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 It was once said by an expert on Latin America's military that 'the scourge of the past doesn't go away.' Nowhere is this perhaps more true than in Brazil. This year marks 21 years since the end of Brazil's 21-year dictatorship. As it passes through this symbolic equinox, Brazil remains haunted by its troubled past.
Although Brazil has made great strides in recent decades to become a global powerhouse, it lags noticeably behind in the arena of human rights, and the atonement for past abuses. Amongst its neighbors in South America's Southern Cone region, Brazil has done the least amount to exorcise demons from its military rule era. This comes as a surprise to all those that expected more from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's leftist government. It seems that realpolitik has made strange bedfellows of Lula's Government and Brazil's military. In a perverse twist to history, those that were once tortured by the military have now come to the defense of that very establishment. Front in center in the current national debate are files - millions of dossiers that document thousands of cases of abuse and torture during Brazil's military regime. In the last couple of years these purportedly destroyed files have begun resurfacing in large amounts. The question now is what should be done with this material. International organizations have nudged Brazil toward making these files public record, but government measures have only been palliative. This report engages this sensitive matter, and catalogues the steps Brazil should take toward full-disclosure. It is time overdue for truth to prevail in Brazil. 21 Years of Repression Before examining our contemporary issue at hand, it is first necessary to present readers with a brief overview of Brazil's military dictatorship, which spanned from 1964-1985. On April 1, 1964 soldiers toppled the government through a staged coup, and replaced President João Goulart with provisional military leadership. By taking over the reigns of power the military hoped to quell the spread of bolshevism in Brazil, while repairing the country's moribund economy. Taming hyperinflation and the soaring national deficit proved more difficult than had been envisioned though. Initial plans of restoring democratic rule to Brazil following a short custodial period were thus abandoned as the state became progressively more authoritarian in scope. From the outset the military turned to extralegal measures to neutralize opponents' civil and political rights. As Cold War tensions heightened the military resorted to increasingly violent means of systematic repression. Torture became the main weapon employed by security forces to subdue those thought to be "subversive." Although abuses in Brazil never approached the "dirty war" levels of Argentina and Chile, the country's early dictatorship set a precedence for would-be dictators throughout the Southern Cone. There is no precise figure as to how many people were abused by the Brazilian dictatorship, but it is roughly estimated that thousands were tortured, and hundreds were "disappeared." In 1979 the promulgation of an amnesty law helped pave the way for Brazil's political "opening," and the eventual return to democratic rule in 1985. This amnesty pardoned the pre-1979 excesses of security agents and "guerrillas" alike. Although critical to redemocratization, this amnesty has severely dampened the quest for truth about dictatorial violence. Since 1985 successive governments have generally preferred to 'let bygones be bygones,' than to hold human rights violators morally accountable for their atrocious deeds. It is this political culture of selective amnesia which frames the topic of our discussion. Coming to Grips with the Past What sparked the actual debate in Brazil over torture files was a pair of photographs that surfaced in October, 2004. These photos were of Vladimir Herzog, a prominent television journalist, taken before he was brutally tortured and murdered in a São Paulo military interrogation center in 1975. Despite witness testimony to the contrary, the military denied any responsibility for the killing, claiming that Herzog had committed suicide in his jail cell. The death of Herzog became a watershed case in the push for the return to civilian rule. Thus, when images of the journalist in duress emerged there was an immediate clamor for explanations. Brazil's armed forces have always claimed that it legally destroyed its collection of interrogation files when democracy was reinstituted in Brazil. This assurance has been proven vacuous by former security agents that have recently come public with knowledge of troves of hidden documents. In fact, the agent that leaked the Herzog pictures claimed to have some 50,000 other secret documents in his own possession. Not only has Brazil's military stubbornly refused to acknowledge the existence of secret files, but it has also stuck intransigently to a stance of arrogance. When called to comment on the newly discovered photos, the Brazilian Army issued an official statement defending the internal war it waged during the dictatorship. The letter reads unapologetically that, 'The measures taken by legally constituted forces