‘Terreiros’ Under Attack? Criminal Governance in the Name of God and Armed Dominion Disputes over Control in Rio de Janeiro

Miranda, Ana Paula Mendes de; Muniz, Jacqueline de Oliveira; Almeida, Rosiane Rodrigues de; Cafezeiro, Fausto

doi:10.4322/dilemas.v15esp4.52535

Ana Paula Mendes de Miranda

Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ, Brasil

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1007-6714

Jacqueline de Oliveira Muniz

Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ, Brasil

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1481-414X

Rosiane Rodrigues de Almeida

Instituto de Estudos Comparados em Administração de Conflitos, Niterói, RJ, Brasil

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6751-1871

Fausto Cafezeiro

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6428-0262

ANA PAULA MENDES DE MIRANDA

(anapaulamiranda@id.uff.br) é professora do Departamento de Antropologia da Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF, Niterói, Brasil). É coordenadora dos Programas Profissionais da área de Antropologia/Arqueologia da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes), bolsista de produtividade do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) e Cientista do Nosso Estado da Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Faperj). Tem doutorado pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia (PPGA) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP, Brasil) e bacharelado e licenciatura em ciências sociais pela UFF.

JACQUELINE DE OLIVEIRA MUNIZ

(jacquelinemuniz@id.uff.br) é professora do Departamento de Segurança Pública e do Programa de Pós-Graduação Justiça e Segurança (PPGJS) da UFF. É doutora em Ciência Política pelo Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (Iuperj), mestre pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social (PPGAS) do Museu Nacional (MN) da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, Brasil) e bacharel em Ciências Sociais pela UFF.

ROSIANE RODRIGUES DE ALMEIDA

(rosiane.r72@gmail.com) é bolsista de pós-doutorado (Faperj/UFF). É doutora e mestra pelo PPGA/UFF e pesquisadora do Instituto de Estudos Comparados em Administração de Conflitos (INCT-InEAC).

FAUSTO CAFEZEIRO

(fausto.cafezeiro@gmail.com) é doutorando do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Planejamento Urbano e Regional (PPGPUR) da UFRJ. É mestre pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia (PPGGEO) da Faculdade de Formação de Professores (FFP) da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Uerj, Brasil) e licenciado em Geografia pela UFF.

Colaboradores

APMM, JOM e RRA trabalharam na concepção, análise e na redação final. FC trabalhou na concepção e confecção dos mapas, análise e redação final.

Figures (3)
Tables (4)

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Figure 1:
Letter attributed to the Terceiro Comando Puro (Third Pure Command - TCP) in 2017, with reference to the restriction of religious manifestations of African roots¹⁶ 16 Transcript of the letter: “Important Notice!!! Dear residents and traders, I would like to inform you that our war is not with you but against these guys who should be here to help you and be a reference for all residents but have not been... They have had years of opportunity and have not taken advantage of it, now in their act of desperation they are bothering the good residents with their orders to riot and their intolerance if residents don’t do what they want... So “I” hereby communicate to all of you, good people, most of you workers, not to let yourselves be taken in by the nastiness of Baratão, do not raise your expectations of their possibly returning here, because who put us here was the “GENERAL OF THE ARMIES, THE LIVING GOD WHO NEVER FAILS AND HAS NEVER LOST A BATTLE”... So I humbly inform you that the time of slavery to which the (CIDADE ALTA) had been subject under the command of Baratão and his rats has come to an end and you may not understand it now but in the future you will understand that we are trying our best, we are putting ourselves out there, we are leaving our families, wives, sons and daughters at home to fight for you and we would like to ask you residents that before judging us, let us really show you who we are, do not think that we came here to do worse than these rats had been doing for you, residents of good, we would never fight a war to do worse by you than what was already being done, we are only fighting because it was the Lord Jesus’ order that the Community of the (CIDADE ALTA) to be freed of this evil and enjoy better and happier days because the last few days have been arduous but always remember that after the storm comes the bonanza!!!! We are with you, the People, we are here to fight against tyranny, do not ally yourselves with them in demonstrations or intrigues on social media because if you do that many of you will lose the right to live in your community that I believe you love as much as “I” do. So let’s do it like this, if we love the (CIDADE ALTA) we take care of the (CIDADE ALTA), then don’t disrespect it, filthy it up or do such Macumbadas, serving strange Gods, because you will never be able to forget that we only reap the fruit that we plant, “WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER”, may GOD be with you and know that the doors of LUCAS and VIGÁRIO are open for you because here we love you and we were counting down the hours to tear down this wall of impediments that Satan has created between our communities that always liked and respected each other until the these criminals of the (CIDADE ALTA) repressed them... So let’s stop talking about how Mineiro died and took (CIDADE ALTA) with him, because Today My “GOD” raises the (CIDADE ALTA) from the valley of dry bones and will give it Life, and Life with abundance!!! WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER ALL 3 END TO END!!! PL.PG.CDA."

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Figure 2:
Image of a letter attributed to Comando Vermelho, circulating on WhatsApp in October 2021.

