MS Risk Blog

The Problem of Police Violence in Brazil

On 24 May, at least 23 people were killed and 5 injured in a raid on the Vila Cruzeiro favela in Rio de Janeiro. The operation allowed police to successfully capture the leaders of the city’s largest organized crime gang, and to seize an array of vehicles and weapons, according to local officials. The deaths included a woman who was hit by a stray bullet in the exchange of gunfire between members of the Comando Vermelho and police. According to residents’ posts on social media, heavy shooting began around 4am in a wooded area next to Vila Cruzeiro. Then, according to a Reuters photographer, it started up again in the afternoon. Colonel Ivan Blaz described the incident as “a very intense confrontation.” Rio state public prosecutors said they have opened a criminal investigation into the operation, allowing police 10 days to provide further details, including who was responsible for each death and the reasons for use of lethal force. The deaths in the 24 May raid mark it as the second deadliest police operation in the city’s history, after the May 2021 raid in Jacarezinho, which left 28 people dead.

The raid is one of the latest events to highlight the problem of police violence in Brazil. In another tragic incident last month, police killed mentally ill Black man Genivaldo de Jesus Santos. Santos was stopped by federal highway police and officers released a gas grenade inside his vehicle. Police violence in Brazil has an enormous death toll. In 2020, Human Rights Watch reported that over the last 5 years, Brazilian police killed 22,000 people. These killings largely affect Black Brazilians living in low-income neighbourhoods, such as the Vila Cruzeiro favela. According to the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, police killed 6,416 people in Brazil in 2020. 80% of victims were Black.

Since the election of right-wing politicians such as President Jair Bolsonaro, the country has seen a large increase in violence and police killings. Rather than focus on community-oriented policing as Brazil has done in the past, Bolsonaro describes police as “warriors” and celebrates operations such as the one which took place on 24 May. Authorities are attempting to put in place measures to address this. On 3 February 2022, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered Rio de Janeiro to draft a plan to curb police killings that includes concrete measures, a timeline, and a budget. The court also affirmed much of an earlier opinion by Justice Edson Fachin, that measures be put in place such as: forbidding police to use homes as bases of operations (a common practice); requiring them to have ambulances on standby during operations; and the creation of a permanent working group to monitor police work with the participation of civil society.

This need for societal participation to bring about change has been highlighted in the past by analysts as well. Beatriz Magaloni, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, commented in 2020 that there will not be a solution to the problem of police violence if society at large does not demand a change in the way the police behave. Given the public’s strong reactions to the death of Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, it looks like there is significant concern for change from the Brazilian people. Perhaps this societal demand coupled with developments in Brazil’s political landscape offers hope for improvement in the situation. Former President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is currently leading in the polls ahead of October’s presidential election. His rhetoric differs significantly from Boslonaro’s regarding security. Lula said after Jacarezinho that an operation that produces two dozen deaths doesn’t qualify as public security. He also says regarding the situation in the favelas, “that is the absence of the government that offers education and jobs, the cause of a great deal of violence.” Though it is not yet clear what Lula’s specific plans are to address the problem, it seems from his comments that he may bring back more of a focus on community-oriented policing and addressing the issues which cause the favelas to become hubs of violence in the first place.

NATO’s position of power could be undermined if peace is not maintained in the Balkans

The Balkans have a rich history of conflict. Starting in 1804 when Serbs revolted against the Ottomans with support from their ancient ally Russia, the Serbian Revolution kicked off almost 200 years of sporadic conflict. Borders have moved considerably since those early years but what has remained is pockets of ethnicities being ruled over by others all of whom want their own slice of the region. All of these actors also have their more powerful friends who try to keep the peace and if necessary, apply pressure to those in the region who might undermine the fragile harmony.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put yet more pressure on maintaining peace in the region as a spill-over war would have terrible consequences for everyone involved. With such high tensions between ethnicities and a history of racially motivated genocides, a war returning to the Balkans would have disastrous consequences. Therefore, it is in the best interests of all to maintain peace. However, the Balkan states aren’t the only actors involved in the region.

Tensions between NATO and Russia are evident, and this is seen very clearly in the Balkans. Russia supplies weapons and other military equipment to Serbia and both Russia and Serbia have close ties to Milorad Dodik’s secessionist government in Bosnia. On the other hand, the US supplies weapons and military equipment to Croatia to directly counteract any disparity in military power in the region. NATO also use military bases in the region to maintain military presence. Albania and North Macedonia are also part of NATO’s membership action plan with Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro aspiring to join NATO’s partnership for peace program.

