Striking police vacate Brazil's Bahia legislature

More than 200 military police on strike over pay peacefully left a Brazilian state legislature Thursday ending a nine-day standoff after the arrest of their leader, officials said. "The state assembly was vacated early this morning... Their leader, Marco Prisco, has been arrested," said government spokesman Robinson Almeida, of the standoff in the northeastern town of Salvador, in Bahia state. Rio state legislature meanwhile approved a 39 percent increase in pay for police, firefighters and prison guards, hoping to head off a police strike there a week before the start of its Carnival celebrations. "We will have a peaceful Carnival. We have confidence that the security forces will be responsible," deputy Andrea Correa, the government leader in the assembly, said in remarks quoted by the Globo G1 news website. The strike in Bahia unleashed a massive crime wave in which more than 120 people were murdered in and around Salvador, Bahia's capital and Brazil's third largest city, in just nine days, more than twice the usual homicide rate. Some 3,500 soldiers and elite police were sent to the area to restore order ahead of Salvador's famed Carnival celebrations later this month. Army Lieutenant Colonel Marcio Cunha told reporters that Prisco and another strike leader had been arrested. A government official insisted the end of the nine-day occupation of the Bahia legislature meant "the strike is over." But the military police mutineers and their supporters insisted the strike was still on. They are demanding a pay hike, better working conditions and an amnesty for Prisco, a political opponent of Bahia Governor Jaques Wagner, and 11 other police facing arrest under a court order. At least four them have already been arrested. The unrest also sparked fears among federal government officials that the strike might spread to the states of Rio de Janeiro, Para, Parana, Alagoas, Espirito Santo and Rio Grande do Sul. Press reports on Wednesday quoted police intelligence as saying the situation in those states was "explosive." And in a court-ordered recording of telephone conversations between the Bahia strike leaders, which were aired by Globo television, Prisco is heard ordering that a national highway be blocked. In another recording, the union leader of Rio firefighters Benevenuto Daciolo urges that the strike be extended to other states to disrupt Carnival. "I have a general assembly today (Thursday) in Rio, with the start of a general strike also in Rio and it is likely that there will be no Carnival in Bahia or Rio this year," Daciolo is heard saying in a recording released on Globo's G1 website. Press reports said Daciolo was arrested on his return to Rio from Salvador. But Prisco told AFP through one of his lawyers, Jonas Benicio, that "the television recordings are not complete (and) were edited." Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo, in an interview with O Estado de Sao Paulo published Wednesday, spoke of an orchestrated campaign of violence around the country by disgruntled state military police seeking higher pay and better working conditions. "We are witnessing increased vandalism during these strikes," Cardozo told the Sao Paulo daily. Governor Wagner, a member of Brazil's ruling Workers' Party, had agreed to meet the strikers' demand for a 17 percent pay hike, but ruled out any amnesty for strikers who engaged in "criminal acts." The poorly paid military police -- a state force distinct from the federal police in Brazil -- is responsible for maintaining law and order. They are called "military" because of their organizational structure, but are not part of the armed forces. The Bahia government official said the police mutineers "surrendered because they were isolated in society and within their own military police force." "Prisco gave himself up to avert a bloodbath," police officer Paulo Goncalves said outside the legislature.