The doctrine of "narcoterrorism": Is Rodrigo Pimentel a propagandist for Bolsonaro?

Before we delve into the subject matter of this article, which involves a controversy regarding the positions of former BOPE member Rodrigo Pimentel, known as the "real-life Captain Nascimento," we want to state our position on the characterization and role of organized crime as a constitutive part of the capitalist strategy of transnational accumulation through the radical exploitation of the labor of people in socially vulnerable conditions. 

Organized crime and its representations, such as the "Crime Office," "Red Command," "Zinho's Gang," and "First Command of the Capital," are involved in arms and drug trafficking, the clandestine trade of goods and services, and the consumption of basic products like public transportation and cooking gas, real estate speculation, and even the control of civil and democratic rights in peripheral territories neglected by the state. These are expressions of the advancement of the logic of maximum efficiency management concepts and radical liberalism in our society; in practice, this is the concrete application of "anarcho-capitalist" ideology. Consider this: a criminal organization like the Red Command or the Crime Office are, in practice, businesses that aim to develop a business model that intensively exploits human labor without any state control or regulation, much less any tax or environmental obligations.

It is a hierarchical and authoritarian management model, in which anonymous and unknown partners are the true owners who command an elite governance model. The only figures who appear to the public and represent the company (the criminal organization) are the managers (militia or drug trafficking leaders), who in turn administer operations in person at the facilities of these illegal capitalist companies, located in favelas and on the outskirts of large urban centers. In the Brazilian case, after the end of more than 300 years of the slave-based production model, the socio-economic formation of "Brazilian capitalism" has relegated a mass of Afro-descendant people to social marginality. Generation after generation, they have served as abundant human resources for this "anarcho-capitalist" business model. It is precisely because of this historical process that a pawn in this criminal business organization, whose job is "on the ground in the favela," is usually a young, poorly paid Black man, without any labor rights and disposable, since his life expectancy in this business model is very low and the job turnover rate is extremely high. 

These criminal business organizations have a high level of efficiency and profitability, representing a financial paradise that would make any liberal owner of a conventional company who follows the rules and regulations of the legal and legislative framework envious. It is no coincidence that all the political disputes of right-wing and far-right parties have as one of their main strategic focuses the fight for "freedom," which translates to: the right of capitalist companies to be free from any and all labor, environmental, and tax rules, regulations, and obligations. If we take this to its ultimate consequences, the radical liberal conception inevitably leads to anarcho-capitalism, which in practice already exists and is operating through criminal organizations connected in a global economic network. This parallel economic world, which is outside the GDP accounting of countries, has as its central pillar for sustaining its presence, control, and defense in territories the access to highly lethal weapons. Without high-performance military equipment, it is impossible to establish its territorial dictatorship. Thus, the strategic demand of criminal organizations for high-tech heavy weaponry is compulsive. This is the driving force that gives global reach to the arms industry, and in the case of Brazil, especially to the American military-industrial complex. State police forces, in turn, in order to exchange fire on equal or superior terms with criminal organizations, also need to demand more and more products from the arms industry, and thus this cycle feeds back on itself, and the American military-industrial complex consolidates itself as the largest and most powerful in the world. 

In short, it is not difficult to understand that criminal organizations and their business models are mechanisms of the bourgeoisie itself to leverage the process of capitalist accumulation, operating in legal and illegal circuits, often using the state structure itself to reproduce itself. Historical dialectical materialist analysis helps us understand that violent military operations against these criminal organizations in favelas and peripheries have the concrete consequence of generating more demand for weapons, human resources, illegal products, and competition for "commercial points." How so? Because the method of confrontation and perpetual war has been the modus operandi for decades, eliminating human resources (pawns of the militia and drug traffickers), seizing weapons and drugs, and displacing factions from any territory, but always taking care to preserve the leadership of the illegal-criminal enterprise. The result is the generation of more demand to replace weapons, drugs, and human resources destroyed by police operations, to rebuild this business model in the favela or region of social vulnerability, generating very high profitability for the bourgeoisie associated with this "anarcho-capitalist" system that operates in symbiosis with legalized business models, such as the arms industry, fuel, logistics, and other necessary infrastructure. Well, having said all that, let's now get to the main topic of this article… 

Is Rodrigo Pimentel part of Bolsonaro's propaganda structure?

To better understand the key role Rodrigo Pimentel plays at this moment in the workings of Bolsonaro's power project in Brazil, a brief contextualization is necessary. Former President Jair Bolsonaro and his family are widely known for their close ties to militia leaders, especially the "Escritório do Crime" (Office of Crime), an example of a criminal business organization we have already cited. To give just one well-known example, one of the main leaders of this criminal organization, Adriano da Nóbrega, was honored twice by Flávio Bolsonaro: the first time in 2003 with a commendation for services rendered, and in 2005, when Adriano was already imprisoned, he received the Tiradentes Medal, the highest honor of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Both honors were bestowed in the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly when Flávio was a state deputy. The most interesting thing is that Flávio Bolsonaro had Adriano da Nóbrega's wife and mother as ghost employees in his office, revealing the degree of trust and connection between the families. The "kickback" scheme in his office involving his aide Queiroz, the Bolsonaro family, and Adriano's family was exposed, and only failed to reach a judgment on its merits due to "technical-procedural flaws" in the case against Flávio. Other names linked to militia organizations have also been decorated and honored by the Bolsonaro family, and the most recent conviction for armed criminal organization and attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law involving Bolsonaro, generals, and members of special forces of the army known as "Black Kids" is revealing. These facts reinforce the expertise of Bolsonaro's leaders in recruiting state agents for ventures and operations of criminal business organizations that function identically to what we characterized at the beginning of this article. By a very narrow margin, the project that has been applied for many years in Rio de Janeiro was not installed in the central power of the country. Moreover, you don't need to be a genius of political analysis to realize that this process is still alive, has the support of the current American government, and is part of the geopolitical disputes in Latin America, as we will see below…

