Unless you’ve been stuck in a time warp, you’ve probably heard about the global balloting effort to pick the new 7 Wonders of the World, which ended on July 7. Host countries of the newly anointed monuments are ecstatic, not least Brazil, where banner headlines gloried in the ascension, so to speak, of Cristo Redentor - the handsome art deco statue of Christ the Redeemer looking over Rio de Janeiro. They will need His help.
It’s no secret by now that Rio has some crime issues. Busy outlaws have turned this storied city into one of the most dangerous in Latin America. With 40 homicides for every 100,000 residents Rio is three times as murderous as São Paulo, which is nearly twice the size and every bit as poor. From 2000 to 2006, the city averaged 2,400 homicides a year; that’s one casualty every 3 ½ hours. No wonder the Cariocas, as Rio natives are called, say hallelujah to the Pan American Games. And it’s not just to savor the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Since the quadrennial games began here on July 13 (they end July 29), Rio has become one of the most closely guarded cities on the planet. A bomb squad and an anti-kidnapping unit are on alert. National guardsmen with body armor and sniffer dogs are everywhere. Two dozen aircraft patrol the city’s airspace day and night. And if the going gets rough, the authorities can always roll out that other storied icon of Carioca life: the caveirão, the armored car that police favor when raiding the bandit hillsides.
Not so long ago, the mere sight of machine-gun toting soldiers could give most Latin Americans the willies. The Cariocas have never felt safer. Can the good times last? Governor Sérgio Cabral says so; he vows to carry the war against crime “to the ultimate consequences.” When the Brazilians set their minds to it, they have shown the world that they can make their signature city as safe as church. So it was when they flawlessly hosted the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development - the Earth Summit - in 1992. And so it has been during the Pan American games. The problem has always been when the world is no longer looking. “What happens when Rambo goes home?” asks Brazilian crime scholar Claudio Beato. Caught between Christ and the caveirão, Cariocas are dying to know.
