Brazil’s Truth Commission to investigate the role of the church during dictatorship

Associated Press/The Washington Post, 11/07/2012

The Truth Commission investigating human rights abuses committed by Brazil’s former dictatorship will also look into the role Catholic and evangelical churches played during the 1964-1985 military government.

Established last year by President Dilma Rousseff, the commission will investigate whether pro-dictatorship clergy committed human rights abuses or supported members of the military responsible for such abuses.

Rousseff herself is a former leftist guerrilla who was imprisoned for more than three years and tortured during the dictatorship. She signed the law establishing the commission, which was given two years to conclude its investigation into the torture, murder and forced disappearances of people opposed to the dictatorship.

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Brazil grapples with repressive past

César Chelala – Epoch Times, 04/26/2012

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff signed into a law a Truth Commission to investigate crimes by a former military regime. She is pictured outside Alvorada Palace in Brasilia on April 19. (Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images)

The creation in Brazil of a Truth Commission to investigate crimes committed from 1946 to 1988 opens the possibility of learning what happened to hundreds of forcibly “disappeared” persons during the country’s recent past.

The findings of the commission, which are to be released two years from now, will allow their families not only to know the fate of their loved ones but also to bring closure to their lives.

Even though the commission’s mandate is to investigate crimes committed by military regimes during their rule from 1964 to 1985, it also includes an investigation of the crimes perpetrated before and after the military dictatorship. It is estimated that between 1964 and 1985, 475 people were forcibly disappeared, 50,000 imprisoned, and 20,000 tortured.

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Brazil finally ready to confront abuses in past dictatorship

Vincent Bevins – LA Times, 01/05/2012

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, shown at the presidential palace in Brasilia last year, was part of a leftist guerrilla group in the 1960s and '70s that opposed the military dictatorship. (Fernando Bizerra Jr. / European Pressphoto Agency / December 16, 2011)

Vera Paiva has spent four decades trying to find out what happened to her father after he was arrested in 1971 during Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Rubens Paiva, a former congressman, is one of the country’s most famous desaparecidos, or “disappeared ones,” whose cases finally will be investigated by the government.

“The last time we heard of anyone seeing him, he was inside the jail and had been barbarically tortured,” Vera Paiva said, sitting in her house in Sao Paulo and going through details she has told journalists and officials hundreds of times.

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An uneasy search for truth as ghosts from military rule start to stir

Simon Romero – NY Times, 12/20/2011

Victória Grabois in Rio de Janeiro. Her husband, brother and father were killed by the military. Douglas Engle for The New York Times

After years of wrangling with the nation’s military hierarchy, the authorities here have created a truth commission to examine the abuses of Brazil’s long dictatorship, a move hailed as a sign that Brazil could be ready for a more active role against rights abuses, not just at home but globally as well.

But in the weeks since President Dilma Rousseff signed the laws creating the commission and a separate freedom of information measure, Brazil has begun to face the possibility that in the realm of human rights — unlike on regional economic and diplomatic matters — the mantle of leadership may not come so easily, after all. Skeptics on both sides are asking, Is the nation prepared to fully grapple with the crimes of its past?

Ghosts from the period of military rule, from 1964 to 1985, have begun to stir, revealing how Brazil, despite emerging as Latin America’s rising power and the world’s fourth-largest democracy, still trails its neighbors in prosecuting officials for crimes that include murder, disappearance and torture.

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Brazil shatters its wall of silence

Eduardo Gonzalez – New York Times, 12/02/2011

Brazil’s recent decision to examine the abuses of the military dictatorship from several decades ago could change the face of democracy at home, making it more genuine and transparent. At the same time it could have a wider impact, allowing Brazil to take a decisive stand on human rights regionally and internationally.

In a momentous step forward, President Dilma Rousseff has signed two laws: one on access to government information, and another establishing a national truth commission, modeled after similar experiences in Latin America.

Authorizing inquiries on government abuse breaks with a long-standing tradition of government secrecy and elite opacity. Even today, Brazil refuses to declassify archives related to 19th century foreign wars and internal repression. After the end of slavery in the 1890s, Brazil incinerated all governmental archives on the practice; whether to hinder compensation claims by slave owners or to hide a shaming period in history, it is impossible to know with certainty.

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Brazil Truth Commission established to investigate rights abuses

Marco Sibaja – AP/Huffington Post, 11/18/2011

The bills are under the umbrella of the 1979 Amnesty Bill which protects torturers and guerrillas from prosecution. Mercopress

BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s president signed a law on Friday establishing a truth commission to investigate human rights abuses by the military regime that ruled Latin America’s biggest country from 1964 to 1985.

President Dilma Rousseff will appoint the seven members of the commission, which will have two years to complete a report.

The board will have subpoena power, can demand any document it wants from the government and can put witnesses under oath. But its recommendations won’t result in any prosecutions as long as the country’s 1979 amnesty law remains intact.

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*On March 22, 2011, the Brazil Institute held a discussion on the progress that had been made in creating a Truth Commission. Click here to watch or read a summary of the event.

Human rights in Brazil: It isn’t even past

The Economist – from the print edition, 11/19/2011

DILMA ROUSSEFF was tortured; Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was jailed; Fernando Henrique Cardoso was forced into exile. Brazil’s president and her two most recent predecessors all suffered under the country’s 1964-85 military regime. Yet only now is the country planning a closer look at the crimes committed in those years. By November 23rd Ms Rousseff is expected to sign a law setting up a truth commission, passed by Congress in late October. Its seven members will have two years to examine murder, torture and “disappearances” perpetrated by both the government and the resistance between 1946 and 1988.

