On 24 May Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo stated that the government led by President Dilma Rousseff had “no plan” to repeal the 1979 Amnesty Law. Cardozo was responding to a recommendation by the new Truth Commission, which began its work a year ago, that the government should take measures to allow for suspected perpetrators to be brought to justice. Brazil is also under pressure from international rights groups to respond to the commission’s unearthing of the officially commissioned Figueiredo report, dating back to 1967 and long thought lost, which detailed horrific crimes against Brazil’s indigenous population by landowners and the government’s own Indian Protection Service (SPI).
Presenting the truth commission’s first annual report on 21 May, the commission’s coordinator, Rosa Cardoso, noted that “there are no statutes of limitations for crimes committed against humanity” adding that “amnesties are not valid under international law”. She suggested that suspects could be tried by the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which has previously ordered the Brazilian State “to provide justice” for the victims of human rights abuses by the State under its last period of military rule.
On 14 December 2010, the IACHR, part of the Organization of American States (OAS), held the State of Brazil responsible for the forced disappearance of 62 suspected left-wing militants in the Amazon region of Araguaia in the early 1970s during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), and said that Brazil should allow prosecutions for abuses committed during the military regime. It was the first time that Brazil had been called upon to defend itself before the IACHR for human rights abuses committed during the junta. In its judgment the IACHR said that Brazil’s Amnesty Law was incompatible with the country’s international commitments under the American Convention on Human Rights and was an “obstacle” to justice.
The Brazilian government had previously admitted responsibility for the political deaths at Araguaia and authorised reparations to family members in 1995, but under the amnesty law, relatives cannot bring their cases to trial in Brazil. Relatives of the Araguaia victims, under the ‘Grupo Tortura Nunca Mais’ (which includes some government officials), have long wanted Brazil to open up its military archives so as to allow court cases against suspected perpetrators to go ahead. Brazil is alone in the region in never having prosecuted any military officials for human rights abuses, and most of the political class has long stressed national reconciliation over prosecution. In Argentina and Uruguay, amnesty laws have been challenged in the courts (and invalidated).
The IACHR decision came just before Rousseff, herself a former victim of state imprisonment and torture during the dictatorship, took office (in January 2011) and activists hoped that the ruling would finally force a re-evaluation of the law. Rousseff had promised a truth commission during her 2010 election campaign but said that she was “not in the business of revenge”. In May 2012, at an emotional ceremony attended by Brazil’s former presidents José Sarney (1985-1990), Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992), Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC, 1995-2002) and Lula da Silva (2003-2010), she swore in the seven members of the new truth commission, with a mandate to examine human rights abuses committed both by the state and left-wing guerrillas in the period 1946-1988 with a focus on the last military junta.
The commission, which sits for two years to May 2014, has no judicial or prosecutorial powers. However, the assumption is that its findings could open the door to future legal cases. Technically, the Amnesty Law prevents that, although the IACHR ruling could potentially force the state to derogate the law. In April 2010, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) upheld the Amnesty Law, a ruling that was crucial to the military’s decision to agree to the truth commission proposal. The government also agreed that the commission examine abuses on both sides by way of a gesture to the military. Cardozo’s latest comments were likely a fresh signal – both to the supreme court and the military – that the Rousseff administration does not ‘proactively’ intend to address the thorny question of the Amnesty Law. However legal experts suggest that come May 2014 the commission may ‘advise’ that the Amnesty Law is not constructive to national reconciliation.
- The Figueiredo report
Upon announcing the truth commission members back in May 2012, President Rousseff stated: “We cannot permit that in Brazil truth is corrupted by silence”. Certainly, the commission has taken her at her word. The 7,000-page Figueiredo report, commissioned by the minister of the interior in 1967, is a case in point. Despite the appalling nature of the report, which caused international scandal at the time, many rights groups say the political class in Brazil, backed by powerful vested interests, ultimately buried the report; supposedly, it was lost in a fire 45 years ago. Marcelo Zelic, a human rights lawyer, discovered the document in old boxes of files in the Indian Museum in Rio de Janeiro as part of his work for the commission and it will now be examined by the commission.
The London-based rights group, Survival International, which was founded in response to the Figueiredo report, first reported on its re-discovery in late April. International media outlets including the UK daily The Guardian and the US-based Huffington Post have since run follow-up stories. In a detailed article published this week (29 May), The Guardian makes the point that none of Brazil’s leading papers have made mention of the re-discovery.
International rights activists have gone one further, claiming that the same vested interests that buried the report all those decades ago still exert the same influence today, and accuse the Rousseff government of exacerbating the situation by placing its economic growth policy objectives at the apex of the government agenda, at the cost of social and environmental policy. The government firmly denies that, but there is no doubt that the controversies over the Belo Monte dam, the recent congressional amendments to the country’s Forest Code and other issues involving indigenous communities and/or the environment, have damaged this administration’s ‘Green’ credentials and very likely will become an electoral issue for Rousseff in her expected bid for a second term next year.
- Stagflation?
First quarter GDP growth was just 0.6% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q). Household consumption, which accounts for 62% of GDP, decelerated to just 0.1% q-o-q. However, gross fixed capital investment grew 4.6% q-o-q and 3.0% year-on-year in January-March, following four consecutive quarters of negative annual results. The president of the national development bank (Bndes), Luciano Coutinho, said the jump in investment activity showed that economic growth has gone through a “qualitative change”. But, to add to the dour picture, the central bank raised the benchmark Selic interest rate by 50 basis points to 8.0%, more than expected. Inflation at the top of the target range (6.5%) is not the only problem for the BCB. The Real this week fell through R$2.10/US$.
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