- In general terms, the reputation of police forces throughout Latin America lacks legitimacy and public trust. In the case of environmental conflicts, the issue takes on overtones of violence and corruption in areas where the state’s presence is scarce.
- In Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, it is almost tacitly understood that the police are, for the most part, colluding with organized crime. Meanwhile, in Brazil, their role as a shock force is excessive and, in rural areas, they may associate with private security forces to carry out evictions.
- The Catholic Church began monitoring these types of conflicts in the early 1990s, and since then, disputes have caused the deaths of 773 people.
Trust in the criminal justice system varies among countries in the Pan Amazon, but in no country do citizens have an overall positive view of the police. In the Andean Republics, distrust of the police is probably due to their proclivity to extort bribes; however, it may also reflect their role in repressing public protests, most recently in Bolivia (2019, 2023), Peru (2022) and Ecuador (2022).
They are widely assumed to be suborned by narco-traffickers, an accusation that robs them of legitimacy and further diminishes their standing among citizens. The failure of police to intervene when land grabbers invade communal lands is a textbook example of a crime of omission, particularly along the Rio Ucayali (Peru) and in Chiquitania (Bolivia), where ongoing land rushes are being fomented by local politicians seeking to benefit economically or electorally from an influx of migrants.
In Brazil, the police do not extort bribes, but they are frequently accused of using excessive force in their campaigns against criminal gangs. In Amazonian jurisdictions, the Policia Militar looms large because its role in keeping public order in rural areas forces it to adjudicate disputes between landholders and landless workers. Faced with a thankless task under the best of circumstances, the PM has an unfortunate history of collaborating with private security forces (Jagunços) to forcefully eject squatters without a proper court order.
Since the Catholic Church started monitoring this type of conflict in the early 1990s, land disputes have led to the deaths of 773 people. Few cases have been prosecuted, and fewer still end with a conviction or time served in prison. A few notable exceptions are cases resulting from gross overreaction by police, which caused national (and global) media to shine a spotlight on the crime, such as the massacres in Eldorado dos Carajás (1996) or Corumbiara (1998). More recently, state governments have started to protect property rights by dispatching the Polícia Militar to dislodge grileiros attempting to occupy fazendas in Mato Grosso and landless activists in Rondônia.
Banner image: Clash with police over the Las Bambas mining project in the Apurímac region of Peru. Photo: Mining Conflict Observatory.
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