Related: Deaths toll in Brazil's gang related violence rises to 133

         Sao Paulo violence stops, death toll 115

    

Policemen stand guard on an empty avenue which has been closed off in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 16, 2006. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

BRASILIA, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has blamed the recent wave of violence, that shook Sao Paulo state and left at least 140 dead, on low investment in schooling, local media reported on Wednesday.

    "The truth is that those people, most of them, were four-year old children in the 1980s and had no one to look after them," Lulasaid.

    "Had there been investment in education in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, you can be sure that many of those young people would be working, teaching or studying," he added.

    The whole of society bears some responsibility for the violence,including his government, Lula said.

    "What happened with those criminals is a result of who we are as a society."

    A wave of street and jail violence swept Sao Paulo state, Brazil's wealthiest province, from Friday night. Around 140 people were killed across the state.

    The state government said that the First Capital Command (PCC), Sao Paulo's main organized crime group, had ordered the violence, triggering more than 250 attacks on police stations and squad cars. Gangsters also burned more than 80 city buses and robbed at least 15 banks.

    The dead included 40 civil and military police officers, prison officers and fire fighters, 87 suspected gang members, four civilians, and nine convicts.

    At the height of the violence, during the weekend, Lula offered to send National Guard troops but Sao Paulo state governor, Claudio Lembo rejected the offer.

    "The problem is that the federal government can only act in a state if there is a request, if not it would be an intervention," Lula told media, adding that Brazil has long been badly governed and that four years is a short time to for a president to change all of that for good.

    Lula is reported to be seeking re-election but has not officially declared his candidacy.

    "If four years were enough then I would not have been elected,"he said. "I was only chosen because things were so difficult that the people decided they would try a metalworker. We want to see ifwe are more competent than those who preceded us."

    Lembo, of the opposition Liberal Front Party (PFL), described Lula's remarks as "empty electioneering."

    "While I agree with the substance of what he said, it is an empty statement. There have been 500 years of bad education, of civil society failing to unify people into an properly organized whole."

    The PFL and the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) ruled Brazil as a coalition between 1994 and 2002 under the leadership of president Feranando Henrique Cardoso. The coalition now supports Geraldo Alckmin, who resigned his post as governor of Sao Paulo in April to seek the presidency. Enditem