IN RIO SLUM, ARMED MILITIA REPLACES DRUG GANG'S CRIMINALITY WITH ITS OWN

RIO DE JANEIRO -- When several Brazilian journalists decided to go
undercover here in May to report on life in one of the hundreds of
slums that have sprouted up around Rio, they thought they had chosen
carefully.

The slum they picked, Batan, was under the control of a militia that
had expelled a drug gang last September. The journalists assumed that
a slum under the thumb of a gun-toting militia, which included
off-duty policemen, would be safer than one controlled by drug dealers.

They were wrong. And what they lived through has become a public
scandal that has focused attention on the growing danger posed by
these militias, which have supplanted drug gangs as the violent
overlords who run many of Rio's slums and their illicit enterprises,
often with links to corrupt police officers and politicians.

On the night of May 14 six ninja-hooded men entered the rented house
where a 28-year-old reporter for the daily O Dia, a photographer and a
driver were staying. They captured the three, with a neighbor, and
tortured them for more than six hours.

They made them play Russian roulette, nearly suffocated them with
plastic bags, delivered electric shocks and slapped and kicked them.
They threatened to sexually assault the reporter, who is a woman, and
kill all of the captives, according to written accounts the reporter
and the 31-year-old driver gave the Rio police organized crime unit.

Brazil is undergoing an economic boom that is lifting millions out of
poverty. But in Rio, the incident, which came to light through a
series of articles in O Dia, has become a prominent sign of the
strains on this city, which is plagued by violence and a notoriously
corrupt police force.

Despite the economic growth, Rio's slums, or favelas, have
proliferated and now may number more than 800. The militias have
multiplied with them, as battles with drug gangs have taken a toll on
legitimate police forces.

Low morale and pay have prompted police officers, firefighters and
prison workers to moonlight as militia members, police officers and
criminologists who have studied them say.

The militias have filled a vacuum of authority by promising residents
security in exchange for payments and the chance to take over many
illegal businesses -- including controlling the supply of water and
natural gas, running gambling machines, pirating cable television
connections, and of course, the drug trade.

For many communities, the militias are the lesser of two evils. They
gain sympathy from residents because they battle Rio's "barbaric" drug
dealers, said Claudio Ferraz, the chief of the Rio state police
organized crime unit, known as Draco. But the militias are replacing
one form of criminality with another, he said.

"They are an attack on the principle of democracy," he said. "They are
a cancer, a tumor."

The estimated 60 to 100 militias have powerful connections and are
often intertwined not only with the city's police but also with
politicians, who offer them safe harbor in exchange for ensuring votes
or cash from residents.

Jeronimo Guimaraes Filho, a city councilman, was arrested in December
on suspicion of forming a militia. His cabinet chief, Kennedy dos
Santos de Aragao, said the charge was untrue.

Alvaro Lins, a congressman and Rio's former police chief, also is
charged with helping to form armed gangs, which he "vehemently denies"
on his Web site.

The police in Rio have been hesitant to discipline their own because
of a history of violent retaliation. But the push by Draco is the most
visible of a "timid crackdown" on militias, said Rodrigo Pimentel, a
former police captain and co-author of "Elite Squad," a book about the
Rio SWAT team.

In the past year Draco has arrested 140 people, a majority military or
civil police officers. Of the police forces in more than 100 precincts
in Rio, only Draco, the state police organized crime unit, is actively
investigating militias, Mr. Pimentel said.

Last week the police arrested Davi Liberato de Araujo, 31, suspected
of being the No. 2 in the local militia hierarchy, in connection with
torturing the journalists.

Mr. Liberato de Araujo was a convicted car thief serving a sentence of
more than six years in a halfway house; he slept there at night and
was a militia member by day. He could not be reached for comment, and
the police said he did not have a lawyer.

The journalists also identified the man suspected of leading the local
militia, Odnei Fernando da Silva, 34, a former prison guard who also
worked in a psychiatric hospital before being accepted into the police
force.

Mr. da Silva, who was known to roam the favela wearing his black ninja
mask, still faces charges of abusing a prisoner and of attempted
murder. He fled before the police could arrest him in connection with
the torture and remains at large.

The journalists have not been named by any news publication and have
not given any interviews. Alexandre Freeland, an editor at O Dia,
asked that The New York Times not publish their names either. The
journalists, he said, are in hiding outside Rio State for their
safety. "The militia members threatened to kill them," Mr. Freeland
said. "Divulging their names could leave them more exposed."

During the journalists' torture, the militia members were careful to
use techniques that did not leave visible marks, such as plastic bags
to asphyxiate victims, Mr. Ferraz said.

But the deep psychological scars were obvious to investigators. The
photographer "was completely destroyed," the chief said. "You couldn't
talk to him. He would look at his children, embrace them, and cry."

The journalists rented the small home in Batan in early May. They
planned to live there for a month and write an article about the
illegal economy in the slums, Mr. Freeland said.

They did not identify themselves as journalists. But somehow their
cover was blown. On May 14 at 9 p.m. a group of six militia members
knocked on the door of the home. Mr. da Silva, the local leader, told
the reporter she was under arrest for "false identification." The
militia members quickly demanded any audio and video recordings.

Not finding any in the house, they turned violent. They kicked the
reporter and played Russian roulette with her, pulling the trigger of
a revolver twice, according to her police statement.

The militia members then drove the journalists around in a car while
threatening to make them consume a lot of cocaine before dumping them
in the Fumace favela to be killed by drug dealers, the reporter told
the police.

After the prisoners were taken to another location, more militia
members arrived. They tortured the group for at least two more hours.
They stripped the reporter, at one point asking her if she had ever
had sex with five men. She recalled a plastic bag being over her head
for much of the torture and that she fainted several times, according
to police records and officials.

Various militia members told the journalists that the person who would
ultimately decide their fate would be a man known as the colonel.
Though the plastic bag blinded her, the reporter told the police that
among her tormenters she recognized the voice of an assistant to a
state assemblyman whom she had met at a restaurant in Batan.

The assemblyman, Jairo Souza Santos, is known as Colonel Jairo, and
has been mentioned repeatedly in the Brazilian news media as possibly
having militia ties. Gabriel Oliven, a spokesman for Mr. Santos,
denied on Wednesday that Mr. Santos was involved in any way with the
militias, saying that the assemblyman had never been in Batan.

Mr. Oliven said Mr. Santos, a retired military police officer, was
"totally against the actions of militias," and considered them
"uniformed bandits."

The militia members forced the journalists to disclose their e-mail
user names and passwords. They later drove the captives to a house
where the photographer had stored his equipment and had him destroy
any photographs of militia members. Finally, at 4:30 a.m., Mr. da
Silva ordered the captives released.

During a visit last week, all was quiet in Batan but police cruisers
circled the favela every few minutes. Residents said they did not
believe that the heavy police presence would last for long.

While some residents lamented what had happened to the journalists,
most of those interviewed said they felt more secure under the
militia. Yet few were willing to give their names when discussing the
armed group, saying they feared retaliation.

Ricardo Perreira and two friends, all Batan residents, said that the
police presence appeared to have crippled the militia for now. But
they worried that once the police left, a new drug gang would move in
and take over the favela, and the cycle of violence would start again.

"No one here accepts drug factions anymore," said Mr. Perreira, 30.
"This is going to be hell. We are in the hands of God now."