Brazil Truth Commission Urges End to Dictatorship Amnesty
Brazil's truth commission investigating the 1964-1985 military dictatorship Wednesday urged an end to amnesty for torturers, and listed the number of those killed or disappeared during the regime at 434.
The panel made its recommendation in a final report to President Dilma Rousseff, herself a victim of torture during the her country's brutal dictatorship.
"We respect and revere all those who fought for democracy," said Rousseff, struggling to maintain her composure during an emotional speech in which she said today's generation and the victims' families deserved to know the truth.
Otherwise, she said, "they will continue to suffer as if their families were dying anew."
Unlike its South American neighbors, Brazil has not prosecuted military officials for regime-era crimes, because of a 1979 amnesty law preventing it from doing so.
A law signed by Rousseff three years ago created the truth commission, which is empowered to summon witnesses under oath but not to bring any prosecutions.
Wednesday, the group urged that amnesty be lifted for torturers and those who had willfully violated human rights, adding that the final tally of victims likely is an undercount.
"These numbers do not correspond to the total of dead and disappeared," a commission statement read.
"These are only the cases it was possible to verify... despite obstacles to the investigation, notably the lack of access to documentation produced by the armed forces, officially listed as destroyed," it said.
"Under the military dictatorship, repression and the liquidation of political opponents became state policy," the commission added, saying that amnesty is incompatible with Brazilian and international law.
Brazil already recognized some 400 deaths or disappearances under the military regime, compared with 30,000 deaths in Argentina and more than 3,200 in Chile.
Commission coordinator Pedro de Abreu Dallari said investigators interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses over 31 months in creating the 4,400-page report.
The document "describes the history of each one of the 434 dead and political disappeared," Dallari told a ceremony at the presidential palace in Brasilia.
The group identified 377 state officials, including now deceased former regime leaders, as being responsible for serious human rights abuses.
Rousseff, a former guerrilla detained and tortured as a young political activist, created the commission in 2011 shortly after taking office.
The commission interviewed her during its research, along with former presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, her predecessor, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
The commission sifted through cases using evidence from judicial proceedings, public ministry documents and police investigations to produce a report which Dallari hailed as "rigorous, relevant and hard-hitting."
