>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Carlos Olave: On behalf of the
Hispanic Division I'm very pleased
to welcome you all to this lecture.
I want to thank Talia
Guzman-Gonzales,
our [inaudible] Brazilian specialist
for organizing this event.
And now I'm delighted
to introduce you
to our researcher, Mariana Joffily.
Professor Joffily holds
a post-doctorate degree
from the Federal University
of Santa Catarina, Brazil.
She has an undergraduate and
PhD degree from the University
Of San Paolo Brazil
and a master's degree
from University Paris La Sorbonne.
Professor Joffily is
a [inaudible] scholar.
She's a professor of the
postgraduate program in history
in the Department of History at the
State University of Santa Catarina,
Florianopolis, Santa
Catarina, Brazil.
In 2008 she was a lecturer
in the history department
of the state university
of Santa Catarina.
She has also taught history
courses at both the state university
and the federal university
of Santa Catarina.
And she has authored two books,
both of which the Library
of Congress holds and a
variety of articles all related
to her areas of research.
And she has received numerous
grants, honors, and fellowships.
So without further ado I'd like
to welcome Professor Joffily.
[ Applause ]
>> Mariana Joffily: Good
afternoon, I want to start
by thanking the Hispanic Division
for the opportunity to be here
in the person of Georgette Dorn
and also in the person of Carlos.
And I would like to thank
also the extremely kind
and professional staff of the
Hispanic division and particularly,
I'd like to thank Talia who not
only invited me to give this talk,
but also pushed me to do so.
And of course, I want to thank
each one of you who took the time
to come here today and I'm very
honored with your presence.
Mario Quintana who was an extremely
graceful Brazilian poet once said I
quote, the past doesn't know
its place it's always present.
I'd like to start by
reflecting on the importance
that the Brazilian military
dictatorship has in the present
and I will mention
a very recent event.
As you know, the Brazilian House
of Representatives voted last month
for the impeachment of
President Dilma Roussef.
One deputy, Jay [inaudible], whose
political career has been devoted
to the most conservative causes
dedicated his vote to the commander
of a torture agency where some
decades ago the president,
a former guerrilla fighter,
was detained and tortured.
This astonishing declaration
outraged many sectors
of the Brazilian society
and produced a massive wave
of denunciation before the
federal prosecutor office.
It was an isolated manifestation
as were the public demonstrations
of a group of people that
went to the streets advocating
for a military regime to solve the
ongoing Brazilian political crisis.
It gives, however, a sense of
the presence in the public debate
of the sensible subject of
the military dictatorship.
The National Truth Commission
created by Roussef in 2012 in order
to investigate the
human rights violations
that took place during the military
rule also exposed the presence
of this past that insists
on being present.
The recommendations of the
Truth Commission leave no doubts
that even though the
country has been living
under a Democratic
regime since the middle
of the 80's there are some
significant legacies left
by the dictatorship.
Among others, the National
Security Law, the militarization
of the police, and the spread
of torture in police stations.
It is about this past that we
are still trying to overcome
that I want to talk today.
How to interpret hundreds
of political interrogations.
That was the main challenge I
faced when I started the research
for my PhD dissertation
that became this book.
At the time my ambition
was to understand the logic
of learning political torture during
the Brazilian military dictatorship
that took place from 1964 to 1985.
I was less interested in the
perspective of the victims,
although naturally it
was taking into account
than in the perpetrators.
They didn't document the
methods of torture they applied.
Nor did they explain why they
considered an irreplaceable
instrument in the fight
against communism or subversion.
Yet for professional
purposes they did register
in a very methodic
way the interrogations
of political prisoners,
which were often conducted
with the use of torture.
The political interrogations
[inaudible] represented an
available resource.
Since the 60's Brazilian military
officers had been in contact
with the French theories
on Revolutionary war developed
during the independence wars
in Indochina and Algeria,
Indochina and Nigeria.