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Map 1:
Cross-referencing reports of breaking and entry of terreiros with the mapping of armed dominions (RJ)

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Table 1:
Types of crimes committed against terreiros in Rio de Janeiro State (from January 2011 to April 2021)

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Table 2:
Reports of violence against terreiros by municipality (from January 2011 to April 2021)

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Table 3:
Number of reports of ‘religious discrimination’ allegedly committed by traffickers, broken down by drug faction denomination and location (January 2011 to April 2021)

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Table 4:
Cross-referencing between matters reported in the report and alleged authorship of the event (from January 2011 to April 2021)

Figure 1: Letter attributed to the Terceiro Comando Puro (Third Pure Command - TCP) in 2017, with reference to the restriction of religious manifestations of African roots¹⁶ 16 Transcript of the letter: “Important Notice!!! Dear residents and traders, I would like to inform you that our war is not with you but against these guys who should be here to help you and be a reference for all residents but have not been... They have had years of opportunity and have not taken advantage of it, now in their act of desperation they are bothering the good residents with their orders to riot and their intolerance if residents don’t do what they want... So “I” hereby communicate to all of you, good people, most of you workers, not to let yourselves be taken in by the nastiness of Baratão, do not raise your expectations of their possibly returning here, because who put us here was the “GENERAL OF THE ARMIES, THE LIVING GOD WHO NEVER FAILS AND HAS NEVER LOST A BATTLE”... So I humbly inform you that the time of slavery to which the (CIDADE ALTA) had been subject under the command of Baratão and his rats has come to an end and you may not understand it now but in the future you will understand that we are trying our best, we are putting ourselves out there, we are leaving our families, wives, sons and daughters at home to fight for you and we would like to ask you residents that before judging us, let us really show you who we are, do not think that we came here to do worse than these rats had been doing for you, residents of good, we would never fight a war to do worse by you than what was already being done, we are only fighting because it was the Lord Jesus’ order that the Community of the (CIDADE ALTA) to be freed of this evil and enjoy better and happier days because the last few days have been arduous but always remember that after the storm comes the bonanza!!!! We are with you, the People, we are here to fight against tyranny, do not ally yourselves with them in demonstrations or intrigues on social media because if you do that many of you will lose the right to live in your community that I believe you love as much as “I” do. So let’s do it like this, if we love the (CIDADE ALTA) we take care of the (CIDADE ALTA), then don’t disrespect it, filthy it up or do such Macumbadas, serving strange Gods, because you will never be able to forget that we only reap the fruit that we plant, “WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER”, may GOD be with you and know that the doors of LUCAS and VIGÁRIO are open for you because here we love you and we were counting down the hours to tear down this wall of impediments that Satan has created between our communities that always liked and respected each other until the these criminals of the (CIDADE ALTA) repressed them... So let’s stop talking about how Mineiro died and took (CIDADE ALTA) with him, because Today My “GOD” raises the (CIDADE ALTA) from the valley of dry bones and will give it Life, and Life with abundance!!! WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER ALL 3 END TO END!!! PL.PG.CDA."

TYPOLOGY OF THE CRIMES	TOTAL
Against property	35
Against public property (images and public monuments)	4
Against private property (terreiros, homes)	31
Against people	34
Threat, expulsion, verbal aggression	16
Against life (homicide)	6
Other crimes against people	12
Attacks and assaults	81
Total media occurrences	150

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	Total	Total (%)
Rio de Janeiro	5	2	4	1	4	2	3	3	3	1	-	28	54.90%
Belford Roxo	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	-	7	10	19.61%
Duque de Caxias	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	1	-	3	5.88%
Macaé	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	1.96%
Maricá	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1.96%
Mesquita	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	1.96%
Niterói	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	1.96%
Nova Friburgo	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	1.96%
Nova Iguaçu	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	--	-	1	-	2	3.92%
São Gonçalo	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	2	3.92%
Teresópolis	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	1.96%
Total	5	2	6	1	5	2	4	8	5	4	9	51	100.00%

Municipality	Terceiro Comando (TC)	Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP)	Total (TC and TCP)
Belford Roxo	-	6	6
Duque de Caxias	1	-	1
Nova Iguaçu	-	2	2
Rio de Janeiro	-	2	2
Total	1	10	11

Report/author	Partner or boyfriend (ex)	Family	Neighbor	Teacher	Administrative manager	Catholic churchgoer	Evangelist churchgoer	Trafficker	Others	Not identified	Total	Total (%)
Religious discrimination	3	2	7	2	5	1	7	17	6	3	51	37.23%
Drug trafficking	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	17	-	-	19	13.87%
Threat	-	-	3	-	1	-	3	7	1	--	16	11.68%
Racial discrimination	-	-	2	1	3	-	-	-	4	-	10	7.30%
Sexual discrimination	-	-	-	1	2	-	2	-	3	-	7	5.11%
Violence against women	3	1	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	5	3.65%
Breaking and entering	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	1	3	2.19%
Illicit possession of a firearm	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3	-	-	3	2.19%
Vandalism	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3	-	-	3	2.19%
Noise	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	2	1.46%
Non-compliance with labor rights	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	2	1.46%
Locating a fugitive from justice	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	2	1.46%
Obstruction of public roads	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	2	1.46%
Abandonment of a child or adolescent	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0.73%
Abuse of authority	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	1	0.73%
Sexual harassment	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0.73%
Drug consumption	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0.73%
Irregular tree felling	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0.73%
Bodily injury	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	1	0.73%
Poor service from public and private bodies	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	0.73%
Animal abuse	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	0.73%
Complaint about private and public schools	-	-	-	1	-	-	--	-	1	-	1	0.73%
Complaint about defective products or services	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	0.73%
Kidnapping and false imprisonment	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	0.73%
Vagrancy	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	0.73%
Total	6	4	16	5	15	1	17	53	17	5	137	100%

[1] ANA PAULA MENDES DE MIRANDA

(anapaulamiranda@id.uff.br) é professora do Departamento de Antropologia da Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF, Niterói, Brasil). É coordenadora dos Programas Profissionais da área de Antropologia/Arqueologia da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes), bolsista de produtividade do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) e Cientista do Nosso Estado da Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Faperj). Tem doutorado pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia (PPGA) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP, Brasil) e bacharelado e licenciatura em ciências sociais pela UFF.

Brasil

Brasil

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