Text 5 - Bull Latin American Res - 2013 - GUGLIANO

Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp.
325–338, 2013
On the Ruins of the Democratic

Transition: Human Rights as an
Agenda Item in Abeyance for the
Brazilian Democracy
ALFREDO ALEJANDRO GUGLIANO AND
CARLOS ARTUR GALLO
Federal University Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
This article discusses one of the main controversies in Brazilian society

at this moment: the development of a national policy of human rights
and the return of the debate on political crimes committed under the
military dictatorship from 1964 onwards. The main hypothesis associates
the barriers imposed on that human rights policy to the way in which
democracy was retaken in the country and the model on which important
segments related to the authoritarian government occupied strategic roles.
Even today, this presents a real difficulty in terms of recovery and, if
necessary, punishment for the crimes committed by the government
during the dictatorship, which in turn makes the development of human
rights policies more complicated.
Keywords: democracy, human rights, transition to democracy.
Making a break with the neutral protocol which generally surrounds presidential office,
the president, Dilma Rousseff, in discussion in the National Congress in front of congress
men and women, other national authorities and foreigners, opened one of the most
controversial questions on the current Brazilian political agenda: the recovery of the
memory of crimes committed by the military dictatorship. Without referring explicitly
to the subject, her words reflected a new sensibility of the government in relation to
the issue, especially when she affirmed, ‘I gave my youth to the dream of a just and
democratic country. I bore extreme adversities inflicted upon all those who dared to
affront the tyranny. I have absolutely no regrets and neither resentment or anger. Many
of my generation who fell by the wayside cannot share the joy of this moment. I share
with them this victory and offer them my homage’ (see Rousseff, 2011).
Twenty six years have passed since the first civil President assumed office after the
military coup. President Sarney, who assumed office in March, 1985, initiated the New
Republic but it seems necessary for him to recognise that the subject of crimes committed
by our Military governments is still a taboo; a matter of particular inconvenience when
it concerns governmental policies in the area of human rights and of the trying of crimes
for torture and murder committed in the country.
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Alfredo Alejandro Gugliano and Carlos Artur Gallo
The government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso recognised the responsibility of the

