Guerrillas from Caparaó

The Guerrilla de Caparaó ( Portuguese : Guerrilha do Caparaó ) was a Brazilian underground movement that operated in 1966/67 in the region of Caparaó on the border between the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo in order to overthrow the military dictatorship established in 1964 in Brazil. Their politico-military role model was Che Guevara's focus theory .

composition

The guerrilla was formed in 1965 from a group of 23 NCOs who tried in March of that year to spark an uprising in Porto Alegre in the state of Rio Grande do Sul . The later guerrilla members were therefore mostly former soldiers of the Brazilian armed forces . The guerrilla was politically supported by the Brazilian professional politician Leonel de Moura Brizola , who was in exile in Montevideo / Uruguay during this period .

The military leader of the guerrilla was the commandante and former sergeant of the army Amadeu Felipe da Luz Ferreira (born 1935 Blumenau ). A well-known member was the former marine infantryman Avelino Bioen Capitani (born August 18, 1940), who had already participated in the Porto Alegre uprising and published his memoirs in 1999 . Ferreira's deputy was the sub-commandante Araken Vaz Galvão (born 1936), like Ferreira, a former army sergeant.

The rebels decided in Montevideo along the lines of focus theory of Che Guevara in the Serra do Caparaó ( Caparaó ) a foco to form and thus constitute a contact to Cuba on order from there logistic to gain support. Three members flew via Paris and Prague to Havana , where they and other relatives, u. a. Capitani, trained in guerrilla warfare and jungle survival .

Even before the guerrillas could be established in the operational area of Caparaó, their intellectual head, Manoel Raimundo Soares, was arrested by the military police of the army in March 1966 and by agents of the Delagacia de Ordem Política e Social (DOPS), a secret police founded by the military dictatorship , interrogated and tortured . Soares was murdered between August 13 and 24, 1966, while he was injected with alcohol and the unconscious man was thrown into the Rio Guaíba . His body was found and recovered in the river on August 24th. The funeral on September 2, 1966 was observed by agents of the DOPS in order to identify sympathizers .

activity

In the meantime, the first members of the guerrillas had established a base in the Caparaó region. The region consisted almost entirely of forest ; the guerrillas disguised themselves as goat breeders in order not to attract attention among the population.

However, it quickly became apparent that the essential prerequisites for guerrilla activity were not met. Since the guerrillas could not provide for themselves due to the geographic nature of the region, they were dependent on purchases in small shops, where the purchase of large quantities of food by non-residents was immediately apparent. There was also a lack of weapons and adequate training. In addition, the rural population was apolitical and respected the authority of the armed forces, even if it was based only on actual strength. Due to these conditions and poor contact with the outside world, the guerrillas suffered from hunger and malnutrition shortly after their arrival in the operational area .

Operação Argélia (Operation Algeria)

One of Brizola's confidants, Professor Paulo Schilling , who was also in exile in Montevideo , traveled to the People's Republic of China in 1966 to request weapons for the guerrillas. It also met with Prime Minister Tschu En Lai . However, he radically rejected Guevara's focus theory and called it maluquice dos cubanos ( crazy idea of the Cubans ). Instead, he referred to the Chinese Revolution , which would have taken 20 to 30 years to be successful, and declined to support the company.

Schilling then traveled on to Algeria . There he received the assurance of a delivery of weapons in the event that the guerrilla should actually be built. The weapons were to be transported to the Brazilian coast by trawler and then taken over by guerrilla liaison officers.

The end

Meanwhile, the guerrillas were further worn down by the living conditions in the area of operations. Since almost all of its members came from urban centers, they were not used to a life in the great outdoors. Fish and goat's milk provided the only basic food. The heavy rainfalls typical of the region and a cold climate due to the high altitude weakened the 20 guerrillas further, so that by the beginning of 1967 they were on the verge of collapse.

In March 1967 deserting two members and were on their way to Rio de Janeiro from the Military Police of Minas Gerais arrested and handed over to the military authorities. On April 1, 1967, the last eight guerrillas were arrested by a patrol of the Minas Gerais Military Police on a country road.

The commander of the military police, Colonel Jacinto Franco do Amaral Melo, allowed journalists to take photos of the prisoners, for which he was later removed from his post. Because of the recordings of the prisoners, the Brazilian armed forces lost the possibility of killing the guerrillas and claiming that they had died in a battle.

To this day it has not been clarified whether the guerrillas were actually arrested - according to the official version by both the guerrillas and the police or the armed forces - or whether it was an agreed task of the guerrillas, which was carried out by the two "deserters" had been initiated. This version is supported by the fact that the guerrilla was physically and psychologically at an end and there was no way of even beginning to realize the original concept of overthrowing the military dictatorship.

The guerrillas were to imprisonment convicted of mostly four years and then dismissed. Unclear the circumstances of death of Milton Soares de Castro, the only civilians among the prisoners who allegedly in May 1967 in his cell suicide committed.

The Caparaó guerrillas were not the only Brazilian underground movement of this era made up of former military personnel. In 1969/70 the former captain of the army Carlos Lamarca (1937–1971) tried to form both a classic guerrilla and an urban guerrilla with the Vanguardia Popular Revolucionaria (VPR) founded by him . Despite spectacular attacks, which also caused a sensation abroad and in which the VPR stole weapons and money, the Brazilian security authorities smashed it and Lamarca was discovered and killed in the Sertão in September 1971 .

literature

Fritz René Allemann : Power and Powerlessness of the Guerilla , Munich (R. Piper & Co.) 1974, p. 296. ISBN 3-492-02006-2

José Caldas da Costa: Caparaó. A primeira guerrilha contra a ditadura , São Paulo (Boitempo Editoral) 2007. ISBN 978-85-7559-095-9

Gilson Rebello: A guerrilha do Caparaó , São Paulo ( Ed.Alfa -Omega) 1980.

Bayard Demaria Boiteaux: A guerrilha do Caparaó eo outros relatos , Rio de Janeiro (Inverta) 1998.

Avelino Bioen Capitani: O rebelão dos marinheiros , Porto Alegre ( Ed.Artes e Ofícios) 1999.

Movies

Caparaó , BRA 2007, documentary, director: Flavio Frederico, 75 min.

Web links

Photo of the arrest of the guerrillas on April 1, 1967. Left Colonel Franco do Amaral Melo, right Commandante Ferreira [1]
Report in Der Spiegel about Lamarca's death, No. 40 of September 27, 1971: BRAZIL. At zero. The Brazilian military dictators hunted down their "public enemy number 1" . [2]

Individual evidence

↑ Caldas da Costa, Caparaó, p. 164.
↑ This is not a military police in the actual sense, but the uniformed state police of the state of Minas Gerais, which was not subordinate to the military authorities.
↑ Caldas da Costa, Caparaó, p. 175.

[1] Caldas da Costa, Caparaó, p. 164.

[2] This is not a military police in the actual sense, but the uniformed state police of the state of Minas Gerais, which was not subordinate to the military authorities.

[3] Caldas da Costa, Caparaó, p. 175.