Brazilians tell of human toll of long dictatorship

By Kenneth Rapoza, Globe Correspondent, 1/5/2003

IO DE JANEIRO - Maria do Carmo Brito says she owes her life to leftist militants who kidnapped the German ambassador here in June 1970. They would only release him in exchange for her freedom.

Brito, then a 25-year-old leader of an antigovernment militia, had been caught smuggling a gun to a prisoner and was thrown in jail with 43 others labeled terrorists during the most brutal years of Brazil's 21-year dictatorship. She said she was tortured daily for two months.

''If the ambassador wasn't kidnapped in exchange for our freedom, I would have been killed,'' she said recently. ''These aren't good memories.''

Deported after her release, she returned to Brazil only after the government provided amnesty to former political prisoners in 1979.

Former militants like Brito are having their say in a new series of five best-selling books by newspaper columnist Elio Gaspari. His collection, titled ''Armed Illusions,'' is among a number of recent books that chronicle the dictatorship era.

Gaspari details how the US military was poised to support the coup plotters who toppled leftist president Joao Goulart on March 31, 1964, as well as President Nixon's subsequent financial support of the military regime.

The books are creating a stir, as former guerrillas begin serving in the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in Wednesday. Many are pictured handcuffed in the pages of Gaspari's books.

Jose Genoino, president of da Silva's Workers Party, was arrested in the jungles of northern Para State. Jose Dirceu, da Silva's chief of staff, fled to Cuba and returned to Brazil undercover under the name Carlos Henrique, even going so far as to undergo plastic surgery to disguise himself.

Gaspari's first book in the series, ''A Dictatorship Disgraced,'' describes the days before the coup up until the creation in 1968 of the controversial National Security Council to spy on and eliminate political subversives. Gilberto Gil, a popular musician and newly appointed minister of culture, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil's former president, were among those exiled under the law in 1969.

The second, ''The Dictatorship Laid Bare,'' focuses on torture and political repression. More than 1,000 cases of torture were reported in both 1969 and 1970. Young leftist guerrillas began training in Para in reaction to the military crackdown, often engaging in armed conflict with government forces.

Gaspari cites US documents showing top-level US support for the regime and a desire to back those working to overthrow Goulart. But Lincoln Gordon, US ambassador to Brazil from 1961-1966, denies in his own book about Brazil that there was any US assistance in the coup.

Nonetheless, Gordon admits that the United States would have helped the military, if necessary. In ''Brazil's Second Chance,'' recently translated into Portuguese here, Gordon published a copy of a telegram he sent to Washington five days before Goulart was overthrown.

In the message, Gordon recommended that the United States support Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, a general and coup leader who took power after Goulart, by preparing ''undercover weapons not of North American origin for those who support Castello Branco in Sao Paulo.'' He also called for unmarked US Navy vessels to be on standby in case of armed political and civilian resistance to the coup.

''We became concerned about the possibility of a civil war and made contingency preparations,'' Gordon, a former Harvard University professor said recently in an e-mail from his office at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., where he is a guest scholar. ''No civil war occurred, and the contingency preparations were not used.''

The American publisher of Gordon's book, the Brookings Institution Press, did not include the telegram in the US version. Gordon says Brookings intends to publish the telegram in a second edition of his book this year.

Gordon, a staunchly anticommunist Democrat, said the United States feared that Goulart's advisers would press him to seek closer relations with Moscow or overthrow him. Leftist leaders in the government threatened civil war if the military deposed Goulart, but the warning proved unfounded. Goulart simply stepped down and was exiled to Uruguay.

''It was an easy coup,'' said Kenneth Maxwell, a historian of Brazil and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''But if the US had to intervene, they would have supported the military.

Leo de Almeida Neves, a political insider in the Goulart years, said Goulart worried about his country descending into chaos. ''The coup went smoothly because he wanted to avoid bloodshed and civil war,'' said Neves, author of ''Living Historical Facts,'' an account of the dictatorship years. He said Goulart had military support ready to help him.

''Goulart was informed of the coup the day before it happened by his ex-finance minister,'' Neves said. ''He was a fervent nationalist, but he had nothing to do with communism.''

Military aggression grew under President Emilio Medici, a general who ruled from 1969 to 1974. US diplomats in Brazil became deeply divided over the regime. Some worried that the United States had turned a blind eye to torture. Others were focused on the Cold War and interested in preserving US financial interests in the region.

In 1970, Medici became the first Latin American dictator to meet with President Nixon. His fear of communism led Nixon to develop military relations with Brazil and to financially support Medici.

That same year, the United States trained 562 Brazilian military personnel. Washington sold Brazil $20 million in weapons in 1971, despite US congressional hearings on human rights abuses, Gaspari writes, citing US documents.

Gaspari's next book, to be released later this year, will focus on how the coup plotters ironically helped to dismantle the dictatorship, starting in the late 1970s.

The dictatorship book trend will continue in 2003, with Maria do Carmo Brito's life story to be published in February.

This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 1/5/2003.