state for crimes committed by the dictatorship, approving law No 9.140/95 – known
as ‘The Law of the Disappeared Political Dissidents’. As would be expected, there have
been contumacious public debates involving human rights and military organisations,
such as the Círculos Militares. The subject always concerns the recognition of crimes of
torture committed by the state and the revision of the Amnesty law (1979) and includes
the recognition of the imprescriptible character of this crime and the recollection of the
hardest years of the military coup of 1964 (Barreira and Gonçalves, 2010).
Using this context as a launching point, the proposal of this article is to return to the
subject of transition, bringing into debate one of the problems that remained suspended
in this process, specifically that which refers to human rights policies and the way in
which winners and losers of the dirty war unleashed in the military period have entered
the democratising process. The main hypothesis discusses the difficulties that Brazilian
governments face in the return to debates about punishment for crimes committed by
the military dictatorship and the way in which the negotiated democratic transition was
carried out; the fact that it favoured the masking of the military period in relation to
violations of human rights, a price considered just in terms of guaranteeing a peaceful
political change in the country.
This approach raises discussions from different angles. From a theoretical viewpoint,
there are divergences amongst some authors, who recognise the nexus between transition
and democratic consolidation, and others inclined to emphasise the autonomy of these
stages. In a similar way, there is little consensus in terms of the benefits derived from
punishment for crimes of the dictatorship.
The consensus of the authors is that, in a universe of relatively recently democratised
countries, the Brazilian case is one of the most interesting examples to discuss these
questions; perhaps because it is an event in which the transition took place in a
negotiated manner and the crimes of the dictatorship appear to be very far from being
judged by the competent authorities. It should be remembered here that, among the
different models of democratic transition, the pacts and negotiations are considered as
relevant components by specialists in the subject as a less traumatic way of wielding
changes in the regime. These same people could affirm this in relation to the absence of
punishment of the military personnel involved in political crimes committed under the
mantle of the authoritarian state, a fact that many considered to be a crucial element to
guarantee the peaceful return of the military to the barracks.
Concerning this country, many authors place emphasis on the qualities of the
Brazilian transition. Bolívar Lamounier (1988), for example, pointed out that the
Brazilian model was structured in a way that offered advantages to both the military and
the opposition because it favoured a wide negotiation of interests, thereby strengthening
the way for a peaceful change of regime. On this road, the opposition – understood
at that time to be the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB; Brazilian
Democratic Movement Party) – gained certain advantages in respect of the fact that
the hegemonic model of transition placed the main opposition in the presidency of the
republic. Likewise, the segment of the military involved in authoritarianism was not
backward in gaining advantages; this because it gave them the possibility of undoing the
damage inflicted on the image of the military institution because of excesses committed
in the conflict with left-wing groups in the country.
In the counter-current to these ideas, the point of view that is explicit in this article
is that, in cases such as the Brazilian one, the main issue is not that the transition
was negotiated but the way in which it was done. From this viewpoint, the absence of
 2013 The Authors. Bulletin of Latin American Research  2013 Society for Latin American Studies
326 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 32, No. 3
Human Rights and the Brazilian Democracy
punishment for excesses committed during the military period become an impediment
to the full development of democratic institutions because military segments are still
seen as relevant players in the national political arena.
To approach this question, the main events of the period in which the process
of democratic transition took place in Brazil will be highlighted. Following this,
the Brazilian case model in the light of typologies on models of transition will be
analysed, later reflecting on the consequences that the transition model had on the
post-dictatorship scenario and, above all, on the formulation of public policies directed
towards the repression of memory. Finally, a there will be a retrospective on the
principal policies of human rights elaborated in the way aforementioned from the 1990s
onwards, identifying some of their limitations.
A Controlled Transition
