But they are adamant that the walls are purely aimed at protecting the forest, which by last year had shrunk to 18 percent of its original size, according to environment group SOS Mata Atlantica.
Comparisons to Berlin or Israel are ridiculous, they said.
“There was never an intention to put anyone in a ghetto or to separate. That doesn’t exist,” said Icaro Moreno Junior, head of Rio state’s public works company.
“What’s the function of the wall around your house, my house, all houses? The function is to define limits. Up to here you can grow, beyond is the forest,” he said.
Experts say the root problem is a severe housing shortage affecting Rio and the whole of Brazil.
Under the government’s flagship infrastructure program, known by the Portuguese acronym PAC, the federal authorities plan to build some 3,616 homes in four different Rio slums, Rio’s secretary of public works said.
The government also announced a 34 billion real (US$17.3 billion) housing plan for low-income families in the country in March, aiming to build 1 million homes by 2011.
But critics say they are a drop in the bucket in a country with a 7.2 million deficit of houses and a population that is estimated at more than 190 million people, up from 169.8 million in 2000.
They say there is little political will, either locally or nationally, for a more comprehensive approach — a housing policy that would provide alternatives to more construction in the slums.
“We haven’t had a housing policy in Rio for decades,” Cano said. “Social inclusion needs a level of economic, social and political investment that doesn’t exist nowadays. We also have unfortunately a ... political system where these slums have no political representation.”
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