The Brazilian Military Dictatorship According To Militants and Military Men

The War of Memory: The Brazilian Military Dictatorship according to Militants and Military
Men
Author(s): João Roberto Martins Filho and Timothy Thompson
Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 36, No. 5, MEMORY AND POPULAR CULTURE
(September 2009), pp. 89-107
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The War ofMemory
The Brazilian Military Dictatorship

according toMilitants and Military Men
by
Jo?o Roberto Martins Filho
Translated byTimothyThompson
Since themid-1970s, a number of testimonial narratives have contributed to the

literatureon theBrazilian military regime. These works, representingboth themilitary
and theBrazilian left,carry on thepolitical struggles of theperiod (1964-1984). Through
thedynamics of theirpublication, a tense dialogue has been established.A comparison
of thememoirs of leftistmilitants with those ofmilitary men reveals that thepractice of
torturecontinues to be a source of apparently unending discord between the two sides.
Keywords: Brazilian armed forces,Military dictatorship, Torture,Human rights,

Brazilianleft
A review of the testimoniesof leftist militants and militarymen about the

darkest period of Brazil's post-1964 dictatorship reveals fromthevery begin
a basic difference: whereas former militants strive to keep thememory of
ning
the 1960s and 1970s alive, themajority ofmilitary officers
would like certain
aspects of the period to be forgotten. In a way?at least during the firstwave
of testimonial literature?the leftsought to carryon its struggle through the
printed page. In the words of Guimar?es Rosa, "To narrate is to resist"?a
phrase chosen by Fernando Gabeira as the epigraph tohis book O que ? isso,
companheiro?(What'sGoing On Here, Comrade?) (2001 [1979]).Or, as Fl?vio
Tavares has concluded in a different
context, "Not forgetting is the only
answer" (1999:13).1 By contrast, when pressed to speak, military men, particu
some
larly those who had (or still have) degree of institutional authority, insist
on the need to "turn the
page" of history and look toward the future for the
own
sake of national unity and the military's good name. Accordingly, those
on the leftfeelobligated to tell and retell the story surrounding theirdefeat.
are corroborated
Their narratives by theworks of historiographers and journa
lists. On themilitary side, meanwhile, there are no victory celebrations.2
As a specialist in both leftist movements and military policy in Brazil, I
an effort here
to synthesize 25 years' worth of a
make reading and research,
span that covers this war of memory exactly. The two topics that I aim to
integrate?the recollections ofmilitants and those ofmilitary men?are usually
Jo?oRobertoMartins Filho teaches political science at theFederal University of S?o Carlos. He

is the author of two books and many articles on theBrazilian dictatorship and has published
extensivelyon theBrazilian armed forces.Timothy Thompson is a freelance translatorbased in
Boston. This article is dedicated to Tania.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 168, Vol. 36 No. 5, September 2009 89-107
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X09341979
? 2009 Latin American Perspectives
89

90 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES
studied separately.3 This article analyzes the way in which those memories
have been constructed from the moment that the testimonies of those who
survived the "years of lead" (anos de chumbo) first emerged.41 suggest here that
thepassage of timehas changed importantaspects of thenarratives on both
sides of the fight.
THE MILITARY AND THE VENGEANCE OF MEMORY
In the unanimousopinion ofmembers of themilitary, the left,once defeated,

to a war of words.
attempted circumvent its loss by transforming the fight into
From the beginning the military has characterized this attempt as unhelpful
and vindictive, but in general themilitary's central critique of it is somewhat
more formal in character. According to this view, after the Amnesty Bill of
1979, any effortto call tomind what had actually happened during the short
and brutal repression of Brazilian leftist groups (and not merely militant ones,
it isworth noting)would representa violation of theveryprinciple of amnesty.
Through this lens, amnesty means canceling all debts and is fundamentally an
This perspective arises quite frequentlyin the textsand tes
act of forgetting.
timonies of military men from the three service branches.In a recently pub
lished book General Oswaldo Muniz
Oliva, for example, denounces what he
care
calls "one-sided narrators" who "only about exploiting, constantly and
stories about those who were killed, tortured, etc."
cyclically, disappeared,
According to the general, for these writers
"full, general, and unrestricted amnesty,, applies only to those on their side.
They lose no opportunity to reject both peace?the great objective of the bill?
and silence about the past, a silence that has benefited them greatly. . . . Some
have specialized inwriting screenplays or telenovelas of a supposedly historical
nature, but they actually subvert the truth in order to champion certain of their
"heroes." ... [In this way] these violent radicals who intended, by force, to
impose communism on our homeland (using foreign or stolen funds)?? la Fidel
Castro?have been dressed up as heroic defenders of democracy.
In his view the two other groups making claims are "those who forget about
or minimize how much was done right" and those who "do look at the posi
tive aspects" but "when discussing the period cite only Castello Branco and
Geisel and rarelymention Costa e Silva andM?dici" (Oliva, 2002:101-102).
JarbasPassarinho played a key role in themilitary regime, continued to
influencenational policy afterward,and in 1996published his own substantial
memoir. He puts itthisway (2001): "The victors of thearmed conflictpreached
not forgiveness, which presupposes repentance, but mutual forgetfulness,
forgetting one's passions, which is essential for reconciliation. So much for
that. Itwas only the winners who forgot." Elsewhere, lamenting the "biased"
accounts of the circumstances surrounding the promulgation of Institutional
Act no. 5,5 Passarinho (1998) returns to one of his recurring themes: "There are
some surviving leftists from the days of the armed conflict or their descen
dants who spew out the hate of defeat, cultivate vindictiveness, and reject
amnesty, since amnesty presupposes mutual forgetfulness."

