Rio de Janeiro in the “Parliamentary Investigation Committee Into Drug Trafficking - 1999/2000”

Abstract

This article intends to identify a) connections resulting from the illegal drugs market network in Rio de Janeiro and b) the relations of this network with political and democratic commitment. To identify the connections, all the depositions of the chapter about “Rio de Janeiro” in the “Parliamentary Investigation Committee into Drug Trafficking” (final report published in November 2000) were analyzed. As a general result, it was observed that the networks consist mostly of the exchanges between traffickers, politicians, police, agents of the legal system in general and traders (including great landholders). Perhaps the most important identifiable point, with which one can reflect on some peculiar characteristics of the drug trafficking, is that this domain depends on others (political, legal, commercial, police, etc.) for its existence. Thus, it is not a network with autonomy or with the ability to reproduce itself relying only on some elements collected of the lack of urban infrastructure, exemplified by the precarious social conditions of education and housing. It reproduces itself with the help of a network involving exchanges that are considered morally and politically valid, lawful.