CBC The Passionate Eye - Battle for Rio (2014)

Battle for Rio takes you on a pre-World Cup tour of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and looks at what Rio is doing to clean-up its violent slums prior to hosting the world's biggest football match.

Rio de Janeiro is known for its stunning natural settings, lively carnival celebrations and magnificent beaches. But for three decades, its spectacular hills have been plagued by drugs and violence. The favelas, the city’s urban slums, are home to millions of people. The vast majority of residents are ordinary people with ordinary jobs, but turf wars between drug trafficking gangs against the fearsome Military Police have turned the favelas into war zones.

In preparation for the upcoming FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games, Rio has decided to take back the hills with a unique experiment – a “pacification process.” The city has engaged in an ambitious security operation aimed at freeing its favelas from the control of gangs and drug traffickers with new neighbourhood police forces, the UPP or Police Pacification Units. However, security is not the only rationale behind the program. As with everything, economic interests and international exposure are driving Rio's dramatic makeover.

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