They were also familiar
with the US doctoring
of national security formulated
in the context of the Cold War,
as well as with the
counterinsurgency methods using the
Vietnam War.
Both placed information at the heart
of the struggle against
internal enemy.
Be the ones who fought
for independence
in a colonized country
the communists
or even people demanding profound
social and economical changes,
the so-called subversives.
Interrogates were the core of
political repression and represent
in a certain way a condensed view of
the struggle between the repression
and the political dissidents.
But there are treaty
documents to analyze.
I soon realized that in them it was
as much about giving information
as hiding it behind silence,
lies, and diversions both
from the will interrogators
and for the detainees.
As one historian puts it, documents
from the political police
mask as much as they reveal.
It was particularly
troubling to find
out that the interrogations
did not contain the questions
or the interrogators' names.
Reading them I had much more
the impression of being immersed
in the left-wing militant's
universe than in the interrogators.
As for the most part the
interrogations were accounts
of the detainees and
their comrades' actions.
The feeling that I had at the
time was that I was looking at --
sorry, the feeling I had at
the time was that I was looking
at what the document's
finger was pointing
at when what I actually wanted
to understand was what
was behind that finger.
Available methodology
co-strategy to reach the universe
of the repressive agents beyond
reading between the lines was
to consider the transcription
of the interrogations not
as an accurate record
of the detainee's words,
but as a conscious act that
had to be taken into account.
A social psychologist has a
precise way of describing this.
He claims that public documents are
I quote, simultaneously features
of the social action and
the social action itself.
Therefore, even though the
only thing we can have access
to is the document, the record of
the action, we need to keep in mind
that it has this double dimension.
It is evidence of the action that
generated it and the expression
of how that action was documented.
The military government when it was
impossible to deny the existence
of torture utilized
multiple times the argument
of occasional [inaudible] or of
cruelty of specific individuals.
The same explanation was offered by
the US Embassy as we can now read
in the documents recently
released by the US authorities
to the Brazilian Truth Commission.
As the US supported the
military coup provided military
and police training and was very
close to the Brazilian government.
When the news about the use
of torture spread abroad
the US Embassy explain it
in terms of isolated cases.
Nevertheless, during the Brazilian
military dictatorship torture was
a system.
The link between interrogations
and torture was established
unsurprisingly by the victims.
Yet, reading the interrogations
we can observe
that the sessions happened
anytime of the day or of the night.
That they happen even
in military hospitals
and that sometimes they
were interrupted due
to the detainee's health conditions.
Despite the level of mobilization
of the social movements in the 60's
when the military took power they
did not face any real resistance.
Many authors point out that most
clandestine left-wing organizations,
particularly the ones that
preached guerrilla tactics
as their main strategy were created
to compensate the lack
of immediate response.
Right after the coup in 1962, there
was a first wave of repression
with a massive number of arrests
sometimes followed by torture,
removals from office,
and interventions
in [inaudible] and public agencies.
However, the accounts
of a more directed
and sophisticated violence
did not arise
until the military rule hardened
with the institutional act
number 5 dictated in 1968
that opened the doors
for much more structured
and radical political repression.
The act concentrated so much
power in the executives' hands
that some scholars consider
it a coup inside the coup.
The formation of military agencies
specialized in political persecution
with a [inaudible] of specialists
trained in interrogation methods,
including torture, started in 1969.
Obviously, torture existed in
Brazil long before the military rule
and the county had experienced a
dictatorship under Getulio Vargas
that was very harsh on
political activists.
During the military
dictatorship, however,
a repressive apparatus was
built by the Armed Forces
that until then hadn't been
involved in political repression.
As some clandestine left-wing
groups started to organize actions
against military dictatorship
the Army created the [inaudible]
in San Paolo in 1969
as an experiment.
It assembled agents from
the different police
and military forces
specializing itself
in persecuting political dissidents
and centralizing the efforts
in political repression.
The operation was effective in
obtaining information about how some
of the left-wing organization
operated
and in destroying some
of their bases.
