Isabela Vieira Reporter Agência Brasil

Rio de Janeiro – In a speech that contained numerous references to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president Dilma Rousseff inaugurated a cable car system in the Rio slum of Alemão (“Teleférico do Complexo do Alemão”). Until recently, the Alemão slum was controlled by drug traffickers where most of the 400,000 inhabitants did not dare venture out after dark because the area was so violent. At the end of last year, the government of Rio launched a UPP (“Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora”) into the slum consisting of a military invasion by police and army soldiers. The area was wrested from drug lords and now the government is engaged in a long-term effort to reinsert itself into the slum.

The work on the cable car system was one of the most important projects in Lula’s Accelerated Growth Program (“PAC”). It cost slightly over R$200 million. The former president laid the cornerstone for the construction in 2008. It was in his speech at the beginning of the work on the Alemão cable car that Lula called Dilma Rousseff the “mother of the PAC” for the first time.

The cable car system has 152 cars ("bondinhos") that can transport 30,000 passengers per day. It runs a little more than three kilometers from a subway station in Bonsucesso to the highest point in the slum where no public transportation is available due to the narrow, winding alleyways (people living at the top had to walk 20 to 30 minutes to get to public transportation). The system has are six stations. Each cable car can transport ten people.

In her speech inaugurating the cable car system, Dilma called it a symbol of the way people’s lives can be improved by a government program. “We do not just build highways and dams. Since the Lula administration, the government has been investing in people. We do this to benefit the daily lives of common people,” declared the president.

According to Dilma, the cable car system is an example of the state taking on its real function, which is to spend public money to benefit the people. “Brazil has this bad habit of abandoning part of the population. The people’s right to public services was being stolen. People who most need assistance were abandoned for years and years,” said Dilma.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English - content modified

Link - Ao inaugurar Teleférico do Alemão, Dilma elogia políticas do governo Lula voltadas aos mais pobr

Link - Dilma inaugura teleférico no Complexo do Alemão, no Rio