Latinnews Archive

Latin American Weekly Report - 25 April 1980

BRAZIL: How a thorn was plucked from the military flesh

With the removal of General Antonio Carlos de Andrada Serpa from his position as head of the army staff department, President Joao Baptista Figueiredo has eliminated from the army high command the main threat to the stability of his government. The sacking of the aged general, however, has not restored unity to the military ranks. In successive speeches Serpa dealt with the national questions closest to the hearts of the military. In so doing, he accentuated differences within the armed forces, thus giving the lie to the claim that cohesion exists within the military around Brazil's present economic and political model. Moreover, Serpa's sacking reopens the old wound caused by the successive punishments applied to the late General Hugo Abreu. Though serving officers are forbidden to make political statements in public, it is only those who differ from the government who suffer. Ironically, on the same day as General Serpa was being punished, the commander of the Il Army, General Mylton Tavares de Souza was commenting in Sao Paulo on the engineering workers' strike. As on previous occasions, the II Army commander did not suffer any sanction following his speech, which was vehemently favourable to the government.


A descendant of Jose Bonifacio Andrade e Silva, the |patriarch of independence', and a cousin of Jose Bonifacio de Andrada, the former leader of the Chamber under the Geisel government, General Serpa was known as 'blond Serpa' in the armed forces to distinguish him from his late brother, 'dark Serpa'. In recent years he followed an unusual political course, moving from an extreme anti-communist position to become a leading opponent of the economic model, and in so doing rekindling the nationalist debate. In 1968, when he was serving in the I Army in Porto Alegre, he surprised politicians by requesting that Institutional Act no. 5 and other acts of exception against 'communism' be maintained. Less than three years later, in the speech which led to his sacking two weeks ago, Serpa cited the model adopted by Chairman Mao in China to justify his thesis that Brazil could support a population of more than 200m, contrary to the arguments of the defenders of birth control policy.

In his recent speeches, Serpa has successfully encouraged important sections in the armed forces, especially younger officers, to take up a radical stance against the presence of transnationals in the production of energy and in birth control programmes, and in favour of Petrobras and a more equal distribution of income. A survey carried out by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper on the day that Serpa was sacked showed that all the officers consulted were in solidarity with him, although they did not wish to identify themselves for fear of reprisals.

Now that he has been dismissed as head of the staff department, Serpa is without a job and has lost his seat on the army high command. But according to several dissident officers who have been working with him recently this situation could work out in his favour for, as they point out 'now he will have more time to think, write and act'.


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