Roseana Sarney – at it again
Back in May 2012 I wrote about the despicable Roseana Sarney, governor of Maranhão, (home to 32 of Brazil’s 50 poorest cities). Back then there was an article which highlighted the incredible amounts of public money she was spending on luxury food.
Roseana Sarney, governor of Maranhão, one of Brazil’s poorest states.
As well as the ongoing poverty, the state is currently having a prison crisis. Recent investigations uncovered shocking reports of organised rape of female visitors in the state’s main prison, Complexo Penitenciário de Pedrinhas in state capital, São Luís.
In the last year, more than 60 prisoners have been killed in the prison and gruesome video footage has emerged of rival gangs torturing and beheading other prisoners. Extra national (federal) forces have been drafted into the prison in an attempt to stem the violence which has spilled over and into the city of São Luís itself.
Last Friday, buses were set alight by gangs affiliated with the prison gangs and it was reported on Monday that 6 year old Ana Clara Santos Sousa (who was on one of the buses at the time) had died from her injuries.
Four buses were set alight in revenge for the reinforcements sent into the prison. (Photo: De Jesus/O Estado)
In the midst of all this, Sarney is back in the headlines. Yes, on Monday she issued a statement condemning the violence and lamenting the death of the girl, but today her food bill was back in the news. This year Sarney will be spending more than a million Reais on food including 80kg fresh lobster, 750kg fresh crab, 800kg of jumbo shrimp and just under a ton of ice-cream.
All sounds delicious doesn’t it? Given the circumstances though, I don’t think I’d be able to keep my food down…
Despicable indeed and resonating to the loud echo of letting them eat cake. Suitably media-savvy and immaculately coiffed and shod, I’m astounded Brasil herself isn’t so suitably “revoltada também”.
Sickening isn’t it? By all accounts her father (Jose Sarney, ex-president) was/is just as bad. One comment against this most recent story put it nicely: Isso não é uma família, é uma quadrilha!
You know she has a house in a fancy neighbourhood in Punta del Este, Uruguay? Her neighbour (I kid you not) is Zinedine Zidane (Roseana’s place has 2 more bedrooms…).
Brazil needs more and better prisons (not to mention a different class of politicians); yet until the country gets over the ol´ cliche “let´s build schools instead of prisons” safety will not improve. These are two different topics that probably interwind to a much lesser extent that we are made to believe. It is obvious that education needs to be prioritized but students when returning home also need a safe environment to prosper.
And to all the class warfare lovers out there: the poor are the ones who most suffer when security policy is based upon childish romanticism.
Agreed. I know that it’s not a popular line, but the conditions in the prisons of Brazil are inhumane and should be improved. As well as punishment/deterrent, prisons should be about rehabilitation and reducing the chances of re-offending.
The first thing that needs to be sorted out though is lack of prison space. For instance: there simply is nowhere to keep 75,000 people who have arrest warrants against them, or are fugitives. Again, why not try to re-adapt some of those stadiums that will be rendered useless after the world cup into prisons (like Cuiabá) . Unfortunately people just can´t seem to get over the assumption that criminals are evil bastards because of poverty, and thus incarceration is not the answer. Tell that to their victims (most of whom are also poor). And just because the likes of people that resemble Roseanna Sarney are not in jail that does not mean you shouldn´t detain and punish criminals of other origins. This brand of social justice is ludicrous (simple logic tells us that if out of 5 criminals we can arrest 4 then that brings us closer to our goal of providing safety than three, two, one or zero).
Totally agree on the prison space – it seems that the overcrowding is the most pressing issue. I have a lot of sympathy for the victims of crime, but I think it can’t be coincidence that there is a high correlation between criminality and poverty (and poor education of course).
Anecdotally, a journalist friend who has been researching the criminal justice system in Brazil recently told me that the application of justice is massively skewed against the poor. Of course that’s partially true everywhere (you have a better chance if you can afford a great lawyer), but he told me of one woman who was jailed (jailed!) for allegedly attempting to steal some body lotion from a pharmacy. I don’t think anyone should have impunity, but what message does it send if the little crimes are punished but the big crimes (like stealing countless millions of reais) are overlooked?
“I think it can’t be coincidence that there is a high correlation between criminality and poverty (and poor education of course).”
It’s not a coincidence. Furthermore, the justice system in many countries is skewed against the poor, and in the US, it is particularly skewed against poor people of color.
A recent report submitted to the UN Human Rights Commission states the following:
“Racial minorities are more likely than white Americans to be arrested. Once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to face stiff sentences.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/04/racial-disparities-criminal-justice_n_4045144.html
If we want to reduce overcrowding in prisons, we can start by making sure that we’re not engaging in unequal incarceration in the first place.
