Brazil: More than 20 People Murdered in Police Operation in the Salgueiro Complex
Featured image: Police operation in the Salgueiro Complex in 2021, Source: Márcia Foletto/ O Globo
On January 14th, the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro (PCERJ) carried out yet another genocidal operation in the Salgueiro Complex in São Gonçalo. Residents report that 22 people were murdered and one was wounded.
A Nova Democracia (AND) reports that law enforcement officers were observed using armored vehicles and aircraft during the raid. They go on: “According to the PCERJ, the joint action with the Special Resources Coordination Unit (CORE) and the Military Police is part of Operation Containment, the same operation responsible for the largest massacre in the country’s history, carried out in Penha and Alemão in October 2025.”
Police officers claim that only four were murdered in the operation, but have refused to release the body-cam footage.
AND writes: “It is well known that drug and arms traffickers are not found in the slums, but in mansions and latifundia, such as the narco-big landlord Heitor de Azambuja Junior and his son, who were delicately arrested in their luxury mansions; as well as TH Jóias, jewelry designer, former state representative, arms dealer, and close associate of the reactionary Cláudio Castro, who was arrested in September 2025, shortly before the operation that resulted in the Penha Massacre.
Activists and democrats denounce the farce of the “war on drugs” in Brazil as a policy of terror by the bourgeois-big landlord State, following the imperialist agenda to contain the deepest revolt of the masses against the system of exploitation and misery imposed by the ruling classes, who need to promote bloodshed to maintain their domination over the people.”
The organizations Unidade Vermelha – Liga da Juventude Revolucionária (UV-LJR), Alvorada do Povo, and Movimento Estudantil Popular Revolucionário (MEPR), have in a joint statement called for all youth to join the campaign to end the massacres against poor and black people throughout Brazil, and to reaffirm the need of “self-defense of the people to protect themselves from the repressive forces of the old State.”, AND reports.
This is also happening in the context where Yankee Imperialism is using the farce of the “war on drugs” to entrench themselves in the Latin American continent in order to prepare to combat potential revolutionary popular uprisings, as well as deterring imperialist rivals such as China and Russia.
