Pineapples, beaches, and warships: Welcome to a heavily securitised Rio
The G20 Team in Brasil explore the temporary break in Rio's grim contradiction between the haves and the have-nots.
On arrival in Rio de Janeiro, you could be excused for not immediately knowing that the city was preparing to host the G20 Summit. The welcome desk at the airport extolled a bright and colourful embrace of branding, something that delighted tourists and locals alike for the quick photo opportunity, but a lack of staff rendered this first point of welcome largely redundant.
This approach seems to have permeated throughout Rio itself with a smattering of billboards (often on the side of some rather dingy public toilets) indicating Brazilian pride in hosting the summit, but there is very little substance or engagement beyond this limited advertising budget.
In fact, in the few days prior to the summit starting there seemed to be little to no obvious impact on either local life or tourism (other than the spike in hotel room prices). An arguable disinterest in the G20 meant that the caipirinha-charged Copacabana party spirit continued as normal, seemingly unaffected by preparations for a major global diplomatic jamboree that included a visibly augmented police and military presence on the streets.
Even the arrival of a Brazilian warship on the shoreline did not seem to faze the locals. Although foreigners (your authors included) stopped to stare and take pictures, everyone else carried on as if a heavily armed gunboat anchored immediately off of the most famous beach in the world was simply an everyday occurrence.
The increasing sense of security in and around Rio in preparation for the G20 leaders’ arrival began to change on Saturday evening as a string of trucks deposited metal barricades to prevent interference in the movement of dignitaries and political leaders between their plush five-star hotels on the Leblon and Ipanema beach fronts and the downtown meeting location for the summit.
While none of this seemed of much importance to the local population or restaurant owners, anecdotal evidence from Brazilians out-and-about in Rio indicated that they felt far safer than normal on a Saturday night due to the steady increase in police and military personnel. Even the beaches seemed momentarily safer as the police seemed to have scared away the notorious gangs who sometimes prey on those along the shoreline after dark.
This shift in personal security for the local population, determined largely by the luxurious seaside location of the hotels block-booked by diplomats and global leaders – themselves making “unusual” security demands of their hosts – will be short-lived. Behind the façade of the elegant balconies looking out towards the vast Atlantic ocean, the reality on the streets of Rio is a grim contradiction between the haves and the have-nots.
The five-star hotels sit alongside poverty and deprivation: homeless people sleep along the streets traversed by wealthy tourists and dignitaries on their way to the Copacabana strip. This immense contrast between privilege and desperation is evident whenever a G20 comes to town, with the local officials primping up their city whilst the heavy security presence moves those less fortunate further out towards the margins. These are the undercurrents of international summits on which the international spotlight rarely shines.
But in Rio this disparity seems to be the norm. The arrival of the G20 is just like any other day. After all, why would the average Brazilian care when they know that there will be little improvement in the security of those who are the most vulnerable.
G20 Team: Alicia Sear-Acinas, Amelia Eveleigh, Ethan Ryan, Gregory Stiles, Grzegorz Stahl, Madeleine Fearn, Matthew Bishop, Imogen Parry, Scarlett Vickers, Shengyao Guo.