MartinsRiho /MEMORY AND THE BRAZILIANMILITARY DICTATORSHIP 91
These brief examples also point to another theme. As these writers certainly
recall, the collective memory of the lefthas been constructed not only from the
recollections ofmilitants but also fromworks more historiographie in approach
(even ifwritten by former militants), academic dissertations, reportage, stage
plays, lists of torture victims, films, television specials and miniseries, inter
views, inquiries led by organizations of the familiesof the dead and disap
a on torture
peared, and, finally, sophisticated project to set the record straight
that resulted in two volumes entitled Brasil, nunca mais (Brazil, Never Again)
(Arns,1985; 1986; see also 1988).
At thesame time,criticismof thosewho had broken thecontractsupposedly
tyingamnesty to forgetfulness did not come exclusively fromofficers
who had
at positions of authority in the 1960s and 1970s. It remains a
already arrived
constant part of current military discourse and also appears in the words of a
second generation of officers, those who reached the top ranks in the 1980s
and 1990s. One example is that ofMauro C?sar Rodrigues Pereira, minister of
the navy from 1995 to 1998, during the first term of Fernando Henrique
Cardoso. In an interview conducted by Celso Castro and Maria Celina D'Araujo
(2001: 282), the admiral argues that amnesty was a "way to settle what normal
efforts had been unable to resolve." "Once decided on," he states, "it has to be
respected." Further, he asks, "If you want to investigate, why investigate just
one aspect?Why not investigateeverything?"And he responds, "It's as I said:
'The reaction might have gone too far,might have been messy, but it came
merely
as a
consequence.' If there was a way to pin down responsibility in
every instance, itwould be better than amnesty. But evidently that was
impos
sible, so amnesty was the solution. The decision was made, end of story."
Reminded by the interviewers of the wounds that have yet to heal, as in
the case of the disappeared, he continues: "Of course there are wounds. But
there were wounds on all sides. So, one side has to shut up and
keep quiet.
Does theother side have the righttokeep saying that it'swounded and has to
finda way toheal itself?No. It, too,has to shut up and keep quiet" (Castro
and D'Araujo, 2001: 283). The same idea surfaces in the testimonyof another
military minister from the Cardoso administration. For Air Force General
Mauro Jos?Miranda Gandra, the "process of was intended to turn a
amnesty"
page inhistory (a page thathe considers "ifnot black thenat least gray"). It
was to promote a
intended "scarring effect" for the wounds of the authorita
rian period (Castro and D'Araujo, 2001: 305). And he concludes, "The Nation
had to, and not in a literary sense, turn the page. That page had to be turned
definitively" (Castro and D'Araujo, 2001: 308).

In spite of such expectations, what is certain is that thewar ofmemory began
precisely in an intense exchange of versions about the most controversial

aspects of thepost-1964 dictatorship.And thiswar already has itsown history.
To the extent thatmilitants have not kept quiet,militarymen have also stood
up topresent theirunderstandingof theevents and/or todefend theirpersonal
actions during the period. In this sense the briefest review of the available
material demonstrates that military figures, too, have refused to resign them
selves to silence. Innumerable officers have taken the field tomake their state
ments, and the military's collective memory even boasts a few best-sellers: the
account ofErnestoGeisel, published by theFunda??o Get?lio Vargas (D'Araujo
and Castro, 1997), sold thousands of copies and had significant repercussions.6

In view of this, a more detailed examination of the various fronts and
phases of thewar ofmemory would require

a book rather than an article. Here
the focus is on several texts and testimonies of militants and military men.
A consideration of the topic in its various manifestations will have towait for
another occasion. My analysis aims to reconstruct the origin, dynamics, and
evolution of this struggle over collective memory. Since from a chronological
perspective the military narrative was constructed as a response to the initial

wave of texts we should first of all examine
produced by the left, the charac
teristics of this set of militant memoirs and accounts.7 The first "campaign"
began in 1977. It was then that Renato Tapaj?s's Em c?mara lenta (In Slow
Motion) appeared, only to be banned shortly thereafter.The final battles
occurred with the publication of Brasil, nunca mais, under the auspices of
Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, and, two years later, Combate nas trevas (Combat
in the Shadows) (Gorender, 1998 [1987]), a detailed history of the armed
resistance by Jacob Gorender, former leader of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro
(Brazilian Communist Party?PCB).8
Released inAugust 1977 in an act of defiance byAlfa-Omega, a publishing
house in Sao Paulo, Em c?mara lentaserved to test the limitsof the gradual
political "opening" (abertura)promoted by President ErnestoGeisel. The gov
ernment's response came swiftly: the work was banned and its author sent to
prison. The new era, however, was soon reflected in his rapid release by order
of the Sao Paulo judge advocate's office (Folha de S. Paulo, 1977a; 1977b;
1977c). InApril 1979 the book was finally cleared, and it is currently in its
second edition (Movimento, 1979). Two other texts from this first phase turned
into surprising and unexpected editorial phenomena, standout examples of
the successful culture industrybroadly encouraged by thepolicies of Brazil's
military government.
Fernando Gabeira's O que ? isso, companheiro? is the account of a secondary
character in the kidnapping of U.S. Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick. After
taking
on the writer's mantle, Gabeira was transformed into a public figure
with tremendous media exposure, opening the way for his later career as an
environmentalist and member of Congress. Published in 1979, the book sold
tens of thousands of copies from the very beginning and currently stands at
more than 250,000 in two editions and more than 50 printings. It underwent a
new boom in sales after the release of its cinematic adaptation inMay 1997
and has become one of Brazil's Brasil, nunca
major publishing phenomena.9
mais, for its part, is currently out of print after 38 printings. The militant col
lectivememory of themilitary dictatorshipwon, in thisway, a significant
audience for a country of relatively few readers.
THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY OF THE SURVIVORS
Tapaj?s's and Gabeira's books are perhaps themost significant examples of

the firstmaneuver of the left in thewar of memory.10 Their narratives were con
ceived, as thewriters themselvesput it,with thedual objective of, on theone
a own trajectory in the armed
hand, telling in self-critical way of their personal
on the other, creating a of the war. In Gabeira's
struggle and, portrait "dirty"
case there was the additional attraction of revealing the behind-the-scenes

MartinsFilho /MEMORY AND THE BRAZILIANMILITARY DICTATORSHIP 93
story of the kidnapping of the U.S. ambassador, which had occurred in Rio de
Janeiro 10 years earlier. Thus we have here two reconsiderations of a recent
series of events thatbeginning in 1968 had thrown thesewriters into the eye
of a hurricane. Both narratives can be seen as more or less the accounts of
stunned disaster survivors.As Gabeira (2001 [1979]: 139-140)writes,
The participants in the [kidnapping of Elbrick] disbanded after Sunday night.

Two died: Toledo after being tortured in S?o Paulo and Jonas, themilitary com
mander of the action, brutally kicked to death by members of the unit of Captain
Albernaz, Opera??o Bandeirantes [Operation Bandeirantes]. Some were arres
ted and released after serving their sentences; others were liberated by force and
now live elsewhere, in exile. Some fled, and, finally, one of us lost his mind and
now wanders through the streets of Paris with unkempt hair and beard. I survi
ved. And thought itmight be interesting to tell the story.
Or, as Tapaj?s puts it,"We had scores ofpeople just threeyears ago, and today
we have a multitude who are either dead or in exile and a few lone rangers
tryingtopress on" (1977: 49).