The Brazilian democratic transition is a typical case of a hegemonic process by the
sectors involved and the authoritarian regime, where the transformation is conducted
by those who, hypothetically, should be the least interested in implementing deep
change. This transition is considered to be one of the longest within the experiences
that comprise the third wave of democratisations, occurring between the beginning of
Geisel’s Government, (1974–1979) – Geisel being the first among the president-generals
to point out the necessity for a gradual opening of the regime – and the taking of office
of President Sarney in 1985 (Mainwaring and Share, 1986, Sives, 1993; Huntington,
1994).
This was a completely atypical case because, according to Alfred Stepan (1988:
119–126), there are at least three ways in which authoritarian sectors can conduct
democratic transition processes: (a) civilian-driven initiative; (b) from still governing
military command; and (c) from obligations assumed by the Armed Forces while still
exercising their authority.
From the bias of this model, it can be perceived that the Brazilian case does not
fit perfectly into any of these alternatives because the long transition period nurtured
multiple initiatives and different phases of hegemony of the sectors connected to the
military dictatorship and the civilian sectors (Martins, 1988; Arturi, 2001; Carvalho,
2005; Codato, 2005). Therefore, the Brazilian transition appears to have been a
combination of agreements involving the military institution, representatives of an
authoritarian government and the civil elite that, in part had compromised itself with
the governments in power and that desired guarantees of space within government,
mainly those linked to the economic policies of the state.
What is said in relation to the change in the regime is that the first step in the
direction of liberation occurred in 1974 when General Geisel formulated the proposal
that became known as distension, a gradual political plan of action based on ‘slow
and safe opening’. This cannot be termed as a military initiative in the condition of
government as it only represented one military segment of power. As Golbery do Couto
e Silva defined, by use of this contrived strategy, it was the best way of isolating left-
and right-wing extremists, ensuring the capacity of solidifying a military project in the
country (Almeida Mello, 1989: 209).
Benefitting from a particular moment of conjuncture in which the result of evo-
lutionary policies coincided with the disruption of civil society, Geisel’s government
represented the beginning of a process of reorganisation of the most conservative
Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 32, No. 3 327
sectors in the Brazilian political spectrum that, at its conclusion, would promote
re-democratisation in the 1980s (Cruz and Martins, 1983).
One characteristic that differentiates Brazil from other cases of democratisation in
Latin America is that it cannot be completely affirmed that the transition was born
during a period of crisis within the authoritarian sectors. In Brazil the military elite
was not deteriorating and showed no signs of consistent weakening. In fact, within the
armed forces, mainly from the second half of the 1970s, there was a rising level of
perception of the necessity to begin a process of transference of power into civil hands.
Although there still existed in this period tough disputes within the barracks,
especially those involving sectors committed to the repression of segments of civil
opposition, it can in no way be said that the transition was completely out of control.
On the contrary, from its origin to its conclusion the military dictatorship had the
situation within its control to a greater or lesser extent, interspersing the hardest actions
of right-wing repression with institutional strategic actions. This was the case with
the imposition of the Pacote de Abril, published in April 1977, which consisted of
a group of six decree-laws and a constitutional amendment that altered the electoral
laws with a view to benefiting governmental candidates in the November elections of
1978. Even with the deterioration of the economic situation of the country and the
vertiginous increase of the electoral potential of the opposition, the sectors linked to
the dictatorship during the government of Figueiredo (1979–1985), used a tactic to
maintain a controlled change to the regime, a process that was particularly perceptible
in the development of the campaign Diretas Já (1983–1984). This campaign was one of
the main vehicles of popular mobilisation of the period and consisted of a series of public
acts that aimed to legitimise direct elections for the presidency of the republic and to
alter an electoral process that had been in frequent use during the military dictatorship.
Objectively speaking, its intention was to approve a constitutional amendment proposed
by the federal deputy, Dante de Oliveira, a politician from Mato Grosso from the PMDB
party, which would alter the electoral picture.
The Contention of the Resurgence of Civil Society

