Striking Brazil police accused of sowing panic

The Brazilian government accused striking police in Bahia state of sowing panic amid fears that the strike over pay may spread and fuel a wave of violence only days before the start of Carnival. 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 military police seeking higher pay and better working conditions. The poorly paid military police, a state force distinct from the federal police in Brazil, is responsible for maintaining law and order. Cardozo said the military police were terrorizing the population to pressure state governments, like the one in Bahia, into meeting their pay demands. "We are witnessing increased vandalism during these strikes," he told the Sao Paulo daily as striking armed policemen and their families continued to occupy the Bahia legislature building in the state capital Salvador. "There are growing attempts to sow panic among the population, something which is unacceptable on the part of police officers," he said. Tuesday, as the Bahia strike was in its eighth day, with talks deadlocked, officials said the number of murders now reached 120 in the Salvador metropolitan area, and reported increased robberies and looting. That makes an average of 15 murders a day, more than double the daily average in 2011 in Brazil's third largest city. Among the dead were eight homeless people, including a woman who was breastfeeding her baby, all killed on the same day. Bahia Governor Jaques Wagner suggested that striking police officers might be linked to those killings, which civilian police are investigating. "Homeless people were killed. I don't want to accuse anyone but this is part of a tactic," he told Globo television. Wagner cited a police document "which makes clear that the idea is to frighten everybody, including the governor." And he charged that some hooded police strikers on motorcycles roamed the streets, firing into the air and stopping buses to threaten passengers. The strike is fueling concern as Salvador prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of tourists for its famed Carnival celebrations later this month. Salvador, home to 2.5 million people, is also one of the 12 Brazilian cities that will also host games of the 2014 football World Cup. But the federal government also fears that the unrest may spread to the states of Rio de Janeiro -- where policemen called a strike for Friday -- 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." In Rio, a bill to give higher pay for the police was scheduled to come to a vote in the state assembly Thursday. Since last year, military police in five northeastern states and in three northern states along with Rio firefighters have staged strikes. In all cases, agreements were reached to grant amnesty to the strikers. Salvador authorities meanwhile urged tourists to stay indoors and decided that the start of the school year at the end of the Brazilian summer should be postponed. Wagner blamed the impasse on a "minority group bent on spreading the strike to other states" and vowed security would be maintained during Carnival with the dispatch of military police officers from other parts of the state. Authorities said a third of Bahia's 31,000-strong police force was on strike. Some 3,500 soldiers and elite police officers have been deployed in Salvador to restore order. The leader of the strikers, Marco Prisco, is a political foe of Wagner, a member of Brazil's ruling Workers Party. Wagner said he was willing to meet the strikers' demand for a 17 percent pay hike but ruled out any amnesty for those strikers who engaged in "criminal acts."