluid—young people who enter and leave the city in diverse groups. The necessity to survive and to have recreation are factors which contribute to this fluidity. The beach especially attracts groups. But for the majority, the kids prefer to circulate throughout the city alone or in small groups. It is only at night that they form large groups—it is a way of defending themselves from "evil" that lurks. But this is not to say that they come and go at will.

There are certain restrictions in their wanderings, especially from the drug traffickers. Even if they don't have a direct connection with organized crime factions, they will often wear signs to identify themselves with a group. Also the study reveals that the so-called "freedom of the streets" is somewhat illusory. According to testimonies, adults (sometimes even the parents) act as "dominators" and "protectors" of the groups, especially as the group is involved in illicit activities such as drug trafficking or begging at stop lights. But the kids speak very little about the exploiters, who act like characters out of a Charles Dickens novel.

The estimated 1,200 street kids is not many more than the number 10 years ago, nearly 900. In absolute numbers, it may seem to be a relatively small problem in a metropolis with over 5 million inhabitants. But according to the researchers, boys and girls are living on the streets at much younger ages than ever before, some beginning at seven years of age. And survival is more difficult because of the intense increase of violence.

"The scenario has changed where these young people live," comments Rizzini. According to the sociologist, when adolescents and children affirm that between living at home and living on the streets, they choose the streets, they are not saying that the street is a great place to be. "Poverty is on the rise, and there are cases where the home can be worse than the streets. Domestic violence and misery have pushed these kids out of their homes." Rizzini concludes, "With this study as a base, we can see that it is necessary to create mechanisms that build up bases of support for these children in their communities and in their families. We need to offer daycare, options for sports, recreation, culture, health programs and work programs for the families."

This material was supplied by SEJUP (Serviço Brasileiro de Justiça e Paz). You can get more information on their homepage at www.oneworld.net/sejup
 

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Human Rights 
Never-ending Abuse 

Thirty four detainees crammed into cells built to hold 4, windowless cells from which prisoners are allowed out only one hour every 15 days, 1000 percent overcrowding, suspected torturers acting with impunity for more than 30 years...

Although the horrors described above sound as if they belong to a medieval work of fiction, they are the reality of the daily routine of terrible conditions, chronic overcrowding, torture and corruption suffered by prisoners and witnessed by Amnesty International in a recent visit to two police stations in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state.

Against the backdrop of increasing public demands for a tougher stance against violent crime, and with recent polls showing mounting support for the reintroduction of the death penalty among other measures, Amnesty International is today drawing public attention to the appalling human rights abuses and overcrowding that have long gone unchecked in two of Belo Horizonte's busiest police stations.

An Amnesty International delegation visited the Delegacia de Tóxicos (Divisão de Tóxicos e Entorpecentes—Controlled Substances police station) and the Delegacia de Roubos e Furtos ( de Crimes Contra o Patrimônio—Robbery and Theft police station) in October 2001 and found conditions of extreme overcrowding and squalor, lack of medical attention and evidence of corruption among the guards, who extort money from desperate inmates in exchange for basic commodities—including food and medicines—and transfers.

"Despite repeated denunciations by national and international human rights organizations and the United Nations Special Rapporteur Against Torture, prisoners in these police stations continue to endure subhuman conditions—what could almost be described as a living death—in which they are denied their most basic humanity," Amnesty International said.

"What is even more disturbing, detainees told us of torture sessions carried out with beatings and electric shocks, and of windowless punishment cells where they are taken after the torture and left naked in solitary confinement for a number of days, without food," the delegates said, adding that these are not isolated cases, as reports of overcrowding and torture are abundant for police stations right across Brazil.

The delegation was alarmed to discover that a long-standing staff member of the Delegacia de Furtos e Roubos is known to have been involved in episodes of torture that took place there as long ago as 1969, and to hear that torture methods used in the 1960s are still in use there today.

"This is just one more example of how the Brazilian authorities' chronic failure to investigate the widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment in prisons and police stations, and to punish those responsible, continues to feed the cycle of impunity and abuse," Amnesty International delegates said.