were a legitimate response to the violence of those who rejected dialogue and opted for radicalism.' Human rights advocate groups across Brazil bristled at these words and demanded that Lula's Administration come down hard on Army brass. Despite loud calls for his dismissal, Army Commander General Francisco de Albuquerque was spared. Although the General was subsequently forced to issue an apology, the statement's insincerity rang clear. In this letter he classified the Army's initial response as, 'out of line with the current historical moment.' The Lula Administration's soft-pedaling of the situation generated an immediate firestorm which polarized the ruling Workers' Party, and even resulted in the resignation of civilian Defense Minister, José Viegas. After charging his Vice-President, José Alencar, with the dual responsibility of leading the Defense Ministry, President Lula sought to further diffuse the political impasse by calling on a special government commission to brainstorm how to handle torture files. Efforts to quietly massage the uproar were thwarted though as more files turned up in December 2004, just two months after the Herzog photos were published. For more than a year the Brazilian Government succeeded in temporizing the debate about torture files, until it was finally cornered into action by external parties. Pressure to open these files came from a United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) report, and a later visit from a United Nations (UN) special envoy. The Brazilian Government subsequently introduced new policies pertaining to the accessibility of military records. As we will see in the following section, this move has nonetheless been widely criticized by civil society as nothing more that government propaganda. Bending the Law Seeking to appease UN officials, on November 18, 2005, President Lula signed into law Decree 5,584/05. This legislation made public record all military regime documents housed at the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN).(1) The decree specified that ABIN was to transfer all of these files to the National Brazilian Archives (AN) by December 31, 2005. On December 21, three truckloads and two vanloads of this mixed-media material was duly transported to the AN's regional office in Brasília. From there the entire collection was sorted and copied. Approximately a week later, the duplicated material was sent to AN headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Since January 1, 2006 this collection has been legally "open" to the public. Stipulations embedded in the decree have circumscribed, however, the real usefulness of this presidential mandate. Upon closer examination this mandate is not as comprehensive as it appears. ABIN has not truly been forced to release all of its files. This is because portions of a previous law (11,111/05), which pertain to issues of national security, supersede the later Decree. 11,111/05, which was also promulgated by President Lula, states that any material which threatens, "the sovereignty, the national territorial integrity or the international relations" of Brazil, must remain classified. This wording is a reflection of the parameters set forth in Article 5, Section XXXIII of Brazil's Constitution, which empowers the government to conceal, "information whose secrecy is essential to the security of society and of the State." As a consequence of this Article, all information pertaining to one of Brazil's most infamous civil wars remains concealed. During the nadir of Brazil's dictatorship a group of political dissidents organized in the remote Araguaia region of the Amazon. Fearing a Communist insurgency the Brazilian Armed Forces (BAF) mobilized more than 10,000 soldiers to invade the region from 1972-1974. In addition to murdering some 60 combatants in what has become known as the Araguaia Guerrilla War, the BAF killed innocent bystanders, and destroyed vast tracts of land and property. For decades now, family members of the Araguaia victims have sought hopelessly for information about how their loved ones perished. The latest decree signed by President Lula does not aid these people in their search for closure. Not only does Decree 5,584/05 not lift the clouds enshrouding the Araguaia Guerilla War, it also does not make the information that has been divulged by ABIN fully accessible to the Brazilian people. In the web of fine print of Decrees issued to date, it is specified that only documents up to 1975 can be viewed without special permission. To review top secret documents that have not yet aged 30 years, interested parties must request permission from a government supervisory group called the Commission on the Examination and Analysis of Secret Information (CAAIS). Even for documents that do not require CAAIS clearance, certain restrictions still apply. For instance, access for persons not directly related to those documented in the files is restricted. If for instance a researcher is seeking material which contains sensitive information about a non-immediate relative, then that researcher must first request permission from the person in question to proceed. This safeguard is set forth by Article 5, Section X of Brazil's Constitution which states that "the