Obama, Brazil, and the Arab World

Between the involvement of European and American air forces in Libya and the ongoing news coming out of Japan this weekend, Obama's trip to Brazil was a distant third in news coverage this weekend. Yet the trip is important for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Brazil seems to be heading in the opposite direction of the U.S. in terms of international political and economic prestige. Additionally, two years into his administration, this is Obama's first trip to Brazil, and it comes on the heels of the January inauguration of Dilma Rousseff, whose election may give Lula's Workers Party (PT) the legs to remain powerful in a post-Lula context.

Although the world events made Obama's trip tertiary in the news cycle this weekend, the president wasn't in a tropical bubble in Rio de Janeiro. In a speech yesterday, he used the recent unrest in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, and elsewhere to suggest that Brazil is a model for democracy to the Middle East and the rest of the world. In the speech (transcript here), he praised Brazil's successful transition from a military dictatorship in the 1960s-80s to a thriving democracy today. In tying Brazil to the events in the Middle East, he specifically highlighted the role protestors and street movements had played in bringing down the Brazilian dictatorship. And he was right - to a degree. As Obama himself commented:

Decades ago, it was directly outside of this theater, in Cinelandia Square, where the call for change was heard in Brazil. Students and artists and political leaders of all stripes would gather with banners that said, “Down with the dictatorship. The people in power.” Their democratic aspirations would not be fulfilled until years later, but one of the young Brazilians in that generation’s movement would go on to forever change the history of this country.

It's understandable what Obama is doing here. With the wave of popular protests against autocratic and dictatorial governments in the Arab world and Iran, Obama used the trip to Brazil to highlight how important popular movements can be in effecting political change, and in the case of Brazil, he's generally right.

When he refers to students and artists and political leaders gathering in Cinelandia square, he's referring to one of two moments: 1968, or 1984. I believe it's the first, when over 100,000 people in Rio marched against the dictatorship. The student movement was at the forefront of the rally, but artists like Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil joined students, parents, white-collar professionals, and others to protest the increasing brutality of the military government of the 1960s. Rio's "March of 100,000" was but one of many rallies throughout the country that year, yet it did not mark the beginning of a new era of democracy. The other reason I suspect he's referring to 1968 over 1984 is the fact that he then comments that the return to democracy was "not fulfilled until years later." Brazil's military officially stepped down in 1985. More importantly, the 1984 rallies (which reached one million people in both Rio and Sao Paulo) focused on direct elections for president in 1985, rather than an end to the dictatorship itself.

But, as cheerful and encouraging a model as Brazil may be for the Middle East, it may not be the right model. The reason is simple: there is a lot going on in that "not fulfilled until years later." While the marches in Rio and elsewhere in 1968 were unprecedented in Brazilian history (until the marches of 1984, at least), by the end of 1968, the military regime ushered in its most repressive phase, witnessing increased use of torture, political assassinations, and "disappearances." Though nowhere on the level of Chile or Argentina in terms of murders, hundreds died at the hands of the state, and the military tortured thousands more. Many of the student leaders and those who opposed the regime went into underground guerrilla movements; many more went into exile. Throughout the 1970s, students had to find new ways to challenge military politics in the face of increasing repression and the military governments' efforts to deny students any political voice or activity. While students (and, by the late 1970s and early 1980s, workers, white-collar professionals, and opposition politicians) increasingly mobilized against the military dictatorship, the military played no small role in its own departure. After the "hard-liner" rule of presidents Artur Costa e Silva (1967-1969) and Emiliio Garrastazu Medici (1969-1974), "moderate" Ernesto Geisel began the process of "reopening." He was determined that the military would step out of power, but it would do so on its own schedule and through its own processes. In this way, the top-down control of the return to democracy was important in ways that do not apply to the Arab World. Hosni Mubarak had not determined that he would leave once he thought ideological differences had been overcome; Gaddafi isn't planning on staying in power until Libya's economy is corrected; Bahrain's King al Khalifa isn't going to step down when he decides that politics is ruining the military institutions. This is not to say popular voices in Brazil were not important to the transition to democracy; they were vital. But the role they played in 1984 was much different than the moment Obama referred to in 1968. By 1984, millions gathered to make clear they wanted direct elections for president, rather than an electoral college that did not answer to popular vote. Ultimately, the movement was both a failure and a success. While Brazilians did not vote directly in the 1985 election (direct elections for president were only held in 1989). Yet their support in these rallies for opposition candidate Tancredo Neves made clear to Brazilian senators who were popularly elected that they had better select Neves in the electoral college instead of pro-dictatorship party candidate Paulo Maluf, a civilian who represented the economic and social policies of the military regime. But in the case of Brazil, military leaders, particularly Geisel and Figueiredo, played a not-insignificant role in the transition to democracy.