One notable difference on each sides’ view of the region is their individual stance on Kosovo. Russia and Serbia do not recognise the breakaway ethnic Albanian state and in doing so have caused reasons for tension and violence. The US and their allies, mostly, recognise Kosovo as an independent sovereign state, which, while it remains independent of Serbia, is a success for NATO.

However, while NATO is trying to grip onto peace in the Balkans, Russia’s war in Ukraine aims to undermine that peace. Russian president Vladimir Putin has proclaimed his desire to see Kosovo fail, and if it does fail, it will undermine NATO’s power to protect the sovereignty of vulnerable states against Russian foreign tactics. Should Russia manage to take the whole of Ukraine and set up a friendly government, their eyes would no doubt look to more locations in which friendly administrations could be planted to undermine NATO support in Europe.

Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s prime minister, has spoken about his desires for Kosovo to join NATO as soon as possible with it being in NATO’s best interest to accommodate this desire for peace in the region. However, Russia’s threatening stance on Sweden and Finland’s recent statement of intent to join NATO only adds danger to Kosovo should they follow suit. Not only does Russia have reason to want Kosovo to remain out of NATO but Serbia stands to lose the most as Serbian rhetoric against Kosovo independence remains strong. Add to this Milorad Dodik’s Republika Srpska trying to secede the institutions of Bosnia and the region becomes a more dangerous place as factions begin to form and groups try to regain their lost territories or seek out their own chunk of land.

NATO must show that they can withstand external pressures from Russia to undermine their past treaties created to keep peace. The Balkan states must see that NATO bears the power to fend off threats in the region and protect Balkan sovereignties from foreign aggression in order to maintain NATO’s strong position in Europe against Russia and her allies.

Thailand’s Leadership Crisis

Thailand is experiencing a new political turmoil. The victory of the independent candidate Chadchart Sittipunt as governor of Bangkok on 22 May has raised many questions on the future political trends in the country. The coincidence of political instability with the world economic crisis and pandemic places Thailand in a dangerous drift that also harbours other social and territorial conflicts, mainly in the three southern provinces bordering Malaysia that have a majority Muslim population and speak Malay (the 80%). Thailand, with a population of 69 million and a GDP of 543 million dollars, is the second largest economy in ASEAN. In 2022 it was considered in the latest report published by the Economist’s Intelligence Unit a “flawed democracy”.

In May 2022, the independent candidate and former Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt won by a landslide victory in the elections for the Governor of Bangkok, the capital of the country. He obtained around 1,300,000 votes compared to 250,000 for his immediate rival. Chadchart Sittipunt took the time to greet those present in his victory rally, many of them young participants in the protests against the monarchy in 2020. The elected governor, who was arrested during the military coup d’état of May 2014, promised to work to “overcome all the conflicts of the past”, in reference to the political division that Thailand has suffered for more than 15 years. These were the first elections held after the massive student protests demanding a deep democratic reform in the country, including in the almighty monarchy. His landslide victory has drawn the attention of analysts for three reasons.

First of all, his election has evidenced Thailand’s leadership crisis, and has been considered as a sign of the public’s discontent with the main party of the coalition. The fact that he won in 50/50 districts of the capital shows the sinking public support for the governing coalition, since Bangkok’s constituency supported Prayuth, the leader of the coalition, in 2019. Prayut, the general who led the coup d’état and became a politician in 2019, is suffering from loss of public support ahead of the general elections that must be held before the end of March 2023. This could be explained due to numerous economic and societal problems, topped by sexual scandals of coalition members (politician Prinn Panitchpakdi) and a bungled vaccine rollout. The loss of support of the main party of the coalition in Bangkok, even if it could reflect the public mood in a future general election and a desire for leadership change, should not be extrapolated to the whole of Thailand. Other factors apart from ideology also play a role in Thai politics, such as the rural-urban division and the role of the monarchy.

Secondly, the sweeping victory of an independent candidate and the decreased support for traditional parties has raised questions about the end of the so-called colour politics. In Thailand, yellow and red have been used to refer to the conservative/royalist vs anti-establishment political division, respectively. Chadchart Sittipunt’s sweeping victory might be a sign that the general public is ready to move beyond the traditional political division. Some analysts have created parallelisms with the politics dynamics of other countries in south-east Asia such as the Philippines, where voters decide their vote not on ideology or parties, but on specific personalities and programs. His victory showed that, regardless of Chadchart’s background, voters identified with him and voted for him. This is especially the case with many first-time-voters (16% of the total voters in this election), who showed support for Chadchart’s environmental policies for the city. Most importantly, he managed to gather support from across the political spectrum and defy traditional division. Another factor that explains his victory is that he had been doing informal political campaign for these elections for the last two years with the support of 10,000 volunteers, portraying himself “as a truly independent candidate with integrity”.