The Diretas Já campaign was not the only public demonstration during the military
period as various others had already occurred, which demonstrated civil resistance to
the dictatorship. It was, finally, the ‘Diretas’ that gave impetus to the resurgence of
civil society, exacerbating the weaknesses of the military government junta and large
segments of Brazilian society.
The Diretas Já movement began at the end of 1983. This was when the political
parties, artido dos Trabalhadores (PT; Workers’ Party), PMDB, Partido Democrático
Trabalhista (PDT; Democtratic Labour Party), the Commission of Justice and Peace
of the Archdioceses of São Paulo, the Unified Workers of Central Brazil, the Brazilian
National Conference of the Working Classes, the Brazilian National Union of Students,
and 63 other representative groups of civil society, held the first large assembly for direct
elections for the presidency of the republic in the city of São Paulo, with approximately
20,000 people. In the final meeting of the campaign, the Anhamgabaú assembly,
which took place in São Paulo, brought together 1,500,000 participants in 2002 (Tosi,
2003). It was also this mobilisation that established three of the discussion principals
that disputed the hegemony of the transitional process. The radicais (radicals), found
mainly in the PT, saw the ‘diretas’ as a chance to topple the dictatorship without
negotiations. Moderados (moderates) of the opposition, found in the PMDB, saw in the
Diretas campaign the possibility of directing the opposition forces in re-democratisation,
irrespective of the path the Diretas movement took. In other words, with the victory or
defeat of the Diretas Já, the PMDB saw the possibility of putting forward the future
president of Brazil. Furthermore, the military and civil sectors who had supported the
military coup of 1964 and who were part of the Aliança Renovadora Naciona (ARENA;
National Renovating Alliance), the conservatives, saw in the demonstrations that the
decline of the authoritative regime was close at hand and that their participation in
power would not diminish.
It was within these conditions that a decisive event occurred that ruptured the centre
of the civil sectors of society who supported the military dictatorship. The selection of
Paulo Maluf in a party political convention of the Partido Democrático Social (PDS;
Democratic Social Party) in 1984 as the candidate for president of the republic was
the last cog needed to open negotiations between the civil sectors who had positioned
themselves at opposite poles during the authoritarian period. Just one step was necessary
from negotiations amongst the civil elite to the incorporation of dissidents from the
military spectrum.
Returning to the typology of Stepan, it can be seen that in the Brazilian case the main
division did not occur amongst the military, either as governors or as an institution,
but in the civil sectors that had always served as a support base for the authoritarian
governments.
To initiate the last act of transition at the end of April 1984, the National Congress
met to debate Dante de Oliveira’s amendment that, despite the approval of the majority
– 298 votes in favour and 65 against – did not obtain the quotient of two-thirds
necessary to change the constitutional norm in force at the time. With the defeat of
the proposal at the national Congress, the fate of the Diretas Já was decided, which
initiated one of the most obscure periods of political negotiation in the recent history of
the Brazilian Republic.
Various motives can be argued to explain the rapid destruction of a movement of
such great proportions as the Diretas Já campaign. The first question relates to the
fact that, after the defeat of Dante de Oliveira’s amendment, the state governors, who
from the beginning had supported the public demonstrations and had offered them an
organisational infrastructure, abandoned this scenario of great beginnings and withdrew
their institutional and financial support. Furthermore, a leak occurred in the campaign
involving a number of political parties remaining under their support, which, at that
time had little national penetration, as was the case with Lula’s PT, the PDT, led by
Leonel Brizola, and a small group of PMDB Congress members, the grupo só diretas,
with Ulisses Guimarães as their central figure. In addition, social organisations involved
since the beginning also suffered the impact of party fragmentation, dividing themselves
between those who wished to take up the public demonstrations again and those who
preferred the chance of putting up a strong opposition candidate in the electoral college.
The agility with which the negotiations were organised, which consolidated the
Liberal Alliance, bringing together the opposition and dissidents from the dictatorship,
was only equalled by the speed at which the street demonstrations first diminished and a
moment later were re-directed towards supporting the presidential candidate, Tancredo
Neves of the PMDB and his vice-presidential candidate, José Sarney of the Partido da
Frente Liberal (PFL; Liberal Front Party). Both candidates were from the opposition in
the indirect election carried out at an electoral college, which was made up of federal
deputies and senators in accordance with specific rules.
No wonder that, despite the enormous impact of public demonstrations demanding

