SAO PAULO BRIEFING February 2005

News this month

Unreformed

The reputation of São Paulo’s State Foundation for the Well-Being of Minors, as reform schools are euphemistically known, was never good. Overcrowding, riots and break-outs are common. But January was a particularly bad month. One 18-year-old youth died following a riot in one institution, and 42 staff members at the Vila Maria unit—including the former director—were indicted for torturing their wards. This provoked more riots, hostage taking by the inmates and the threat of a strike by co-workers.

Newspapers showed pictures of teenagers with injuries, including blows to the head, and cited an official report that found 84 lesions on 111 youths examined by doctors. Some of the abused said they were doused in freezing water first so that they would not bruise. Six days before the indictment, 202 residents tried to escape from Vila Maria, many of whom were supposed to testify; 116 were eventually recaptured. Prosecutors alleged that the school's staff had encouraged the students to flee, to prevent them from testifying, but those questioned denied this. In all, 21 staff were suspended for allowing the breakout to happen.

Deadly rains

Heavier-than-usual summer rains struck the city with force, leaving 15 people dead and many more injured. Mudslides caused by the rain dislodged shacks in the slums of São Bernardo do Campo, a city in the greater São Paulo region, killing eight children and one adult. Meanwhile, a bridge on the road linking São Paulo with southern Brazil collapsed, killing one person and injuring three others. More bridges suffered cracks, forcing closures and diversions that at one point backed up traffic for more than 111 kilometres around São Paulo.

The death toll need not have been so high. In 1997, a bridge inspection programme was suspended, resulting in fewer maintenance checks. And the São Bernardo government has known since 1999 that certain hillsides could collapse after heavy rains, but had not been able to relocate all the slum dwellers.

Campaign brain

Marta Suplicy, the ex-mayor of São Paulo who lost her re-election bid in November, plans to form a new institute to study public policy. The as-yet-unnamed group is widely seen as a way to help her bid for the 2006 Worker’s Party (PT) nomination for governor. The centre will be staffed by her new husband and advisor, Luís Favre, with a handful of ex-City Hall secretaries who lost their jobs when Mrs Suplicy was ousted. Though no one has announced their candidacy yet, Mrs Suplicy's expected rivals for the nomination include Aloizio Mercadante, a well-known senator, and João Paulo Cunha, the president of the federal house of deputies.

We have a winner

Just like the flashier party that occurs a few days later Rio de Janeiro, the centrepiece of the São Paulo Carnival was the competition among samba schools. Império da Casa Verde beat X-9 Paulistana by one-and-a-half points to win for its take on the theme “Brazil: If God is with us, who will be against us?” This was only Casa Verde's third time in the competition, which sees 16 schools parading over two nights in the Sambadrome. Judges score the teams for their songs, dancing, gigantic allegorical floats and costumes. Some 3,000 people marched in the event.

Doing well is serious stuff. Before the results were announced two groups—both off-shoots of football clubs—agreed not to listen to the marks together, to avoid a brawl. Mancha Verde, the samba school for Palmeiras fans, came in 12th, and Gaviões da Fiel, the school for Corinthian fans (which had a humiliating showing last year), topped the second division to win a slot in next year’s premier league parade. On February 11th, the top-ranked schools do it all again in the winner's parade. But by then the country is presumably a bit tired—Rio De Janeiro's Carnival wrapped up on February 8th.

Catch if you can

February 2005

Vulnerability of Being: Photos by Claudia Andujar

Until March 20th 2005

Claudia Andujar, a Swiss-born Hungarian whose family was ravaged by the Holocaust, came to Brazil in the mid-1950s. Here she was drawn to the Yanomani Indians, a threatened Amazonian tribe, which she chronicled and worked with for the next half-century. Of Andujar’s 15,000 photographs, 80 are displayed here, including pictures taken throughout Brazil.

The black and white portraits are stark, almost confrontational. As the title suggests, they show the vulnerability of Brazil's poor, in both the urban and Amazon jungle. There are disturbing images of a dead indigenous road worker, caused by development in the Amazon. The landscapes are abstract, using extreme close-ups and blurred edges to turn specific subjects, such as the Rio Negro, into water that might be anywhere. The only self-portrait is of Andujar’s shadow, caught off-balance, a visual representation of her own vulnerability.

Pinacoteca do Estado, Praça de Luz 2. Open: Tues-Sun 10am-6pm. Tel: +55 (11) 3229-9844.