Considered a huge success in
1970 it was institutionalized
by two new agencies, the Detachment
of Information Operation whose
acronym DIO means it hurts,
responsible for the arrests, the
interrogations, and the analysis
of the collected information.
And the Center of Operation on
Internal Defense COID responsible
for coordinating the operations.
The two together known as
the [inaudible] were spread
to the capitals of the
main Brazilian states.
The [inaudible] system was created
from secret directives elaborated
by the National Security Council and
approved by the president himself.
The functioning of these agencies
was based on the dichotomy legality,
which gave them [inaudible]
and flexibility.
With regard to its foundations,
the dichotomy was anchored
in the solid structure of the Army
with full support of
the upper ranks.
The methods employed torture, home
invasion, kidnapping, disappearance,
murder were illegal even within the
logic of authoritative [inaudible]
by military dictatorship.
Although used with the consent
of the hierarchy it was not publicly
admitted because of the damage
that it would cause to the image
of military and government forces.
The solid logistical support
combined with implicit permission
to act clandestinely and, therefore,
without accountability
enabled the agency
to enjoy great freedom of action.
The interrogations reproduced
this by repressive agencies
that combine both the expertise
of the civil police in the art
of questioning and the
discipline of the military
under the command of the latter.
The combination of skills was made,
however, under a mutual prejudice.
For the civil the military
lacked experience in a field
that they had worked in for
many years, weren't prepared
to perform investigations, and
possessed little [inaudible]
or political sensitivity.
The military in turn considered the
police in general to be corrupt,
incompetent, dishonest, and lazy.
The army made use of police
officers to take advantage
of their accumulated expertise,
but also to avoid employing large
amounts of military personnel
in an attempt to minimize damaging
their image due to the involvement
of the institution
with internal security.
The framework of the corporation
between the security forces
and the military was well-defined.
The police officers bore the cost
of the numerical and symbolic burden
of the methods employed
by the agency.
The military was in charge
of the decision-making
and commanding the operations.
It is worth mentioning that when
some of the former military officers
from [inaudible] gave
their testimony
at the Truth Commission two
or three years ago they said
that it was only the civic
police that employed torture.
Over time the conditions
they work under contributed
to establishing a favorable claimant
for the creation of a team spirit
in the dichotomy at grandma's
house as the [inaudible]
of San Paolo was called
by its members.
Safety standards required the
use of civilian [inaudible]
and forbade military haircuts,
even for the officers.
The operations and activities were
carried out in complete secrecy
and the use of nicknames
was required.
When someone was suspected
of subversive activities he
or she was arrested and
interrogated under torture.
Once the agents of the
[inaudible] were convinced
that they had extracted all the
information they could have the
detainee was sent to another
repressive agency responsible
for the formal criminal persecution.
There an official interrogation
was made and it had
to match the previously
obtained information.
The interrogations could
happen anytime day or night,
they could last minutes or hours
and produce one [inaudible]
sentence something like declares
that had said everything not
having anything else declared
or a few pages and pages.
The information contained in
the detainees' statements had
at least three distinct purposes.
The first and most urgent
consisted in locating the enemy.
It was about knowing the militants'
identities, scandal rendezvous
and the location of their hideouts.
The places where materials
and documents
of the organization were
kept, where the planning
of future actions was
made, meetings were held,
and militants were housed.
Using this information other
militants were located maintaining a
chain of false arrests and
allowing the seizure of all sorts
of materials propaganda,
weapons, ammunition,
money, and internal documents.
The second objective was
related to knowing the enemy.
Aiming at foreseeing
their next steps
and intercepting their activities.
The interrogators often inquired
about the organization's structure,
the functions associated with each
position, the strategies employed
to obtain funds and weapons, and how
and by whom the actions
were planned.
The third goal concerned legal
punishment, it was important
to assess how much the
opponents were involved
with political activities,
how strong their conviction
was laying the basis
for the judiciary stage
of the political repression
performed by military justice.
The interrogators sought
to distinguish
between the useful
innocent and the fanatics.