privacy, private life, honor and image of persons are inviolable." Even immediate family members authorized to view files are not permitted to see everything contained therein. To protect the privacy of third parties mentioned in the files, names are redacted. In other words, family members are not allowed to know the identity of those responsible for the torture and murder of relatives. It should be evident by now that there exists a robust body of law that governs the accumulation and dissemination of secret material in Brazil. Why is it then that some have called President Lula's latest measure to ostensibly release more torture files a "half measure?" The answer seems to lie in the grey areas that perforate Brazil's jurisprudence. The way in which the Brazilian Government has opaquely managed certain documents over the years strongly points to a bending of the law for political purposes. Beneath the Hype If one were to take a step back and evaluate this discussion from a comparative perspective, then it seems quite reasonable that Brazil would want to protect its national security, as well as its citizens' privacy. One does not have to play devil's advocate to recognize such logic. After all, most governments in the world, if not all of them, seek to provide such protections. At the same time though, many governments have fared better than Brazil in designing systems to make public knowledge public. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has made this true of the United States. For all of its imperfections, FOIA has empowered average Americans to requisition the U.S. Government for documents that were originally classified. This is certainly not to say that Brazil is not capable of engineering such a system for obtaining public information. It does suggest that there is more to understanding the Brazilian Government's posture than its tenuous cover story of privacy and national security. Getting behind the talking points is an important matter. In order for us to propose practical policy prescriptions we must first get at the heart of the problem. In this regard, clues were shed during the intergovernmental back-and-forth which followed the unearthing of the Herzog photos. Throughout this national debate some military officials have contended that some files should not be released due to their compromising nature. Gen. Jorge Armando Félix, the President's national security chief, was quoted at one point as saying that, 'some dossiers worry us, because they deal with people in extremely embarrassing situations.' Some files reportedly document opposition movement members committing adultery, and informing on their comrades. When one considers that key members of the ruling Workers' Party were surveilled during the dictatorship, then one can imagine the potential danger of such information. Félix's appeal for circumspection has been interpreted by many in Brazil as a veiled warning. According to the reading of João Luiz Pinaud, former head of the Special Commission on the Death and Disappearance of Political Prisoners (CEMDP), 'General Felix made a threat, that if you insist on this, we will reveal things that you won't like.' Extortion, to not mince words, is perhaps the leading explanation for why the Brazilian Government has handled the military with kid gloves on the issue of secret files. There is nevertheless a pair of competing theories which also deserve consideration. The first pertains to the idea of selective amnesia mentioned earlier. As one will recall, the return to democracy in Brazil was financed through a costly modus vivendi: the military would retreat to the barracks in exchange for amnesty. Since then civilian governments have preferred to maintain this Faustian arrangement than to rile the Armed Forces. This leads us into our last theoretical proposition. Although it is safe to say that it would be nearly impossible in today's Brazil for the castrated military to overthrow the government, does this institution not still constitute the one political force that must always be reckoned with? It could be argued that the military fear factor has always steered political strategizing in Brazil. As President Lula jockeys for another term in office, a clear desire to co-opt the military threat can be inferred from his policy on secret information. Tacking Toward Change With the election of President Lula in 2002, fresh political winds of reform blew into the Brazilian capital, or at least so it seemed. Although the President should be commended for his valiant efforts to eradicate hunger and promote a more equitable distribution of wealth, on certain issues he has clearly stumbled. It remains a mystery as to why the government has taken the stance it has on secret information. We have advanced some theories above, but the only uncontestable idea is that there is no political will in President Lula's inner circle to diverge from status quo policy. If there is to be an about-face in the management of secret torture files, it must be sparked externally. Recent events in Brazil have taught human rights activists a valuable lesson on the power of bad publicity. Although the government may be indifferent to bad press on the national level, the UN has showed that it is hypersensitive