Not by chance, both textswere adapted as visual narratives (by 1968
was a director of short films). O que ? isso, com
Tapaj?s already prizewinning
panheiro? (FourDays in September)was nominated foran Oscar forbest for
name it all?became a source
eign film, and Era c?mara lenta?whose says of
inspiration for the script of theminiseries Anos rebeldes(Rebellious Years),

which was aired in July1992, just in time to stoke theyouth protestmovement
that had joined the campaign to impeach Fernando Collor.11
At the same time, the two narratives differ greatly in tone. Tapajos's text is
dark, anguished, and difficult to get through.There is no humor or levity
anywhere in this "novel/deposition." Gabeira's, by contrast, recounts his
rapid passage throughthe armed leftas ifhe had been able to observe things
from the outside, a move that allows for the text's good-humored tone. In part,
perhaps, these differences explain the disproportion in sales between the two
books, but one should also remember Gabeira's readiness to take on the role
of media phenom. Finally, it isworth noting that Em c?mara lentawas released
in 1977 and banned was
shortly thereafter, while O que ? isso, companheiro?
one of the most visible expressions of the new era of postamnesty freedom of
expression.12
From this point of view, apart from the authors' own intentions, it is
impossible to deny the dramatic central role that the subject of torture plays
in both books. In Tapajos's book all roads lead to the sacrifice of the central
female character (inspired by the guerrilla Aurora Maria Nascimento Furtado
of theA?ao Libertadora Nacional [NationalAction forLiberation?ALN]13),
mur
wounded during combat with the police, arrested, tortured, and finally
dered with the most terrible of instruments, the so-called Crown of Christ. It
is the storyof her fall,affliction,and end that is takenup in a crescendo until
its terrible climax.
InGabeira's account (2001 [1979]: 197), foritspart, the tone of thenarrative
shiftsbetween pages 165 and 203, inwhich tortureclouds theadventure:
No one could have anticipated, exactly, what was going on inside Brazilian
prisons. All of us were dumbfounded to varying degrees. No matter how many
appeals we sent to the prisons, no matter how many grisly stories we collected,

we would never have managed to grasp the process in its complexity before
living through it in the flesh.We had prepared alibis, written manuals on how to
behave under torture, diagnosed our strengths and weaknesses, but at bottom
we were surprised by what we saw inside the barracks. The mechanisms con
structed to destroy us were enormous. Sometimes, before falling asleep, Iwould
think tomyself that theywere treating us like prisoners of war. But thatwas
merely a form of consolation. Then what? So what ifwe were prisoners ofwar
from another country, another planet? A civilization that treated its prisoners of
war like thiswould need to be rethought from top to bottom.14
Gabeira's account
explores the many aspects of the experience of torture:
the sadism mixed with bureaucratic functionalism, the brutality annexed to
triviality, the various forms of dehumanization of the enemy, the solidarity

among the captives, the functioning of an apparatus of repression that alter
nated between abuse and "scientific" interrogation. As for Tapaj?s's book, as
I have already pointed out, death by tortureprovides thebasic thread of its
narrative.
A reading of these books and others published during the same period
points to the denunciation of torture as the cornerstone of the militants' con
struction of the dictatorship's worst period. In this sense the systematic use of
as a method of interrogation and intimidation within a sophisticated
cruelty
system of repression has indelibly associated the armed forces with this sad
of Brazilian other books would come to this
chapter history. Many complete
picture. In 1977 Rodolfo Kond?r, a journalist who had witnessed the torture
ofVladimir Herzog, themost famous case of death inprison, published two
years after the events a collection of short stories titled Cadeia para os morios
(Prison for the Dead). After appearing in Portugal, the collective work
Memorias do exilio,Brasil, 1964/19?? (Memories of Exile, Brazil, 1964-19??)
(Uch?a Cavalcanti, 1978) was released in Brazil in September 1978 and
an a dossier on the acts of torture that had led to the
included appendix with
insanity and suicide of the Dominican friar Tito de Alencar. For his part, in the
second part of his Memorias, 1946-1969, the legendary communist Gregorio
Bezerra (1980)described indetail thepublic crueltythathe had sufferedon the
streets of Recife during the first days after the
coup
d'?tat. A year later, in
Tirandoo capuz (Removing theHood), the journalistAlvaro Caldas (1981)pub
lished his personal account of the via dolorosa towhich were
prisoners subjected
during this phase. The next year, Frei Betto (1982), in Batismo de Sangue?Os
dominicanose a mortede CarlosMarighella (Baptismby Blood?The Dominicans
and theDeath of Carlos Marighella), recounted his version of the events
surrounding the death of one of themost wanted leaders of the armed left.15
The portraitpainted by the recollectionsofmilitantswas also informedby
pol?ticano Brasil (Torture:The History of Political
Tortura:A historiade repress?o
in
Repression Brazil),16 which was the resultof a series of reportspublished in
themagazine Veja byAntonio Carlos Fon (1979).Finally, in 1985,with the sup
port of the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian minister Jaime Wright,17
to bookstores a of the
Vozes Press brought scathing expos? system of repres
sion (Arns, 1985), including an analysis of itshistorical origins, the legislative
apparatus that permitted it, and the construction of the intelligence apparatus.
Brasil, nunca mais culminates in eight chapters that examine the various sides
of torture as system and state policy: the objectives and consequences, the

marks on the victims, the collaboration of doctors and psychiatrists, the variety
of techniques employed, the clandestine and official establishments, and
thedeaths and disappearances. With this the edifice of the left's collective
memory of the dictatorship's crucial period was complete.
THE MILITARY'S COLLECTIVE MEMORY OF TORTURE
Because of its status as a work underwritten of

by religious figures
unimpeachable reputation, the objectivitywith which it laid forthits argu
ments, and the profusion of data on which itwas based,18 Brasil, nunca mais
established itself as one of the principal reference points for the military's
response to the left's collective memory of the regime. The first evidence of
this came with the release inAugust 1986 of an explicit refutationbyMarco
Pollo Giordani entitledBrasil sempre(BrazilAlways). Giordani identifieshim
self as "an intelligence man with many years in theDOI-CODI" (Destacamento
de Opera?oes-Centro de Opera?oes de Defesa Interna [Intelligence Operations
Detachment-Center for InternalDefense Operations]) (1986: 7),19although
"radically against torture" (95). The book was published by a small press in
the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In thevery firstparagraph, Giordani defines
his target:the "factitiousreportof a group ofpretended specialistsheaded up
by theMetropolitan Archbishop of Sao Paulo?Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns and
Others'" (7).
The preface, written by an army major, hails Brasil sempre as a heroic attempt
to give voice to the "subaltern bases" at a time?the of the new
beginning
republic?when military leaders were entrenched partisans of silence. "It's
common these days," writes Giordani, "to hear politicians and even military
leaders make unthinking recommendations to 'forget the past'" (1986:14). His
book expresses the indignation of former members of intelligence-collecting
agencies with theway in which "political opening" was carried out by
PresidentsGeisel and Figueiredo. In thissense itcan be placed among the few
examples of statements by officers directly involved in political repression,
those who were the most "hands-on," as itwere.
This first example of the military's reaction to the left's collective memory
is at the same time deceiving as a historical refutation or discursive
argument.
It is limitedto reproducing theofficialversion of the 1935-1974 red scarewhile
a Darwinian of the Brazilian people in surprisingly
advancing anthropology
racist terms.20 It also repeats familiar elements of Brazil's National Security
Doctrine, as well as French doctrine, denounces the
counterrevolutionary
advance of subversion in the Catholic
Church, and promises the return of the
military to power
if the Communists refuse tomend their ways. In this regard
it can be seen as a form of conditioned reflex left over from the purest strain
of cold-war ideology.
Regarding the topic that interestsus here, thebook denies the existence of
torture and as a
justifies the eventual "excesses" logical result of the physical
law that every action produces an reaction, the biological law that
opposing
for every venom there is an antidote, or the popular wisdom that he who sows
the wind will reap the whirlwind: "Before they recite horrors and issue hys
terical statements, itwould be fitting ifa priest were to pose the classic inquiry:

