National Truth Commission
In Brazil, the National Truth Commission investigated human rights violations of the period of 1946-1988 – in particular by the authoritarian military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from April 1, 1964 to March 15, 1985.
The commission lasted for two years and consisted of seven members. Members of the commission had access to all government files about the 1946-1988 period and could convene victims or people accused of violations for testimony; although it wasn't mandatory for them to attend.
On 10 December 2014, the commission issued a report with its findings. The report identified the participation of 337 agents of Brazilian government involved in human rights violations, including arbitrary prisons, forced disappearings, torture and subsequent death of political opponents to the dictatorship. According to the report, 434 people were killed or disappeared by actions of the military regime, together with over 8,300 across the indigenous people. The Truth Commission admits that the real figure of indigenous people killed is probably much higher.
History of Brazil's military regime
From 1964 to 1985 Brazil fell under the influence of a military regime that killed or "disappeared" political activists and trade unionists and tortured many others. The numbers of those killed and "disappeared" are smaller than those of neighboring countries like Argentina, which also fell to military dictatorships. Brazil's military regime ruled Brazil by rotating military presidents, held elections, and kept Congress open. However, in reality, the elections held were heavily manipulated and the military openly threatened Congress if it began to operate against the views and wishes of the regime. In 1979 the Brazilian government passed an amnesty law that allowed all exiled activists to return to Brazil but also protected officials involved in the military regime from any prosecution for human rights violations committed prior to 1979. Because of this law, no military perpetrators of crimes have been tried and convicted for their offenses. As 1985 began to unfold, the regime began to slowly and peacefully transfer governmental power to civilians, avoiding a tumultuous end that might instigate negative feelings about the regime or aggressive prosecution of any leaders of the military. This chapter of Brazil's past created what researcher Nina Schneider describes as a "politics of silence", where atrocities and entire decades of Brazil's history have been swept under the carpet.Brazil: Nunca Mais
In 1985 the Archdiocese of São Paulo headed by Archbishop Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns and supported by the World Council of Churches published a report called Brasil: Nunca Mais about the widespread use of torture during Brazil's military regime. Working from 1979–1982, while the military was still in power, lawyers and other researchers sought to investigate to what extent the regime used torture as a form of punishment for their political opponents, secretly copying documents from military trial transcripts from 1964–1979 and gathering testimony from political prisoners. The report's publication and release was delayed until after March 1985 to ensure that a new civilian president and government were in place. This project did not have an official mandate, although unofficially one of the participants said that they were working to preserve the military records and inform society about the abuses suffered by Brazilians under the dictatorship. The report concluded that the military regime used torture in its judicial system, and that judicial authorities knew that these torture methods were taking place to elicit confessions. Its recommendations for Brazil were vague, calling Brazilians to ensure "that the violence, the infamy, the injustice, and the persecution of Brazil’s recent past should never again be repeated", and that citizens should be able to participate in politics to ensure that the government is held accountable for its actions. This report, however, failed to effect much change in Brazil as the 1979 Amnesty law protected the perpetrators of human rights violations during the regime and the project never had any governmental backing to legitimize it.Before the Commission
Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances
In 1995 Law No. 9.410, known as the Law of the Disappeared, allowed for the creation of a Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, established and installed in the Ministry of Justice of Brazil and sanctioned by the president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.This law marks the first time that the State accepted responsibility for the illicit acts of the military regime, including kidnapping, torture, imprisonment, forced disappearance, murder, and violations against foreigners living in Brazil. With this law came the option for families affected by the illicit activities of the military regime to request the death certificates of those disappeared and receive compensation. After this law came into effect, another commission was tasked with investigating deaths that were politically motivated while in police custody.
Many families criticized this law because it did not mandate the State to identify and hold responsible the perpetrators of those criminal acts, and because the burden of proof was placed on the families of victims. Additional complaints were founded on the fact that due to the Amnesty Law, the state could not examine the circumstances of the deaths. These families also disapproved of the state treating deaths like they were only family issues, not ones of society, since only family members of victims could file requests for acknowledgement of State responsibility.
After eleven years of work, the CEMDP had disbursed nearly 40 million reais to the families of more than 300 persons killed by the military regime, with the average payment coming to approximately 120,000 reais, almost 120,000 dollars at the exchange rate of the time. In addition to these reparations, the CEMDP in September 2006 began collecting blood samples from families of people killed during the regime to create a DNA database to identify the remains of victims.
