Truth Commission: Clearing up Brazil's history
This is not about revenge or denying the amnesty law, but simply about restoring the truth about facts that were previously shrouded in mystery.
Journalist Wladimir Herzog died on October 25, 1975, in the dungeons of the DOI-Codi in São Paulo. The official version stated that he had hanged himself in his cell. Recently, photographer Silvaldo Leung Vieira, who worked for the São Paulo police in the 70s, admitted to the "Folha de S. Paulo" newspaper that the photo of Vladimir Herzog, dead in his cell, was a fraud. And Henry Shibata, the coroner, is offering to tell the truth about the facts.
Like the mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, daughters, and sons of many other Brazilians, in prison or out of it, Clarice Herzog awaits an answer: who killed Wlado? Brazilian society still wants to know: who killed the worker Manuel Fiel Filho? Who killed the UnB student Honestino Guimarães? Who ordered the killing of so many others? Where are the bodies? For years, families have wanted to lay flowers on non-existent graves.
The Truth Commission, established by President Dilma this year, will provide answers to many of these questions. To do so, it will have access to official documents, summon people for testimony, order expert analyses and investigations, and promote public hearings and partnerships with entities for the exchange of information.
Some find it insignificant that the Commission does not have the power to condemn anyone. But its mission is not small and is essential to the history of Brazil. If, at the end of two years of work, it fulfills what is planned, its seven members and collaborators can sleep peacefully: examining, clarifying, documenting, and making information available to society about the serious human rights violations committed in the country between 1946 and 1988.
In this way, Brazil will be able to proudly respond to international human rights organizations that are demanding explanations from the government regarding the large number of people who disappeared in the country during that period.
Created by law, the commission must, at the end of two years, present a detailed report on its conclusions; identify and make public the structures, locations, institutions, and circumstances related to the practice of human rights violations and their ramifications in the various state apparatuses and in society. The initial focus should be on political disappearances and events of the military dictatorship (1964-1985).
The government is doing its job. It's giving official confirmation to the facts. We can't live solely on assumptions like the one made in April of this year by members of the Popular Youth Uprising who vandalized the house of Harry Shibata in São Paulo, the forensic doctor who signed Herzog's death certificate listing "suicide" as the cause of death.
Clarice knows he didn't commit suicide. Just like Dona Rosa, Honestino Guimarães' mother, who has been waiting for an answer about his whereabouts since October 10, 1973, when he was arrested in Rio de Janeiro. Any search for information about her son has always resulted in evasions, denials, and broken promises.
President Dilma guaranteed that she will not revoke the Amnesty Law that pardoned crimes committed by state agents during that period, but she very well defined the current situation regarding it: "the commission harbors neither resentment, nor hatred, nor forgiveness. It is simply the opposite of forgetting."
Therefore, I believe that the work of the Truth Commission deserves our utmost respect. It was a great step by the government and society in the pursuit of recovering inalienable assets: historical truth and respect for human rights and the families of the disappeared.
The truth revealed will bring solace to the families of the dead and disappeared, but not only that, it will forge principles. New generations of Brazilians deserve to know their history and learn from it. Torture and death are unacceptable acts.
The Commission represents a courageous undertaking in the maturation of the Nation; it strengthens institutions, including the Armed Forces, which are ultimately our safeguard, as they have the ultimate responsibility for maintaining the principles contained in the Constitution.
We are faced with a magnificent opportunity to exercise our responsibility, to create impenetrable defenses against the practices of torture. They must be exposed in all their shame so that they may never again rise up against the Brazilian people.
Deputy Chico Vigilante
Leader of the PT/PRB Bloc