THICKSET and tattooed, Caco, 39, declines to give his real name as he sits in his sparse office in one of Rio de Janeiro’s most troubled favelas.
He denies he is afraid but on the other side of the wall are bullet marks from the gun that killed his predecessor as president of the residents’ association last September.
Osmar Paiva Camelo, who was a retired military police sergeant, was reportedly killed for supporting the pacification process to seize back control from drug gangs in Complexo da Maré, near Rio’s international airport.
Despite Maré being occupied by 2,700 troops since April last year in the run-up to the World Cup, shoot-outs and deaths have continued. Earlier this week, military police began to take over security operations from soldiers.
However, as the city builds towards next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, Maré residents are disillusioned with the security forces and the climate is as tense as ever.
“It’s going to take decades to resolve,” Caco said, keeping an eye on the door. “The expectation is uncertain.”
Outside, skulking gang members keep watch on doorsteps and young men stroll the warren-like streets, openly carrying handguns in public. Meanwhile, members of the community try to carry their lives as normal.
For years, Rio’s notorious Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, has fought two rival gangs and police for supremacy over the red-brick maze of 16 communities that is home to 140,000 people.
While the state security forces installed special pacifying police units (UPPs) in 38 areas before last summer’s World Cup, Maré continued to be almost impenetrable because of its size, territorial divisions and violence.
At the request of Rio’s governor, President Dilma Rousseff granted the use of troops in a final attempt to bring the area under control, with the intention of withdrawing them after the World Cup.
José Mariano Beltrame, Rio’s state security secretary,
on struck a combative tone with drug gangs at the time and said: “We are taking another one of the territories they dominated, and if they continue reacting in this way, we will keep showing them we are stronger, we have partners and we have the conditions to move forward in this way.”
But even after the army entered last April, there was at least one murder a week in the area that includes Maré.
As well as Mr Camelo’s death, a 21-year-old army officer was also killed during the occupation.
Michel Augusto Mikami was shot in the head in October when patrolling the favela, while an armoured vehicle also lost control when it came under fire from traffickers.
An Amnesty International report on human rights around the world released in February cited military occupation and violence in Maré.
“While a discourse of violence and a state of exception, which corroborates the perception that the lives of some are worth more than others, prevails, we are living in barbarism,” said Atila Roque, director of Amnesty in Brazil.
Mr Roque said everyone was losing: “The state, which puts its agents at risk and gives up confronting crime with intelligence, loses, and society, brutalised and trapped by the fear of violence, loses.”
After a year of army occupation, the security forces have adopted a much more tentative posture as Rio’s military police only now begin to take over from the soldiers.
On Wednesday, officers entered two of the more peaceful communities, Praia de Ramos and Roquete Pinto, in the first of three stages to introduce a permanent police presence in the favela.
But many are doubtful that this will bring an end to Maré’s problems. “The police have a history of corruption,” said Caco, who was born and raised in Timbau, one of the communities within Maré. “The army occupation wasn’t as bad because they didn’t ask for money from residents or try to arrest people.
“Historically, police treat people in favelas like second class citizens so it’s going to depend. The community is divided. The older people think it’s going to be better but the young think it’s going to be worse.”
Caco said endemic drug trafficking had grown in the favela since he was young.
“In my day, trafficking was much smaller. It was hidden,” he added. “Now, it’s bigger, it’s more visible and there are a lot of guns. It has evolved, like every industry.”
Maré is not the only favela to see an upsurge in violence and conflict 16 months before Rio is once again thrust to the world’s attention with the Olympics and Paralympics.
A 10-year-old boy was among five shot and killed in Complexo do Alemão, another of the city’s largest favelas, between Wednesday and Thursday.
Graphic images and videos circulated showing the bleeding body of Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira along with footage that appeared to show police using sound bombs and pepper spray.
Rio’s special operations police squads, BOPE and Choque, had been sent into the favela after a police base was attacked and set alight while residents described it as a “war”.
Mr Beltrame, the security secretary, said during a visit to Praia de Ramos in Maré after Wednesday’s first police transition that the points of resistance for public security were the larger favelas such as Maré, Alemão and Rocinha, which is home to an estimated 200,000 people.
“It’s very difficult for everything to happen at once there,” Mr Beltrame said. “Some of these favelas are bigger than some towns in England.”
For many, including Caco, peace feels a long way off.
“My expectations are just hopes,” he said. “The community has to participate. I want things to get better.”