fair elections, they did not have much influence on the final stages of the democratic
transition, which ended up being led by the interests of the civil and military elite of
the country (Sives, 1993; Tosi, 2003). This is one of the main arguments that denotes
the classification of the Brazilian transition as a continuismo (continuity), defined as
the maintenance of the main dominant interests that served to sustain the authoritarian
governments during the period of the dictatorship (Weffort, 1992; Gugliano, 1996;
Arturi, 2001).
As Codato explains (2005: 101), it is not just the control of the military over the
transition process reflected in the maintenance of a number of privileges accorded to
these segments in the first transition governments but there also occurred ‘the perpetuity
of a nucleus of specific power in the Brazilian state’, bestowed with great independence
and no political control (i.e., from congress) or social (i.e., public.). Francisco Weffort
(1989) also stresses, quoting various authors, the conservative character of the Brazilian
transition and its impact on the development and establishment of democracy in the
country.
Despite the movement having mobilised great multitudes and that it can be considered
responsible for the erosion of the military legitimacy and their continuation in power
through fair elections (Couto, 1999: 346), it was incapable of preventing sectors of
the military from safeguarding a series of authoritarian connections for themselves,
which continued after the end of the democratic transition. It is thus that, when, for
example, the Brazilian case is observed, a series of military prerogatives are encountered
(Zaverucha, 1994), such as the lack of punishment for violations against human rights
and the lack of civil control over the armed forces (maintained until the end of the
1990s, when the Ministry of Defence was created), which continued well after the end
of the dictatorship.
José Alvaro Moisés (1986: 115), equally emphasises that the democratic government,
born out of the Brazilian transition, represented more a different style of government
than an actual change in the structure of the Brazilian political foundation; a phe-
nomenon that the author explains though his clarification that democratisation was
marked by the incapacity of the democratic movement and the general public to break
the initiative of the more conservative sectors of the country.
This negotiation, decisive in the design of the transition model, cannot be catalogued
as a chapter of democracy in the history of the country. It is also a long way from
obtaining a judicial-legal basis because although more than two decades of negotiations
have taken place between the military and civil sectors, recognition of the existence of
a series of meetings to discuss the transition, who the participants were and exactly
what the terms of agreement were has never occurred. Even without seeing the agenda
of the meetings, it is possible to perceive that a series of meetings took place between
Tancredo Neves and military and civil leaders linked to the military period with the
aim of avoiding retaliation and allowing the military police to continue in office. In
general, Tancredo Neves was recognised within the spectrum of opposition leaders as
the politician with the greatest conciliatory spirit and reliability, representing:
‘the assurance of a dignified and peaceful exit from power for the Armed
Forces; the guaranteed continuation of military policies; the support of
the national arms industry and the assurance of a discrete conservative
government of short duration with ample possibilities for avoiding the
prevalence of the radical left for a long period of time’ (Couto, 1999: 396).
According to Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro (2009), the non-accidental character of the Brazilian
transition of pacts is emphasised because, from the beginning of the process, segments
of the opposition negotiated with conservative sectors connected to the authoritarian
government, playing a double-handed game: on the one hand, the Diretas campaign of
public demonstrations in the streets and, on the other, negotiations of the cabinet with
a view to dividing the party base of the dictatorship through the electoral college. As the
author sums up: traditione cum transitione semper – transition always with tradition.
Other important critics have concentrated on the consequences of the Brazilian tran-
sitional model concerning the operation of political institutions in the country. On this
subject there are authors who emphasise what became known as top-down transition
and its consequences in terms of weakening the democracy emerging from this process. In
this vein they defend the idea that the Brazilian model of transition generated a reflux of
the political parties and institutions, obstructing the accomplishment of consistent politi-
cal reforms and, above all, maintaining an authoritarian enclave in the republican institu-
tions, thereby guaranteeing excessive rights to the military sectors involved with repres-
sion and crimes of the dictatorship (Diniz, 1989; Munck and Leff, 1997; Sives, 1993).
Various academics underline that the problems of the transition process cannot only
be reduced to a lack of public support, or to the legitimacy of the establishment of a new
democratic government, emphasising that the way in which it was established through
agreements between the different segments of the Brazilian elite provoked a situation
of encapsulation of the elected government in the electoral college, and consider that
the assumed commitments ended up impeding the governors from administering the
country with autonomy (Sallum, 1988; Hagopian, 1996).
According to Hite and Morlino (2004: 62), the authoritarian legacy of the Brazilian
military continued to influence the post-authoritarian democratic practices, particularly
in terms of the continued ascendency of political elites committed to the authoritarian
past and the lack of innovation in various institutional procedures. In other words, the
quality of developing democracy in the country was compromised by the maintenance
of a cluster of restraints that, if they did not actually impede, at least held back wider
institutional reform.
It is undeniable that the discrete return of the military to their barracks took
place under the guarantee that there would be no punishment of armed forces for
the excesses and crimes of the dictatorship, something that was formalised by the
presence of civil supporters of authoritarianism in the new democratic government
(Stepan, 1988). Despite the success of the transitional strategy, the outcome of its
success was obstructed due to the death of Tancredo Neves just before he was to
assume office. His vice-president José Sarney took his place, and this marked beginning
of the re-democratisation process. The continued presence of old supporters of the
military government in the very heart of the new democratic institutions of the country
should be understood as something more than a simple change in individual attitudes:
it represents the strength of the strategy of the authoritarian regime transition and its
consequences for the democratic reorganisation of the country, particularly in the area
of human rights.
Human Rights and the Memory of Political Repression in Brazil

