The hard-right criminals in Brazil's government had gotten by with keeping such a tight lid on their criminality all these long years it probably looked as if they had completely gotten away with it, and defeated democracy.
This is an excellent article, and it includes something the writers at Reuters failed to mention, in the last line of the article. It's absolutely no small matter, and deserves respect for having been noted at all:
Earlier this year a former colonel, Paulo Malhaes, told the commission in some detail how he had tortured and killed many victims.
Under the protection of immunity, Malhaes, who has since died, also gave specific details about training on torture techniques he and others had received in the United Kingdom.
He was one of very few former military men to give such candid evidence as the commission had no powers to subpoena witnesses.
Moment of Truth for Brazil's military past
Grey line
The commission says the number of victims is probably higher but it could not confirm more cases because it could not access the relevant security forces documents, many of which have reportedly been destroyed.
It says that abuse and torture were official policies and widespread on military premises.
It stresses that they were not isolated incidents, as members of the security forces have argued.
The commission concludes that human rights violations such as illegal and arbitrary arrests, executions, torture and forced disappearances continue today because the crimes committed under military rule were not denounced, investigated or punished.
The Truth Commission has made this a living statement, having force in the present. The same right-wing power in the Brazilian government, allied to the military, etc.
still retained, through practice, its ability to abuse human beings simply because it was able to continue without check for all this time since the 1960's. It's enough to make the saints weep, or enough to make a maggot gag.
If there is any residual resistance within the country now to this manner of treating the human race, now is the time to remove these powers over ordinary citizens of Brazil from the control of the military. "Usurp" those powers back! Now is exactly the time to organize and legislate. They must be checked immediately.
A tribute should be made to Brazil's president who has had to cope with these monsters her entire adult life, and who bore her burden with true dignity while the right-wing behaved like absolute power-mad fiends.
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