The Brazilian Government's appraisal of torture

22 years after Brazil's military dictatorship ended, the government has finally issued a report that acknowledges and chronicles the practices of rape, torture, murder, and disappearing that the police apparati of the military government used during its 21-year rule. While it is great to see the government in Brazil finally acknowledging it, it is just a small step. Certainly, the chronicling of torture during the dictatorship in Brazil isn't new - the Nunca Mais project launched by Catholic and Protestant church leaders used the police records to clearly document these practices, first in 6 extremely detailed volumes and then in a condensed, 300-page book available to the public (still in print in Brazil, and available in many university libraries in the US). (For more on how exactly these groups were able to get a hold of police documents, check out the first half of Lawrence Weschler's A Miracle, A Universe). Thus, the government report doesn't do much new, except offer an official government acknowledgment of these atrocious deeds. In and of itself, this is a small step, but it marks yet once more Brazil's complete failure to meaningfully punish any torturers or their superiors in comparison to Argentina and Chile .

While I agree with Randy that the failure to address torturers in this time period is a travesty, I can't quite fully agree that this in and of itself will make it more likely that there is another dictatorship in the future. Torture of prisoners, particularly of the poor, dates back over 100 years. The dictatorship was not doing anything new or introducing torture (though it most certainly streamlined it and made it more brutal). Still, the fact that, barring some medical disbarrment for complicit doctors, nobody has been brought to justice, goes beyond injustice. Nonetheless, the fact that the government has finally issued a report confirming (and, at least to my knowledge, offering even more details, particularly on the question of decapitation) the horrible practices of the military government is a step in the right direction, albeit a small step 22 years after the military dictatorship ended. It's just a shame that it took 22 years for this report to arrive, and that none besides some doctors will probably ever be punished.