Finally, a surprising thing about Chadchart’s victory was precisely the percentage of support he received. With 4,4 million eligible voters, and a 60% of participation registered (around 2,64 million people voted), the 1.39 million votes he gathered means that he had a support of 52% of the voters. In previous years, different surveys have shown that popular support for the main politicians such as Prayuth had never exceeded 30%. The popular discontent with the main politicians in the country is evidenced by a survey that was conducted in December 2021, where 36,54% of respondents said that “there was no suitable individual for the role of prime minister”.  Chadchart’s landslide victory was thus an unexpected and rare event in Thailand’s political landscape. This is especially rare taking into account that there were 31 candidates running for this local election, which consequently caused a division of the vote among many candidates.

The evolution of the leadership crisis in Thailand ahead of the general elections of March 2023 could have consequences both in its domestic and international spheres. Domestically, the lack of cohesion of political forces means that, right after the pandemic, Thailand lacks reconciliation and consensus among its institutions to ensure the country’s governance. A stronger cooperation and consensus among political groups would help the economic revival of the country, deeply affected by the pandemic due to its significant reliance on the tourism sector. Internationally, the leadership crisis, if not tackled, would harm the country’s image, especially ahead of Thailand’s hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on 18 and 19 November 2022 and ahead of the general elections in March 2023. The emergence of a successful independent candidate as governor of Bangkok could be the beginning of a new political dynamic in Thailand, which could eventually lead to fresh solutions to the country’s problems.

Deepening divisions between the EU and Hungary over proposed Russian oil embargo

A disagreement between the Government of Hungary and the parliament of the European Union over how to react to the increasing threat of Russian aggression and the imposition of economic sanctions, appears to be deepening existing divisions in the troubled relationship between Hungary and the EU.

Relations between the EU and Hungary have been strained since as far back as September 2018, when the European Commission triggered procedures under Article 7 of the EU Treaty in response to concerns that legislation and policies of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz right-wing populist and national-conservative party threatened a serious breach to respect for the rule of law within Hungary and common European Union values. Attempts by the Orban government to exert control over the country’s judiciary, and anti-LGBT laws put the EU at odds with Hungary, and in late 2021 a Hungarian government attempt to legislate curbs to immigration triggered a legal battle in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over whether European Law could exert primacy over Hungary’s constitution. In April 2022, deputy head of the European Commission announce that the European Commission had sent Budapest a letter of formal notification of an EU ‘budget conditionality procedure’ which would withhold EU funding in an attempt to coerce the Orban government into compliance with EU rule of law concerns.

The conflict in Ukraine has exacerbated an existing energy crisis within Europe. At the start of 2022, liquid natural gas (LNG) prices in European markets were four times higher than the previous year. The European Union official statistics office, Eurostat, reported that the EU imported nearly 90% of its natural gas imports and in 2020 the Russian Federation was the EU’s primary LNG supplier, providing over 43% of all imports. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the issue of Russian energy supplies to Europe became a key means both for the EU to exert pressure on Russia, with construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russian and Germany being halted soon after the invasion, and for Russia to exert its own influence on the EU by threatening to restrict or cut off supply. In late March 2022, with Russian banks subject to international sanctions, the Kremlin began to demand that ‘unfriendly nations’ pay for their energy supplies in roubles, a demand which the EU discouraged members from complying with unless stipulated by existing contracts. In late April, the Kremlin followed through on its threats by announcing that gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria would be cut off, increasing the motivation of eastern European nations to seek alternative sources of energy. The Hungarian government made clear that it would oppose any sanctions measures which would negatively affect the Hungarian economy or threaten the country’s energy security.

On 2 May, EU officials suggested that Hungary and Slovakia might be exempted from an embargo on Russian oil being considered as part of a sixth round of sanctions against Russia, later announcing that a proposed deadline for ending imports from Russia would be extended from 6 months to 2 years for certain eastern European nations, including Hungary. On 8 May, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reiterated that Hungary will withhold its vote of approval on the EU’s latest package of sanctions, which includes embargos on Russian oil imports, unless an outcome that protects Hungary’s energy security can be found. In mid-May, in his speech after having been sworn in for a fourth term as Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban stated that Hungary would not block EU sanctions against Russia, providing that the measures did not pose a threat to Hungarian energy security. Blaming the EU for high energy prices within Europe, Orban said that “Every day Brussels abuses its power and tries to impose things on us that we do not want.” On Monday 30 May, an AU decision to impose sanctions on leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, over his outspoken support of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, led Hungary to include Kirill’s removal from the sanctions list as a condition of the lifting of Budapest’s veto on an EU embargo on Russian oil imports.