"The situation in these two police stations is symptomatic of the structural problems of the Brazilian criminal justice system, which is coming under increasing strain as the authorities respond to rising crime rates and public pressure by attempting quick fix solutions," the delegates continued.

In November 2001, following mounting international criticism, the Brazilian government launched a nationwide campaign to combat torture. Four months into the campaign, however, there are concerns that many of the measures adopted fail to address the root causes of torture and the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators.

"The campaign has been undermined by poor funding and lack of a coordinated strategy, and has had very little impact on the lives of the thousands of prisoners who endure torture and ill-treatment throughout Brazil," Amnesty International said.

"What is needed is urgent action on the part of state and federal authorities to improve conditions of detention, stop the violence and abuse by police and prison staff—including through providing them with adequate resources and training—and curb the use of excessively punitive sentencing which contributes to extreme overcrowding such as we witnessed in Belo Horizonte."

"The state and federal authorities in Brazil have consistently failed to provide structured and effective long term strategies for reforming public security. This has resulted in the sacrifice of the human rights of a substantial percentage of the Brazilian population to violent, repressive, and corrupt policing methods. At best, these methods have proved ineffective in tackling crime; at worst they have fuelled the spiral of crime and violence that is currently posing a major threat to social stability in the country," Amnesty International concluded.

This material was supplied by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. The above-mentioned report is available in their web page at http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/AMR190032002

You can also find the same full report at http://www.brazzil.com/p00apr02.htm

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Indians 
Cleaning the Area 

A task force made up of Federal Police agents, Army soldiers, Funai and Ibama officials, and attorneys of the Brazilian Department of Justice supported by various indigenous entities launched an operation to remove almost 3,000 miners from the land of the Cinta Larga indigenous people, which they invaded late in 1999 to mine for diamonds in it. The task force will implement a more permanent plan to support this people.

This is the fourth time in 10 years that federal authorities launch an operation to remove invaders from the land of the Cinta Larga, a people of Mondé linguistic origin whose population was reduced from 650 people in 1993 to less than 400 today. The area, located in the south tip of the state of Rondônia and northwest of the state of Mato Grosso, has large reserves of diamonds. The Federal Police estimates that gems amounting to 50 million dollars were smuggled from the region to Belgium last year.

The presence of miners in the area, in addition to the also illegal activities of woodcutters, jeopardizes the group's social fabric. Many indigenous families stopped fishing and hunting to associate with the invaders in exchange for money. Some indigenous people are charging up to R$ 10,000 (US$ 4,290) to allow machines to be brought to the area. And there are reports that Funai and Ibama employees are also involved in the illegal exploitation and trade of diamonds. The violence prevailing among the miners themselves is another consequence of their illegal exploitation activities. According to the police, about 40 men were murdered in the region in recent months.

Alcoholism, drugs, prostitution, malnutrition, and social disaggregation are the more visible harms caused by the actions of miners and woodcutters in the lands of the Cinta Larga and also in the territories of the Zoró, Gavião, and Suruí in the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso. Referring to the brutal murder of Carlito Kaban Cinta Larga in Aripuanã (state of Mato Grosso) on the night of December 19, Dal Poz compared the present situation to the one prevailing in 1963, when gunmen hired by rubber plantation owners Arruda and Junqueira machine-gunned a Cinta Larga village located on the banks of the Aripuanã river in an episode that became known in history as the "Parallel 11 Massacre."

Cimi's executive secretary, Egon Heck, compares the situation of the Cinta Larga to the one faced by the Yanomami in the mid-1980s, when their lands in Roraima were invaded by thousands of miners who left a trail of violence and epidemics that killed at least 1,500 indigenous people.

The eviction operation will be over in a few weeks, but Indianists are now mostly concerned about what should be done to prevent the indigenous land from being invaded again and about how to ensure a stable situation for the Cinta Larga to recover their lifestyle and dignity. Anthropologist João Dal Poz reported that businessmen are identifying new areas to exploit timber in the land beginning in May, after the rainy season.
 