The fight for a policy on human rights in Brazil, despite not having started in 1964,
was strongly stimulated by the weight of violations occasioned by agents of the
unit of repression after the military coup. This occurred because a series of groups,
organisations, institutions and ordinary members of the public who were close to the
opposition of the regime and who were being persecuted and imprisoned, gathered
together in the name of human rights in an attempt to stop the abuses that were being
committed, thereby creating a space for resistance to authoritarianism. These groups
consisted of the Order of Lawyers of Brazil, the Association of the Brazilian Press,
The Brazilian Society of Progressive Science, groups linked to progressive sectors of the
Catholic church, such as the Base Ecleciastical Communities, the National Conference
of Bishops and the Commisions of Justice and Peace, aside from families and individuals
(Carvalho, 2010: 178–190).
With the end of the authoritarian regime, improvements in human rights policies
became a challenge from the old regime to the new one. Therefore, the failure to face
the subject of violations is not just a restraint on democracy but, more importantly, a
debt incurred in the name of democratisation (Garretón, 2006: 72–74).
In the wake of recognition of these debts, one of the main consequences of the
Brazilian transition model that still interferes with the quality its democracy, was the
state of omission following the crimes of torture, death and disappearance of political
prisoners during the military regime. The fact that the process of Brazilian liberalisation
had been exclusively controlled by the military in power meant that extraordinary
political prerogatives were reserved for the armed forces; such prerogatives guaranteed,
amongst other things, that the agents of political repression remained immune from
responsibility for violations committed in the name of the regime (Arturi, 2001: 12).
The transitional model applied to Brazil enabled conservative politicians, who during
the military period had supported the regime, to reorganise themselves and consequently
to migrate to the new and competitive political arena that was forming, exerting influence
directly on the construction of the new democratic institutions (Power, 2000).
In various other cases, as in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, ex-dictators or col-
laborators directly involved in crimes of torture were tried and punished; the laws
of amnesty published during the military period were either revoked or submitted to
public approval; various official documents considered confidential during the period of
repression were made public (Jelin, 1994; Brito, 1997; Acuña, 2006; Garretón, 2006).
But in Brazil a limited and controversial interpretation of the Amnesty law has prevailed
that, elaborated and approved of in the very hands of the military regime, has diffused
the idea that reciprocal favours occurred both for those who had been tortured and
those who had been agents of repression (Lisbôa, 2009).
As a consequence of the development of this policy, it became possible that, despite
being contrary to international norms on the protection of human rights, not one person
involved in the torture and death of militants from the opposition was punished and the
ex-dictators were not even brought to trial. Completing the attempt to wipe the slate
clean of the past, even today there are difficulties gaining access to official documents
concerning the combat of ‘terrorism’, with the prevailing argument that the archives of
the period have been destroyed (Gallo, 2010: 141).
Recalling the Memory of Repression in the Governments