It's not that Obama got his history wrong; indeed, the entire speech shows a familiarity with history and culture of another country that is remarkable, and even if it was a crash course, Obama displayed a breadth of familiarity with another country's past and present rarely seen in recent presidents. The people of Brazil did play a major role in the transition to democracy throughout the military regime, and clearly, democracy after 1985 could not have flourished without popular participation and involvement. It's simply that that "years later" part carries a lot of lessons that do not necessarily apply to the Middle East. Brazil's success has been remarkable, especially in the last 10 years, and that's due in no small part to the way democracy has functioned in Brazil. But I think that's where there are lessons to be learned from Brazil. Brazil isn't necessarily a model because of its transition to democracy itself, which does not resemble conditions in the Arab world. Rather, I think Brazil could be a model (and a very general one at that) of how societies can function and succeed in a post-dictatorial democratic system where people have a greater role in determining their country's path.

Brazil to Establish a Truth Commission for Its Dictatorship Period (1964-1985)

Well, this is interesting news:

Twenty four years after the military left power in Brazil, the government is to create a Truth Commission to investigate crimes committed by the security forces between 1964 and 1985.

Brazil is the only country in Latin America which has not investigated deaths, disappearances and torture which took place during its dictatorship, or put alleged perpetrators on trial.

Anytime a Truth Commission is established, it's good news for multiple reasons: it forces governments and societies to recognize the horrible crimes some sectors have committed (and many more supported, tacitly or explicitly); it frequently allows closure for victims' families who still don't know the fate of their loved ones; and the sheer act of a truth commission hopefully deters such actions from future governments (though it's in no way guaranteed).

I'd like to say what all can emerge from this, but I really have no idea right now. It's not like the country, human rights organizers, or historians are going to be incredibly shocked by the techniques of torture and of murder by state agents - those accounts have been well-known and well-detailed both through non-state-sponsored commissions like the "Nunca Mais" ("Never Again") project, as well as testimonials of many others who were tortured. As for the disappearances and murders, it's true that sometimes details are missing, as in the case of the Araguaia guerrilla war in the early-1970s, when the military killed and buried dozens-to-hundreds of guerrillas challenging the dictatorship.

Additionally, I really do hope the military archives are opened up. The military's line that the archives were burnt and destroyed years ago and don't even exist rings hollow for a number of reasons. First, the military's stance on this has shifted throughout time; first, it said the archives didn't exist anymore, then that they never existed at all, then that they were did, but were closed, and then that they were destroyed. I suppose this is possible, but I find it unlikely. Additionally, I fail to see how some central components of the military security apparatus remain in archives like the Department of Public Order and Security (DOPS) archives in places like Rio and Sao Paulo, as well as the Division of Security and Information (DSI) archive at the National Archive, both of which I've had experience with. While the security apparati in Brazil were varying and multiple, they all ran through at least some branch of the military, so I fail to see how the DSI and DOPS collections could survive and make it into archives, yet the "military archives" have been destroyed. Plus, if my research experience showed anything in general terms, its that the "banality of evil" and the desire to document everything, no matter how incriminating, is a frequent feature (not a bug) of authoritarian regimes.

That said, I also suspect this can only illuminate so much. Even if the commission reveals the general whereabouts of the bodies of the victims of the Araguaian war, for example, it was in one of the most forbidding and rapidly shifting environmental areas in Brazil, and tracking down the bodies' remains could be difficult (though the fact that some remains have been found is somewhat encouraging).

I hate to end on a pessimistic note, so I'll make it the penultimate point. One of the people quoted in the article points out that state agents still actively practice torture in prisons and against the poor, and he's absolutely right. However, I don't have much hope that a Truth Commission into the dictatorship period in Brazil will lead to an end to current practices of torture. Torture and "alternate" rights for the poor and marginalized in Brazil have existed since slavery; the poor and the rich/darker and lighter have always had alternate sources of justice, prisons, etc. Torturing the poor and marginalized has been a part of the landscape of Brazilian "law" since the late-1800s, and I just don't see why a commission studying just 21 years would suddenly lead everybody to support an end to torture today. Again, it's not like the practice and methods of torture in the dictatorship are some secret - most people in Brazil (and those studying the dictatorship) are familiar with the "parrot's perch," the "dragon chair," and other torture mechanisms. If society has known about these for more than 30 years, I really don't see how a truth commission will suddenly lead to an "awakening." I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see it.

That said, the fact that the government and state apparatuses themselves are finally forcing themselves to deal with this dark period in Brazil's history is nothing but good news. Again, scholars and others have known much of this for decades, but new details are always valuable to historians and human rights activists, and especially to the victims' families, and the fact that the government is finally willing to confront its past is an important step, even if it is symbolic. If nothing else, Brazil's governments and state owe this to the families who lost loved ones in their struggles against a repressive, authoritarian regime.

