Brazilians plant crosses in anti-violence protest

Physicians and nurses planted thousands of crosses on the Mall in front of government ministry buildings and the National Congress in Brasilia

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) -- The huge esplanade in Brazil's capital, which is straddled on both sides by six-lane highways and government ministries, was turned into a sea of white crosses on Wednesday to draw attention to rising violence in Latin America's biggest country.

Methodically working their way from both sides of the esplanade, hundreds of volunteers stuck 130,000 white crosses on the lawns -- one for each person killed in Brazil last year by violence or in traffic accidents.

"We want to show the Brazilian people the extent of the war," said Luis Mir, executive director of the so-called Trauma Project organizing the event. "This is a question of civilization against barbarity."

He said in addition to the 130,000 deaths, violence and crime had maimed 100,000 people last year. Brazil, with a population of 165 million, is South America's second most violent country after war-torn Colombia.

By Wednesday evening, the volunteers had turned virtually the entire esplanade into something more akin to a war cemetery than the geographical center of Brazil's political power.

The Trauma Project umbrella group includes Brazil's major associations of doctors, including the country's largest medical organization, the Federal Council of Medicine.

The esplanade will remain covered with the crosses through Thursday when the organizers will meet with leading lawmakers to push for tougher laws on crime.

Brazilians have grown accustomed to killings over the years. Gang shootings in the slums of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are commonplace. Scenes of gory killings are often shown on television.

In one of the worst incidents earlier this year, a man hijacked a bus and held hostages for four hours.

The nation was gripped by the live television coverage of the episode, during which one of the hostages wrote on the bus window that the gunman had a "pact with the Devil." It ended with police shooting one hostage and arresting and strangling the hijacker.

Last year's 130,000 deaths mark an eight percent rise on 1998, and include 39,000 deaths from traffic accidents, said Mir. The rest were murders or killings.

The esplanade, a huge grass rectangle flanked by ministries, ends at Brazil's distinctive Congress building which is the most famous landmark of this purpose-built futuristic capital inaugurated in 1960.

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