what has thoudone,my son?What hast thoucommittedagainst thyneighbor's

life,against the community thatshelters thee,against thehigher powers that,
or (Giordani, 1986: 97).21
just unjust, have been ordained?"
One way or another, Giordani's book, together with another title cut from
the same cloth, marks the last gasp of the first campaign of thewar ofmemory
Rompendoo silencio (Breaking theSilence) by Coronel Carlos Alberto Brilhante
Ustra (1987) became famous after his encounter at the Brazilian embassy in
(where he was attache) with the actress Bete Mendes, who
Uruguay military
had once faced him in a torture chamber. In the following years this type of
would grow scarce.
literary production
THE VOICES OF MILITARY MEN
The second campaign of the war of memory began

seven years later, now
in the contextof the end of the cold war. This time,significantly,themilitary
voices were the most verbose. The new wave?whose militant aspect I will
analyze in the final section of this article?was possible primarily because
of a project coordinated researchers de Pesquisa
from e
the Centro
by
Documenta?ao de Historia Contempor?nea (Centerdo Brasil
for Research and
Documentation on Contemporary Brazilian History?CPDOC) of the Funda?ao
Get?lio Vargas inRio de Janeiro(D'Araujo, Soares, and Castro, 1994a: 8). This
project yielded three initialvolumes (D'Araujo, Soares, and Castro, 1994a;
1994b; Soares, D'Araujo, and Castro, 1995) that,employing oral historymeth
odology, presented theviews of 15 top-rankingofficerswho had been at the
beginning of theircareers at the timeof the 1964 coup and gone on to occupy
importantpositions in themilitary regime. The books divide the interviews
era: the coup,
into sections that cover three successive phases of the military
and Two interviews from the were released in
repression, opening. project
separate editions: the aforementioned Geisel (D'Araujo and Castro, 1997) and
M?dici, o depoimento(M?dici, the Interview) (M?dici, 1995), an interviewgiven
about his father, former president Emilio Garrastaz? M?dici
by Roberto M?dici
(and published independentlyof theCPDOC). The effortsof theCPDOC have
been complementedmost recentlyby thepublication ofMilitares e pol?ticana
Men and Politics in theNew Republic), which includes
Nova Rep?blica (Military
interviewswith officerswho occupied high-profilepositions during the civil
as well (Castro and D'Araujo, 2001). The above-mentioned projects,
period
however, do not account for the entirety of the new crop of books. InMilitares:
Confiss es (MilitaryMen: Confessions), the journalistH?lio Contreiras (1998)

short interviews with about 40 officers. Finally, Ronaldo Costa
publishes
Couto (1999b) includes three interviews in Memoria viva do regime militar,
Brasil: 1964-1985 (LivingMemory of theMilitary Regime, Brazil: 1964-1985),
a collectionpublished in 1999 thatassembles the full textsof the interviewshe
used inwriting his Hist?ria indiscreta da ditadura e da abertura, Brasil: 1964r
1985 (An Inconvenient History of theDictatorship and Political Opening,
Brazil: 1964-1985) (Couto, 1999a),which had appeared inbookstores a year
before.
An analysis of thisgroup of interviewscould be made froma number of
I prefer here tomaintain a focus on themost controversial issue in the
angles.

war ofmemory: the tactics of repression during the "years of lead." Elsewhere
I have discussed themilitary view of this topic as itappeared in the crop of
books published between 1994 and 1998 (MartinsFilho, 2000). Here I aim to
review my arguments at the same time that I analyze new versions that have
arisen inmore recent texts.
It seems clear that the military's decision to state its position on the direst
phase of thedictatorship comes in response to the strategicgains of the leftin

the war of memory. At the same time, other factors have been involved,
among them relative historical distance, democratic stability, and the end of the
cold war, which have fostered a desire among those nearing the end of their
lives to leave behind their own version of the events in which they partici
pated.22 In this crop ofmilitary testimonies, that of Geisel naturally stands out,
he being one of the architectsof themilitary's project of political opening and
its primary executor. Authoritarian and as a statesman, Geisel
centralizing
resolutelyconfrontedthe resistance topolitical opening posed by sectors that
had taken a "hands-on" role during the phase of state terrorism. Convinced as
he was of his historical importance, he reviewed the final draft of the inter
view meticulously, certainly leaving it in a state that reflected his mature sense
of himself as a leader.As the onlymilitary president to leave his account to
on the record about the thorniest aspect of dictatorial
posterity, Geisel goes
policies (D'Araujo and Castro, 1997: 223):
The government has been much accused of torture. I don't know if itwent on, but
it's likely that itdid, particularly in S?o Paulo. It's very difficult for someone like
nor
myself, who neither participated in directly witnessed such actions, to pass
on what took place. On the other hand, it seems tome thatwhen you
judgment
are directly involved in problems of subversion, in open warfare, it's impossible,
in themajority of cases, to limit your own actions.
And a littlefartheron, he concludes: "I do not justifytorture,but I do think

that there are circumstances inwhich an individual is compelled to engage in
torture in order to obtain certain confessions and thereby avoid a greater
evil!" (D'Araujo and Castro, 1997: 225). The former president does not fully
recognize the actual existence of torture, but he certainly leaves room for
justifying it hypothetically.23 The idea that subversion explains torture and

that it constitutes an exceptional rather than a
phenomenon systematic and
one appears in accounts. What is shocking
organized frequently military
about the Geisel interview is his audacity in justifying torture as a legitimate
option in certain cases.24

In a portion of themilitary statementsfromthisnew phase the justification
takes a euphemistic formin the idea thatboth sides in theconflictcrossed the
line.To cite only the interviewspublished byH?lio Contreiras:General Diogo
de Oliveira Figueiredo, brother of former president Jo?o Figueiredo, concedes
that "the armed struggle triggered excesses on both sides" (Contreiras, 1998:
97-98); Air Force General Oct?vio Moreira Lima, minister of the air force in the
Sarney administration, explains that "in the armed struggle there ended up
excesses on both sides, all who were involved in the con
being debilitating
flict" (Contreiras, 1998: 79); and forAir Force General Oswaldo Terra de Faria,
ex-commandant of the air force command and
general staff school, "both parties
had their excesses" (Contreiras, 1998: 92).

