The first charges for human rights abuses committed during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s are raising hopes of redress among victims’ families, but could deepen the unease among some military circles.
Four public prosecutors on Wednesday filed charges in Maraba, in the northern Amazon State, against retired army colonel Sebastiao Curio Rodrigues de Moura, over the unresolved kidnapping of five militants captured during a crackdown on leftist guerrillas in the 1970s.
The militants, who are still missing today, were members of the Araguaia group founded by a splinter group of the Brazilian Communist Party. The movement fought the military government from 1966 to 1974 on the Araguaia river banks.
A three-year probe by the prosecutors concluded that the five militants — two women and three men — were seized by troops led by the accused, also known as “Dr Luchini,” between January and September 1974.
“This action is extremely important for us because it is the first criminal case and because these people will have to explain what happened, and step out of the shadow,” said former political prisoner Cecilia Coimbra, president of Torture Never Again, a group bringing together relatives of victims of the dictatorship.
“This action can expose the terrible repression that took place in this region and is an opportunity to reopen the debate on the Amnesty Law,” said Jair Krischke, head of the Justice and Human Rights non-governmental organization.
Unlike other countries in southern South America that had right-wing dictatorships and political abuses and killings from the 1960s to the 1980s — Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile — Brazil has never put the perpetrators on trial.
However, the economic powerhouse has acknowledged 400 abductions and presumed deaths during the dictatorship.
In November last year, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla jailed and tortured during the 1964-1985 dictatorship, endorsed the creation of a truth panel to probe the rights abuses during the period.
The commission is tasked with investigating issues including politically motivated abductions in the Cold War-era, rights abuses and murders over a time span longer than the dictatorship — 1946-1988.
However, it does not lift an amnesty for those who carried out the crackdown, in effect since 1979, and upheld in 2010 by the Brazilian Supreme Court.
Last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights dismissed Brazil’s 1979 amnesty law as legally invalid, saying it was incompatible with the Inter-American Declaration of Human Rights.
The criminal case could fuel unease in some military circles.
Last month, representatives of retired military officers issued a letter strongly criticizing the government, particularly Brazilian Human Rights Minister Maria do Rosario, for saying that in future military personnel could be dragged before the courts to answer for crimes perpetrated during the dictatorship.
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