As Prosperity Rises in Brazil's Northeast, So Does Drug Violence

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The geography of violence in Brazil has been turned on its head the past few years. In the southeast, home to Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and many of the country's most enduring stereotypes of shootouts and kidnappings, the murder rate actually dropped by 47 percent between 1999 and 2009, according to a study by José Maria Nóbrega, a political science professor at the Federal University of Campina Grande.

But here in the northeast, a poor region that benefited most from the wealth-transfer programs that former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva championed during his eight years in office, the murder rate nearly doubled in the same 10-year period, turning this area into the nation's most violent, Dr. Nóbrega found.

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The northeast has long been plagued by crime, but the increase illustrates how Brazil's economic boom is causing drug-related violence -- the main cause for the homicide scourge -- to migrate to other parts of the country as traffickers seek new markets, straining local police forces, according to both Dr. Nóbrega and local officials.

The same economic wave that put more money in millions of poor Brazilians' pockets, especially here in the north, has also stimulated more drug trafficking and the deadly crime associated with it, officials here contended. Drug traffickers, realizing the potential of a stronger market, have focused more heavily on the northeast, resulting in drug wars and addiction-fueled violence, they said.


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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11242/1170885-82-0.stm?cmpid=nationworld.xml

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Quite an interesting and honest article, although they should have focused more on the arrival of crack cocaine and its devasting effects in Brazilian society. Northeast Brazil's economy is growing at Chinese standards and improving the lives of citizens there, but they are going through the same problems that São Paulo and Rio faced - the bigger they get, the bigger are their problems.

It's the money.