DEATH TOLL PASSES 70 IN BRAZIL'S WAVE OF VIOLENCE

An unprecedented wave of attacks by a notorious drug gang in South
America's largest city, Sao Paulo, entered into its fourth day on
Monday, with reports of at least 20 more killings that raised the
death toll to more than 70.

Masked gang members, apparently enraged at the prison transfer of
leaders, hurled grenades at police stations and sprayed them with
automatic weapons over the weekend, then turned their rage on the
city's buses on Sunday night and on Monday, torching dozens and
stranding thousands of commuters.

Justice Minister Marcio Tomaz Bastoz said President Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva was ready to send troops, but told Brazil's largest
newspaper, Folha de S Paulo, "I do not think that will be necessary."

Police said at least 72 people had been arrested.

Silva held an emergency meeting about the violence on Monday as
Brazilian media reported that overnight bloodshed had killed at least
20 in the Sao Paulo area, adding to the official death toll of 52
released by authorities on Sunday night.

Many of the new dead were prisoners, Brazilian media said, but it was
not immediately clear how they were killed.

The attacks began late on Friday night as masked men attacked bars
frequented by officers and police stations, and inmates at dozens of
prisons took hundreds of hostages.

Officials were worried the violence could spread to Rio de Janeiro,
where the 40 000 police were put on high alert and extra patrols were
dispatched to slums where drug-gang leaders live, police spokesperson
Thais Nunes said.

Around Sao Paulo, armed men boarded buses and ordered passengers and
drivers to leave before hurling gasoline bombs inside and leaving them
to burn. There were no immediate reports of injuries in the bus burnings.

Bus driver Gilson Adei (35), one of few who chose to work on Monday
after the attacks, demanded that authorities lash back at the
criminals: "It's absurd; the gang members can do whatever they want?
They can just start a war? And why would they attack the
transportation, normal people? Next it will be schools. We should get
the military on every corner and kill them."

Commerce was stifled in Sao Paulo, where millions of people depend on
buses to get to work. while most stores and businesses remained open,
the normally clogged streets were largely free of traffic and
pedestrians.

Most of those dead over the weekend were reported to be police
officers targeted by a powerful criminal gang protesting the prison
transfer of some of its leaders.

Assailants attacked patrol cars, bars where off-duty policemen gather,
a courthouse, a highway police outpost and 10 bank branches in poor
neighbourhoods.

Local media reported that the assailants used guns, shotguns,
grenades, machine guns and homemade bombs.

Witnesses to the killing of police officer Jose Antonio Martinz told
Folha de S Paulo that two men wearing masks approached as the officer
was dining with his wife, shot him several times in the head and ran.
His wife was unhurt.

"We can't let this happen," said Nilo Faria Hellmeister, a police
officer and friend of Martinez.

A few kilometres away witnesses said two groups of men bearing heavy
weapons appeared in front of a fire station and began shooting at
random, killing a fire-fighter.

By Monday morning, uprisings were under way at 46 prisons in Sao Paulo
state, Brazil's most populous. Inmates were holding 237 prison guards
hostage.

Enio Lucciola, spokesperson for the Sao Paulo State Public Safety
Department, said the attacks and prison rebellions, planned by the
First Capital Command, known by its Portuguese initials PCC, "were the
most vicious and deadliest attacks on public security forces that have
ever taken place in Brazil".

The rebellious inmates, however, have not made any demands nor have
they harmed any of their hostages, said Jorge de Souza, a press
spokesperson of the Sao Paulo Prison Affairs Department.

He said visiting relatives also were inside several of the prisons but
were "there to show solidarity with their jailed relatives. They don't
want to leave."

For Walter Fanganiello Maierovitch, an expert on organised crime and
Brazil's former drug czar, the PCC resorted to "terrorist tactics",
launching attacks that were reminiscent of the violence seen daily in
Iraq.

Eight PCC leaders were among 765 inmates transferred to a remote,
high-security facility in the far western tip of Sao Paulo state.

The PCC was founded in 1993 by hardened criminals at the Taubate
Penitentiary in Sao Paulo and is involved in drug and arms
trafficking, kidnappings, bank robberies and extortion, police say.

It staged a massive prison uprising in 2001 in which 19 inmates died,
and in November 2003 the PCC attacked more than 50 police stations.
Three officers and two suspected gang members were killed and 12
people injured in the apparent attempt to pressure authorities to
improve prison conditions.