BLOG VIEW | HEADLINE VIEW

ALL

GEEK

A Forgotten War

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6 2004 3:43 PM

Submitted by llouys. Edited By legionnaire.

The following report has been modified:

The long awaited invasion by rival militias finally happened, leaving at least three dead. In the early hours of Good Friday a group of 30 armed men tried to enter from the surrounding

In the shootout that followed two residents were killed by stray bullets: a 27-year-old and a 24-year-old. Another seven locals were taken to a nearby hospital, two seriously

The slum has been on alert since February when a former leader escaped from prison. At the time it was widely publicised that he would try to seize control from the slum's current militia leader, a 23-year-old man. "Their objective is to get in and kill all of their rivals," added a member of the rival militia.

A woman was also killed on a nearby main road when militia members from the rival slum tried to steal her car for use in the invasion. A 38-year-old woman was driving home with her son and nephew when she saw the ambush. The militia members opened fire when she didn't stop, killing her and wounding her 16-year-old son in the leg.

However, the second attempted invasion in a week failed, and police arrested five suspected militia members. An extra 380 police are now occupying the two communities. Despite this violence broke out again on Friday evening. According to early reports one police officer was killed in a shootout with traffickers.

Sound like Iraq?

Try Brazil.

Replace "militia" with "gang" and "militia member" with "drug trafficker," and then put the Portuguese names back in, and you have this this summary about a surge in violence in the Brazilian shantytown or favela of Rocinha, right on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

By some accounts Brazil has the highest murder rate in the world. In a sense, Brazilians have been living under the yoke of terror for years, and lately it's been getting much worse.

6 Comments

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK

August 2002

OCT 06, 2004 03:45 PM

Shit, dig up some of the reports of the British experience in Iraq almost 100 years ago, and you could change the names and print them tomorrow.

CrackRockSteady7

Williamsburg, VA

May 2004

OCT 06, 2004 03:59 PM

south america is filled with that type of violence, drugs and other shit

filmjedi

Brighton, MA

June 2004

OCT 06, 2004 05:27 PM

we should pre-emptively strike them, and canada. NOW

GiddyIguana

Spartanburg, SC

February 2004

OCT 06, 2004 06:15 PM

Yes, it's always amazed me that we'll send our boys halfway around the world to fight real or imagined menaces, yet we ignore what's happening in our own backyard. It's not just Brazil: think Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Haiti....

(Despite the fact that a lot of THEIR problems are either directly or indirectly the result of our meddling.)

Horrorflick

Detroit, MI

February 2003

OCT 06, 2004 07:22 PM

Just wait until cocaine is legalized. It'll be a whole different enchilada then...

tretiak

San Francisco, CA

March 2003

OCT 07, 2004 12:40 AM

GiddyIguana said:
Yes, it's always amazed me that we'll send our boys halfway around the world to fight real or imagined menaces, yet we ignore what's happening in our own backyard. It's not just Brazil: think Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Haiti....

(Despite the fact that a lot of THEIR problems are either directly or indirectly the result of our meddling.)

I don't know who you know in the service, but I happen to know a lot of people who speak Spanish as a result of their duty stations.

They may not be able to confirm or deny why they speak spanish, but they do.

Didn't we invade panama a few years back?

As to our own backyard, go see the Iwo Jima memorial sometime to see where the Marines have been deployed over the years. The vaaaaast majority of them are in the Carrib or Latin America.