Point of Disorder

In Brazil's free-swinging politics, violence is often more than verbal. Rip-roaring fist fights sometimes punctuate the debates in the modernistic chambers of the national Congress in Brasilia. Many a lawmaker packs a pistol, which can be used--as one Congressman recently discovered--to assure undivided attention to a speech.

Last week, rising to make his maiden speech in the Brazilian Senate, Senator Arnon de Mello, 52, looked uneasily toward the back of the chamber. "I will speak today," he began, "with my eyes turned to Senator Silvestre Pericles de Goes Monteiro, who . . . who . . . who has threatened to kill me today." "Swine," roared Goes Monteiro, 67, charging down the aisle. Mello drew his Smith & Wesson .38, ducked behind a seat--and fired twice. An old hand at political gunplay, Goes Monteiro whipped out his own .38, but another Senator jumped him before he could fire. When the bedlam subsided, a third Senator, Jose Kairala, 48, was lying in a pool of blood. Apparently the second shot from Mello's pistol had ripped into his abdomen. Doctors kept him alive for four hours, and then he died.

Brazil was shocked, but hardly surprised. Both Mello and Goes Monteiro come from the hardscrabble northeast state of Alagoas, where political ambushes are the rule, not the exception. For more than 20 years, Goes Monteiro and his family ran the state as a private political reserve. Once, when a political enemy was mysteriously killed, Goes Monteiro ordered samba music played on public loudspeakers.

One of the few who dared cross him was Mello, a crusading newspaperman whose election as governor in 1950 touched off a bloody feud. Mello ordered an investigation into the previous Goes Monteiro regime; a star witness was found with both legs--and his spirit--broken, and at one point rival gangs fought a pitched battle with machine guns on the floor of the state assembly. When Mello moved on to the national Senate 14 months ago, old Goes Monteiro promised: "He'll never make his first speech."

Except for his swearing-in, Mello made it a point to stay away from the Senate--until last week. Even then, he never made his maiden speech. After the gunplay, Mello faced a charge of homicide; Goes Monteiro was held for attempted assault with intent to kill. And the Senate passed a rule: from now on, all Senators will check their weapons at the door.

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