April 12, 2005: This past Saturday residents of Quemados and Novo Iguaçu marched for peace and justice. It was nine days after 29 innocent people were shot to death by a roving car full of gunman over the course of several hours.

(The number dropped from 30 because one injured person died but two victims were apparently shot in unrelated incidents. It turns out about 30 people are killed every 10 days in this region. So its easy to miscategorize a few murders here or there as part of a massacre when they are really just every day life. Pause to imagine that. 30 people killed every 10 days in an area with less than two million people! That is an average higher than in the Palestinian occupied territories.)

The Marches

There were two separate marches, one in each of the working class suburbs. I went to Quemados where I had a small connection to the community through the friends I had made at the radio station. Funny how even a small connection to tragedy magnifies its impact tremendously.

The Quemados march was a model to follow for attracting the media; it was emotional, comforting and even a bit shocking. Organized by dozens of local groups and coordinated by Viva Rio, the march had plenty of media coverage, and plenty of sights, sounds and scenes for the media to eat up. It was also a chance for the community to express solidarity with the relatives of the victims.

Through careful planning as well as the physical and emotional proximity to the tragedy, it was far more personal than any march I ever attended. The march visited one of the crime scenes – with blood from two victims still on the ground. Seeing where the blood lay, forced me to reenact how the crime took place. I sadly worked out my guess – the murders must have stopped a car outside the motorcycle taxi stand, walked several meters inside the gated entry, long enough to see the victims clearly from only a few meters away, fired, then walked out.

Even young children participated in the march.Realizing how close they must have been, then looking at the blood, made it all the more obvious how cold and heartless the killers have to have been, that they could see so up close an innocent person going about their innocent lives and still fire with deadly accuracy, then walk out and do it again somewhere else. The somber faces of the other marchers proved it wasn’t just me that felt this way, it was anyone who saw the scene, and heard the chants of the march – which means the reporters too.

There were many other pre-planned emotional aspects of the march beside visiting a crime scene. People wore T-shirts with silk-screened photos of the victims and their names. Children walked with signs of prayer for lost brothers, sisters and parents.

Graça was there with her family to tell the story of her two sons lost to violence in the past three years. She may not be trained in advocacy, but a suffering mother knows how to touch a person into acting. She spoke through tears while holding up photos of her boys about how one was brutally shot on the street in February and the other vanished in 2002. She didn’t call for any action, she just said “I am here because they would want me to be.”

The march was a call from the community for two demands: peace and justice. Many in the crowd reacted to the massacre with exasperation; they just want it all to stop, they just want peace. This reminded me of New Yorkers after September 11th. The pain is just too much to wish on others, so they wear white, wave white flags and try to let the world know it is time to stop the violence.

Another sentiment common in the march was justice. On young man who wouldn’t give me his name or say where he lived fearing the police might find him, explained why he was revolted by the crime, “only workers were victims of this giant massacre … so we are here calling for peace, and justice for the guilty.”

Many of the marchers did not want to be identified, especially the young men. This fear of retaliation from corrupt cops was almost as sad as the crying mothers. If they can’t trust the police or turn to them for protection, they must be living in a constant state of fear. And if you aren’t safe, you can’t pursue any of the daily joys of life with a light heart.

The last time a massacre of this sort was perpetrated by police officers in 1993 it took ten years to bring them to justice and even then many escaped. Like many Brazilians, I wonder if this massacre would have happened if there had been justice the last time. So, many marchers were there to pressure the police into investigating this crime thoroughly and prosecuting the guilty quickly.

Despite a few protests from some of the marchers, the police joined in the procession with the rest of the communities. Viva Rio director, Rubem César Fernandes mediated between the residents who didn’t want police there and the police. After ten minutes a father of a victim went from cursing the police to hugging the commander, and then everyone marched together. Rubem is an impressive man.

In the end, the community found comfort in marching as one during a difficult time and the cause of peace and justice was disseminated throughout the city. All local TV nightly news shows ran footage from the march. Regular coverage is one more impetus to keep the public outraged and keep pressure on investigators to make sure justice does not take 10 years this time.