The democratic front asserts: it was a coup, it was a dictatorship, and the military were criminals.
Leading figures from Brazilian progressive forces, the core of a broad democratic front, spoke out this Monday (1), with an assertive, categorical article in Folha de S. Paulo to leave no doubt as to the 1964 coup: it was a coup d'état, it established a dictatorship and the military wrote "pages of horror" between 1964 and 1985
247 -Leading figures from Brazilian progressive forces, the core of a broad democratic front, spoke out this Monday (1), with an assertive, categorical article in Folha de S. Paulo to leave no doubt as to the 1964 coup: it was a coup d'état, it established a dictatorship and the military wrote "pages of horror" between 1964 and 1985. The article is signed by Fernando Haddad, Guilherme Boulos, Sônia Guajajara, Flávio Dino and Ricardo Coutinho.
Fernando Haddad was the PT's candidate for President of the Republic in 2018; Guilherme Boulos was the PSOL's candidate for President of the Republic in 2018, and the indigenous leader Sônia Guajajara was his running mate; Flávio Dino (PCdoB) is the governor of Maranhão. Ricardo Coutinho (PSB) was governor of Paraíba between 2011 and 2018. He didn't mince words in the article: "What followed the coup perpetrated 55 years ago is amply documented: torture, disappearances, censorship of artists and intellectuals. The blatant repression, the OBANs, the DOI-CODIs, the mass graves in the Perus cemetery and in so many others throughout the country. The empowerment of the henchmen in the DOPS. The arrogance and the many arbitrary dismissals: parliamentary mandates, university professors, ministers of the Supreme Federal Court. They revoked the sacred right to think differently and freedom of expression. And they punished those who disobeyed this order."
The authors stated that the military coup "tore up the 1946 Constitution" and recalled the economic hardships endured by the Brazilian population during the military regime.
The five authors criticized the Bolsonaro government's attempt to commemorate the coup, noting that "no other country on our continent, which also went through the same historical process, accepts discussing any aspect of commemoration or remembrance of its military dictatorships." [...] "There is nothing to commemorate or remember," they emphasized.
The article harshly criticizes Jair Bolsonaro's "misrule," which it says is "rapidly becoming exhausted," condemns his domestic and foreign policies, defends democratic political activity, and calls for the struggle for a democratic state governed by the rule of law.