But how does Rodrigo Pimental fit into this machine? He is A former BOPE captain, voter and supporter of the Bolsonaro government, having declared that he voted for and campaigned for Bolsonaro in both 2018 and 2022, lending his influence within police corporations and society to the Bolsonarist project. He is the co-author of the films Elite Squad I and II, and made a career transition from a PM-RJ officer to an influential political commentator with over 1 million followers on social media. He is also a businessman-speaker, a distinguished guest of the media and right-wing and far-right Brazilian parties, such as Revista Oeste, Brasil Paralelo, and Fundação Indigo, linked to União Brasil. The rise of his public persona is intrinsically linked to the creation of Captain Nascimento, the iconic protagonist of the "Elite Squad" films. This character represents a BOPE officer who uses extrajudicial methods, torture, and displays macho and authoritarian behavior, defending violence and the war on drugs as a public security policy.
His reputation as an incorruptible police officer and public security expert, practically an intellectual within the security forces, focuses on propaganda against the left, while simultaneously eloquently defending radical neoliberal management and governance ideas in his lectures to corporations, bankers, and managers of billion-dollar enterprises. The main idea of ​​his lectures is titled "Building an Elite Troop," establishing a direct link between the reality of BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) and the business world. The themes addressed are translated into business language: "leadership, teamwork, overcoming goals and limits, and focus on results." Pimentel effectively "commercialized" the ethos of the "skull" (BOPE's special operations unit), transforming a military doctrine of survival into a management philosophy. He identified the parallel between the high-risk missions of the police and the high-pressure challenges of the market, offering companies a romanticized model of discipline, focus, and resilience to achieve success. These ideas are in the book... Management Elite ...demonstrating his remarkable ability to translate and monetize his life experience. Any similarity or affinity of these ideas with the management style of criminal organizations of an "anarcho-capitalist" conception is left to the reader's discretion. The book Elite da Gestão (Management Elite) was written in partnership with Maurilio Nunes da Conceição, former commander of BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion), appointed by the ousted governor Wilson Witzel and who is now part of Cláudio Castro's government, as the right-hand man of the current Secretary of Public Security of Rio de Janeiro. Perhaps this explains Rodrigo Pimentel's emphatic defense of Cláudio Castro's Bolsonaro government against criticism from sectors of the left, even going so far as to publish a video on his social networks with distorted data against Benedita da Silva (the only governor of Rio de Janeiro who was not arrested for corruption in recent administrations), a video that he eventually removed, probably fearing a lawsuit.

Following the deadliest operation in the history of Rio de Janeiro's security forces in the favelas of Complexo do Alemão and Penha, Rodrigo Pimentel emerges in the current Brazilian public debate as one of the greatest propagandists of the far-right Trumpist doctrine of classifying criminal organizations linked to drug trafficking as terrorist organizations. Any first-year student of international relations knows very well that the American government's interest in this policy is to justify possible interventions against the sovereignty of the countries of the continent. All this is linked to the struggle for hegemony in the region and the defense of the interests of Western imperialism against the rise of China; it is no coincidence that there is currently a large-scale military apparatus in the Caribbean Sea with permanent threats against Venezuela and Colombia. 

For former BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) member Rodrigo Pimentel, his adherence to the Bolsonaro project through his electoral declarations of support, his focus on anti-PT (Workers' Party) and anti-leftist propaganda, his intellectual contribution monetized by right-wing and far-right parties and businessmen, and his persistent defense of the main American policy for controlling what the Trump administration considers "its backyard," all reveal how his contributions to the culture war as an influential propagandist position his persona as a key piece in the machinery of the Bolsonaro far-right and its power project in the country. For Pimentel, his political support for the Bolsonaro family in the last elections is not at all contradictory to the fact that it was during the Bolsonaro government that access to high-powered lethal rifles was facilitated for criminal organizations, whether drug traffickers or militias, nor is it important that the Bolsonaro family leads militia organizations, much less is there any emphasis in his discourse on criticizing Bolsonaro's coup plot. Furthermore, Rodrigo Pimentel should state his position on the proposed amnesty for those convicted of the crime of armed criminal organization and the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He should also give equal weight to his criticism of the left, to the far-right parties and leaders who recently voted in favor of the "PEC da bandidagem" (constitutional amendment on criminal activity). His silence and privileged relationships with Brazilian right-wing organizations speak for themselves… 

Finally, his relationship with leaders of União Brasil, the Novo party, Revista Oeste, and Brasil Paralelo confirms his political positioning on the far-right spectrum, even though his discourse has some mediation, completely contradicting his defense that the state should occupy areas dominated by criminal organizations. This is because the radical neoliberal politics of his main allies is to diminish the social role of the state and give all power to the free market. The militiamen from the "crime office," Adriano da Nóbrega (hitman) and Ronnie Lessa (Marielle Franco's assassin), were contemporaries of Rodrigo Pimentel in the Rio de Janeiro Military Police, even being part of the same work teams. It seems clear to us that the division of tasks within this generation of BOPE officers for the Bolsonaro militia project is evident; while some were at the forefront of leading illegal enterprises, others chose to play a role in the political and ideological struggle in society with the aim of strengthening the neo-fascist ideas of the far right in the social imagination. In the end, they are all followers of the death drive of the skull symbolism ideology!