ARAB TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2015

17INTERNATIONAL

Brazil

‘Literature has kept me standing’

From slum to bookshop,drug queen turns writerRIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 8, (AFP):She started sniffing glue at age six toease the hunger of life in a Brazilianslum. She got her first revolver whenshe was 11.

Now 54, Raquel de Oliveira,once the first lady of the drug tradein the Rio de Janeiro favelas, hastaken up the pen.

After a decade in treatment foralcoholism and drug addiction, shehas just published her first novel,“NumberOne”.

“Literature isthe only thingthat has keptme standing,”says Oliveira,an energetictalker with longdark hair, in aninterview withAFP.

“Writinggives me pleas-ure. It takes the place of cocaine. Ithelps me flee from the pain.”

In the 1980s Oliveira was thelover of one Naldo, the drug lord ofBrazil’s biggest favela, La Rocinha,in Rio de Janeiro.

After he was killed in a shootoutwith police, she became a drug traf-ficker herself, but was ruined by herown alcohol and cocaine habit.

DiscoveredShe made it into rehab, discovered

poetry, completed high-school stud-ies and university, where shemajored in education.

She was speaking in the Babiloniafavela, during FLUPP, a literary fes-tival for the favelas.

“This book is the story of mylife”, she says.

She grew up in a shack with a dirtfloor that she shared with a fathershe describes simply as a pedophile.

“When I was little, our soda drinkwas wine mixed with water andsugar. All the children drank it,” sherecalled.

She was not yet six when herfather locked her in the shack andabandoned her.

She escaped onto the rooftops of

the slum, where other children livedand spent their days flying kites andsniffing glue.

When she was nine her grand-mother intervened.

“She was addicted to roulette andI was a way to raise money.”

The grandmother sold her to agambling boss, the so-called “godfa-ther” of various young girls.

“He was very friendly and protec-tive. He bought the girls because hethought he was helping the fami-lies,” Oliveira said. “When I got tohis house, about three of the girlswere pregnant by him.”

She escaped being forced intoprostitution by a priest of Umbanda,an Afro-Brazilian cult.

“This girl will not be a prostitute,”the man told the Godfather. “Youmust adopt her.”

Oliveira says the gangster listenedto the man and treated her like adaughter. When she was 11 he gaveher a revolver to defend herselfagainst bandits.

ChangedHer life changed at 25 when she

started her three-year relationshipwith Naldo.

The charismatic king of Rocinhawas the first drug dealer to giveinterviews to newspapers. Hebrought rifles into the favelas, spark-ing an arms race with the police.

“He was the love of my life. Iliked how he loved me and all thethings he gave me: security, affec-tion,” she said.

“It was great to discover all that. Ihad been married before and it hadbeen tough.” For several years shecarried on Naldo’s trafficking workby herself in Rocinha, where she stilllives. She drank and took cocainemore than ever.

“Cocaine was my passion,” shesays. “It replaced all the love that I’dlost with my dead husband.”

In 2005, a friend helped get herback on the rails.

Now she plans to get a master’sdegree in education and publishanother novel and two books ofpoetry.

She says she has no regrets.

An electricity worker attempts to cross a flooded area in Barra Longa after a dam burst on Thursday in Minas Gerais state, Brazil on Nov 7. (AP)

Lat/Amcontinued its destructive advance, level-ing a neighborhood and the main plaza inthe town of Barra Longa, 60 kilometers(35 miles) away, but causing no loss oflife there, a spokesman for the mayor’soffice told AFP. Brazil’s President isDilma Rousseff.

The cascade of debris began with thecollapse of a dike at a reservoir holdingmining waste, which spilled into anadjoining valley.

A short time later, a water reservoirbroke, and the mass of liquid sludgeswept over Bento Rodrigues. (AFP)

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Peru steps up border dispute:The frayed relations between Chile andPeru appeared to unwind furtherSaturday, after Peruvian PresidentOllanta Humala officially recognized anadministrative district in a disputed bor-der area.

The Chilean government promptly senta protest note to Peru “strongly” rejectingthe law because it concerns “unquestion-ably” Chilean territory.

And Santiago said a planned bilateralmeeting of ministers on social integrationthat had been set to take place inDecember was canceled.

Humala said the move aimed to spurdevelopment in the disputed La Yarada-Los Palos area on the border with Chileand improve living conditions for itsinhabitants.

Moreover, he said it would enable themto elect their own representatives and cre-ate conditions for them to take part indecisions involving their future.

The action effectively asserts Peruviansovereignty over a tiny four-hectare (10-acre) wedge of land within the districtthat Chile also claims. (AFP)

De Oliveira

Desperate search for survivors:Rescuers will spend a fourth day Sundayscouring for survivors beneath an ava-lanche of mud and mining sludge thatburied a village in southeast Brazil, killingat least two people and leaving 28 miss-ing.

Hundreds of firefighters, soldiers andcivil defense workers are franticallycombing through the viscous mass thatswallowed everything in its path for signsof life.

The increasingly desperate search wassuspended at dusk Saturday because “it isa high-risk area that is difficult to access,”said Duarte Goncalves Junior, mayor ofthe nearby city of Mariana.

The tragedy occurred when waste reser-voirs at the partly Australian-ownedSamarco iron ore mine burst open,unleashing a sea of muck that flattenedthe nearby village of Bento Rodrigues onThursday.

Since then, the tidal wave of sludge has Rousseff Humala

Africa

7 killed in Burundi attack: Gunmenexecuted at least seven people inBurundi’s capital hours hours beforepolice launched house-to-house searchesfor weapons on Sunday, amid internation-al fears of fresh bloodletting in the centralAfrican nation.

Hundreds of police and soldiers ringedthe northern flashpoint neighbourhood ofMutakura in the capital Bujumbura earlySunday to start of a widely feared crack-down on “enemies of the nation.”

Residents said security forces were car-rying out house-to-house searches.

“The police start-ed the search opera-tion for hiddenweapons inMutakura,” citymayor FreddyMbonimpa said,adding the raidswere being “doneprofessionally,because the policeare using weapondetectors.”

The mayor said seven people werekilled and two wounded in an “execution”attack adding that a probe had beenlaunched to track the “assassins.”

International alarm has grown as a gov-ernment amnesty ended to hand inweapons ended with fears that it will trig-ger further violence and drawing warningsfrom the head of the UN, Washington andthe world’s only permanent war crimescourt. (AFP)

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4 imams, 3 women held: ASenegalese judge says four imams andthree women have been arrested in theWest African country for suspected ties toextremism.

Investigating judge Samba Sall saidSaturday that he presided over a hearingFriday for the seven charged with criminalconspiracy, money laundering and financ-ing terrorism.

He said the suspects were arrested lastmonth following investigations bySenegalese security forces.

Local media reported that the gendarmeinvestigation shows those arrested havecontact with a Nigerian who has ties tothe Nigeria-based Islamic extremist groupBoko Haram. The group has killed thou-sands in its six-year insurgency and nowis launching attacks in neighboring coun-tries Chad, Cameroon and Niger. (AP)

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Clashes in Togo kill 5: Clashesbetween police and protesters over thepast two days have left five people deadin the west African nation of Togo,according to the latest government tallySaturday.

Violence broke out on Friday inMango, some 600 kilometres (370 miles)north of Lome, when law enforcementofficers tried to disperse an unauthorisedmarch by a group that opposed plans torehabilitate several protected areas. (AFP)

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