On Tuesday 31 May, Viktor Orban hailed a Hungarian government victory as a result of a temporary exemption which had been granted to Hungary in an EU ban on two-thirds of Russian oil imports which had been announced the previous day. However, this extension is likely to only postpone a confrontation between the EU and Hungary over the issue. Hungary will need to increase its supplies from European neighbours in the intervening period to compensate for an eventual deficit in Russian supply. Any moves by the EU to provide funds to accommodate Hungary’s energy needs without Russian imports, which Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó suggested could cost around €700 million, would likely be contingent on the Hungarian government curbing corruption and assuaging the EU’s ongoing concerns over the rule of law and democratic norms within the country. Ultimately, if a means cannot be found to bring Hungary on board with EU sanctions against Russia, the union will eventually be likely to move ahead with only 26 of its 27 members, severely damaging European Union’s ideal of unity.

Ecuador’s Security Crisis

On 9 May, a prison riot caused by clashes between rival gangs in the city of Santo Domingo left 43 inmates dead. According to Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo, 108 prisoners remain at large and 112 have been recaptured. Prison riots are a common occurrence in the country. In 2021, there were multiple incidences of prison rioting, resulting in 316 inmate deaths. The Santo Domingo incident is just the latest indication of Ecuador’s worsening security situation.

Violence in prisons is not Ecuador’s only security problem. Murder rates are climbing not just in the prison system but on the country’s streets as well. On 29 April, President Guillermo Lasso declared a 60-day state of emergency in 3 of Ecuador’s 24 provinces. Measures imposed include a curfew and the deployment of thousands of members of the Ecuadorian security forces to affected areas of Guayas, Manabí and Esmeraldas, with the stated purpose to “enforce peace and order.” President Lasso tweeted that “the streets will feel the weight” of their presence. It is the second time in just over 6 months that a state of emergency has been declared, with one brought into effect 18 October 2021, and extended into November.

The precise causes of the re-emergence of violence in the country are difficult to determine, after Ecuador had been seeing successes in reduction of crime previous to 2021. Since the legalization of gangs in the 2007, the country’s murder rate had decreased significantly. The Ecuadorian state and most media outlets argue that gangs are to blame, and suggest that Ecuador’s geographic location makes it vulnerable to gang violence, since the country sits between two large cocaine producers – Colombia and Peru. Location also goes some way to explaining the reason that certain cities and provinces see more violence than others. The city of Guayaquil has been badly affected. It is included in the areas currently covered by the state of emergency and on 14 February, it was reported that two bodies were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge in Durán, next to Guayaquil. As the largest port in the country, it offers a route of passage for drugs into Europe and North America. Ecuadorian police claim that killings such as those in Durán are linked to an ongoing rivalry between the Águilas, a faction of the sizeable Choneros gang, and the Chone Killers. It has also been reported that Mexican cartels such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel are contributing to the problem. It is suggested that these Mexican cartels have formed alliances with Ecuadorian gangs in an attempt to control the flow of drugs through Ecuador and its port cities.

Some are less convinced by the dominant narrative that blames Ecuadorian and Mexican gangs. Analysts have proposed alternative explanations. They suggest that economic hardship, including informal labour, is a principal cause. This hardship has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Ecuadorian government statistics, poverty had risen to 32.2% by 2021 compared with 25% in 2019. Analysts also argue that for years state institutions have been weakened under previous presidents, which makes combatting crime more difficult. Daniel Ponton, a security analyst and university professor, details how this has happened. Former president Rafael Correa’s government created a new intelligence service that analysts and political rivals accuse of spying on the opposition. Then, in 2018, Lenin Moreno (Correa’s successor) closed that intelligence service and created a new entity. Ponton explains that these changes produced a lack of state cohesion, and when there are too many changes, intelligence work cannot be properly coordinated.

There is little reason to expect improvement in Ecuador’s security crisis, whether the root cause is either economic hardship or gang activity. The country’s security forces appear ill-equipped to manage the gang violence issues, and Lasso’s strategy of attracting foreign investment to improve the country’s economy appears unlikely to work, since stability would be required to make Ecuador attractive as an investment destination.