98 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES
Some military leaders have taken a more direct approach to the question.
As General Le?nidas Pires Gon?alves, army minister in the Sarney adminis
tration, clearly puts it, "Torture occurred during the political repression of the
1970s" (Contreiras, 1998: 73). Admiral Julio de S? Bierrenbach, an active par
ticipant in civil-military plots since 1954, also admits that "truly unconscion
able repression" did occur, "including various cases of the torture, beating,
and murder of citizens tried under the National Security Law" (Contreiras,
1998: 85).
when outlining a limited
Other high-ranking officersgo one step farther
self-critique. General Ivan de Souza Mendes, chief of staff of the Servi?o
Nacional de Informa?oes (National Intelligence Service?SNI) in the Sarney
administration, recalls the words of General prisoner is
Os?rio: "An unarmed
a human
being and must be treated as one."
For him, "An individual cannot
on a
perform electric shock political prisoner and then say he's resorting to
torture in defense of democracy" (Contreiras, 1998: 65). For his part, General
Oct?vio Costa, secretary general of the army during the Figueiredo adminis
tration, points to the devolution of police functions onto the armed forces as a
fundamentalmistake of the regime (Contreiras, 1998: 97), a view shared by
Admiral Hernani Goulart Fortuna, ex-commandant of the Escola Superior de
Guerra (NationalWar College) (Contreiras,1998: 101). Evading the question
somewhat, Admiral Armando Vidigal, former director of the Naval War
College, insiststhatpart of theresponsibilityforthestateof thingsin the 1970s

lies with the cold war and pressure from the United States (Contreiras, 1998:
99), and his view is shared by Admiral M?rio C?sar Flores, navy minister in
theCollor administration (Contreiras,1998:109).
These perspectives a concern of the 1990s. Their
clearly express typical
context was the end of the cold war, the advance of globalization, and the
consolidation of the civil regime. Within this framework, and having a degree of
historical distance from the darkest phase of themilitary dictatorship, officers
who ended their careers under civilian leadership seem not to have had any
not changed was
problem admitting what everyone already knew. What had
their refusal to concede that torture was an integral part of the policy of the
state. Only one officer among those interviewed by Contreiras
military
touches on the central question: Coronel Geraldo Cavagnari concedes the
existence of "unjustifiable practices such as torture within a system of repres
sion based on theDOI-CODIS, a system that led to the disappearance and
death of political prisoners" (Contreiras,1998: 94).25
A less common of the military perspective on torture comes
expression
from those who were direct participants. Of these themost explicit account is
thatof General Adir Fi?za de Castro, one of the founders of theCentro de
Informa?oes do Ex?rcito (Army IntelligenceCenter?CIE) and head of the
CODI ofRio de Janeirobeginning in 1972. In 1979, frustratedover having been
over as a
passed for his of promotion
last chance general, Fi?za de Castro
the journalists Ana and a first "militant" look
granted Lag?a Henrique Lago
at the repressive apparatus. Later, in an interview with the researchers Maria
Celina D'Araujo, Gl?ucio Ary Dillon Soares, and Celso Castro (D'Araujo,
Soares, and Castro, 1994a), General Fi?za, with false sincerity?since he dis
cusses torture without admitting to it directly?alludes to the activities of the
notorious torture center that he directed.

Fi?za argues that torture proved unnecessary, since the air of panic that
filled the prisons was sufficient to extract confessions Soares, and
(D'Araujo,
Castro, 1994a: 61-62):
Normally, a person who "falls," let's use their lingo as well as mine, Imean one
who's been arrested, enters a state of panic and chronic distress. Only those who
have a strong constitution, who are really sure of themselves, can keep from
falling apart. The rest, let's say 90 percent, the first thing they do is suffer an
attack of diarrhea, the kind that runs down the legs_From there on, fearbeco
mes a very favorable factor in an interrogation, when it's performed as soon as
a falls.
person
Underscoring his argument,he describes themethods used when bringing

prisoners into the CODI: "Young ladies, the female sex, were also immediately
given a sanitarynapkin because the firstthingthathappens to awoman when
she's submitted to the duress of prison is she begins menstruating?blood
runningdown the legs,which isnot very pleasant. Afterward theywould take
a bath and clothes" Soares, and Castro, 1994a: 60).
change (D'Araujo,
statements comeas yet another
His hardly subtle attempt to attribute
confessions extracted with brutal asymmetry of force and absolute inhuman
means to the weakness of the tortured. But the subtlety of his narrative
ity of
lies elsewhere: its principal objective seems to be dismantling the official
version of events,which holds that themilitary hierarchy?by which Fi?za
felt snubbed?did not know what was
going
on in the torture chambers. Thus,
to comment on
that the idea
commanders were
prodded ignorant of the
actions of their troops, he retorts, "I don't agree! They're responsible! It's on
the frontispieceof everymilitary handbook: the commander is responsible for
everything thathappens or thathe allows to happen under his command.
He's responsible. If he's not aware, have patience. But he ought to know"
(D'Araujo, Soares, and Castro, 1994a: 73). And in another passage (59):
The DOI takes itsmarching orders from the First Army via the Intelligence
Section [2a Se??o]. It's an operational detachment: "Go there, do this." The chief
of staffgives the orders in the name of his commander. He's the head of the First
Army: he gives the orders and takes responsibility for them before his comman
der. So, the DOI was the strong arm of the "Inquisition," let's put it thatway.
That's it.
I return, then, to the military's assertion that torture went no farther than
instances of individual "excess" that had the chain of command, an
escaped
assertion that is one of themost enduring pillars of themilitary's collective
memory of the dictatorship. Ironically,the forceof this argument has been
undermined an officer who was for acts of torture. If
by directly responsible
we follow the we are forced to con
logic outlined in the passage just quoted,
clude that operational groups were acting under the control of regional com
mands that answered to the government ministry of each branch, which, in
turn,answered to thepresident of the republic.At thispoint it is interestingto
return to the words of Ernesto Geisel. Questioned about the actions of his
brother, Orlando Geisel, who served as army minister in theMedici adminis
tration, the former president offers this explanation (D'Araujo, Soares, and
Castro, 1994a: 227):

I can't really comment because I don't even know what the CIE did. ... I don't
criticize Orlando's conduct.. .. The creation of the CIE, connected to theminis
ter, similar to what already existed in the navy with Cenimar [Centro de
Informa?oes da Marinha (Naval Intelligence Center)] and in the air forcewith
Cisa [Centro de Informa?oes e Seguran?a da Aeron?utica (Air Force Intelligence
and Security Center)], was a way to remove the actions of the individual armed
forces out from under the control of the President of the Republic. By contrast,
we believed that the operation had to be controlled by the president with the SNI
serving as intelligence agency and keeping up with these issues. Itwas in this
spirit that the SNI was created.
From this passage we may infer that because the SNI was created in June
1964 either itdid not functionduring theM?dici years?and responsibility
remained with theministers of each of the armed forces?or the chain of com
mand remained intacteven though theCODIS operated with a certaindegree
of autonomy thatcould createproblems (as occurred during the termofGeisel
himself). Since the idea that the SNI was inoperative
seems absurd, the alterna
tive is thatPresidentM?dici was isolated by themilitary apparatus, a hypoth
esis thatgoes beyond thescope of thisarticle.At any rate, it isundeniable that
themilitary ministers were in control of the situation.
Perhaps the logical impossibility of denying thatmilitary hierarchy

