Impunity shows that torture and crimes against humanity pay off.

By Jeferson Miola

On March 9th, former Civil Police delegate Pedro Seelig, who headed the DOPS [Department of Political and Social Order] of Porto Alegre during the military dictatorship, passed away.

Seelig died of a heart attack. The death certificate, however, does not record that he died unpunished. The death of this unpunished villain therefore also signifies the death of justice, memory, and truth.

As journalist Alexandre Costa from the website reminds us democratic cornerPedro Seelig became known as the "Fleury of the Pampas." He "was accused numerous times of being responsible for the torture of political prisoners. The barbarities committed in the basements of the DOPS were not only commanded by Seelig. Many times, he himself tortured the prisoners," wrote Alexandre.

In the context of Operation Condor – the coordinated and brutal repression of left-wing activists by the dictatorships of the Southern Cone – Seelig participated in the kidnapping of the Uruguayan couple Lilian Celiberti and Universindo Díaz in November 1978, in the Menino Deus neighborhood of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Lilian's two young children were also kidnapped.

Lilian, her two children, and her partner Universindo were only spared death due to an anonymous phone call made by Uruguayan journalist Hugo Cores, then in exile in São Paulo, to journalist Luís Cláudio Cunha, from Veja magazine's Rio Grande do Sul branch at the time, warning that the breakdown in communication between them could signify an approach by the repressive forces. Hugo Cores was right.

With the phone call [anonymous, since Cores did not identify herself at the time], Cunha and photojournalist João Batista Scalco [JB Scalco], also from Veja magazine, went to the apartment where the Uruguayan family lived. There, they found DOPS agents led by Seelig holding Lilian prisoner. Universindo Díaz and her two children had already been smuggled to Uruguay.

The complaint by Luís Cláudio Cunha [who published the book in 2008] Operation Condor, the kidnapping of the UruguayansThis avoided the macabre outcome suffered by thousands of other victims of dictatorships that acted as a corporation. SA of torture and crime in this region of South America.

This episode became known as the only unsuccessful repressive undertaking of Operation Condor.

In 1980, Pedro Seelig was acquitted of the charges due to "lack of evidence." Therefore, he died with the same innocence with which he came into the world, as if he had not committed the atrocities that earned him the nickname of... Fleury of the Pampas.

Impunity shows that torture, repression, and crimes against humanity pay off, as confirmed by the brazen military officers who today threaten what little remains of democracy and the rule of law in Brazil.

We must always demand, until all criminals are prosecuted and convicted, justice, memory, and truth. So that it is not forgotten, so that it never happens again!

* Photograph from COOJORNAL – the official publication of the journalists' cooperative in Porto Alegre, taken from the website. www.esquinademocratica.com