soldiers search favelas for lost weapons

The Brazilian military has sent 1,500 soldiers into Rio's favelas to search for a dozen weapons that were stolen late last week. Bloomberg has details. There's something strange here. At the same time that people in the favelas are opening hotels catering to tourists (see previous post), the news is full of shootouts between Brazil's drug gangs.

So Mangueira is barricaded in. Morro do Providencia is full of unrest. The army is using armored personnel carriers against Brazilian citizens. An ugly, ugly scene. As one cop confessed to me, the army is in on the arms trade and the drug trade. So all of this is perhaps a charade.