Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto, a Black historian, takes over as director of the National Archives.
A professor from the University of Brasília (UnB) has been appointed to head an agency that was the target of censorship during the Bolsonaro administration.
Paulo Motoryn, from Brasil de Fato - Historian Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto was chosen as the director-general of the National Archives during the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) at the head of the federal government. With this appointment, the Brasília native becomes the first black woman to assume the position in the institution's 185-year history.
The new director-general of the National Archives holds a doctorate in History from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), a master's degree in History from the University of Brasília (UnB), a bachelor's degree in History from Paulista University (Unip), and a bachelor's degree in Journalism from the Unified Teaching Center of Brasília (CEUB).
Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto, who is also an adjunct professor in the History Department at UnB, conducts research in her areas of expertise with an emphasis on the political and cultural activities of Black thinkers, the Black press, and racial struggle.
The National Archives will have the status of a secretariat within the newly created Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services, which is headed by Minister Esther Dweck. The changes were determined recently, after the inauguration of the new Brazilian government.
Under Bolsonaro, a scenario of censorship and threats.
Employees of the National Archives, the body responsible for preserving and disseminating historical documents of Brazil, reported in an article published by Brasil de Fato last year a scenario of "unwritten censorship," but present in the internal routine: orders to avoid as much as possible the disclosure of dates and documents from the military regime.
The report interviewed three career civil servants from the agency, on condition of anonymity. In addition to the climate of surveillance and possible retaliation, they pointed to maneuvers by administrations linked to President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to undermine work on issues considered uncomfortable.
One of them is the change in the rules for bonuses, considered differentiated in the civil service, which "became higher for management positions and lower for those who actually do the day-to-day work."
They also commented on the consequences of Decree 10.148, signed by former minister Sergio Moro in 2019, when he was still head of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, which removes from the National Archives the prerogative to decide on the elimination, or not, of documents produced by different public bodies.
None of the professionals said they were aware of the deliberate destruction of public documents already in the database of files related to the National Truth Commission (CNV) or others that could be considered threatening, but they fear for the integrity of those still in the possession of the various ministries and government agencies.
The decree emptied the agency's authority to evaluate the elimination of documents.
Jaime Antunes, former director of the National Archives and long-serving president of the National Archives Council (Conarq), explains that the regulation removed the entity's function of arbitrating decisions regarding the preservation, or not, of documents in ministries such as the Ministry of Defense, for example.
Bruno Morasutti, a lawyer and member of the Forum for Access to Public Information, criticizes the fact that such an "important" decision was made without being debated with society, which is the most interested party in controlling public administration, including through external control forums such as regional or federal audit courts.
"We are concerned that the management and disposal of public documents are being handled by people who, in many cases, do not have the appropriate qualifications for this and who do not observe criteria that are recognized as important for the purpose of preserving knowledge," he protests.
In turn, the management of the National Archives refuted the accusations of misuse of purpose and argues on its official website that the decree has the approval of the technical staff and aims to give "greater technical autonomy and responsibility to the bodies and entities of the Federal Public Administration in the analysis and final destination of the public documents produced and received by them".
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