Declarations of a band boss in the urban favelas of Brazil

From O Globo
Posted on September 29, 2013

"Marcos Camacho, better known by the nickname Marcola, is the top leader of a criminal organization in Sao Paulo (Brazil) called the First Command of the Capital (PCC).
Marcola's answers bring us closer to what may be the future of common crime in Latin America.
O Globo: Are you from the First Command of the Capital (PCC)?
Marcola: More than that, I am a sign of these times. I was poor and invisible. You never looked at me for decades and it was easy to solve the problem of misery in the old days. The diagnosis was obvious: rural migration, income inequality, few villages of poverty, discrete peripheries; The solution never appeared ... What did they do? Nothing. Has the Federal Government ever reserved any budget for us? We were only news in the collapses of mountain villages or romantic music about "the beauty of those mountains at dawn", those things ...

Now we are rich with the multinational drug traffic. And you are scared to death. We are the late beginning of your social conscience.
O Globo: But the solution would be ...
Marcola: Solution? There is no solution, brother. The very idea of ​​"solution" is already a mistake.
Have you seen the size of Rio's 560 shanty towns? Have you already been in a helicopter over the periphery of Sao Pablo? Solution, how? It would only have many millions of dollars well spent, with a high level of management, an immense political will, economic growth, a different education, general urbanization and everything else, it should be done under the baton of an "enlightened tyranny" On top of the secular bureaucratic paralysis, which will need to pass over the Legislative power. The Judicial Power prevents punishment. A radical reform of the criminal process of the country is necessary, there would have to be communications and intelligence coordination between municipal, provincial and federal police (ourselves, we do even conference calls between prisoners ...).  And all that would cost billions of dollars and would involve a profound psychosocial change in the political structure of the country. In other words, it is impossible. There is no solution.
O Globo: Are not you afraid to die?

Marcola: You are the ones who are afraid of dying, I am not. Rather, here in prison you can not go in and kill me, but I can order you to kill you out there. We are bomb-men. In the misery villages there are one hundred thousand bombers. We are at the center of the insoluble issue. You are in the middle, the border of death, the only border. We are already a new "species", and we are other animals, different from you.
Death for you is a christian drama in bed dying for a heart attack. Death for us is daily food, thrown into a common grave.
You, intellectuals, do not talk about class struggle, about being marginal, about being a hero? Then we arrived! Hahaha…! I read a lot; I read 3,000 books and read Dante, but my soldiers are strange anomalies of the crooked development of this country.
No more proletarians or unhappy or exploited. There is a third thing growing out there, grown in the mud, educated in the most absolute illiteracy, graduating in prisons, like an alien monster hiding in the corners of the city. A new language has emerged. Is that. It's another language.
It is in front of a kind of post misery.
Post-misery generates a new killer culture, aided by technology, satellites, cell phones, the Internet, modern weapons. It's the shit with chips, with megabytes.
O Globo: What changed in the peripheries?
Marcola: Mangos. We have them now. Do you think that the person who has 40 million dollars at Beira Mar does not rule? With 40 million dollars the prison is a hotel, a desk ... Which is the police that will burn that gold mine, you know? We are a modern, rich company. If the official hesitates, is dismissed and "placed in the microwave".
You are the broken state, dominated by incompetents.
We have agile management methods. You are slow, bureaucratic. We fight on our own. You, in a strange land. We do not fear death. You die of fear. We are well armed. You are 38 caliber. We are in the attack. You in defense. You have a habit of humanism. We are cruel, merciless. You transformed us into "super stars" of the crime. We have clowns. We are helped by the people of the misery villages, out of fear or love. You are hated. You are regional, provincial. Our weapons and products come from outside, we are "global". We do not forget you, you are our "customers". You forget us when the shock of the violence that we provoke passes." 
Marcola: You can only come to an event if you give up defending "normality". There is no more normality. You need to make a self-critic of your own incompetence. But to be frank, seriously, in morality. We are all in the center of the insoluble. Only we live from it and you have no way out. Just the shit. And we are already working in it. Understand me, brother, there is no solution. Do you know why? Because you understand neither the extent of the problem.
As the divine Dante wrote:
"Lose all hope. We are all in hell. "

Ancient plants forbidden

Prohibitionist wave of the Twentieth Century
D.Anton
The «witch hunt» of consumers of psychoactive substances, resumed in the United States during the period commonly called «Prohibition». During that time, which lasted from about 1915 to 1932, the government tried to restrict the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

By limiting or prohibiting the production and marketing of liquors, a crackdown was carried out that led to the emergence of organized groups dedicated themselves to meet the alcohol demands of the population by any means.
These bands kept the state itself in check for several years, until the ban was lifted.
At the same time, the world central societies in Europe and North America concentrated their energies on pursuing internal ideological opponents.
A racist and authoritarian fever invaded Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain, and then spread to the United States under the McCarthy campaign. As a result the resources were concentrated expanding the police jurisdiction and power  for several decades to come.
Once it was found that the alleged subversive enemy had reduced its influence, particularly after the fall of the «Eastern Bloc», the elites of the central countries, particularly the United States, set about finding a new target for their «idle» repressive forces.
Again, as in the times of the Holy Office, they found it in the production, trafficking and consumption of certain psychoactive substances.
In that way several psychoactive plants and compounds were banned and stigmatized, among them, poppy, opium and its derivatives, cannabis (marijuana), coca and cocaine, LSD, ecstasy and many other compounds, with the property of modifying the state of consciousness of individuals..
The new witch hunters barricaded themselves behind government and police offices, travelled in jets and helicopters, had almost unlimited budgets and virtually assured impunity.

