Former President Geisel Supported Executions during Dictatorship, According to CIA Document
Source: Folha de S.Paulo
05/11/2018 - 12H09
FROM SÃO PAULO
A confidential document issued by the US Department of State reported that Ernesto Geisel, Brazil's president from 1974 to 1979, supported the extension of a policy that called for the "summary executions" of those considered enemies of the military dictatorship.
He is also said to have ordered then-head of the National Information Service (SNI) João Baptista Figueiredo - who would later go on to replace him, acting as president from 1979-1985 - to authorize said executions.
The document - which, with the exception of two paragraphs that remain redacted, was disclosed back in 2015 - was posted on social media by Matias Spektor, a Folha columnist and International Relations professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV).
1º.out.1976/Folhapress
Ernesto Geisel, Brazilian president from 1974 to 1979
Mr. Spektor said that the document was "the most disturbing confidential document" that he had ever read in 20 years of research.
Read more: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2018/05/1968194-former-president-geisel-supported-executions-during-dictatorship-according-to-cia-document.shtml
Judi Lynn
(160,214 posts)DICTATORSHIP-ERA RECORDS GIVEN BY VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN TO PRESIDENT ROUSSEFF
DETAIL "PSYCHOPHYSICAL" SYSTEMS OF TORTURE, SECRET EXECUTIONS
43 STATE DEPARTMENT RECORDS MADE PUBLIC BY BRAZILIAN TRUTH COMMISSION
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 478
Posted July 8, 2014
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, DC, July 8, 2014 The Brazilian military regime employed a "sophisticated and elaborate psychophysical duress system" to "intimidate and terrify" suspected leftist militants in the early 1970s, according to a State Department report dated in April 1973 and made public last week. Among the torture techniques used during the military era, the report detailed "special effects" rooms at Brazilian military detention centers in which suspects would be "placed nude" on a metal floor "through which electric current is pulsated." Some suspects were "eliminated" but the press was told they died in "shoot outs" while trying to escape police custody. "The shoot-out technique is being used increasingly," the cable sent by the U.S. Consul General in Rio de Janeiro noted, "in order to deal with the public relations aspect of eliminating subversives," and to "obviate 'death-by-torture' charges in the international press."
Peter Kornbluh who directs the National Security Archive's Brazil Documentation Project called the document "one of the most detailed reports on torture techniques ever declassified by the U.S. government."
Titled "Widespread Arrests and Psychophysical Interrogation of Suspected Subversives," the document was among 43 State Department cables and reports that Vice President Joseph Biden turned over on June 17 to President Dilma Rousseff during his trip to Brazil for the World Cup competition for use by the Brazilian Truth Commission. The Commission is in the final phase of a two-year investigation of human rights atrocities during the military dictatorship which lasted from 1964 to 1985. On July 2, the Commission posted all 43 documents on its website, accompanied by this statement: "The CNV greatly appreciates the initiative of the U.S. government to make these records available to Brazilian society and hopes that this collaboration will continue to progress."
The records range in date from 1967 to 1977. They report on a wide range of human rights-related issues, among them: secret torture detention centers in Sao Paulo, the military's counter-subversion operations, attitudes of the Church on human rights violations, and the regime's hostile reaction in 1977 to the first State Department human rights report on abuses. Some of the documents had been previously declassified under routine release procedures; others, including the April 1973 report on psychophysical torture, were reviewed for declassification as recently as June 5, 2014, in preparation for Biden's trip.
More:
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB478/