More gang violence rocked São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, on Tuesday as assailants continued attacks against police and other targets, which now have left at least 99 people dead.
Overnight attacks, blamed on the First Capital Commando gang, left up to 19 dead, according to media reports.
The violence erupted on Friday after hundreds of members of the gang, which is known by its Portuguese initials PCC, were transferred to maximum security jails.
Authorities say there have been almost 200 attacks on police stations, banks, buses, cars and other targets.
There was no official toll on the latest attacks, but authorities said that the bodies of 18 inmates killed in prison uprisings had been recovered, taking the official toll to 99.
Eight prisoners were killed in fires that were started in the Sao Sebatiao prison on the state’s Atlantic coast.
At least 39 of those killed in recent days were police officers. And at least 48 police and passers-by have also been wounded and 91 suspected gang members arrested, officials said.
Tuesday’s rush hour in the sprawling industrial and financial hub of 20-million returned close to normal.
On Monday bus services were withdrawn after assailants hijacked and burned at least 56 buses. Amid machine-gun and Molotov-cocktail attacks on banks and subway stations, stores, restaurants and offices closed.
Authorities said they were taking control of prisons where dozens of uprisings were reported. Officials said they had negotiated the release of some 200 hostages in 45 jails.
Authorities believe the PCC launched the offensive in retaliation for the transfer of 765 imprisoned members to a high-security prison. Eight PCC leaders were placed in solitary confinement.
Police sought to shut down some cellphone towers near affected jails, in a bid to stop gang bosses communicating with their underlings.
São Paulo state Governor Claudio Lembo met with Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos, but Lembo rejected again President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s offer to send federal troops.
”The army’s presence is not necessary, state police are efficiently accomplishing their mission,” Lembo said.
Yet some analysts were quick to point out that the state government was determined to keep federal troops out of the conflict.
”States do anything to avoid federal intervention because it would make them look weak and hurt them politically,” said Sergio Adorno of the Violence Research Group.
The PCC is the largest criminal gang in São Paulo state and has a massive base in prisons.
Those transferred to high security facilities included Marcos Wilian Herbas Camacho, also known as ”Marcola”, who is considered the PCC chief. Police suspect gang bosses were using cellphones from inside the prisons to oversee the unrest.
The PCC first emerged in prisons in the 1990s and was responsible for uprisings in 20 prisons in February 2001. In November 2003, it launched attacks on security forces that left 11 officers and seven gang members dead.
The gang ”has the clear objective of challenging the state”, said Emilio Henrique Dellazoppa, the director of a programme studying violence at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. — AFP