Nobody has suggested that Roseana Sarney’s ability to escape the justice system is a reason to stop incarcerating others. However, the fact that she can commit these abuses with apparent immunity reinforces the notion that the wealthy and powerful can do whatever they damn well please with little fear of the consequences.
Think I missed the comment the first time round Phil – very well said!
“Anecdotally, a journalist friend who has been researching the criminal justice system in Brazil recently told me that the application of justice is massively skewed against the poor.”
So criminals that fall under this category are being punished, while others are not, at least not to the same extent; yet unless your journalist friend can prove that resources made available to the justice system are massively directed towards punishing certain crimes perpetuated mostly by a certain social strata then he can´t really say the system is skewed against said strata. It could be that the needed amount of resources to combat both, say financial fraud and street crime, exist – but the authorities are better at surveilling one in comparison to the other.
“I don’t think anyone should have impunity, but what message does it send if the little crimes are punished but the big crimes (like stealing countless millions of reais) are overlooked?”
It sends a message that if you shoplift then you will be punished (good) and that we need to move ahead, and not backwards, to then punish those who are stealing millions.
Well, like I said, it was anecdotal evidence, rather than something that I (or my friend) could ‘prove’. I think the general point was that people with money are able to wriggle out of meaningful punishment for massive fraud (e.g. Dirceu and his R$20k hotel job), while those with little/no money receive harsher punishment.
TL: “I don’t think anyone should have impunity, but what message does it send if the little crimes are punished but the big crimes (like stealing countless millions of reais) are overlooked?”
GP: It sends a message that if you shoplift then you will be punished (good) and that we need to move ahead, and not backwards, to then punish those who are stealing millions.
I think it sends a message that if you have money, you can commit crimes at will and then buy your way out of trouble, circumventing justice when/if you’re ever caught (making the word “justice” a misnomer). In that context no wonder so many people are being seduced by the ideas of anarchy. If a system is not fair and is seen not to be fair, many people will abandon, ignore or even try to destroy it.
So what you are saying is that there must also be an idea that justice is actually applied across the board. If not law and order could suffer a blow – across the board as well. Basically you are espousing the broken windows theory but considering crimes like those comitted by Dirceu to be the small infractions that trigger futher crime. crimes. Interesting. And speaking of Brazil and the Broken Windows Theory: http://nation.time.com/2012/07/05/broken-windows-theory/
Oh, I say feed all criminals marmite.
Oh, your friend is in the headlines again Tom.
http://br.noticias.yahoo.com/ma-barra-comiss%C3%A3o-direitos-humanos-pedrinhas-105300551.html
Triple serving of marmite for her I say!
Marmite is too good for her! :D
One wonders what’s exactly in Roseana’s Sarnies?
Ha ha! I expect she orders her personal chef to put together a simple sandwich of lobster, caviar and gold leaf. With a condor-egg omelette on the side… ;)
There is a similar problem in Spain where politicians believe public money is their own money to spend without any accountability.
When institutions are weak the application of the law doesn’t work – so we continue with the idea that white collar crime pays.
It doesn’t really get any better (worse really) than when Spain’s politicians’ petty peccadilloes are buoyed up – trounced rather – by her very own monarchy’s arch corruption. This from yesterday’s BBC – http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25647060
“The allegations that started to emerge in the Spanish media, were that Mr Urdangarin and his then business partner, Diego Torres, had used their non-profit Noos Institute to organise events for the regional governments of Valencia and the Balearic Islands at hugely inflated prices.”
Using non-profits to obtain public funds to then inflate prices for useles events and projects, to then pocket some of that money for yourself and feed some back to the ruling party so everybody is happy and willing to do it over again, and again . . . : it seems Brazil´s Partido do Trabalhadores has inspired Mr. Urdangarin. The Spanish royal should visit Brazil and perhaps serve as Lula´s intern for a while (there is so much more to learn). For Spain´s sake I sure hope Joaquim Barbosa has inspired people over there as well.
Gritty, you seem to have harsher words for members of the PT than for Ms. Sarney. I’m shocked! ;-)
Phil,
Some people (including political parties and old oligarchies) that are corrupt don´t make themselves out to be more than what they are; PT on the other hand actually wants us to believe than they are only crooks due to circumstance, hence purified by ideology and good intentions. In the end they are just common delinquents using a fancy discourse that may make waves with enlightened folk overseas (“Oh these guys seem so progressive and in such a backward land, plus some of them are from poor families so surely they must hold the moral highground”). Anyway this distorted understanding makes them ever the more pernicious due to their dishonest nature being hidden under the guise of victimhood.