This episode, How Brazil deals with its past of torture and repression, is supported by Fast Help. Fast Help is a Brasília-based IT company that is focused on cybersecurity. Protect your business by teaming up with Fast Help. Go to fasthelp.com.br for more information on how to protect your company’s virtual space.
Brazil’s military dictatorship was long and brutal, but its memory has never been properly reckoned with by the country
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On this episode:
- Karen Keilt was a victim of Brazil’s dictatorship. She was arrested and tortured in 1976, and told her story to Brazil’s Truth Commission, in 2014.
- Pedro Abramovay is the director of the Latin America Program and regional director of Latin America & the Caribbean at the Open Society Foundations. He served as Brazil’s National Secretary of Justice between 2010 and 2011.
- Andre Pagliarini is a visiting assistant professor at Brown University. His research interests include the Cold War in Latin America, the politics of economic development, radical ideologies, and social movements.
- Glenda Mezarobba is a political scientist specialized in transitional justice. She worked as a consultant with the Brazilian Truth Commission.
Explaining Brazil is made by:
- Gustavo Ribeiro, editor in chief of The Brazilian Report. He has extensive experience covering Brazilian politics. His work has been featured across Brazilian and French media outlets, including Veja, Época, Folha de São Paulo, Médiapart and Radio France Internationale.
- Maria Martha Bruno, producer. She is a journalist with 14 years of experience in politics, arts, and breaking news. She has collaborated with Al Jazeera, NBC, and CNN, among others, and worked as an international correspondent in Buenos Aires.
- Euan Marshall, editing. is a journalist and translator who has lived in São Paulo, Brazil since 2011. Specializing in Brazilian soccer, politics and the connection between the two, his work has been published in The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, among others.
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Background reading:
- Columnist Claudio Couto writes that Jair Bolsonaro’s calls to commemorate Brazil’s bloody military dictatorship and torture came as no surprise, in fact, they were perfectly in character.
- Throughout Brazil, roughly 160km of streets, avenues, and roads celebrate people that succumbed to torture during the dictatorship. Meanwhile, over 2,000km celebrate their slayers.
- In 1964, the Brazilian press took the side of the military coup mongers. Many of these newspapers would regret that choice years later.
- Matias Spektor, a researcher at think tank Fundação Getulio Vargas, dug up what is probably one of the most disturbing documents from the military dictatorship period. It reveals that the torture and assassinations were not only known by the Brazilian state – they were also vouched by the Brazilian federal administration.