to having its image trounced in international circles. While this sensitivity may not be an Achilles' heel, it is definitely a pressure point that should be strategically exploited by civil society. With this in mind, we now turn to a collection of practical policy prescriptions that could be used on the front line to fight for the freedom of information in Brazil. While some of these suggestions are original, most are elaborations on current efforts. The Government Should... In a perfect world the Brazilian Government would do the right thing and adopt the six following policy measures. First, the Brazilian Government should rescind its blockage of Decree 307/2003. This Decree was signed into effect on June 30, 2003 by a Federal District judge. The Decree refers to the Araguaia Guerrilla War, and summons all military personnel involved in the operation to testify about the whereabouts of civilians disappeared. The government should not only reverse its injunction, but it should compel the military to fully cooperate with testimony procedures. It is imperative that these hearings take place before knowledge about the war is eventually lost forever. Second, the Brazilian Government should restructure the Commission on the Examination and Analysis of Secret Information (CAAIS), so as to allow for the involvement of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and victim family members. If one will recall, CAAIS is the intergovernmental supervisory board that rules on the declassification of secret military documents. As it is currently configured there are no civil society members on this commission to participate in, or at least observe, the decision making process. It is suggested that Elizabeth Silveira e Silva, President of the Rio de Janeiro chapter of the NGO Tortura Nunca Mais, be elected to serve on this commission alongside one representative of victim families. These two representatives should be authorized to participate in all CAAIS meetings, and be granted the power to vote on issues put before the Commission. Third, the Brazilian Government should increase funding to the Special Commission on the Death and Disappearance of Political Prisoners (CEMDP). Upon resigning as director of the CEMDP in late 2004, João Luiz Pinaud cited the lack of resources as one of the major impediments to the commission's work. Fourth, the Brazilian Government should work with the Argentinean Government to push forward the creation of the "Mercosur of Human Rights." Brainchild of former Argentinean President and actual special human rights secretariat Eduardo Duhalde, this permanent organization would serve as a forum for Mercosur countries to share information on human rights abuses committed under Operation Condor. Fifth, following a moratorium collection period, the Brazilian Government should actively seek to prosecute individuals that illegally maintain private collections of military documents. If proven guilty of concealing such material, perpetrators should be subjected to fines and imprisonment. Sixth, to prevent the unnecessary proliferation of secret documents, the Brazilian Government should launch a campaign to reeducate civil service workers on how to properly classify material. If the civil service in Brazil is similar to that of the United States, then employees tend to err on the side of caution by overclassifying material, rendering it more difficult to access by the public. Caras Pintadas(2) Heretofore we have drawn up a normative wish list of sensible policies that would make the dissemination of secret documents more transparent in Brazil. It is naïve though, if not laughable, to expect that the Brazilian Government would take it upon itself to enact these institutional changes. As the struggle of many torture victim families has proven over the years, changing policy is not just a matter of asking politely. If members of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Latin America's largest social movement, had not adopted a militant stance toward acquiring the land that is constitutionally theirs, land redistribution would already be a lost cause in Brazil. These lines should not be read as an endorsement of violence, but as a call for aggressiveness on the part of freedom of information advocates. It is critical to underline here that in Brazil assertive tactics have become a norm, and a legitimate means of filing grievances with the government. Case in point, to hold the Brazilian Government accountable for policies promised but not delivered to indigenous people, 700 Indian leaders and their supporters organized the "Indigenous April" campaign last year, which culminated in a series of rallies in Brasília. Two other groups similarly grabbed the attention of the government in 2005. 