of Cardoso, Lula and Rousseff
Despite the limits of the Brazilian case, significant steps have been taken in the last two
decades to reduce the problems referred to and to formulate a means of confronting the
damage caused during the political repression of the military regime. These advances are
linked, in an international aspect, to a process of reformulation of the understanding
of human rights, started at the beginning of the 1990s and, on a national scale,
to the consequent attempt at realignment of the Brazilian agenda with international
mechanisms for protecting these rights (Koerner, 2003: 144–146).
In a pioneering move in the first mandate of Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s Federal
Government (1995–1998), founded at the Vienna Conference, the first version of the
National Programme for Human Rights (NPHR), was devised, whose publication in
1996 was intended to give prompt the alignment of legislation and public national poli-
cies for international legislation for the protection of human rights. Furthermore, Law
No 9.140 of 1995, known as ‘The Law of the Dead and Disappeared’, was published,
which recognised the responsibility of the Brazilian state for the deaths of 135 militants
from left-wing organisations and anticipated the creation of a special commission for
dead or disappeared political dissidents. The concession of indemnification to families
of the murdered or disappeared militants mentioned in Law No 9.140, became the
responsibility of this department and also the evaluation of new requests of recognition
of the responsibility of the state and the consequent indemnification of the interested
parties.
Advancing further in this direction, during Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s second
term of office (1999–2002), approval was given for the formation of Law No 10.536
of 2002, increasing the period over which the cases of dead or disappeared political
dissidents could be analysed, covering the interregnum between 1961 and 1988. The
Commission of Amnesty was also created in 2001. Besides this, the II NPHR was
published in the same period, whose main function was to include questions mainly
concerned with social, educational and economic issues in the agenda of human rights.
In some ways, human rights policies during Lula’s government (2003–2010) could
be considered as an attempt to give continuity to the steps taken in the preceding
period. One of the signs of continuity in Lula’s government in relation to President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso was the nomination of Nelson Jobim, ex-minister of
Justice of Cardoso’s government, as Defence Minister, the post which he still occupies
today.
Amongst various initiatives of this period, the publication of Law No 10.875 of
2004 should be mentioned, which re-examined and amplified the interpretation of Law
No 9.140 in terms of understanding that the responsibility for the deaths of people
who died during the participation of public action against the dictatorship, including
those who committed suicide after being tortured, should be assumed by the Brazilian
state, guaranteeing the families the right to indemnification. The organisation of the
first Comissao Especial Sobre Mortos e Desaparecidos Politicos (CEMDP) report book,
should also be mentioned, which presented the results of its activities between 1996 and
2007 and also the organisation of the Caravans of Amnesty out of which came sessions
that were open to the public of trials concerning appeals for amnesty and promoting
public debate on events which occurred in that period (González, 2010).
One of the central points of human rights policies of Lula’s government was the
approval of the Plano Nacional de Direitos Humanos (III PNDH) in December 2009,
a proposal that not only projected the inclusion of a theme of a new vision entitled
Direito à Memória e à Verdade, (The Right of Memory and Truth) but also the creation
of a Comissão Nacional da Verdade (National Commission of Truth), an example of
which occurred in post-apartheid South Africa.
Less than two months after the publication of the plan there was a strong controversy
involving the main body of its content. From within the actual government, for example,
the Defence Minister, Nelson Jobim, in the name of the armed forces, alleged at that
time that the proposal would create conflict with the military. In the same vein, various
civil business and religious organisations, amongst others, raised new controversial
subject involving different thematic visions of the NPHR, with ideas such as, ‘liberty
of expression’, ‘secularity of the state’ and ‘abortion’. Facing diverse pressures, the III
NPHR underwent various modifications, including initiatives by President Lula, result-
ing in the exclusion in the new version of various items related to religious freedom,
the regulation of homosexual relations and the recovery of the memory of the military
period.
Within a judicial context, 2010 was notable for two events that demonstrated the
contrasts involving the human rights theme in a national and international context.
In the internal plan, the Supreme Federal Tribunal ruled that it was in favour of
maintaining the interpretation of the Amnesty law in Brazil for both the tortured
and the torturers and, by refusing to revise this interpretation of the law, prevented
the opening of the archives of repression and the discussion of punishment for those
involved in the torture and death of people in opposition to the regime (see Supreme
Tribunal Federal, 2010). Notwithstanding, contrary to the decision of the Supreme
Federal Tribunal, in the external plan the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,
linked to the United States organisation for making judgements and decisions about
deaths and disappearences in the Guerrilha do Araguaia, ordered Brazil to begin the
search for the bodies and to shed light on the circumstances in which the militants were
killed; this action directly demanded the opening of the military archives.
With the coming to office of President Dilma Rousseff and the new Minister of the
Department of Human Rights, the ex-Federal Deputy, Maria do Rosário Nunes, hope
of re-vindication for, above all, families of the dead and disappeared appeared to have
resurged. This occurred mainly after the repeated public demonstrations in relation to
the creation of the National Commission of Truth and the protection of human rights
