Rio Carnival Sends Message Urging Peace on the Streets

RIO DE JANEIRO â€”  The last of Rio de Janeiro’s major samba groups thundered through the giant Carnival stadium until after dawn Tuesday, flashing glittering costumes, massive floats and tanned, naked bodies in the showcase annual parades.

Paying tribute to prominent personalities, Brazilian history and even cachaca--the fiery national liquor--nearly all of the Carnival groups, known as samba schools, also delivered a firm anti-violence message in a crime-plagued country, calling for a better world.

In this year’s pre-Lent festivities, dubbed the Carnival of Peace, paraders dressed as police officers threw flowers to spectators, while others, wearing robes to portray Jews and Arabs, danced samba side by side at the Sambadrome stadium, an avenue-like runway lined with grandstands and VIP boxes.

Carnival’s five days of dancing, singing, sex and drinking kicked off Friday, with the major festivities wrapping up shortly after the sun rose Tuesday.

In one samba school, dancers with giant plastic revolvers in their hands and oversized fake knives sticking out of blood-covered chests represented a gloomy reminder of Rio’s street violence.

But the 200 drummers and boisterous song dispersed the dark images: “Why so much hatred, carry more love in your heart, only living in peace can we make the world beautiful!�

The Carnival festivities opened less than a week after 19 prisoners died in prison rioting. Street fights during Carnival left several people dead and many others wounded.

But peaceful, bright, often breathtaking images prevailed in the lavish internationally televised parades, which attracted a record 336,000 tourists this year.