Leniency with dictatorship wears down Lula on historical grounds – 03/22/2024 – Power

Laura Petit da Silva lost count of how many times she traveled to Brasília to pressure politicians for information about her brothers who disappeared during the military dictatorship and support from the State in search of justice.

Remember that on some occasions, since Lula’s (PT) first term in 2003, the PT member even arranged to receive her with other relatives of the victims, but at the time he claimed another commitment, and the meeting was canceled .

Still, at 77 years old, Laura expected that this time the issue would receive greater attention. “It rekindled our hope because we thought that, after four years of Bolsonaro’s misrule, we could recover our fighting flags. We, who have always supported him, feel betrayed. It’s a huge disappointment, disenchantment.”

She refers to the government’s delay in recreating the Dead and Missing Commission, to Lula’s recent statements that the dictatorship “is part of history” – condemned by a manifesto of 150 entities – and to the president’s determination that government bodies Don’t remember the 60th anniversary of the coup, on March 31st – which forced the Ministry of Human Rights to cancel an event already scheduled.

Laura’s two brothers (Jaime and Lúcio) and one sister (Maria Lúcia) were killed by repression in the Araguaia region. Militants from the PC do B were part of the rural guerrilla decimated by the military in the 1970s.

According to witness statements and reports from the Armed Forces, Jaime and Lúcio were murdered after being arrested – the first had his head cut off.

His remains were never found. Maria Lúcia’s, yes, after a search by her own family. Rescued in 1991, they would only be buried in 1996.

Laura cries when she remembers the car journey to the cemetery next to her mother, now deceased. “We went with great sadness, but with a certain comfort because we were finally giving her a dignified burial, which so many families have not yet achieved.”

Suzana Keniger Lisboa joins the chorus of family members disappointed with Lula. “As president of the Republic, he should know that you cannot ignore history. Does he want to pretend he didn’t exist? Pretend he wasn’t arrested? There in the palace, there was his Dops file, he managed to rescue How many people haven’t been able to get a photo of their missing family member?” he asks.

Widow of Luiz Eurico Tejera Lisboa, a militant of the ALN (National Liberation Alliance) murdered in 1972 – yet another case in which the dictatorship faked a suicide – and whose body was the first of a missing person to be found (in 1979), Suzana signed the PT’s founding act and worked for years in the party, including with Lula.

“But that’s not it [o desdém de quem já foi tão próximo] which makes me indignant. What angers me is that he welcomed the popcorn maker on the corner and didn’t welcome his family”, says Suzana.

“What strikes me most is his total lack of knowledge. Where has it been said that, oh, because the soldiers there were children [na época do golpe]. We are talking about history, and he, as president, has political responsibility for facts in the country’s history. He is amnestied. Doesn’t he know what torture is? I find his ignorance about this very sad.”

Suzana, Laura and countless family members of the dead and disappeared have been hammering: there remains no response to the request for a meeting with the same Lula who, on a trip to Argentina in January last year, met with the Mothers and Grandmothers of Praça de Mayo, at which declared: “thank you that people like you exist”.

Regarding the version that Lula acts like this to avoid clashing with the military, Suzana states: “We don’t want to kill or torture soldiers, like they did to our families. It’s not confrontation, it’s justice. Brazil is the only country in which If you want to know what happened to your family member, it’s considered revenge.”

Suzana Lisboa was a member of the Dead and Missing Commission for ten years, from 1995 to 2005. She left the collegiate complaining that Lula did not buy the fight to open the dictatorship’s archives. Even though she had no illusions about the PT member, she hoped that it would be different now.

“Because Lula was arrested. I thought he had reflected and realized: ‘I have to face this right wing or they will swallow me up’.”

In fact, Lula’s current stance confirms and reinforces his tendency towards conciliation with the military observed in his first two terms. A symbol of this behavior was working behind the scenes so that the Supreme Court rejected an OAB action that sought punishment, despite the Amnesty Law, for crimes such as torture, murders and concealment of a corpse.

Another was the dismissal, in 2004, of its first Defense Minister, diplomat José Viegas, who had clashed with the then Army commander, General Francisco Albuquerque.

