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ACTIVISTS CONCERNED

More than 40 police killed by Sao Paulo gangsters in recent attacks. Their response—wiping out 115 suspected gang members—has drawn criticism:

Human rights activists said they feared innocent people may have been hurt in the strikes by police enraged by a notorious gang’s attacks on officers on the streets, at their stations, in their homes and at after work hangouts ...

“The climate of terror can’t be turned into carte blanche to kill,” said Ariel de Castro Alves, coordinator of Brazil’s National Human Rights Movement.

Normal rules might reasonably be suspended in circumstances where forty cops are murdered. Residents seem to side with police:

“Now the gang members are going to be scared. Police already died anyway, and it will make the gangs have a little more respect for the police,” said Walter Lahoz, a 58-year-old taxi driver.

Interestingly, the UN maintains a crime prevention group in Sao Paulo. Get ready with another big fat wreath, Kofi.

Posted by Tim B. on 05/18/2006 at 10:45 AM
  1. How long until John Kerry demands a timetable for withdrawing the police from Sao Paulo?

    Posted by Secundus on 2006 05 18 at 11:13 AM • permalink

  2. Wow, that is an amazing series of events. When do we get to see the movie?

    Posted by daddy dave on 2006 05 18 at 11:40 AM • permalink

  3. Human rights for everybody except police and law-abiding citizens.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 05 18 at 11:51 AM • permalink

  4. Murderous thugs deserve more rights than normal people.

    Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 05 18 at 12:23 PM • permalink

  5. The rate of 40 police deaths to 115 gangster deaths is still too big a numerator and too small a denominator. But good on the cops for this initial effort.

    Posted by paco on 2006 05 18 at 12:40 PM • permalink

  6. “...they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago Sao Paulo way…” 

    Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.

    Posted by Malone on 2006 05 18 at 12:50 PM • permalink

  7. If Latin America keeps going the way it’s going, it will achieve an African level of dysfunction in no time. Just one more good reason to shut down that southern border.

    The weekend death toll in Sao Paulo exceeded that in Baghdad, Iraq.

    Is it a quagmire yet?

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 05 18 at 01:09 PM • permalink

  8. Kyda,

    it’s only a quagmire if you can twist something to blame on chimpymchaliburtonhitlerbush.

    now if he had mentioned Brazil in monday’s speech, if could be a quagmire.

    Posted by scatcat on 2006 05 18 at 02:12 PM • permalink

  9. In Kerryspeak, it’s not a quagmire ... it’s just a nuisance.

    Posted by Achillea on 2006 05 18 at 03:47 PM • permalink

  10. “The climate of terror can’t be turned into carte blanche to kill,”

    Except for the terrorists, apparently. Idiots.

    Posted by PW on 2006 05 18 at 04:32 PM • permalink

  11. Most human rights activists are vermin and they’re a major cause of misery.
    Eg. they’re one of the upholders of Aboriginal lawlessness (child rape, alcohol, drugs, violence, etc.).
    Any time there is a sensible solution (eg. removal of kids from bestial families), the activists are at it; human rights abuse, revisiting of stolen generation, etc. etc., they have a solid stock of phrases for anything.

    Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2006 05 18 at 06:52 PM • permalink

  12. Most human rights activists are vermin and they’re a major cause of misery.

    Somewhere along the line, the legitimate concerns of human rights was corrupted, and the idea that common, law-abiding people also have rights was lost. So you end up with “human rights” activists fretting over the most minute issues in the treatment of murderers and rapists, while ignoring the fates of the victims. Eventually, you have neighborhoods—or cities, or nations—that are run by human predators, and the “human rights” industry protects those predators with a religious fervor.

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 05 18 at 09:01 PM • permalink

  13. #12, Rob Crawford,

    This is what happens when you think of rights in terms of “human”, i.e., collective rights.  Individual rights are the only Rights that can be defined objectively so that they pertain to every single person.  Once you are talking about collectives, all hell breaks loose.  You can posit situations and then demand things for a group, as pitted against another group, that you cannot demand for an individual.  Of course, the group is “entitled” to benefit from the work of individual others without their consent, but that just means that everyone will need to find a gang group to belong to.

    The fact that this leads to hatred, force and the gang warfare of “all against all, instead of “everybody take care of everybody else”, is beside the point.  It isn’t reality that determines the ethics of the matter, but the ideology—which is beyond question.

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 05 18 at 10:27 PM • permalink

  14. Just as well it wasn’t Israel…

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 05 19 at 05:14 AM • permalink

  15. Mealymouthed UN denunciation of the ‘cycle of violence’ and call for ‘all parties to show restraint’ in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ...

    Posted by Achillea on 2006 05 19 at 09:48 AM • permalink

  16. Salt water wells in Kofi’s eyes….

    Posted by crash on 2006 05 20 at 09:56 AM • permalink

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