functioned in an organization founded precisely on the sacred principle of hier
one of the of the most recent military statements:
archy explains by-products
the effortof admirals and air force brigadiers to suggest that itwas the
army thatwas primarily responsible forthegrimmestaspects of thepost-1964
military regime, thereby reducing the political responsibilityof their own
forces.In the collectionMilitares e pol?ticanaNova Rep?blica (Military
Men and
Politics in theNew Republic) (Castro and D'Araujo, 2001), also organized by
the CPDOC, Admiral Mauro C?sar Rodrigues Pereira, navy minister during
the first term of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, does not hesitate to attribute the
antimilitary reaction to the traditional attitudes of the ground forces: "Some

are obvious. Some in the positive sense, others in the negative sense. Let's
things
start with the negative. Iwas the son of an army officer, but I only came to see
the depth of army culture when I read the statements of Geisel. You can see there
the eagerness to get into politics and just take charge" (Castro and D'Araujo,
2001: 263).26 For him, "The internal missions were never strongly supported by
the navy" (Castro and D'Araujo, 2001: 265).27 A similar view appears in the tes
timony ofAir Force General Mauro Jos?Miranda Gandra (Castro and D'Araujo,
2001: 294), air forceminister during theCardoso administrationuntil 1995:
Here's the truth: the navy and especially the air force, in the process of the
Revolution of 1964, were always lackeys to the army. One thing that stood
out tome, and I believe itmust also stand out to the people as a whole, was the
"changing of the guard" of both the president and the heads of the [Estado
Maior das For?as Armadas (General Staff of theArmed Forces?EMFA)], always
with individuals from the army. There has always been this resentment in the air
forcebecause therewas no rotation in the EMFA, nothing to give it a multifaceted
character, let's say, in terms of all the armed forces, as was the ideal in the begin
ning. Politically, we were always lackeys in the process.
And farther on: "The army made this unfortunate passage through the gov
ernment. Itwas a strategic error tomaintain power for so long, a decision that
this to the armed forces" (Castro and D'Araujo, 2001: 300).
brought stigma

Returning to themilitary version of things, the persistence of an account that
simply rehearses cold-war ideology and completely ignores thechanges of the

lastdecade of the twentiethcentury is affirmedby Raymundo Negr?o Torres
inNos "por es" da ditadura (In the "Basements" of theDictatorship) (1998).
Torres, an army intelligence officer in the state of Paran?
during the early 1970s,
simply reproduces passages from Ustra, cited above. Notwithstanding, the
book provides an of the final response of officers
example backward-looking
(ofici?issaudosistas) from themilitary regimewhen facedwith the effortto
adapt to new times, an effort demonstrated by the testimonies of military
leaders active in the 1990s. In this regardwe can begin with thepreface by
Jarbas Passarinho. "The testimony of this book," writes the ex-minister, "has
a time current military authorities prefer
been long coming, above all because
to maintain the past in silence, as if they were defendants and not patriots
forcedto risk theirlives to fulfilltheoath ofdefending our institutionsagainst
the expansion ofMarxism-Leninism" (Torres, 1998: 9).
This late example of the survival, pure and simple, of the ideology that
underlay the most tragic aspects of themilitary regime reveals the frustration
of officersmarginalized by theprocess of political opening initiated in 1974.
Not one of Torres's targets iswhat he calls the Geisel
surprisingly, myth. As
for the civilian regime, the ex-intelligence officer views the Fernando Henrique
Cardoso administration as the ascension to power of vindictiveness, evident
to him in its treatment of the issue of the disappeared: "Some of these dam
ages are being unilaterally compensated bymonetary indemnityand political
absolutions of a clearlyvindictive sort,as promoted by the leftist
members of
the administration ofMr. Fernando Henrique, certainly 'inspired' by [the
compensations] allowed byKhrushchev afterthecrimesof Stalinismhad been
denounced" (Torres, 1998: 96).
In his attack on everyone and everything, this random shooter in the war of
even turns
memory against the testimonies collected by the CPDOC, arguing
that the "visibly tendentious manner inwhich some questions were formu
lated" suggested that "the mental disposition of the researchers was not nec
neutral or disinterested in the evaluation of such recent and
essarily
controversial facts" (Torres, 1998: 99). Moreover, although he speaks of "dirty
war" and "unusual methods," in the tradition of former members of the repres
sive apparatus he prefers to skirt the question of the existence of torture.28 In
his book, proven examples of murder under torture are analyzed as "cases of
supposed disappearances."
MEMORIES OF FORGETFULNESS
The second phase of thewar ofmemory brought changes on themilitant

side as well. The most basic differencewas historical distance,which, in the
framework of the civil regime's consolidation, made the act of remembrance or
avoidance of forgetfulness something remote from the immediate
struggle
against the dictatorship. At the same time, new forms of memory arose in
the leftistcamp. In 1993 the sociologistMarcelo Ridenti inaugurated,with the
publication of O fantasma da Revolu?ao Brasileira (The Ghost of theBrazilian
Revolution), a new of academic discourse on both torture and the
perspective
armed struggle. Examples of this approach are too numerous to be cited here,

but in the main they have consolidated the portrait of authoritarianism
already present in the collectivememory of the left.In thisway themilitary

regime has gradually turned into history, an object of study. Not by chance,
various biographies of figures from the armed left have appeared. In 1992
the journalist Judith Patarra released lava, a sketch of Iara
biographical
Yavelberg, militant of the Vanguarda Popular Revolucion?ria (Popular
Revolutionary Vanguard?VPR) and the companion of Carlos Lamarca.29
Lamarca's biography, by the Bahian journalist Emiliano Jos?, was the source
forS?rgio Resende's eponymous film.Jos? then turned to the founder of the
A?ao Libertadora Nacional (National Action forLiberation?ALN) inCarlos
Marighella, o inimigon?meroumda ditaduramilitar (Marighella,EnemyNumber
One of theMilitary Dictatorship) (1997).Anothermanifestation of time'spas
sage took shape through the struggle for state reparations for the familiesof
the dead and politically disappeared. Here we should recall that on December
4, 1995, in a courageous and unprecedented decision, President Fernando
Henrique Cardoso promulgated Law of theDisappeared, which immediately

recognized 136 of thepolitically disappeared as deceased and created a special
commission, linked to the Justice Ministry, to analyze one one the claims
by
filed forother deaths (Martins Filho, 2000: 105).30In the traditionof Brasil,
nunca mais there
appeared works such as Dossi? dos mortos e desaparecidos pol?ti
cos a partirde 1964 (Dossier of theDead and Politically Disappeared after
1964), sponsored by thegovernment of the state of Pernambuco in 1994 and
republished in 1995 by the government of the state of Sao Paulo (Comissao
de Familiares et al., 1995).31Along with Carlos Tib?rcio, leader of thegroup
Tortura Nunca Mais (Torture Never Again) of S?o Paulo, Representative
Nilm?rio Miranda (1999) organized Dos filhos deste solo (From theChildren
of This Earth), a 650-page volume that offers thick description of the circum
stances surrounding hundreds of deaths and political disappearances dur
In the same Iza?as and
ing the military regime. vein, Al?pio Freir?, Almada,
urn a
Granville Ponce published Tiradentes, presidio da ditadura (Tiradentes,
Prison of theDictatorship) (1997),which tells the storyof themilitants who
In addition, Janaina Teles published the col
passed through that institution.
lection Mortos e desaparecidos pol?ticos: Repara??o ou impunidade (The Dead and
PoliticallyDisappeared: Reparation or Impunity) (2000).