Meanwhile, many ordinary people, people who just wanted to satisfy their demands of those substances, some of them ancient and sacred, were forced to  obtain them from «illegal» sources risking persecution and arrest.
The old logic of the Inquisition still continues, but now with a more subtle propaganda and plentiful means.
From: "Peoples, Drugs and Serpents", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones.

Does illegality promote drug consumption? The curse of prohibitionism
Danilo Anton
The demons created by the industrial society are killing their own inventors.
Trafficking and consumption of illicit substances have spread like wildfire throughout the industrialized world. No corner in the so called “rich countries” is free from this evil.
Of little use are international police efforts, the imagination of consumers, traders and producers always seem to be one step ahead of the repressive efforts of the authorities.
As repression deepens, the price of “drugs” increases to consumers, rising economic incentives to produce and sell it.
Long term success in the repression of consumption is very difficult, perhaps impossible. Potential consumers are many. All individuals in the society can, in a particular context, become addicted to drugs.
This happens even within the repressive forces themselves, among political decision makers or policy makers, and, of course, within their families and social circles.
In a society that favors hedonistic values, the last escape are psychoactive drugs. The rich have the money to buy them.Although drugs are expensive, there will be always people willing to pay exorbitant sums to procure  the banned substance. The poor do not have the money to obtain the goods easily. For that reason they are driven to secure the same by other means. Repression of drug production and consumption fuels crime.
Traffickers, who are forced to confront the powers of the states, must create their own devices to counter the repressive action. Multifaceted and international criminal organizations, private armies appear. The drug money floods and “contaminate” all fields of the economy and of society.
Political, professional, military and business people are involved in this traffic.
Favored by globalization, money laundering produced by drugs has become an important element in the global economy. There is no political will or actual interest in financial institutions to exercise any significant control.

In many cases, the alleged fight against drugs, has a double standard, there is no real provision for the trafficking and consumption, and the drug war is used as an excuse to achieve other political ends, such as to repress social movements, peasant rebellions, grassroots guerrilla warfare, etc.
Farmers in poor countries find in the agricultural production of prohibited plants a source of income that can not be achieved with other crops.
These farmers are very vulnerable to repression. In general, they are not organized to confront police and military forces, and are easy victims of the repressive operations, burning and confiscation of crops, poisoning defoliants, arrest, abuse and killing of the repressive forces at the service of Governments and international economic interests.
Global authorities insist in combating poor farmers in some of the most isolated and underprivileged regions.
They use all the possible political, economic and military resources.
In this unequal struggle the poor pay the most expensive price. Traffickers have operating bases and hideouts, planes, helicopters and a lot of money. Peasant producers, however, can not escape, their only recourse is the land and the will to plant. Because of their vulnerability they are subject to arbitrariness and abuse.  In these countries corrupt governments, spurred by the imperial and transnational pressure, are combating theirs own citizens without offering other viable alternatives.

 From:"Peoples, Drugs and Serpents", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones

A new human species in Brazilian slums

From the slums and prisons of Brazil: We belong to a different world

  An interview of the newspaper O Globo to Marcola leader of a known criminal organization

Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, alias "Marcola", for more than 20 years was considered the number one enemy of justice in Brazil.

"Marcola" operates from prison he plannes his coups from the cell.

The capo is a leader of the criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Command of the Capital), originally created to demand better prison conditions, but later it was transformed and entered the drug trade and extortion.

O Globo: You belong to the First Command of the Capital?

Marcola: More than that, I am a sign of the times. I was poor and invisible. You never looked at me for decades and formerly it was easy to solve the problem of poverty. The diagnosis was obvious: rural migration, income gap, few slums, discrete peripheries; the solution never appeared ... What did they do? Nothing. Does the Federal Government ever booked a budget for us? We were only landslides news of the villas in the mountains or romantic music about "beauty of those mountains at dawn"

We are now rich with the multinational of the drug. And you are dying of fear. We are the late beginning of your social consciousness.

those things ... Now we are rich with the multinational of the drug. And you are dying of fear. 

O Globe: But the solution would be ...

Marcola-Solution? No solution, brother. The very idea of ​​"solution" is a mistake. Have you seen the size of the 560 slums in Rio? Already did you go by helicopter on the outskirts of São Paulo? Is there a solution?, how? It would possible only if there were many millions of dollars spent in an organized manner, with a ruler of high level, an immense political will, economic growth, revolution in education, general urbanization and everything should be under the baton almost an "enlightened dictatorship" that leap over the secular bureaucratic paralysis, that pass over the Legislative accomplice. Or do you think that the bloodsucker will not act? If neglected they will draw up to the PCC. And judicial punishments that prevents almost everything. There should be a radical reform of the criminal process in the country, there should be communication and intelligence between municipal, provincial and federal polices (we make even "conference calls" between inmates ...) And all that would cost billions of dollars and would involve a move psychosocial deep in the political structure of the country. That is, it is impossible. There is no solution.

Interview of O Globo in 2007 reproduced by the newspaper Excelsior of Mexico
http://www.excelsior.com.mx/global/2013/10/03/921708