The PT and the massacres in Bahia – 08/29/2023 – Elio Gaspari

The Workers’ Party has ruled Bahia since 2007. Bahia gave Lula a lead of over 3 million votes in the 2022 election and without the Bahian votes he would have lost out to Jair Bolsonaro. It was an overwhelming result: Lula had 72% of the votes and prevailed in 415 of the 417 municipalities in the state.

Former governors Jaques Wagner and Rui Costa were re-elected. Wagner is in the Senate and Costa is at the head of the Civil Cabinet. Both came from oil trade unionism and both helped to found the Workers’ Party. Jerônimo Rodrigues, the current governor, joined the PT in the 1990s. For all reasons, the PT in Bahia is an example of an administration recognized by voters.

Where can the statistic that in the last twelve months there have been 29 massacres in Bahia fit in? In a single week in August, 25 people died. (In Rio, there were 37 massacres, but the state is a sad little figure in this practice)

On another side of the problem, during the governments of Rui Costa, the Bahian police quadrupled their lethality, from 354 deaths in 2015 to 1,464 in 2022. Confronted with these numbers, the doctor replied: “I did not recognize and do not recognize NGOs that publish on security issues.”

Rui Costa ruled Bahia in 2015 when a PM action resulted in the death of 12 people in Cabula, on the outskirts of Salvador. Those involved in the episode have not yet gone to trial.

Days after the denialist statement by the Chief of Staff, the quilombola leader Bernadette Pacific was executed in the metropolitan region of Salvador. Five years earlier, his son had been murdered. Without any proof, Governor Jerônimo Rodrigues linked the crime to a possible war between criminal factions.

More: in view of the exposure of the increase in police lethality. Rodrigues was professorial: “I want to ask those who are sending the wrong messages: respect our Military Police, what you are doing with the Military Police is irresponsible.”

In fact, it is irresponsible to attribute executions and massacres to the PM without evidence. It is also not a responsible attitude to deny the numbers of police lethality. Bahia, like several states, is plagued by drug gangs and faction wars. This is a public security problem, poorly resolved from Oiapoque to Chuí.

In the early hours of Monday, nine people, including three children, were killed in Mata de São João, 62 kilometers from Salvador. The testimonies of residents attest that the crime resulted from a dispute over the territory by drug traffickers.

Organized crime is a public safety problem, but denialist rhetoric is a vice of bossism. Security in Bahia is doing poorly because it has two problems, one is organized crime, the other is lethal police.

PT governors could follow a simple rule. Whenever they are on the verge of making statements identical to those of the politicians they condemn, perhaps it is better for them to remain silent. After all, if Jerônimo Rodrigues and Rui Costa echo phrases that could have come out of Bolsonar prosopopoeia, what is the difference between them? In 2018, when praising Ceará police involved in an operation that resulted in the death of 14 people, the then PT governor, Camilo Santana, had the humility to apologize to the families.

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