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Murder in Brazil: Crime or Politics?
January 25, 2002
Summary
A top political adviser to Brazilian presidential candidate Lula da Silva was kidnapped and murdered in Sao Paulo. Police theorize that professional criminals were responsible. However, the possibility cannot be ruled out that a clandestine right-wing death squad is targeting leftist public officials and political leaders to keep a socialist from winning the presidency in October.
Analysis
Late on Jan. 18, eight heavily armed men kidnapped Celso Augusto Daniel (translated from Portuguese), the chief coordinator of socialist candidate Luis Inazio "Lula" da Silva's presidential campaign, in Sao Paulo. A day later Daniel's bullet-riddled corpse was discovered in a remote area outside Sao Paulo that criminal gangs use as a dumping ground for bodies.
State and federal police are working on the assumption that Daniel, a prominent member of the Workers Party (PT), fell victim to Sao Paulo's increasingly murderous underworld. However, senior PT leaders charged that Daniel's kidnapping and murder were politically motivated. The PT has scored important victories in recent local and state elections, and da Silva is currently favored to win the presidency in October. With Brazil's internal politics shifting to the left -- and with social strife and political instability on the rise in neighboring countries like Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela -- it is possible that a clandestine right-wing death squad is seeking to keep a socialist from becoming president.
Political violence has simmered in Brazil for some time. But if Daniel indeed was killed for political reasons, it could indicate the emergence of such violence at the presidential campaign level for the first time in years -- adding to the instability sweeping through Latin America.
Daniel was the second PT leader killed since September 10, when Antonio da Costa Santos -- mayor of Campinas municipality, about 40 miles outside Sao Paulo city -- was shot and killed as he left a shopping mall. A previously unknown group that calls itself the Brazilian Revolutionary Action Front (FARB) claimed credit for killing him.
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Murder in Brazil: Crime or Politics . . . ?