Rousseff in tears as Brazilian report details junta’s killings and torture

Brazil’s president, herself tortured by 1970s military regime, breaks down as she says ‘new generations deserve truth’

The Guardian, Associated Press in Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday 10 December 2014

Dilma Rousseff cries at a ceremony presenting the report of Brazil's Truth
Commission into human rights abuses. Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty

Brazil’s National Truth Commission delivered a damning report on the killings, disappearances and torture committed by government agents during the country’s 1964-85 military dictatorship. It called for those responsible to face prosecution.

The 2,000-page report was delivered on Wednesday to President Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who endured harsh torture and long imprisonment in the early 1970s.

“Under the military dictatorship, repression and the elimination of political opposition became the policy of the state, conceived and implemented based on decisions by the president of the republic and military ministers,” the report states. The commission “therefore totally rejects the explanation offered up until today that the serious violations of human rights constituted a few isolated acts or excesses resulting from the zeal of a few soldiers”.

Investigators spent nearly three years combing through archives, hospital and morgue records and questioning victims, their families and alleged perpetrators. The document represents Brazil’s most sweeping attempt yet to come to terms with the human rights abuses committed under the country’s military regime.

The seven-member commission, created by congress and sworn in by Rousseff in 2011, has no prosecutorial powers, and a 1979 amnesty law passed by the military regime prevents those responsible from being tried and punished. The report calls for the repeal of the amnesty.

The work exhaustively details the military’s “systematic practice” of arbitrary detentions and torture, as well as executions, forced disappearances and hiding bodies. It documents 191 killings and 210 disappearances committed by military authorities, as well as 33 cases of people who were “disappeared” and whose remains were discovered later.

“These numbers certainly don’t correspond to the total of deaths and disappearances but only to cases it was possible to prove,” the report said, citing “obstacles encountered in the investigation, especially the lack of access to armed forces’ documentation, which is officially said to have been destroyed”.

Rousseff, known for her steely demeanour, broke down during her speech at the report’s launch ceremony in the capital, Brasilia.

The crowd gave her a standing ovation when she paused. “Brazil deserves the truth. The new generations deserve the truth. And most of all, those who deserve the truth are those who lost family members, friends, companions and continue to suffer as if they died again each and every day,” Rousseff said, halting midway through the sentence as she fought back tears.

“We, who believe in the truth, hope that this report contributes to make it so that ghosts from a sad and painful past are no longer able to find shelter in silence,” she said.

Rosa Cardosa, a Rio de Janeiro criminal lawyer and a commission member, said that meticulously documenting the military regime’s crackdown on students, trade unionists, factory workers, indigenous tribes and others labelled as subversive is crucial to healing Brazilian society.

“I think the report helps us advance, helps us move forward, helps society to understand this problem and sheds light on it,” said Cardosa, who during the regime provided legal representation for political prisoners, including Rousseff. The document “gives voice to the victims, to the survivors and the families who were able to tell the story of those atrocities”, she said.

Brazil’s neighbours Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have been investigating crimes committed by military regimes in the same era, and top officials have been convicted and handed harsh prison sentences. Many observers doubt the Brazilian government’s political will to push for any such changes.

“There cannot be amnesty for torturers, and for them to be held accountable for their crimes the amnesty law must be rewritten or abrogated altogether,” said Elizabeth Silveira e Silva, who heads the Torture Never Again human rights group.

Rousseff has maintained a low profile on issues related to the dictatorship. She rarely speaks about the abuses she suffered in detention, where she was bound and hung upside down, pummelled in the face and given electric shocks.

Her past, coupled with a kickback corruption scandal allegedly involving Rousseff’s Workers’ party unfolding at the state-run oil company Petrobras, has led many to predict that she is unlikely to champion any change in the amnesty law.