Brazil reveals military rule list (atrocities from military dictatorship)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Thursday, 30 August 2007, 02:28 GMT 03:28 UK
Brazil reveals military rule list
By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Sao Paulo

Brazil has for the first time published an official document detailing atrocities said to have been committed during the military dictatorship.
The country was under military control from 1964 to 1985.

The book was launched at a ceremony attended by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was himself briefly imprisoned under the dictatorship. It accuses federal agents of rape, torture, executing prisoners, and concealing bodies of victims.

They are also alleged to have decapitated people.

The new book, "The Right to Memory and to Truth", was published on the anniversary of Brazil's amnesty law passed in 1979. That law, passed as the dictatorship was drawing to a close, pardoned all those said to have been involved in crimes committed under the regime, as well as those who fought against it.







Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6969812.stm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Brazil reveals military killings

Brazil reveals military killings



Silva, centre, said people should not expect
prosecutions after the report {AFP}

The Brazilian president has called for a deadline to be set to uncover the fate of hundreds of people who disappeared during the country's military government.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made the demand following the publication of a book detailing the repression of hundreds of dissidents now missing, presumably killed, from 1964 to 1985.

The book cites 475 cases of people who were killed or disappeared during military rule, including seven Argentines.

Silva said the murder, rape and torture of alleged subversives remained an open wound for Brazil and Brazilians had "the just and sacred right" to bury their loved ones.

The president is a former union leader who was arrested and jailed in the 1980s by military rulers for leading an illegal labour strike.

More:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A4ADDF1E-A9B7-4D5C-9D36-D195F2C2B6CD.htm

[moggie]

2. Any School of the Americas alumni involved?

[Judi Lynn]

4. Found a reference you might find interesting:

The Right to Memory and to Truth
August 30th, 2007 — RickB

The BBC report (h/t Rafael) on the publication of the official record of atrocities performed by the right wing military dictatorship of Brazil. Good on them, except, they don’t mention it was right wing (ok so people assume that perhaps, but what about those not so savvy?) but … well you can read the article at the bottom of this list of School of the America Graduates who staffed the repressive forces. See strangely the BBC forgot to mention America’s role in Brazil’s right wing military dictatorship, how ironic for a report on a document entitled ‘The Right to Memory and to Truth’ sarcastic, moi? (oh and a corruption scandal hogs the news about Brazil so this story got reported in single figures while the administration’s corruption problems becomes the story in the mainstream sphere)-

More:
http://tenpercent.wordpress.com/

[Judi Lynn]

5. More ugly information:

Brazilian human rights activists are crying foul after hackers invaded a website and deleted a list of military officers accused of torture and executions during the 1964 dictatorship.
Rio-based representatives of Tortura Nunca Mais (Torture Never Again) said they believed the saboteurs belonged to "extreme right groups, possibly linked to members of the military".

A statement on the organisation's website described the attack as "intimidation and censorship" and "an attempt to perpetuate the silence surrounding facts which happened in the recent past and that today continue to happen".

The deleted page - which contained around 40 "dossiers" relating to the lives and current locations of alleged torturers - was replaced with the simple message: "Brazil is the best, fuck all the others."

The list contained the names of nine former members of the military said to have been trained at the notorious School of the Americas (SOA) "counter-insurgency" centre and involved in the disappearance and torture of thousands of Brazilians.

Activists said the hackers were part of a wider movement to deny "years of state terrorism".

http://www.soaw.org/newswire_detail.php?id=1150

[killbotfactory]

3. As usual, the US was involved at the start

Washington D.C., 31 March 2004 - "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do," President Johnson instructed his aides regarding preparations for a coup in Brazil on March 31, 1964. On the 40th anniversary of the military putsch, the National Security Archive today posted recently declassified documents on U.S. policy deliberations and operations leading up to the overthrow of the Goulart government on April 1, 1964. The documents reveal new details on U.S. readiness to back the coup forces.

The Archive's posting includes a declassified audio tape of Lyndon Johnson being briefed by phone at his Texas ranch, as the Brazilian military mobilized against Goulart. "I'd put everybody that had any imagination or ingenuity… McCone… McNamara" on making sure the coup went forward, Johnson is heard to instruct undersecretary of State George Ball. "We just can't take this one," the tape records LBJ's opinion. "I'd get right on top of it and stick my neck out a little."

Among the documents are Top Secret cables sent by U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon who forcefully pressed Washington for direct involvement in supporting coup plotters led by Army Chief of Staff General Humberto Castello Branco. "If our influence is to be brought to bear to help avert a major disaster here-which might make Brazil the China of the 1960s-this is where both I and all my senior advisors believe our support should be placed," Gordon wrote to high State Department, White House and CIA officials on March 27, 1964.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/index.htm

[Judi Lynn]

6. Rights group commends Brazil for dictatorship report, but says gaps remain

Rights group commends Brazil for dictatorship report, but says gaps remain
The Associated Press
Published: August 31, 2007

BRASILIA, Brazil: Human Rights Watch commended Brazil on Friday for a recent book detailing political killings during the 1964-85 military dictatorship, but said important parts of the repression remain secret and must be brought to light.

The Washington-based group praised President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — a former leftist labor leader and political prisoner — for releasing "The Right to Memory and Truth," a 500-page government report on the findings of an 11-year investigation by the national Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances.

The book cites 475 cases of people who were killed or "disappeared" — often dropped into the sea — during the military regime.

"Brazil has finally released a comprehensive account of the brutal methods that its military regime used to dispose of political opponents," Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said in an e-mail. "Yet significant aspects of this dark history still need to be clarified."
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/31/america/LA-GEN-Brazil-Dictatorship.php