Ananalysis of all of these works exceeds the scope of this article. I have
concentrated on the genre of memoir, which has itself changed
specifically
over time?at least in that one no longer aims to reveal anxiously kept secrets
or to continue by other means the struggle against a military dictatorship still
in power. The truth seems to be that, in spite of the expectations of military
men who would like to forget the subject for the sake of an institutional
project geared toward the future,theperiod of timeneeded for the scarring
over of wounds cannot be established by decree. The settling of personal
accounts with the past is obviously a that is intimate in nature, and
problem
as as there are survivors the period of remembrance belongs to each indi
long
vidual. As Walter Benjamin (1986:37)writes, "A lived event is finite,or at least
closed off in the sphere of the lived, whereas the remembered event is limit
less, since it ismerely a key to all that came before and after."
As Fl?vio Tavares (1999: 263) concludes inMemorias do esquecimento
(Memories of Forgetfulness):

Inwhat Tve told, I've tried not to draw conclusions, preferring to let thenarrative
end by itself, in these stories that I didn't invent and have not simply rehashed?
stories sown in time and space in a painful and patient spinning out. Lived?not
invented?this story leftmarks, scars, neuroses, pathologies of body and soul,
sometimes diagnosable even in the look of the victims?a tormented gaze, fearful
and dazed. Or timid,withdrawn, and self-contained.
The narrative of a survivor who held onto his story formore than two decades,
Tavares's book brings back not only thecomplexityof theproblem ofmemory
but thephantasmagoria thathaunts thewar of remembrance (1999: 219):
Torturing?like threatening?is not a chance occurrence; there is nothing

accidental about it. It is a sophisticated method of incriminating the victim. In
this lies its logic, and, therefore, despots resort to it as their absolute goddess.
First torture or threaten. Then interrogate. The point is precisely to destroy the
prisoner and make fear into something natural. Interrogation through fear and
terror escapes human reason. What can you take from a person undone, spirit
less, bereft of aims and ideals, who has tasted or foreseen the delirium of death
or destruction? What can you take from someone who has been defeated abso
lutely? Perhaps something of the truth,yes, but much more of delirious fantasizing
about a true and isolated datum that does not represent any truth at all, much
less a revelation worthy of investigation.
The key to theequation ofmilitant andmilitary collectivememory is found

in another reflectionof the former
militant Tavares (1999: 263-264):
Yes, we were victims of the dictatorship, but itwas not only we?the victimized?
but they, too, the ones who constructed the victims. The triumphant battalion
was born in fear and through fear.And by implanting terror it terrorized itself as
well. Triumph and defeat were decided in the torture chamber in a war that
almost never was a war; in thisway, stripped of belligerence and swollen with
horror and violence, thiswar both sealed our destruction and undid all values
and principles of civility.
One final observation of this journalist turned guerrilla, whose time as a prisoner
ended in a series of false executions on Uruguayan soil,where he began to "die
in thememories of forgetfulness" that he has decided to reveal only now (1999:
264): "And so, torture destroyed the tortured and also annihilated the torturers
by transforming them from military combatants into hangmen, making the
world incomprehensible to them."
I conclude this article with these words from another. In the end, knowing the
story of thewar ofmemory is fundamental to comprehending the future evolu
tion both of the left and of the Brazilian armed forces. In this regard perhaps
new
only the birth of generations ofmilitants and military men and women can
takeus beyond thedeaf dialogue thathas inevitablybeen constructedupon the
tragic experience of the dictatorship.
NOTES
1. In considering the dialectic ofmemory and forgetfulness,one also needs to recall that
prison and tortureforcedthemilitant tomake an intenseeffortnot togive away any information.
As Fernando Gabeira puts it,"The first months of prisonwere all spent in theattempt to forget"
(2001 [1979]: 142).
2. For an interestingcompanion piece to the present study, see Huggins (2000),which
presents data collected from interviews with 27 former ?Translator's note.
military policemen.

3. The term "militant" is used here to refer to members of organizations of the armed left.
In some passages I use the term "survivor" interchangeably.
4. This article is based on sources?memories and testimonies?but also avails itself
primary
of journalistic and academic of this material.
analyses
5.Decreed onAugust 13,1968,by PresidentArtur da Costa e Silva, itabrogated all individual
rights remaining in theConstitution of 1967 and restricted the powers of the legislature and
even further.
judiciary
6. It is true that no television or film director has so far ventured to create a work of fiction
based on themilitary version of thehistory of thedictatorship.
7. One in terms of the military's collective memory, is the interview
interesting exception,
conducted by Henrique Lago and Ana Lag?a (1979) with the formerchief of the Centro de
Informa?oes do Ex?rcito (Army IntelligenceCenter?CIE), General Adir Fi?za de Castro, pub
lished in the Folha de S. Paulo. Lag?a, who has donated her personal archive to the Federal
of Sao Carlos, views this interview as the culmination of her work as a beat
University reporter
assigned to themilitary inBrasilia in the 1970s (interview,November 2002).
8. InGorender's book, the chapters entitled "A violencia do opressor" (TheViolence of the
Oppressor) and "A violencia do oprimido" (TheViolence of theOppressed) registeran attempt
to confrontfromaMarxist perspective theethical problems faced by both sides.My inclusion of
Brasil, nunca mais works former militants does not seem unreasonable insofar as the
among by
project had the clear objective of recovering thehistory of thedictatorship indefense of human
rights.
9. For an that captures the various dimensions of the Gabeira see
analysis phenomenon,
Pellegrini (1996).A group of textswritten on theoccasion of the release of Bruno Barreto's film
version ofGabeira's book can be found inReis Filho et al. (1997).
10. In June 1976 thevolume A esquerdaarmadano Brasil, 1967/1971 (TheArmed Left inBrazil,
1967-1971)was published inPortugal and won theCuban Premio Casa de Las Americas in the
testimonial literature numerous militant accounts about the armed left, it
category. Containing
was extensivelyphotocopied inBrazil at the same time that itwas being cited by leaders of the
as evidence of leftist misdeeds.
regime
11. The other source of this miniseries was a book current
by the president of the Green party,
Alfredo Syrkis (1980), a best-seller that lacks the literaryqualities of theabove-mentioned books
but constitutes an
interesting narrative about the experiences of a high-school student from Rio
who is transformedintoamilitant of thearmed left.The book is currentlyin its fourteenthprint
ing. For
an
analysis of Anos rebeldes, see Pellegrini (1993).
12.1 purchased Tapaj?s's book as soon as itwas released. I had tomake the rounds of a number
of bookstores in downtown Sao Paulo before a seller who trusted my college-student
finding
appearance and drew a
copy out from a stack hidden under the counter. I read it through that
same night. Itpermittedme topinpoint on themap of Brazil the location of hell.
13.A photo of her as an adolescent can be seen in an insert inGorender's (1998 [1987])
Combate nas trevas.
14. The following passage nicely illustratesGabeira's (2001 [1979]: 198) attempt to present
himself as a non-Manichaean narrator: "I, too, was a of this civilization. The
product enemy,
in a certain sense, provided the measure of my stature. If he was sunk in prehistory, itwas
impossible forme to keep both feetplanted inhistory,all themore so since I don't believe in
such a clear-cutdivision between good and evil. Iwould never again be able to thinkof being
Brazilian without taking this reality into account. After the PE [Polic?a do Ex?rcito (Army
Police)] of Bario de Mesquita Street,all of us, innocentor not,were horrifiedby Brazil and by
humanity." Here it is to recall that the of one of the torturers in Barreto's
interesting portrayal
film caused an uproar because at one the character shows mixed about torture.
point feelings
A close reading of Gabeira's book reveals that the original text certainly allows for such an
interpretation.
15.His account of the torture
methods used by thepolice chief,S?rgio Fleury,methods that
extreme such as the use of electric shock to simulate the taking of communion,
displayed cruelty
shocked both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The book brought literary fame to the
Dominican friar, although other versions of the death of Marighella have since appeared (see, for
example, Jos?,1997).
16. From JulytoOctober alone thebook went through fourprintings.
17. The authors' names have never been revealed.

