São, São Paulo, meu amor

I believe this is the name of a song Tomzé wrote for São Paulo in the days of Tropicália, 1966-68.

I am not here tonight to write about one more of my cultural bomboms or US politics or tell you why Zidane hit the Italian guy. I am here to share my worries about the second largest Latin-American city. I am here to tell you what I learned from Globo TV tonight.

One more time, the bandidos behind bars, but not really deprived of all liberties, brought the State of São Paulo to a standstill. Many people will have to do withou a bus to go to work tomorrow. Forty have been destroyed so far. Twenty-three cities are under siege. Business unrelated to crime has been looted, ATM stations burned, TV Globo says the population is calm.

I wonder how calm can one be if it's been less than three months since another attack, quite similar to this one. The other time, some criminals were going to be transferred elsewhere and an Idiot, no not our Idiot, a civil servant, sold the list of transfers to the criminals.

A brand new prison, built like ours, blocking bandidos from the outside world, is awaiting these guys. It's in the southern neighbor state of Paraná. The new guests of honor are coming from different cities in São Paulo.

This scenario is similar to that in May, 2006. Worse, yet. In 2002 I went to Rio for a wedding, in October, right before the elections. Bandidos in Rio then had the city under fear of shooting and all businesses shut down. The palace of State government was riddled with bullets. A few days later Lula lost in the first round of presidential elections.

I am not a conspiracy freak. Maybe except for JFK. However, nearly four years have gone by since the so-called
Dark Monday in Rio de Janeiro.

It doesn't look like much was done to control bandidos in Brazil or to level SES. And I know bandidos are not for Lula. In their vast majority, historically, they are right-wing SOBs.

Who is behind these attacks on São Paulo? These are not fruits of harebrains. Who are these people?

Below follow maps and info on São Paulo, bilingual.

São Paulo info and maps bilingual

Organized Crime

São Paulo
Who's behind them?
poor planning
Lula