Born in prison during the dictatorship, Paulo Fonteles Filho writes a letter to General Mourão.

By Paulo Fonteles Filho - Dear General Antonio Mourão, since Saturday (16), your comments have multiplied on social networks, blogs, websites, portals and the like because of your last lecture, in Brasília, at an event linked to Freemasonry when, in a veiled threat, you spoke openly of military intervention, as if you had the support or endorsement of your comrades in arms, that is, the Brazilian general staff itself.

In the barracks, the plan backfired.

Instead of decent, appeasing rhetoric during times of democratic crisis – yes, because democracy and the rights of the people were usurped by Temer and his gang – we watched, astonished, the old refrain of a flamboyant military man, perhaps a late heir apparent to the tyrants who orchestrated a military coup in '64 and led the Brazilian armed forces to commit insidious crimes against the nation, including torture, assassinations, exiles, persecutions, censorship, and forced disappearances.

Among decent military men, you must be embarrassing yourself, very embarrassed, General.

Yes, because I want to believe that there are decent military personnel, people concerned about the future of the country and not just those engaged in Bolsonaro-style rhetoric and fear-mongering, typical of fascists eager for coups, lynchings, and the violation of human flesh.

I confess, General, I've been agonizing over this since yesterday.

The feeling that comes over us is one of awe.

My friends, family, people I love are intimidated, held hostage by the terror that such irresponsibility breeds.

These are very strange times, and fear is a powerful ideological weapon, just as it was in Hitler's Reich or in Garrastazu's "Great Brazil."

You know, General, I'm from a generation of political prisoners.

My parents were students at the University of Brasília (UNB), lovers of freedom, of Chico Buarque and the Beatles, and without committing any kind of crime — other than that of opinion — they were arrested in October 1971 and subjected to terrible torture, in addition to convictions under the infamous National Security Law (LSN), a law that transformed Brazil into a purgatory of very furry wolves.

I was born in prison and had a brother conceived in prison: the warden used to say, "A child of that kind shouldn't be born," and this happened within the very premises of the Ministry of the Army, where you work as a federal public servant.

You should know that the basement of your livelihood was a gallows for infamy.

My mother, General Mourão, gave birth to me weighing 37 kilos, was cut open and stitched up without anesthesia, and didn't utter a single sound.

After I was born — among the beasts of the PIC — I was kidnapped because there weren't any handcuffs big enough for my newborn wrists.

Imagine that a baby just a few days old was considered an enemy of the status quo; indeed, many children were treated this way by the reign of terror.

Perhaps Hecilda, my mother, currently a professor at UFPa, was the only woman to have had two children in prison, under duress.

My father was killed in 1987, and his murder was orchestrated by a former intelligence community agent, James Vita Lopes.

Paulo Fonteles, a loving father of five, was a lawyer who defended landless peasants in the Araguaia region.

What Brazil urgently needs, General, is the reconstruction of democracy, an independent judiciary, an impartial media, a parliament sensitive to the interests of the majority in the form of respect for the popular vote, more rights, a democratic state and respect for national sovereignty, as well as a strong crusade against ignorance, corruption, racism, misogyny and homophobia.

Fascism will plunge the country into turmoil, as well as the lives of a generation that has a responsibility for collective happiness.

It is very painful to talk about this, General Antonio Mourão, and to remember that many were killed by the unhealthy hysteria that you repeat, like a ventriloquist for Satan.

But my task is also to remind everyone that the slave ships that stained our soil with shame, such as slavery or the military dictatorship of '64, can never go unpunished.

I pity you, General; you're in a dark, windowless room, a victim of the very bile you spew into the air.

#DitaduraNeverMore