In 2007, during the second term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the book Direito à memória e à verdade was published. This book outlined the results of eleven years of labor by the CEMDP, serving as the first official report by the Brazilian State to directly accuse members of the military for crimes such as torture, dismemberment, decapitation, rape, concealing bodies, and murder. Paulo Vannuchi, one of the authors of Brazil: Nunca Mais, helped to complete this book. This book proved that the majority of opponents to the military regime were arrested, tortured, and killed, and was highly critical of the amnesty awarded to military officials. This book called military officials and those involved in illicit acts to uncover the truth of what happened during the regime.
Subsequent truth and justice projects
Since 2007, memorials titled "Indispensable People" have been erected around Brazil, helping to restore some of the history of those political dissidents who died during the military regime. On 22 September 2009, the Memorial da Resistência de São Paulo was inaugurated in the building that previously hosted the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social, an infamous torture and assassination center. The Resistance Memorial is one of the most important transitional justice initiatives in Brazil, possessing an extensive archive and the mandate to preserve the history of contemporary political struggles in the country.The federal government of Brazil in May 2009 launched the online project "Revealed Memories", also known as the "Reference Center for the Political Struggles in Brazil ". This reference center makes available information to the public about the political history of Brazil, and is run under the supervision of the National Archives, an organization that reports directly to the Office of the Chief of Staff of the Presidency of the Republic.
1979 Amnesty Law
In 1979, Brazil passed a law which granted amnesty for political crimes and crimes with a political nexus committed by members of the armed forces or member of the government between 2 September 1961 and 15 August 1979.Recently, a western human rights court and Brazilian lawyers ordered Brazil to overturn the 1979 amnesty law so the perpetrators could be prosecuted in the criminal court. However Brazil still declined to overturn the law, perhaps meaning a change to this law in the near future is unlikely. Although international pressure wants the law overturned, supreme court chairman Cezar Peluso says, "If it’s true that every people, according to its own culture, solves its own historical problems in its own manner, then Brazil has chosen the way of harmony." However journalist Fernando Rodriguez stated it's more of a, "fear to lay hands on the shameful episodes of the past".
In April 2010, in a controversial ruling, the Brazilian court upheld the use of the amnesty law during the military regime. However, a few months later in November 2010, the Inter American Court of Human Rights found in the Gomez Lund case that the amnesty law was not compatible with the American Convention, meaning that the law lacked legal effect and therefore should not be an obstacle in the prosecution of the human rights abuses. Marking a crucial moment in Brazil's history, the federal courts launched an investigation into a past human rights violation. On 24 March 2012, federal prosecutors charged Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra and Police Chief Dirceu Garvina, with the kidnapping of a union leader Aluzio Palhano Pedreira Ferreira in 1971. Although the amnesty law would normally come into play here, the absence of the victim, makes it so the crime is deemed to continue beyond 1979 and thus not covered by the amnesty. Even with the amnesty law, prosecutors are starting to find "loopholes" in the law. With increasing international pressure on this law, it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
The Amnesty Law, organized into five chapters guarantees the following amnesty rights: the declaration of the status of political amnesty recipient; financial reparations; assurance, for all official purposes, that the period of time in which they were forced to stop their professional activities due to punishment or threat of punishment will count as valid; the conclusion of courses interrupted due to punishment or the validation of diplomas obtained by those who completed courses at teaching institutes outside the country; and the right to reinstatement for punished civil servants and public employees. In the sole paragraph of article 1, the law guarantees those who were removed from their jobs by administrative cases, based on emergency legislation, without the right to contest the case or defend themselves, and prevented from knowing the motives and grounds for the decision, reinstatement to their positions.
The law also lists in detail all the punishments that entitle victims to the status of recipients of political amnesty, and it states that financial reparations, provided for in chapter III, may be paid in two different ways: in a single installment, consisting of the payment of 30 times the minimum monthly wage per year of punishment for those who cannot prove an employment relationship, and whose value may not, under any circumstances, exceed 100,000 reais; or in permanent and continuous monthly installments, guaranteed to those who can prove an employment relationship. According to the law, each victim of political persecution has the right to receive the outstanding amounts up until five years before the date of their request claiming amnesty.