By Luciana Magalhaes, Lisandra Paraguassu and Lucinda Elliott
RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil’s most lethal police operation ever has left President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stunned and struggling to handle the political fallout, as he attempts to reconcile international concerns over human rights violations with growing public support for a crackdown on crime.
That divide underscores a broader challenge facing Lula, who is hoping to run for reelection next year and has devoted his political capital to an “ecological transformation” of Brazil’s economy, capped by the U.N. climate conference COP30 starting this week, while most Brazilians are more preoccupied with public safety.
The October 28 military-style raid in Rio de Janeiro resulted in at least 121 deaths, including four police officers. The level of violence drew sharp condemnation from United Nations officials, who called for prompt, independent investigations into possible unlawful killings. Activists have since staged protests in Rio as bodies continue to be identified.
Lula criticized the raid during his appearance Tuesday at COP30 in Belem, calling it “disastrous.”
“The judge’s order was for arrest warrants to be served, not a mass killing,” he said. “And yet there was a mass killing.”
Lula appeared not to have prior notice of the raid, and was returning from Malaysia on a plane with no internet access when it occurred. Since then, he’s kept a low profile, his administration “walking on eggshells” according to one source inside the presidential palace.
“The government can’t take ownership of this, but it also can’t support that massacre,” a second source said.
In a report to the Supreme Court, the Rio state government defended the operation, claiming security forces used “proportional force” and that “no deaths were reported among individuals outside the narco-terrorist organization,” suggesting police actions were targeted.
SUPPORT FOR POLICE KILLINGS
Despite the operation’s brutality, fresh polling suggests widespread domestic support for the police action.
A nationwide survey by AtlasIntel published on Friday showed 55% of Brazilians backed the police operation, with support rising to 62% among residents of Rio state. The findings highlighted the political challenges facing the leftist president, whose administration has struggled to respond to voter demands for tougher security policies.
“A good criminal is a dead one,” said Rio resident Adeilton da Silveira, 65, who works as a doorman in the area of Copacabana. “If they did something like that every week, the criminals would be scared.”
Brazil’s political right has moved swiftly to capitalize on the incident. Rio Governor Claudio Castro, a conservative ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro who ordered the operation, gained 10 percentage points in approval ratings following the operation, a separate survey by Genial/Quaest showed on Sunday.
Ibaneis Rocha, governor of the Federal District, is also supporting Castro. In an interview, he said it is astonishing that organized crime has not only taken hold of Rio de Janeiro but has also spread to other major cities and state capitals across Brazil, even though the country produces very few drugs and does not manufacture heavy weaponry.
Political analysts and right-wing politicians are drawing parallels with the popularity of President Nayib Bukele’s anti-gang policies curtailing due process in El Salvador.
“El Salvador’s experience demonstrates that meaningful change is possible, but it depends on having a government willing to take action,” said the conservative governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, in an interview with Reuters on Monday.
Zema said he and five other governors met with Castro two days after the deadly raid to congratulate him and Rio de Janeiro security forces, saying that those slain “had the chance to surrender, to give themselves up, and only those who didn’t want to didn’t.”
FEARS OF MORE VIOLENCE
Despite Castro’s framing of the raid as a triumph, the Genial/Quaest poll suggested the operation did little to reassure the public, with a majority of Rio residents reporting they felt less safe.
“The consequence is more violence,” said 54-year-old parking attendant Paulo Henrique Machado Cruz from Rio. “You don’t solve the problem, you just make it worse. You traumatize the community, you scare the children, you destroy families.”
Brazil’s Supreme Court may respond to demands from left-wing politicians to probe Rio police violence, which could also trigger a federal investigation of the deadly operation.
Sources close to Lula worry the incident risks undermining his recent gains in the polls ahead of the 2026 elections, with fallout likely to continue as investigations unfold.
Lula’s government approval rating rose to 33% in September, its highest this year, while disapproval fell to 38%, according to the latest Datafolha poll.
On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes traveled to Rio to lead a high-level meeting on the police operation, joined by Governor Castro, law enforcement officials, and representatives from the public prosecutors’ and defenders’ offices.
Moraes is overseeing a landmark legal case in Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court challenging Rio police use of force in Brazil’s informal shantytowns known as favelas.
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhães in Rio de Janiero, Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and Lucinda Elliott in Montevideo. Additional reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia. Editing by Brad Haynes and Michael Learmonth)
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