A law on freedom of information will strengthen this shift towards openness. First proposed in 2003, it was given a shove in September, when Ms Rousseff agreed to lead an international “open government initiative” with Barack Obama. Brazil’s constitution is strong on the right to information. But it had no legislation to flesh out the details, making winkling out facts a matter of persistence and luck. Documents can remain secret indefinitely.

In October Congress passed laws to make the constitution’s promise a reality. Soon the secrecy of sensitive documents will be limited to 25 years, renewable once. Those to do with human-rights abuses will have to be released immediately, and most material will have to be handed over within 30 days of a request, barring a valid reason for continued secrecy.

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Brazil’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Small step in right direction

Alex Sanchez and Lauren Paverman – Council on Hemispheric Affairs/Eurasia Review, 11/08/2011

Brasilia has been making great strides toward securing a prosperous future, but one of its recent actions has centered on resolving a troubling aspect of the country’s past. On October 27, state officials announced a plan to establish a truth and reconciliation commission that will investigate crimes against humanity from 1946 to 1988, which encompasses the period during which the South American giant was run by a military junta. Like other post World War II Latin American nations, Brazil had previously been under military rule, and once President Dilma Rousseff signs the legislation into action, it will become the ninth country in the region to carry forth such a provision of self-scrutiny.

A number of human rights organizations have applauded the Brazilian government’s move. In a press release, the International Center for Transnational Justice, an international non-profit based in New York, commented that “[t]he Government of Brazil now has the opportunity to acknowledge a painful past and to implement an effective tool to establish the facts about past abuse, to help victims heal and to allow Brazilian society to understand a painful period of their history, therefore preventing recurrent violations.”

However, not everyone is satisfied with the establishment of the commission, claiming it does not go far enough in laying the groundwork to punish those responsible for forced disappearances and other human rights atrocities committed during the forty-two year period. Reportedly, nearly five hundred people were either killed or disappeared under Brazilian military rule, and they and their families deserve to see justice served. The seven members of the Brazilian truth commission will have a two-year window to investigate such alleged abuses, but no trials will occur, regardless of their findings. “It’s a timid commission, much less than those set up in Uruguay and Argentina,” Brazilian Senator Randolfe Rodrigues was quoted as saying by the Brazilian newspaper Folha.

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Brazil’s Senate passes landmark transparency laws

Rachel Glickhouse – Americas Society, 10/28/2011

Brazil's Senate this week passed laws paving the way for freedom of information act and a truth commission. (Photo: Senado Federal)

In recent months, the Brazilian and international media focused attention on the various corruption scandals affecting President Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet. But passage of the two momentous pieces of legislation, approved by the Brazilian Senate on October 25 and 26, received much less coverage. The first bill was Brazil’s landmark freedom of information law, which aims to provide citizen access to government documents and declassified information previously unavailable to the public. The second bill approved the creation of a truth commission to investigate human rights abuses during Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Once signed by Rousseff, these laws could potentially lead to more explosive political scandals at various levels of government.

The first bill, PLC 41/10, is known as the information access law. Congressman Reginaldo Lopes in the Chamber of Deputies proposed the law in 2003, but the bill was largely ignored. Six years later, in May 2009, then-President Inácio Lula da Silva sent the bill to Congress, and the Chamber of Deputies passed it in April 2010. It‘s taken since then for it to pass in the Senate, and Dilma is expected to sign it into law. The law has three important components. First, it will legally obligate the federal, state, and municipal governments to publish information, including documents on government spending and administration. It will also apply to state-owned companies and even some nonprofits with ties to the government. Next, the law will allow anyone to request information from the government, which will have to provide copies of declassified documents upon request. Finally, it sets time limits on classified documents, which range from five to 50 years by level of classification. If the law is effectively put into practice, the press will gain access to a much more robust quantity of information, with a potential for revealing even more corruption scandals and for uncovering unsavory administrative practices at the highest levels of government.

Nearly a dozen countries in Latin America passed freedom of information laws in the past decade, making Brazil one of the last countries to do so. This isn’t Brazil’s first attempt at transparency, but past attempts were not entirely successful: a 2009 municipal budget transparency law saw weak adherence throughout the country, and a limited federal government transparency portal launched in early 2011. But the bill’s passage is also historic for several other reasons. In the past, classified information was nearly impossible to access. Under current Brazilian law, highly classified documents can be renewed so that, in practice, they are never released. Two former presidents, Senator José Sarney and Senator Fernando Collor, pushed for a version of the bill that established “eternal” secrecy of top secret documents—including information about nuclear and aerospace technology, national defense, and diplomatic relations—that was ultimately defeated when a revised version was passed. Both senators potentially have information to hide: both have faced corruption allegations and Collor left the presidency in disgrace after a 1992 impeachment.

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Brazil will look into its harsh political past but the military are safe

Mercopress, 10/29/2011

The Brazilian congress approved this week the creation of a Truth Committee that will look into human rights abuses from 1946 to 1988, which includes the military period from 1964 to 1985, but leaves untouched the controversial 1979 Amnesty Law that benefits military and police personnel.

The bill originally voted in the Lower House was supported in the Senate and now is waiting for the signature of President Dilma Rousseff, whom as a student leader in the early seventies suffered torture and abuse to the hands of the military dictatorship repressive organization.

The bill had been originally presented under the previous government of President Lula da Silva and Rousseff appealed to Congress to pass it in her first year of government.

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