as a priority of the Federal Government, which would present a strengthening of the
strategies sketched out in previous governments.
Now, with the vote of the PL No 7.736/2010, which created the Commission
of Truth, established as a priority for the president of the republic and the Depart-
ment of Human Rights, voting and approval of the law finally took place in the
second half of 2011. The law was approved in the Chamber of Deputies and in
the Federal Senate in September and October respectively. Law No 12.528 was
sanctioned in November 2011 by President Dilma Rousseff and waited until May
2012 for the nomination of the seven members of the Commission, a necessary con-
dition for beginning the investigations into crimes committed under the repressive
regime.
If, on the one hand, the creation of the National Commission of Truth presents a
significant advance in the treatment directed by the Brazilian state towards the memory
of repression, on the other, according to what organisations linked to human rights
causes in Brazil frequently point out, this vehicle is facing three limitations from the
beginning: (a) it will not promote justice because it will respect the interpretation of
the reciprocal amnesty which was reinforced by the Supreme Federal Tribunal in 2010;
(b) it will have a relatively short time in which to carry out its investigative activities
because just two years to cover a country the size of Brazil appears difficult; (c) it is
made up of a reduced number of members (seven) to analyse crimes committed over a
period far greater than the actual dictatorship. This is because Lula’s government kept
a low profile when the discussions about the PNDH allowed a significant increase in the
time period to be analysed by the Commission: instead of covering violations occurring
between 1964 and 1985, it would cover violations between 1946 and 1988.
Conclusion
The aim of this article has been to explain the limitations in the steps taken to promote
the cause of the families of the dead or disappeared in Brazil as a result of the type
of transition that was put into practice. It can be considered that the transition of
agreements in the form of a transaction between groups of the civil–military elite
connected to the dictatorship and the democratic opposition caused obstructed full
democratisation because impunity was maintained for crimes committed in the period
of the military governance.
In Brazil, as has already been observed, the transition developed in an obscure way
because the political agreements were not explained (Power, 2000: 12), and the meeting
participants and agendas were not revealed. Unlike other transitions negotiated in the
Latin American and European context, as in the case of the Naval Club Pacts in Uruguay
or the Moncloa Pact in Spain, the Brazilian transaction negotiations remain an enigma
(Gugliano and Gruszczac, 1995).
In practice, it nourished the military segments as important political actors in the
national conjuncture and it also set a precedents in terms of human rights violations
that, from time to time, appear in different political questions – for example, impunity in
relation to victims of conflict in the countryside involving social movements, indigenous
people and farmers. Despite the innumerable advances in terms of the fight against
social inequality, especially those of the last decade, it is impossible to conceal that
a political culture still predominates in the country, which suffers as a result of the
legacy of the National Security Doctrine (NSD) and the terror occasioned by military
forces during the period of the dictatorship, reverberating also in the continuation of
violent political practices, especially those against the poorest sectors of Brazilian society
(Huggins, 2000; Pereira, 2000; Padrós, 2006; Schneider, 2011).
In this respect, cautions Jorge Zaverucha (2005: 15), various legal mechanisms
created during the repression and firmly aligned to the design of the NSD have been
maintained, as is the case, together with the Penal Codes and Military Procedures,
of the Law of the Press (Law No 5.250 of 1967), the Statute of Foreigners (Lei
No 6.815 of 1980) and the dispositions that, with effects reinforced by Decree No
4.553 of 2002, established the terms of the collection of data, information, documents
and materials kept in secret in the interests of the security of society and of the
state.
According to what Pereira also points out (2010: 53–63), the Brazilian dictatorship
strengthened itself by legalising a great number of the state’s actions. Consequently,
there has been a reinforcement of an essentially authoritarian judicial culture, designed
to ensure absolute impunity for the violation of the rights of prisoners and perse-
cuted political dissidents, an almost untouchable issue in the post-democratisation
era.
These considerations corroborate with the analysis presented here about the incom-
plete character of present-day Brazilian democracy and the difficulty of stopping
repressive practices that, although not conceived during the period of the military
dictatorship, began to be consolidated from 1964 onwards. This article does not deal
with recent problems in Brazilian society; however, it should be emphasised that the
roots of these same problems were strengthened in the way the country reconstructed its
democracy and the succeeding impunity that shielded some sectors of the armed forces;
those sectors who played an active role in, for example, the construction and running
of devices of repression. In the opinion of the authors, this is one of the most important
subjects for discussion in abeyance in present-day Brazil because it not only involves
questions that compromise the current Brazilian democratic regime but also presents a
great burden to be carried by future generations.
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Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp.

On the Ruins of the Democratic

This article discusses one of the main controversies in Brazilian society

Keywords: democracy, human rights, transition to democracy.

The government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso recognised the responsibility of the

The Contention of the Resurgence of Civil Society

No wonder that, despite the enormous impact of public demonstrations demanding

Human Rights and the Memory of Political Repression in Brazil

Recalling the Memory of Repression in the Governments

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