Brazilian Truth Commission

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The Brazilian Truth Commission ( Portuguese Comissão Nacional da Verdade , CNV for short ) was a truth commission from Brazil founded in 2011 . Her task was to investigate the human rights violations committed between September 18, 1946 and October 5, 1988, with a special focus on the period of the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985 . The commission started its work on May 16, 2012 and published its final report on December 10, 2014. On December 16, 2014 it was disbanded.

Emergence

The Truth Commission was launched in 2009, President Lula da Silva's last year in office. On December 21, 2009, Lula da Silva signed the third national human rights program ( Programa Nacional de Direitos Humanos , PNDH-3 for short) developed by Human Rights Minister Vannuchi , which contained recommendations for improving the human rights situation in Brazil. The core proposal of the program was the creation of a truth commission. Defense Minister Jobim and three of the leading generals threatened to resign if the text of the program was not changed. Specifically, it was about the definition of human rights violations: the original legal text spoke of human rights violations “in the context of political repression ”; following the threats of resignation, the text was changed to “in a context of political conflict”, which left open whether the human rights violations were caused by the military regime or the opposition.

The bill was approved by the Brazilian Congress in September 2011, by the Senate in October 2011, and by President Dilma Rousseff in November 2011 . Cláudio Fonteles, Gilson Dipp, José Carlos Dias, João Paulo Cavalcanti Filho, Maria Rita Kehl, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro and Rosa Maria Cardoso da Cunha were appointed members of the commission.

At the official ceremony on November 18, 2011, Rousseff also passed an information law that makes state authorities more transparent. On the initiative of Defense Minister Celso Amorim , contrary to the original plans for the celebration, no victim of the military dictatorship spoke.

Final report

On December 10, 2014, the commission published its final report, which contains over 3,000 pages and contains the findings of 80 public hearings, 1,121 testimony and files previously kept secret by the army and the judiciary. According to the report, 434 people fell victim to the Brazilian military: 191 were killed and 243 disappeared . The bodies of 33 of those who disappeared have since been found. However, the Commission stressed the incompleteness of the list.

Furthermore, according to the final report, at least 8,350 members of indigenous peoples were murdered, whereby it is also emphasized that the actual number is probably exponentially higher. The report also lists 377 people responsible for the murders, of which around 100 were still alive at the time of publication. Among them are the junta presidents and generals, but also doctors. It also lists companies that cooperated with the regime.

In addition, the commission recommended that those responsible be prosecuted. Because of the grave human rights violations, she saw no contradiction to the amnesty law introduced in 1979. In order to be able to judge the crimes during the military dictatorship, the amnesty law of 1979, which was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2010, must be abolished. This was called for by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A CNV website of the Brazilian Truth Commission (Portuguese), accessed October 31, 2019.
  2. ↑ Relatório da CNV, Volume I , Final Report, Vol. 1, p. 15 (Portuguese), accessed on October 31, 2019.
  3. ↑ Relatório da CNV, Volume I , Final Report, Vol. 1, p. 9 (Portuguese), accessed on October 31, 2019.
  4. ↑ Filipe Matoso: Comissão da Verdade é extinta após dois anos e sete meses de trabalhos , In: G1, December 16, 2014, accessed on October 31, 2019.
  5. ^ A b c Gerhard Dilger: Petrified face in the military. In: the daily newspaper . November 21, 2011, accessed November 22, 2011 .
  6. ↑ a b Nina Schneider: Brazil is silent about the military dictatorship: Will the Truth Commission become a turning point? . In: GlobKult Magazin . 2012. ( online )
  7. ^ Nina Schneider: Ambivalences of the Brazilian politics of the past and culture of remembrance . In: Stefan Peters, Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, Rainer Öhlschläger (eds.): History is made: politics of the past and cultures of remembrance in Latin America (= Studies on Latin America. Volume 30). Nomos, Baden-Baden 2015, doi: 10.5771 / 9783845271538-71 , pp. 71–86, here p. 79. ( online )
  8. ↑ a b A instalação da Comissão Nacional da Verdade , website of the Brazilian Truth Commission (Portuguese), accessed on October 31, 2019.
  9. ↑ Conheça e acesse o relatório final da CNV , website of the Brazilian Truth Commission (Portuguese), December 10, 2014, accessed on November 8, 2019.
  10. ↑ Relatório da CNV, Volume I , Final Report, Vol. 1, p. 963, point 5 (Portuguese), accessed on November 8, 2019.
  11. ↑ Relatório da CNV, Volume II , Final Report, Vol. 2, p. 205 (Portuguese), accessed on November 8, 2019.
  12. ↑ a b Tjerk Brühwiller: 3000 pages of hidden truth . In: NZZ of December 11, 2014. Retrieved on December 11, 2014.