Rocinha - An Orphan Town

by photographer Andre Cypriano
1999 FiftyCrows PhotoFund Winner

The project I am currently working on is a collection of photographs from a slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil called Rocinha. As a group, these photographs show the ethical dilemma that the Brazilian people, its government, and the entire global community have to face if we are committed to changing the face of poverty. Because the residents of this neighborhood have been neglected by the government, they have set up their own system of survival. It is one ruled by drug trafficking. What makes this community so captivating to document is the clear manner in which this criminal system has the duel effect of punishing and feeding the people of Rocinha.

My photographs and the friendships I have been able to cultivate as a Brazilian, allow me to address and convey these issues as an insider. It is an important opportunity for many to see just how reasonable it is to live and survive under the power of drug dealers, poverty, violence and neglect.

Ilha Grande, Big Island, is an unspoiled paradise off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Waterfalls cascade from jungle covered mountains into a turquoise ocean that surrounds 107 white-sand beaches. Returning several times in my youth, I imagined this was how Brazil looked before its discovery in 1500.

Contrasting with the innocence and tranquility of the island was a prison, Candido Mendes, also known as The Devil’s Caldron; the place on earth where heaven ended and hell began. It held hundreds of inmates with some of the darkest reputations; and stories of violent deaths, tortures and rapes.

It was inside The Devil’s Caldron, during Brazil’s military dictatorship, that the government made an historic mistake. Imprisoning militant revolutionaries together with common criminals. A policy that instigated the evolution of the Comando Vermelho-C.V.: the largest criminal organization in Brazil.

After nearly a decade, I returned to Ilha Grande, not to enjoy the beauty of paradise but to understand the experience of 600 inmates living inside the Penal Institution of Candido Mendes. My concern was to document the prison before its closure. I had been told that the government wanted to erase the memory of its wretched past by sending the inmates to the mainland and demolishing the heavily deteriorated structure.

Very shortly after I arrived, I was spending time with one of the most notorious criminals in Brazil. At thirty years of age, Paulinho practically grew up in and out of this penitentiary called Candido Mendes. Paulinho became a special friend of mine and helped me develop my project, “The Devil’s Caldron”. In April of 1994, after eight months of my witness and 53 years of the prison’s function, the entire inmate population was transferred off the island and the building demolished. When I was leaving, Paulinho invited me to make a documentary of Rocinha, the community where he was born, to show the happiness that sometimes exists in the middle of economic despair. What I found was a little more complex than happiness.

The project I am currently working on is a collection of photographs from Rocinha’s slum. As a group, these photographs show the ethical dilemma that the Brazilian people, its government, and the entire global community, have to face if we are committed to changing the face of poverty. This favela, or shantytown, of 200,000 people is the largest in Latin America and spreads from the top to the bottom of a mountain in Rio de Janeiro. Ironically, it is surrounded by wealth.

What makes Rocinha so important to document is a combination of two things. First, this neighborhood, or developing city, has been politically cast adrift by its government. It is quite simply an orphan town. The Brazilian government views it only as a potential source of votes prior to an election. But at the same time, the residents of Rocinha have established for themselves an organized community, albeit based on a criminal system. To survive, these people, who live in tightly packed, ready-to-tumble-down brick houses and shacks, have made a choice. They have decided to survive using the resources that are available to them.

Other than scarce jobs as cheap laborers for Southern Rio, residents of Rocinha look to drug trafficking for their income. To say that the living conditions in this slum are so unsanitary that it is a surprise that people can remain healthy, would be an understatement. Garbage, trash, and litter line the streets and alleys between the houses. During rain storms, contaminants travel down from the favela into the ocean below. The violence is so extreme that when a shoot-out erupts between different criminal sects, the children continue to play refusing shelter because of the frequency of such activities.

Despite all of these atrocious living conditions nothing is being done to change the face of Rocinha. As a result, the violence has grown to a point that globally, it is defining Rio de Janeiro. Recently, the Pope of the Catholic Church paid a visit to the favela and was so emotionally moved by the conditions, that he donated a papal ring to raise funds for the residents.

Rocinha is the main stronghold where many members of the Comando Vermelho - Red Command - the largest criminal organization in Brazil - live and are adored. The C.V. is well known for its community help. It provides “security” for the inhabitants, illegal work for the thousands of unemployed people – jobs that the government has promised but failed to provide, and daycare huts and housing shacks for the needy. They install streetlights and occasionally provide financial support to families of C.V. members who have been killed. There was one circumstance where a C.V. member kidnapped a well- known businessman and as a ransom he demanded tons of food for the community.

Obviously, it is in the best interest of the C.V. to take care of the residents of Rocinha for if they are supported, so too will the residents support and protect them when the army attempts one of their rare raids. The exceptional cultural way of life of this favela has become so strong that it is now being expressed by the large Brazilian community in music, samba, and during Carnival.