Bowing to domestic and international pressure, the Brazilian government has begun releasing intelligence files compiled by the former military dictatorship on government opponents, including victims of torture and those who disappeared.
A preliminary list of people whose activities were monitored by military intelligence during the dictatorship, which ruled from 1964 to 1985, has already been made public. As of Jan. 1, those people will be allowed to examine their own files, which are being transferred from military control to the National Archives.
Government officials estimated the files contained more than a million printed pages, plus photographs and films.
The belated release of the documents comes little more than a month after the UN Commission on Human Rights issued a draft report urging Brazil to be more assertive in dealing with the dark corners of its recent past.
That report, followed this month by a two-week visit by a UN emissary, noted that Brazil had been reluctant to identify and punish those responsible for rights abuses.
Dilma Rousseff, a former guerrilla and political prisoner who is President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva's chief of staff, described the new measure as "an important instrument to be used for self-knowledge."
"There is no way to blot out history," she said on Wednesday, but "this is an important moment in the democratic consolidation" of Brazil.
Brazilian human rights organizations, however, immediately criticized the breadth of the document release, saying it was timid and incomplete. Only documents up to 1975 are covered, and even for that period, "unrestricted access" is granted only to those with a "direct interest," like a spouse, parent or child.
Even for them, references to third persons are to be deleted so as to "preserve the private life, honor and image" of those parties, according to a government policy statement.
Until 30 years have elapsed, post-1975 records will be available only on request to a government panel with the power to declassify them.
"The release of any document is welcome, but this is more a mise-en-scene for the media than a real advance," said Cecmlia Coimbra of the group Torture Never Again. "What we have been demanding is information that these documents won't have because they have been filtered out in Brasilia, such as references to the dead and disappeared."
Questioned by reporters, Rousseff said it would be "highly naive to believe" that any released documents would name those responsible for the jailings, torture and killing of political prisoners.
Military officials had long denied that any records still existed, maintaining that all had been destroyed after the return of civilian rule, but they were forced to retreat from that position late last year after batches of papers suddenly surfaced and made it clear they had lied.
Writing in O Estado de Sao Paulo, Carlos Marchi described the new policy as "a half measure."
In contrast to decisive actions in Argentina and Chile, both countries where a larger number of people were killed, tortured or disappeared in a shorter period of time, "Lula's government offers a partial opening without the certainty that this is the complete record of military intelligence," he noted, referring to the Brazilian president.
Other analysts have suggested that da Silva's left-wing government is fearful of ruffling the military's feathers, but the president, a former labor leader, has offered little in the way of explanations for keeping the records under wraps.
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