Brazil's Torture Report

The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, wept on Wednesday as she unveiled the findings of a Truth Commission investigation into the systematic murder, torture and other abuses carried out during the country’s military dictatorship.

After a nearly three-year study, the commission confirmed that 191 people were killed and 243 “disappeared” under military rule, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. More than 200 have never been found.

The 2,000-page report named 377 officials who were blamed for serious human rights violations and recommended a revision to the 1979 Amnesty Law so that perpetrators can be prosecuted.

It also called on the military to recognise their responsibility for “grave violations” of the law and human rights, noting that even today the armed forces were uncooperative in providing materials and granting interviews about alleged abuses.

A share of the blame went to the United States and the UK, which were found to have trained Brazilian interrogators in torture techniques.

  The Guardian

Rousseff’s reaction is a far cry from Obama’s. However, if Obama had actually been tortured by the CIA as Rousseff was tortured by the Brazilian government, maybe he’d shed a few tears as well, instead of saying off-handedly, “we tortured some folks” and he can understand why that happened, but we should look forward, not back.

The Brazilians initially used French counter-insurgency techniques developed in Algeria, but in the 1960s the US influence became stronger.

Many Brazilian officers went to Panama to train at the School of the Americas.

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Secret instruction manuals used at the school were declassified by the US department of defence in the mid-1990s, revealing training in torture and other serious violations of human rights.

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In the 1970s, Brazilian officers were sent to London for training in torture techniques.

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Many of the worst crimes in Brazil were already known, but the commission emphasised the political motives and organisation behind them, dismissing claims that the killings and other abuses were isolated acts of overzealous individuals.

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To uncover the truth about such abuses, the commission questioned victims and former officers, combed archives and re-examined medical records.

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Members of the commission also called for punishment. They said abuses continue today because the dictatorship era set an example of impunity.

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“Under the military dictatorship, repression and the elimination of political opposition was because of the policy of the state, conceived and implemented based on decisions by the president of the republic and military ministers,” the commission concludes.

And this is why it’s called the Truth Commission and not a Torture Committee.

On the other hand, it appears that accountability will remain unlikely in Brazil as well as the US.

But there are many obstacles in the way. Supreme court justices have previously rejected requests to lift the amnesty and described the issue as a “page that has been turned”.

Rousseff has also previously indicated her reluctance to settle old political scores, saying national unity was a higher priority.