Dealing with Brazil's Dictatorship and Its Legacies: Good News and Terrible "Journalism"

In spite of having ended nearly 25 years ago, Brazil's dictatorship is still very much present in current politics and society, and two events this week have hammered this point home.

First, in the "despicable journalism" category (non O Globo category), there is a story about Dilma Rousseff, Lula's Chief of Staff and the PT's candidate for president in 2010, published this week in Folha de Sao Paulo. The headline reads: "Dilma's group planned the kidnapping of Delfim in 1969." Basically, the story alleges that Dilma's group of radicals who fought against the dictatorship planned to kidnap the Treasury Minister, Delfim Netto, back in 1969. While it's true that Dilma was a member of opposition groups in the 1960s and 1970s, radical opposition to the dictatorship hasn't exactly prevented others from arriving to the presidency. What is more, though she admits (and has long admitted) to her involvement in radical student groups, there is absolutely no evidence linking her to any plans to kidnap Netto (who never was kidnapped), and she has adamantly denied the latest story.

What is so despicable about this is that it is nothing short of an early effort on Folha's part to use its influential role as one of Brazil's top newspapers to prevent the PT (or the left) from winning the elections in 2010. The article presents Dilma as somebody who was involved in bank robberies (or "appropriations," as young "revolutionaries" at the time called them) and planned murders, in addition to the kidnapping. The article apparently tries to use her police records (from archives) to make its case, and ends up giving her the stigma of a "terrorist." I haven't seen the actual evidence the article uses (it was available only in the dead-trees version of the paper), but I do know from having worked with literally thousands of police reports for my own dissertation, they are far from an "objective" report on people's activities. Trapped in a Cold War mindset in which "subversive" and "communist" threats were to be found everywhere (and which, indeed, the security apparatus under the dictatorship had to continue to find to justify and legitimate its own repressive and invasive measures and existence), the police during the dictatorship often embellished students' and others' positions and activities, making mountains out of what were by any account molehills, and making connections between "radicals" that quite simply did not exist. Although I may be wrong, I suspect that these "vague connections" that were never there are what appear in the police reports cited in the article.

These aren't the only appalling aspects of the article. As critics of Folha have already pointed out, it hardly seems "objective" that Dilma is a "terrorist" in the article, but the family whose car company built and sold the vans that the military used to kidnap civilians and take them to torture centers have never been labeled such. What is more, despite any evidence directly connecting Dilma to plans (again, never executed) to kidnap the Minister of Finance, Folha opted to run a headline that explicitly said she was involved with such plans, thereby immediately jaundicing readers who simply had to glance at the headline to be impressed with the image of the PT candidate as a "terrorist." Even more blatantly evil, Folha apparently received the tip on the police files from none other than the public relations team of Jose Serra of the PSDB, one of Dilma's main rivals in the 2010 elections. That Folha is publishing this, not out of any "fair and balanced" "investigative" interest, but at the suggestion of her main political rival, is as base and disgusting a "journalism" as one could possibly conceive.

Finally, there is the fact that Folha has begun semiotically reducing the power of the dictatorship. The word dictatorship in Portuguese is ditadura, and, by itself, dura means "hard" (as in "hard-liners"). However, Folha has begun using a play on words to diminish the actions of the dictatorship, calling it the ditabranda, replacing "dura" with "branda" (bland); in other words, it was a "bland" dictatorship that didn't do much. Nevermind the thousands of people who were tortured, the tens of thousands who were exiled, the hundreds who were murdered - at the same time that Folha is painting the PT's presidential candidate as a "terrorist" and kidnapper, it's painting the dictatorship as something that wasn't so bad. It's just appalling and scary all around.

In the face of this, there actually was good news about the pursuit for justice against human rights violators during the dictatorship. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights declared last week that Brazil's 1979 general amnesty and the statues of limitations on human rights violations do not apply to crimes against humanity that the dictatorship committed. Unlike in neighboring countries (Argentina and Chile), Brazil never really saw any major punishment against those who committed torture or disappearances during the dictatorship. The 1979 amnesty law that the final president of the dictatorship, Joao Figueiredo, decreed, not only forgave "political prisoners" and exiles that had resisted the dictatorship; it also gave blanket amnesty to the armed forces and leaders. While some doctors who helped monitor torture sessions were disbarred, nobody else has ever really seen punishment for the actions the dictatorship, armed forces, and security apparati committed. The Commission's ruling is in response to the case brought forth by more than 70 families whose loved ones were involved in a guerrilla movement against the military government in the Brazilian northeast. From 1971-1974, the military systematically disappeared the rebels, and to this date, their fates and the location of their remains are unknown, hidden by still-classified government documents and hidden by plant growth and always-shifting landscapes in the Brazilian "hinterlands."

