CANDELARIA MASSACRE
By Rev. Les Paquin
Brazil faces desperation of street kids.
What troubles many Brazilians is how little has changed in a decade for street kids in Rio.
BY KEVIN G. HALL
Herald World Staff
RIO DE JANEIRO
Two months before he seized a bus full of passengers at gunpoint in an internationally televised disaster that left him and one of his hostages dead, Sandro do Nascimento sought a way off the Rio streets that were killing him.
Yvonne De Mello, who runs tutoring programs in the hillside slum of Favela de Mare, says the tall 21-year-old asked for her help. ``He came to me. He said, `I need a job, I can't take it anymore. I am going to die,' '' De Mello said Wednesday.
She turned him away because her school is only for kids under 18. Illiterate and with no fixed address, he was unable to find work and turned to drug dealers. That led to new and graver problems: Nascimento told De Mello he feared being murdered by traffickers.
Instead, he died of asphyxiation Monday night in the back of a police van, allegedly killed by rogue officers, after his last hostage, 20-year-old schoolteacher Geisa Firmo Goncalves, died in a botched rescue attempt by an elite police unit.
Brazilian television and CNN aired the confrontation live, sparking nationwide outrage at the police tactics.
SAD FLASHBACK
By Wednesday, that attention turned back to Nascimento, as old newspaper photos showed him to be one of the survivors of a police massacre of eight street kids on July 23, 1993. Off-duty police shot at them as dozens of children slept together near the Candelaria Cathedral in downtown Rio. Brazilians call it the Candelaria Slaughter. It shocked the world, and it remains a source of shame for South America's largest country.
What troubles many Brazilians is how little has changed since then for street kids in Rio.
``What happens in a society where the victim is transformed into a criminal?'' asked Cristina Leonardo, who also knew Nascimento. She is an attorney working to win government compensation for the survivors of the Candelaria Slaughter.
YOUNG SURVIVORS
On Copacabana Beach, Wednesday was just another day of survival for young people facing the same troubles as Sandro. ``When the hunger is too strong, we rob people,'' said David dos Santos, who said 16 of his 20 years have been lived on the street. Dos Santos is the elder in a pack of street youths who beg, steal and do odd jobs to survive along the famous tourist beach. Marcio Silva Santos, 13, smells of glue. Daniel Felipe Silva, 13, said that like Nascimento he was forced onto the streets when his parents died, as Brazil has only limited government and church programs to help the large numbers of poor children.
Amaury de Souza Matos' parents also died. With cigarette breath, he admitted he sometimes goes to shelters for street kids but prefers the kinship of the beach.
``Here I have friends. There I get into fights,'' said Souza, 14, barefoot with leather-like feet. All the kids report frequent beatings by police. Few can spell their names. All fear being raped or murdered.
``I bury about 40 boys and girls a year,'' De Mello said, noting that few killings of street children are ever solved.
EFFORTS TO HELP
Roughly 30 shelters serve street children in Rio, and there is no shortage of nongovernment groups trying to help them. Those groups estimate that about 700 kids sleep on the streets each night. During the day, tens of thousands descend into the city from hillside slums in search of food or work.
``It just causes tremendous sadness. In our society there is not social justice,'' said Bruno Marcelo, who coordinates an education project.