In response to a report on the murder of Vladimir Herzog, the Army released, without consulting Viegas first, a note that relativized torture during the dictatorship. Lula sided with General Albuquerque, and Viegas resigned.

The PT leader has always incorporated the military’s discourse that the Amnesty Law prevented the punishment of dictatorship crimes – despite international courts deciding that serious human rights violations should not be covered by the law.

On the other hand, in the second Lula government, under the administration of Minister Paulo Vannuchi, it was proposed, not without friction with the barracks, the creation of the National Truth Commission, to deepen investigations into State crimes during the dictatorship – approved by the National Congress and installed only during the mandate of Dilma Rousseff (PT).

The fissures resulting from the January 8th coup attacks and the participation of military personnel in that and other coup plots, as is becoming increasingly clear, would be the cause of Lula’s excessive caution (or cowardice, as many prefer to define it). The president’s aides recall that four-star general officers have gone to the Federal Police to testify, something unprecedented in the country.

Ministry of Defense and Army Command deny that the military asked Lula for anything in this sense or that there is an agreement between the parties to reduce the boil in the 60th anniversary of the coup – nor will there be an Order of the Day referring to the date by minister José Múcio or of commanders of the Armed Forces, as was not the case last year.

At the Army Headquarters, Lula’s speeches and actions were positively surprising, due to their alignment with the corporation’s historical position, and were attributed to the president’s political acumen at a time of difficulties with Congress and a decline in popularity.

In the palace and barracks, versions of Lula’s gestures emerge. One of them is that human rights activists are such a faithful and organic base of the PT member that, even if they are upset, they will not stop voting for him.

Not quite like that, says Suzana Lisboa. “After that, I think only [voto em Lula] against Bolsonaro, and even then it is difficult,” he said. “We were left alone, the left abandoned us. I went to an act of remembrance against the dictatorship in Argentina, it was moving to see that the left is with them. He was never with us, neither the PT nor anyone else. Individual people have supported us through these years. But never the PT as a whole.”

The ban imposed by Lula on government bodies on the 60th anniversary of the coup is seen as excessively condescending even by those who understand the president’s caution. This is the case of Carlos Fico, professor of history at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and author of “Como Eles Agiam” and other reference books about the dictatorship.

“It was a difficult election, he won with a narrow margin, there is an entire conservative group in the Chamber. It would be very difficult to have a confrontational attitude as perhaps should occur in an ideal world. But asking that there be no ceremonies related to the anniversary of the coup is a mistake even intellectually indefensible”, says Fico.

The historian – who is finishing a book on military interventionism in national history, “A Utopia Autoritária Brasileira” – points to a generational issue.

“Presidents since the end of the dictatorship have always had this excessive reverence or even fear in relation to the military. Those who lived through the height of repression as adults seem to have developed this excessive caution. I hope that in the future the new political leaders of the left and democrats in general develop a less reverential attitude.”

Maria Celina D’Araújo, also a dean among scholars on the subject, retired professor from PUC-RJ and the Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary Brazilian History at FGV, agrees with Fico, adding other elements to the analysis.

“Lula reflects the common sense of the political class and average Brazilians, that the military is an institution that knows how to take care of itself and that we should not criticize or demand and that the past is over, we should not be fussing over it.”

“Brazilian society is militaristic, it has a fascination, a respect for the military above the average of our neighbors”, says Maria Celina, co-organizer of works such as “Geisel” and “Visões do Golpe”, which bring together testimonies from key figures of the dictatorship .

For her, since the Proclamation of the Republic, “the military have conceived of themselves as a caste, and castes are untouchable, they understand that they cannot be held accountable or criticized. They think they are always right, that they are better than civilians, that they are morally more correct, more patriotic, they are more everything”.

Although Lula introduced military discourse, he adds, he was elected with a more critical agenda than in 2002 and 2006.

“Bolsonaro really abused the repudiation of human beings, of human rights. So, those who supported Lula, for the most part, thought about this: we want a president who will respect people, respect their rights.”