-Caveat Lector- Feature-Jailed Brazil Kids Cry out Against Torture SAO PAULO, Sept. 2 (Reuters) - Brazil stunned the world six years ago when off-duty police gunned down eight homeless children sleeping in front of a church in Rio de Janeiro. But fresh charges of systematic torture and widespread human rights abuses of children jailed for petty crime promise to fuel new controversy in Latin America's largest nation. This week, Sao Paulo state lawmakers are sending abroad detailed accounts of beatings, and even murder, of children living in state detention centres. They hope international pressure will draw more attention to a problem local authorities have failed to resolve. "We cannot live with these horrible abuses any longer," said Maria Lucia Prandi, one of those delivering the complaint to the Washington-based Organisation of American States. "We hope an OAS denouncement may shame our government into acting." Reuters recently obtained a judicial order to visit one of the most notorious centres in Sao Paulo. Juvenile centres are bad throughout Brazil but activists say abuses are most chilling in this sprawling metropolis of 16 million people. They say the scariest dramas are played out inside the crumbling concrete walls of two giant compounds wedged deep in the heart of South America's largest city. On Christmas Eve, guards at one of the centres allegedly set fire to a room packed with 40 children, burning one boy of 17 alive and sending 15 others to a hospital. While this is one of the few murders being investigated, public defenders say these juvenile centres are a time bomb in Sao Paulo -- hard hit by Brazil's economic turmoil that was aggravated by a January currency devaluation. As parents in Sao Paulo lose their jobs, more children rob supermarkets and convenience stores, sparking a crime wave that has sent the prison population at both centres up 30 percent over the last 12 months, officials say. The two compounds, designed to hold less than 700 children, now are home to about 3,500 juvenile offenders who are forced to live in conditions that outrage even the most hardened public defenders. OVERCROWDING BREEDS DISEASE, VIOLENCE "No one can really describe the horror of these places. You have to go there to believe the disease, the scars covering their bodies. It is sickening," said public defender Wilson Tafner, who has spent the better part of the last year snapping photos of battered kids living in Sao Paulo juvenile homes. He also paid a surprise visit last week to FEBEM Immigrantes, one of the two infamous compounds, uncovering what he said were makeshift weapons including wooden beams wrapped in newspaper -- a technique that allegedly allows guards to beat inmates without scarring them. Sao Paulo's Gov. Mario Covas publicly apologised recently for the situation at FEBEM, saying "I have failed." He said he would like to build new prisons in the state's interior to absorb excess inmates but local mayors will not go along. "It may seem like an excuse but you cannot imagine what it is like to arrive in a city and say: 'Would you like to build a FEBEM complex here?' It is a war," he said in an interview. Meanwhile, FEBEM Immigrantes houses more than 1,700 kids, many of whose bodies are covered with open sores. Skin diseases creep from child to child at night as they are forced to sleep three to a single mattress. Space is so scare that mattresses line the hallways, spilling over into filthy bathrooms. Children, who outnumber guards 45-to-1, increasingly try to overpower their keepers and escape. Guards, faced with a nearly impossible situation, allegedly beat the children with clubs and metal rods to instill fear and discipline. Within earshot of authorities, inmates cautiously told Reuters about the "repique" -- slang at Immigrantes for revenge lashings. This involves marching inmates outside in their underwear, tucking their heads between their knees and striking them repeatedly on their backs. A young teen identifying himself only as M.F., with 15 stitches on his head and several scars on his back, said guards severely beat him last week during a riot. GUARDS 'JUST KEPT BEATING ME' "Three guards came at me. One started beating me over the head with the leg of a chair. I cried out for them to stop but they just kept beating me," he recounted. Terrified parents, shocked at the inhumanity of such centres, often must be pried away from their children after visiting hours. On Parents Day in early August, the panic incited a rebellion. Inmates say beatings followed. Immigrantes' director, Lucimar da Silva Souza, admits guards strike inmates but he does not consider it torture. "When it comes to this question of beatings, I will acknowledge there have been some administrative failures," Souza said. "But there has never been torture. There have been confrontations, violence, yes. But never torture." Guards add that children are not the only ones with scars. Joaquim Suares Filho, 60, pulls back his thinning, jet-black hair to show his head wounds. As he speaks, his left eye drifts toward the side of his head thanks to a wound suffered during a clash with juveniles more than a decade ago. "I have two more years here until I retire. And if God wills it, I will survive," said the guard, who scratches out a living on 700 reais ($360) per month. Tafner won a landmark court ruling on Tuesday ordering the firing of Souza and the rest of FEBEM's administration. He also won a decision mandating an end to human rights abuses. But Sao Paulo could appeal the latter ruling, as it did with a similar one in 1994 that is still languishing in Brazil's courts. Tafner admits that the case could drag on for years, unless political pressure is applied. Meanwhile, lawmakers are pressing the OAS to form a human rights panel to investigate the charges, which, if confirmed, would embarrass Brazil and possibly deprive it of funding by governments and agencies that link human rights to aid. Ironically, the United Nations lauded Brazil's 1990 child protection law and held it up as a model, which Latin American countries from Mexico to Argentina have copied. The reality is much different. Rather than learning to read and play sports, as the Brazilian law mandates, children must squat for most of the day in packed cells that reek of urine, sweat and feces. "It is really a paradox when you look at the law and then what has taken shape in Sao Paulo," said UNICEF's human rights coordinator in Brazil, Mario Volde. "Instead of schooling ... they are tortured." Copyright 1999 Reuters.All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================= Robert F. Tatman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Remove "nospam" from the address to reply. NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml POSTING THIS MESSAGE TO THE INTERNET DOES NOT IMPLY PERMISSION TO SEND UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL E-MAIL (SPAM) TO THIS OR ANY OTHER INTERNET ADDRESS. 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