-----Original Message----- From: Alamaine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CTRL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wed, 7 May 2008 1:30 am Subject: [ctrl] Tom Phillips: Gangsters, guns and drugs - now tourists can see the 'real Rio' | World news | The Guardian Gangsters, guns and drugs - now tourists can see the 'real Rio' Tom Phillips http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/07/brazil.drugstrade The Guardian, Wednesday May 7 2008 Article history You could be forgiven for imagining that a holiday in Rio de Janeiro involved stretching out on Ipanema beach, trekking up the Sugar Loaf mountain or attempting to dance the samba after a bellyful of caipirinha. This week, however, another attraction was added to the list: posing for photos alongside teenage drug traffickers clutching Russian machine guns and bags of Bolivian cocaine. Rio's tourist police are investigating after a Brazilian reporter went "undercover" on one of the city's shantytown or favela tours. He claims to have witnessed the tour guide introducing witless gringos to a member of the drug faction that controls Rio's largest shantytown, Rocinha, and then watched as they posed for photos. There are around 600 redbrick favelas in Rio de Janeiro, home to around a million of its poorest people. The slums are considered no-go zones by most Brazilians. Foreigners, however, have always shown more interest in Rio's impoverished underbelly. Since the 1980s, when guidebooks suggested cunning ways to sneak a peek at the favelas without actually going in, "poorism" has been a growing trend. Within a few years tour companies began offering visitors the chance to talk to locals, visit social projects and buy art from "authentic" (ie dirt poor) Brazilians. Today a new, less savoury, generation of "poor guides" has sprung up. For around £30 a head, they offer to transport thrill-seeking foreigners into a real-life version of City of God, the acclaimed film about Rio's gang culture. Some years ago I was approached by a dishevelled-looking North American, who described himself as an "alternative tour guide". He claimed he was taking a young English couple to meet some gangsters. Would I like to come? The next day, we were led up a steep concrete staircase towards the top of a shantytown in Copacabana. Halfway up the hillside we stopped to chat with a pair of traffickers and for the guide to fill his nostrils with cocaine. I asked the guide if he didn't think the tours, which included the opportunity to pose for photos holding the traffickers' weapons, a tad over the top. He shook his head wildly, a thick white ring now etched around his nostril. It was important, he pontificated, for tourists to know the "real Rio". -- Alamaine, IVe Grand Forks, ND, US of A ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) "Being ignorant is not such a shame as being unwilling to learn." - Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758 (Benjamin Franklin) ~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ------------------------------------ www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== ctrl is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, ctrl gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. ctrl gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. There are two list running, [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] has unlimited posting and is more for discussion. [EMAIL PROTECTED] is more for informational exchange and has limited posting abilities. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Omimited posting abilities. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. OmYahoo! Groups Links
