Back on the streets?

All that is known to date about the band of agitators known as the black blocs is that, acting in the name of a rambling ideology, they dress in black and cover their faces to clash with the police, throw bombs, set fire to garbage bins, break windows and promote riots in Brazil´s state capitals. After a seven-month investigation, police in Rio de Janeiro have produced an enormous report of 4,000 pages which, while it does not answer the key question of who is financing these renegades and their disruption, it does provide additional important information to what is already know. This includes the fact that the Rio arm of the black bloc movement is more organized than had been imagined and has a very close relationship with certain labor unions to which it appeals for help at times of need. Based on statements and phone taps referred to in the report, 23 members of this gang were imprisoned for taking part in acts of violence. They were all freed after a week in custody, thanks to a habeas corpus order granted by judge Siro Darlan of the 7th Criminal Court, apart from two who were also accused of murder.

For the first time, an organizational chart of the group´s powers and functions has come to light. The police based their findings that put the pieces together on statements by a 30-year-old chemist called Felipe Braz Araújo who claims to be a former member of the band. He said that four cells with similar ideological ideas had united under the umbrella of a certain Popular Independent Front (Frente Independente Popular – FIP). This organization was created in June of last year, exactly at the time when the mass demonstrations began. Its members are given specific missions aimed at spreading chaos: the “foot soldiers” carry the flares and Molotov cocktails, the “snipers” throw them, the “sentries” keep an eye on the police and the “recruiters” attract new members. A committee of “leaders”, a hard core consisting of Elisa Quadros, known as Sininho, a philosophy teacher called Camila Jourdan and Igor Mendes da Silva are believed to command the attacks. Araújo described this as “burning buses and other actions aimed at causing terror and panic”.

In conversations between the leaders recorded by the police, one of them talks about the need for “liquid” (“about 4, 5 liters”) to prepare “drinks”, in an apparent allusion to gasoline. Another commemorates the fact that “the image being shown most (on TV) is the cocktail being thrown”. The conversations also mention the two labor unions that are said to provide the band with meals. The Sindipetro union, which represents petroleum workers and is led by the Party of Struggle and Socialism (PSTU), says it normally provides food to groups that attend its events, one of which is dominated by the above-mentioned Popular Independent Front. The union representing teachers in state schools in Rio, known as Sepe, dominated by the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL), would not confirm providing anything to the black blocs but said its custom was to “cooperate with social movements”.

The black bloc show surpassed itself last week when three of its members who had preventive prison orders issued against them proclaimed that they were under “political persecution” and headed off to the Uruguayan consulate to request asylum. The request was obviously rejected and the three, who were wanted by the police at that time, disappeared — all in the official car of state assembly representative Janira Rocha of their PSOL ally.

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Sininho, a 28-year-old filmmaker, (unemployed) appears in a number of the statements as a person who calls the shots in the movement. A militant for whom jealousy speaks louder than the revolution (she lost her boyfriend to Sininho) said she saw her giving orders to transport gallons of gasoline with the stated intention of setting fire to the Chamber of Counsellors.

She was dissuaded from doing so by her comrades. Police say they found a homemade bomb at the home of the other leader, Camila Jourdan, the 34-year-old philosophy graduate. She gives classes at the Rio de Janeiro State University (Uerj) where she spouts her anarchist creed and encourages students to take part in demonstrations. The two are well known for their participation in the riots incited by the masked protesters and have returned to the streets and are now officially invested with the title of riot commanders. It will be up to the police to monitor what to do about it.