Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Operations of not-war


Brazil may not be the most violent country in Latin America, but according to the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security, which charts this data, almost half of the most dangerous 50 cities in the world are in Brazil.  Since February 21, 2018, Brazilian President Michel Temer, by means of Decree 9288/2018, has declared Rio de Janeiro under military intervention to end "the serious endangerment of public order" caused by the drug war between various armed gangs and paramilitary militias in Rio's favelas, or slums.  Under Brazil's Constitution, the President may call on the armed forces to patrol the streets, even to the exclusion of civilian authorities.

Brazil's Ministry of Defense describes these public safety operations as "operations of not-war".  The International Commission of Jurists, based in Geneva, stated that in the first two months of the intervention, Rio had over 1,500 shootouts and noted that "[I]nserting an army into these conditions hardly seems like the ideal way to reduce tensions, and begs the question of what exactly is the Ministry thinking of when it describes the intervention as a 'not-war', 'limited use of force' endeavor."

In March, Brazil's Army made public its Rules of Engagement.  Given the absence of an intense protracted armed conflict, the applicable rules for the RoE are international human rights law.  These standards require that lethal force be a measure of last resort, only to be used in cases involving self-defense or the defense of others against threat of death or serious injury- a standard known as "absolute necessity."  The Rio RoE however state that lethal force can only be used as last resort when facing a case of serious threatening act against the physical integrity of the soldier, third parties, facilities and/or material objects essential to the fulfillment of the mission.  Use of lethal force in defense of objects contradicts international human rights law.

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