Unfortunately, the Commission's ruling doesn't automatically have any standing in Brazil, and if the government chooses to disregard the ruling, it can. However, this is still a major ruling, for a couple of reasons. First, it's the time an international decision has been made regarding the deeds and actions of Brazil's military dictatorship of 1964-1985. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is just one more example of growing insistence on re-examining and punishing those involved in crimes against humanity in Brazil during the dictatorship. Already, the government has given reparations to victims of the dictatorship, and while the Brazilian government has never given a full account of the dictatorship's activities (unlike what Truth Commissions accomplished in Chile, Argentina, or elsewhere), the government in 2007 acknowledged the Brazilian state's direct role in 356 deaths and disappearances. And as of now, there are several cases pending before the Supreme Court that challenge the legitimacy of the Amnesty law and that are seeking the declassification of documents that were given "permanent secrecy."

Certainly, many of the leaders and highest military brass will avoid any punishment, as many of them have died (including all five presidents during the dictatorship, including the first two, Humberto Castelo Branco and Artur Costa e Silva, both of whom were dead before 1970), and the cases may move so slowly or be challenged to the point that prosecutions for a majority of the torturers and murderers may never happen. Nonetheless, the general trend towards re-examining and questioning the Amnesty law and its applicability to specific cases is good news, and offers hope, even when the Brazilian media continues to wage a war against the "dangerous leftists" of 40 years ago and tries to diminish the overall horrors of the dictatorship.

RIP - Marcio Moreira Alves

Brazilian journalist and politician Marcio Moreira Alves has died at 72. Born in 1936, Alves was from a well-off family, and like many in Brazil, he originally supported the military coup of 1964. However, Alves soon became disheartened when the military did not return power to civilians and stripped many of Brazil's politicians of their political rights for 10 years. Reports of torture also disturbed Alves, and he began to decry the torture and the dictatorship in his news reports. Deciding journalism wasn't enough, Alves ran for and won a position in Brazil's House of Deputies (the lower chamber of Brazil's Congress).

Alves would play a central role in the dictatorship's turn to its most repressive phase (from 1968-1973). In September 1968, Alves took the floor to issue what came to be called the "Lysistrata" speech, in which he suggested Brazilian women not date or even associate with any member of the military as a form of protest against the ongoing torture and lack of rights. Although little was originally made of this speech, the "hardliners" in the military claimed the speech to be a terrible affront, and used it as a pretext to try to usher in more extreme repression to combat the "subversion" they saw everywhere. Originally, the military government, under Gen. Artur Costa e Silva, asked the Deputies to strip Alves of his position so that they could prosecute him, something from which he was exempt as a member of Congress. The military expected that Congress would follow their request with little resistance. However, Congress, disturbed by the military's interference in the legislature and aware of the growing social unrest and protests against the dictatorship in 1968, voted 216-141 not to strip Alves of his position. In the wake of the vote, members of Congress even sang the national anthem in what was a pretty obvious defiance of the military's wishes.

In response, the government of Costa e Silva issued what came to be known as the "Institutional Act No. 5" on December 13, 1968. Among other things, AI-5 (as it is known) allowed the president to summarily and indefinitely close Congress (which Costa e Silva promptly did), as well as issue even more extreme measures for censorship, allowing broader use of torture against "subversives," increase the activities of the numerous security apparati in Brazil, and clamp down even further on political rights of individuals. AI-5 marked the initiation of the most repressive period of Brazil's dictatorship.

Although Alves was thrilled with the result, he also knew that, no matter the outcome, the military would come after him, so immediately after the vote and AI-5, he left the country. In self-imposed exile, Alves spent time in Chile, Cuba, the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, France, and Portugal, among other places. While exiled, Alves continued to fight against the dictatorship, publishing books (such as his English account of the events leading up to his exile, A Grain of Mustard Seed) and meeting with other exiles. In 1979, the government of Gen. Joao Baptista Figueiredo issued the General Amnesty Law, which allowed exiles to return to Brazil and freed political prisoners (while also giving amnesty to torturers and other members of Brazil's security apparati). After the end of the dictatorship, he continued to be involved in politics, as well as writing both in newspapers and his own books. His sister, Maria Helena Moreira Alves, also became one of the foremost scholars on Brazil's military regime, publishing one of the first books on the dictatorship (a must-read for any initiates interested in Brazil's military government).

Alves was not popular with all - like many, he initially supported the overthrow of the constitutional president of Brazi, and he was a firm centrist, which occasionally angered leftist leaders who also fought against repression during and after the dictatorship. However, the role he played in the dictatorship, and especially in the early years when he was one of the first journalists to detail and decry the military's use of torture, make him an important figure to 20th century Brazilian history, and his loss (in the same week that Brazil's military coup marked its 45th anniversary and Argentina's Raul Alfonsin, another important politician in fighting military governments in South America, died) is unfortunate if inevitable.