MartinsRiho /MEMORY AND THE BRAZILIANMILITARY DICTATORSHIP 105
18. Its sources belong today to theArquivo de Hist?ria Social Edgard Leuenroth (Edgard
LeuenrothArchive of Social History) at theUniversity ofCampinas.
19. As Huggins (2000:60) observes, dot happens tomean "it hurts" in ?Translator 's
Portuguese.
note.
20. "I believe that blacks, Indians, and mixed-bloods, with occasional exceptions?and
among these their emotional virtues stand out?are races of inferior extraction. I don't want to
get intodiscriminationhere.My reasoning simply stems fromreality" (Giordani, 1986: 63).

21. The author, who a law a common theme inmilitary memoirs:
holds degree, repeats here
admiration for vulgar Hobbesianism. Thus, for example, to former Ernesto
according president
Geisel, "The human condition is, by nature, very complicated. That's I say that man was the
why
worst creatureGod placed on thisearth" (D'Araujo and Castro, 1997:182).
22. Ernesto Geisel, forexample, died at 89 on August 19, 1996,before thepublication of the
interviewhe had granted toCPDOC researchers (seeD'Araujo and Castro, 1997: 7-11).
23. Responsible for investigating the veracity of accusations thatmilitant communists had
been torturedinRecife and other capitals shortlyafter the 1964 coup, Geisel admits here forthe
firsttime that "therewere incidentsof tortureduring the initialdays of the revolution.One of
those who was mistreated was a communist Bezerra," but he concludes,
ex-sergeant, Gregorio
"By the timewe were there,therewas nothing,we foundnothing out of theordinary" (D'Araujo
and Castro, 1997:185). On October 30,1967, as ?lio Gaspari (2002:146-147) has recentlyreported,
Geisel stated that "it's possible . . . that there were some cases of mistreatment, and tor
abuse,
ture," adding, however, that after May 10,1964, such and inhumane abnormali
"any arbitrary
tieshad come to an end." In considering this late acknowledgment, it isworth noting that the
brutality perpetrated against this communist militant was an open secret, since part of it
occurred inpublic and was filmedand broadcast by TV Jornaldo Commercio ofRecife (Gaspari,
2002: 132).A description of thepunishment inflictedon Bezerra appears inChapter 9 of his of
hisMemorias (1980:196): "Aftermy head and lower abdomen had been severelybeaten,my teeth
broken, and my clothes soaked with blood, theystrippedme down to a pair of shorts.They laid
me onmy stomach. [Coronel]Villoc put his footonmy neck and ordered his thugs to stampme
with theirfeet.Then theyput me in a chair.Three sergeantsheld me frombehind while Villoc,
with a pair of pliers, began rippingmy hair out. Soon after,they stoodme up and forcedme to
stand in a pool of battery acid."
24. Not surprisingly,thiswas the topic that receivedmost attention from themedia when
Geisel's was (see, for example, O Estado de S. Paulo, 1997).
testimony published
25. The most extreme was the campaign the in Pedro
example against guerrillas Araguaia.
Corr?a Cabrai (1993), a formerair forceofficerregretfulofhis participation in theair support of
the army operation against theguerrillas there,tellsof the systematicand indiscriminateelimi
nation of themilitants,members of theCommunist Party of Brazil, who had been cornered in
the region (see also Campos Filho, 1997).
26. For two accounts of the navy's role in the climate of crisis in the 1950s and 1960s, see
Bierrenbach (1996) and, at theother extreme,Capitani (1997).
27. In the chapter "Torture inCenimar" Capitani (1997: 87-89) recalls that this agency had
begun
to be
planned in 1954, when naval officers were sent to take courses in the United States:
"The programwas called 'PointFour.' Itoperated on the fifthfloorof theNaval Ministry building
and was one of the first institutions to practice torture."
28. For a contrasting perspective,
see Vieira (1998).
29. The topic of militant women in which earned its first substantial treatment in
particular,
a chapter of Ridenti's book, received furtherattentionwith thepublication of Elizabeth Xavier
Ferreira's (1996) Master's thesis in among other works. Two years later the journal
anthropology,
istLuiz Maklouf Carvalho (1998) published a book onwomen who had participated inguerrilla
organizations.
30. The commission's most controversialdecision came inMay 1998with the recognitionof
the army's responsibility in thedeath ofCaptain Carlos Lamarca.
31. This work portrays in tragicdetail the lastmoments of themilitantsmentioned by Torres:
Joaquim Alencar Seixas, leader of the Movimento Revolucion?rio Tiradentes (Tiradentes
Revolutionary Movement) (Comiss?o de Familiares et al, 1995: 115-116) and Major Joaquim
Pires Cerveira of the Frente de Liberta??o Nacional (National Liberation Front) (Comiss?o de
Familiares et al., 1995: 318-319). The book contains a series of in official archives, of
photos, kept
dead militants. The photo of Alencar Seixas appears on page 419.

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