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Violence 
War Zone 

Heidi Cerneka

Brazil is living in a situation of war, a Social War, according to United Nations special advisor Jean Ziegler. "It's as if France, Germany and Somalia were living in the same country!" Ziegler continued, "And while police are important for security, they are not the solution to the problems of hunger, lack of health care, lack of schools and lack of citizenship." In a country with such a striking disparity between rich and poor, Ziegler comments, "the temptation to steal is understandable when one has absolutely nothing."

Despite the fact that one Brazilian authority called this declaration irresponsible and ridiculous, the facts are hard to dispute. According to UN guidelines, a country with over 25,000 assassinations per year is considered in a state of war, and last year, according to the Ministry of Justice, Brazil registered well over 40,000 assassinations.

In the metropolitan area of São Paulo, whose population is estimated between 17 and 20 million, residents are afraid to go out at night. The number of kidnappings has increased 400 percent. From 1985 to 1997, homicides have increased 76 percent, unemployment has risen 18.6 percent and the number of people living in precarious or totally inadequate housing (or the streets) has grown 50 percent.

Three neighborhood health posts in the city of São Paulo closed their doors in recent weeks after receiving anonymous phone calls threatening the clinics. Even without the alarming number of assassinations, this data indicates at minimum, a social crisis, if not the "social war" that Ziegler describes.

The "Map of Inclusion/Exclusion" of the city of São Paulo, a comprehensive study collecting information from governmental and university sources addressing social inclusion and exclusion, violence, health, education, housing, children and adolescents, hunger work, unemployment and the informal economy, speaks to the epidemic of violence. "Violence is not only an effect, but also a cause of the increase in tension and inequality in the city. The population lives in constant fear, and the tension caused by the police only augments this fear."

Almost one-third of all residents in the city of São Paulo now believe that violence is the greatest problem in the country today. This public perception of violence has a strong psychological impact on the population. Public space, in other words, is identified more and more with violence, danger and abandonment.

Exacerbating the dramatic increase in violence is a continued complete lack of confidence in public security and government officials. A recent study by the newspaper Folha of São Paulo revealed that 59 percent of the residents of this city of São Paulo have more fear than trust in the police and security forces. Controlling violence and restoring a sense of public security is practically impossible when daily headlines show the narcotics police (DeNarc) commandeering the drug traffic in a part of the city known as "Crack-land" (so called for the quantity of crack cocaine that passes through this area) or the military police being indicted for protecting drug lords and "helping" identify potential victims to kidnap.

The governor himself publicly declared, "there are only two places for criminals—jail or the grave," and while the public security budget (which includes the police forces) has increased 107 percent, violence, if anything, has also increased. In the month of January, the police in São Paulo officially killed 84 people—as if the words of the governor freed them to shoot more indiscriminately.

Seeing as the budget continues to skyrocket, the violence only increases, one questions if anyone is thinking beyond traditional means. It is way past time to think creatively. Human beings have the capacity to split atoms, write operas, sculpt a "David," and yet, in the face of increasing violence, the only response is to build more jails. In business, when one sees that her/his product has a 30-40 percent success rate, one closes the factory. And yet, society not only accepts this rate from the prison industry and police forces, it offers more money to produce more of the same product.

Violence is neither a necessary evil nor an inevitable part of urban life. However, as long as the principal solution is to pour more money into what already does not work, the system will continue to do no more than band-aid an already desperate situation. Alternatives to prison sentencing like probation and community service must be utilized, and with the money not spent on housing and controlling that inmate, budgets for daycare, education, health and job training can be increased.

Literacy courses, secondary education and job skills training must be a part of every sentenced inmate's options for a chance at a different life after release. Laws against torture, domestic violence and political impunity must be applied. As a model of citizenship, the police forces, both military and civil, must be held accountable and corruption and violence within the police forces must be eradicated.

Clearly, more training, more ongoing support and continuing education are a means to this end. Only then, will they earn the trust of the general population. Finally, making the education and formation of today's children a first priority will open the possibility of a different future for them... of a different future for all of society.

Heidi Cerneka works with female prisoners in the city of Sao Paulo.

This material was supplied by SEJUP (Serviço Brasileiro de Justiça e Paz, which is online at http://www.oneworld.net/sejup 

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