POLICE PACT WITH CRIMINALS MAKES LIFE SAFER IN RIO SLUM

Violence Abates As Drug Dealers Abide By Rules

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- A couple of months ago, police Maj. Antonio
Carlos Carballo would never have ventured alone into the back alleys
and concealed courtyards of the Cantagalo slum.

The area, which sits on the side of a hill that rises above the city,
was simply too dangerous for police officers. Cocaine and marijuana
traffickers controlled who went where, and their lieutenants, young
men armed with semiautomatic weapons, stalked the narrow alleys,
handing out packets of drugs to child couriers and stern warnings to
anyone stupid enough to get in their way.

So the police made a pact with the criminals, and today Carballo, an
amiable police commander, slowly makes his way up the hill like a man
who has lived there all his life.

Armed with a pistol, he slowly hikes up steps and muddy slopes past
pools of dried blood, open sewers and families of goats. He pats
children on the head, inquires after a young man's caged birds and
calls out "Good afternoon" to anyone within earshot.

As the head of a new community police force, Carballo tries, with the
simplest of gestures, to show the locals that the police are not the
enemy.

People are not exactly throwing open their doors and inviting him in,
but they are not shooting at him either, and that, Carballo says, is
progress.

"Until now, police were trained to go into the hills, not to protect
the public or provide sanctuary, but to repress," Carballo says. "What
we are trying to create is a new modality to protect society and act
with and for the community to identify problems and solve them. It's a
very simple concept, but a very different one for police."

The concept of community policing may seem a straightforward,
common-sense solution in First World cities like Houston. But in the
favelas of Rio -- where the neighborhoods are so threatening that the
authorities are sometimes afraid to enter, never mind police -- the
idea is revolutionary.

In Cantagalo, a community of about 12,000 people perched above the
world-famous beach-front neighborhoods of Copacabana and Ipanema, the
police have in effect admitted they are powerless to stop much of the
drug-running that goes on. So, instead of continuing to fight an
inevitably losing battle with the traffickers who control the area,
the police have made a deal with them.

Through a series of intermediaries that include community leaders and
local media, the authorities told the drug gangs' bosses that if they
keep the slum free of violence, make sure drug deals are done in
private and keep children from getting involved in serious crime, then
the police -- known for their brutality -- will make sure their
officers act within the letter of the law.

In short, they told the traffickers: Don't bother us, and we won't
bother you.

"It is a veiled pact," admits Carballo.

The agreement with the criminals is based on an experiment that
started in Boston in 1992 after a gang of youths fired shots at a
rival gang funeral. The incident galvanized church leaders who formed
an outreach program aimed at connecting with gang members and drug
dealers. Religious leaders persuaded police and federal agencies to
get involved. Then, the authorities used the clergy as a bridge and
told the dealers the police would crack down hard unless violence diminished.

The gang leaders responded, and Boston's homicide rate fell by more
than 70 percent, says Det. Lt. Gary French, who ran the program.

Rio's authorities found out about the program when Ruben Cesar
Fernandes, the head of the nongovernmental organization Viva Rio, met
French at a World Council of Churches-sponsored seminar on community
violence.

Fernandes, an anthropologist known for his tireless campaigns against
violence, introduced French to Rio city authorities and persuaded them
to try out the Boston project in Cantagalo and the adjoining favelas
of Pavao and Pavaozinho.

Today, less than two months into the experiment, the signs are
encouraging. No killings or other serious violence have occurred in
the slum since the program began.

Police have almost tripled their presence in the slum and are making
more of an effort to get to know the area's residents. Carballo meets
regularly with the residents association and is on first-name terms
with local school teachers, shop owners and the president of the
favela's samba school.

The law and social sciences graduate is the heart of the project, and
he walks the streets of the slum with an open smile and a friendly
demeanor.

As he climbs from the cobble street just a stone's throw from
Copacabana's white sands, he stops to talk to youths sitting in a cafe
and jokes with a man in a soccer shirt about that night's big match.
When he smells marijuana wafting out of a window, he ignores it.

"I am not here for that," he says. "Why would I want to burst into
people's homes bothering them? What they do in the privacy of their
own house is not my business."

Carballo admits that he can do nothing to stop drug dealing or use,
and both he and Fernandes acknowledge the new strategy has served only
to move trafficking from one neighborhood to another.

But by ridding the slum of the violence and fear that accompanies the
trafficking, life in a decidedly nasty area has become infinitely more
livable. And opportunities have arisen.

Fernandes says a TV station has expressed an interest in funding a
sports center in the area. A university is studying building a
technical school, and computer literacy classes are being planned.

One of Brazil's best known volleyball players is giving classes to 400
children. The favela's lone public school has started a theater group
in the afternoons, and music and dance classes are also on the agenda.

Mothers once reluctant to let their children go out alone are now
allowing their youngsters to set foot on the not-so-mean streets.

"Young people could never do these things because the space was taken
up by traffickers," says Henrique Cardoso, a 30-year-old physical
education teacher who runs the theater class. "Now the areas have been
neutralized."

Although many residents accept that violence has diminished, they are
loath to give credit to a police force that has in the past brought
them abuse and grief.

Carballo understands. Even though the program's success could mean a
radical change in how Rio is policed, he realizes that deep-seated
change will be a lot more difficult to come by.

"I can't say I am overly optimistic," Carballo says. "I am not
pessimistic either, but as police officers we cannot bring schools or
sanitation. The success of this also depends on the participation of
health, sanitation and education authorities. But we are doing what we
can."

At that, he turns around and sets off up the hill. There is work to
do.