13,000 landless workers marched on the capital on the heels of "Indigenous April," and about a month later agriculturists from throughout Brazil followed the lead with their own demands, laying siege on the national mall with some 3,000 tractors. To get in the face of the Brazilian Government, what needs to be organized is a broad based national march on the capital. This march should unite students, scholars, artists, politicians, church officials, legal experts, human rights advocates, victims of torture, family of the tortured and deceased, and international media representatives. If carefully planned and precisely executed this act would have the desired effect on the National Government. In order for such an operation to be successful it must be planned well in advance, it must count on the participation of an overwhelming number of people, and it must have a clear-cut objective outlined in a presentable manifesto. Suggestions from the previous section are intended as material for such a guiding document. Without delving too deeply into logistics, a sensible approach of coordinating this march would prescribe a bottom-up method, with central planning. Mobilization must begin at the grassroots level, and then work its way up to the local and regional levels respectively. Once there are large enough followings to support them, organized protests should be executed regionally as a precursor to the final manifestation. One of the regional protests should be slated to occur at the National Archives (AN) in Rio de Janeiro. For symbolic reasons this would be the perfect prelude for the final march on Brasília. The Oscar Approach "And the winner of the Best Foreign Film goes to Brazil for 'Brazil: Never Again.'" An unconventional approach to unlocking hidden files lies in the magic of the big screen. Although Brazil has never won an Oscar, it has an incredibly rich reservoir of cinematographic talent. It is high time that an ambitious director takes up the challenge of recording for Brazilian posterity the amazing true story of the "Brazil: Never Again Project." As Lawrence Weschler wonderfully accounts in his book A Miracle, A Universe, this project was the fruit of a small group of people that courageously dared to collect, photocopy, and analyze millions of military files under the nose of the dictatorship. Their work led to the publication of one of the most extensive studies of its kind in the world. There are many socially conscious directors that would be willing to realize such a production. Veteran filmmaker Bruno Barreto (director of "O Que É Isso, Companheiro?") and rising star Kátia Lund (co-director of "Cidade de Deus") are but two names that instantly come to mind. The NGO Tortura Nunca Mais of Rio de Janeiro should approach these artists to collaborate on this film. Such a film would not only ensure that the horrors of the dictatorship are never forgotten, but it would also create an international buzz that could be tactically harnessed to leverage the Brazilian Government to change its secret information policies. Fahrenheit 451 Brazil may be the industrial giant of Latin America, but when it comes to purging itself of the human rights abuses committed during its military dictatorship, it can only be described as a laggard. All of the countries in the Southern Cone have gone to greater lengths than Brazil to not only make secret military documents public record, but to hold those responsible for torture and disappearances legally accountable. It is one thing that Brazilian Governments have continuously shied away from revisiting the 1979 amnesty law. It is altogether unacceptable though that these same governments have also pussyfooted around the full disclosure of dictatorship archives. The black marks that occult the names of those guilty of torture and murder are tantamount to the worst kind of censorship. As the famous Brazilian writer and psychoanalyst Hélio Pelegrino has commented, no matter what, torturers must never be allowed "moral amnesty." Since the return to democracy in 1985, the policies set by the Brazilian Government have had a terrible impact upon society. To this day, the military establishment clings arrogantly to delusions of righteousness, while thousands of family members wander in the dark imagining painfully what happened to the loved ones that were consumed by the abuse of power. Sometimes we are reminded by tragic events that many truth seekers are forever denied justice. On February 15, 2006 the 78 year old Maria Campos Batista had an audience with Vice President and Defense Minister, José Alencar. This meeting, which was court ordered, dealt with the death of Batista's son. Her 15 year old son was disappeared by the military regime in 1970. He is the youngest to have been disappeared during the dictatorship. For 36 years Batista had been searching for the bodily remains of her son so that she could give him a proper burial. Following the meeting with the Vice President, Batista was killed on her way home in a head-on car collision. (1) These documents include those collected from three extinct government agencies: the National Information Service (SNI), the National Security Council (CSN), and the General Investigations Committee (CGI). (2) Caras pintadas, or painted faces in the literal Portuguese translation, is often used to refer to student protesters that use face paint when demonstrating. Jean Marinho da Silva Pinner studies International Policy as a graduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, in California. He earned his BA in International Studies and Portuguese from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jean may be contacted at Jean.Pinner@miis.edu.
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