[Inaudible] through former
commander of the [inaudible]
of Rio de Janeiro describes
these categories as follows.
The first were the [inaudible] whom
when leaving prison the
parents tried to remove
from the organization
and they allow it.
The second time the
[inaudible] were according
to him very well-structured,
very resentful and only thought
about their return, the payback.
When released they returned
to their terrorist group.
The first category was considered
recoverable, the second was not.
Political crime in the view
of the repression was different form
common crime in at least two ways.
It was much more disruptive to
the society as the main goal was
to reverse the social structure and
it was usually committed by people
with high formal or
political education.
The statement is based on a
very interesting case I found
of a suspected drug dealer that
was turned over to the [inaudible]
because when the police searched his
home they found a letter that seemed
to contain coded information
because the suspect had
in quotes subversive books.
So the suspicion of
subversion was more alarming
than that of drug trafficking.
Another curious case is that of a
man that was dating a young lady.
Her mother did not approve
of their relationship
because the man was divorced.
She denounced him repeatedly
to the police,
but as he was released every
time she tried to denounce him
as a subversive knowing that it was
an accusation much more difficult
to get rid of.
What constituted a challenge
to the military rule was
that the intelligence
community was not fighting
against the usual targets
of the police forces.
Poor people, welfare
descendants, migrants,
but against the well-educated
sons and daughters of the middle
and sometimes upper classes.
Torture commonly used as a form
of social control most often
by the police affecting the lower
classes extended this time its scope
to the political arena.
For torture to be used as a
recurring method it is necessary
to dehumanize the target
creating a sense of otherness
that makes the interrogator
when confronting his victim lose
his usual reactions towards other
human beings.
When regarding individuals from
the most disadvantaged classes
to process that creates
a point of view
that does not recognize the other as
an equal comes from a long tradition
of social exclusion whose roots
can be found in the institution
of slavery and the
extermination of native people.
Now surprisingly, currently most
of the victims of police torture
and executions by the
police are often dissidents.
When it comes to individuals
belonging
to the higher social strata
students, professionals, religious,
military the marginalization
was achieved by the construction
of the subject as a subversive and a
terrorist, the enemy of the nation,
the family, and the Western
and Christian values.
The danger attributed to the
subject seems to be the key
to understanding what
brought down the immunity
of the middle class
to torturing Brazil.
The class allegiance in this
case was broken by the fact
that individuals who enjoyed
privileged social conditions were
turning against what should
be their own class interests.
In this circumstances
the [inaudible] agreement
between the middle class and the
elite of the Brazilian society
to work together to
promote social restraint
against the disadvantaged sectors
was broken by these individuals
who decided to fight alongside
the [inaudible] in an attempt
to subvert the established
power system.
Despite of the conditions of
detainment, the dramatic conditions
of detainment and torture
there was resistance.
The strategies of each
individual before the violence
of the interrogators varied
greatly depending on the situation
and the degree of physical
and psychological resistance
of the political prisoner.
Some militants say that it was
important to build a story and stick
to it, which was extremely
hard as they were teams
of intelligence analysts that
started the interrogations
and compared its transcriptions
day-by-day.
It was important to remember the
details of the story told in order
to hide sensitive information.
Dilma Roussef who was
imprisoned and tortured
by the [inaudible] described how
this prodigious game was played.
I quote, the game is never to reveal
to the interrogator what you think.
He cannot know that you think and
he can never think that you want
to talk after being beaten never.
You better not let him acknowledge
that he takes information
from you by torture.
You need to have a story.
The bag thing is when your
story collapses for any reason.
If he thinks that you lied you lost
it, he found out what the games is.
End of quote.
Unfortunately, it was not just
about keeping a solid story the
less interrogators knew the greater
possibilities to fool them.
Inversely, the more
information they accumulated
from different sources
the harder it was
to create an explanation
that you'd believe.
Examination of the interrogations
give a glimpse of some
of the strategies the interrogators
found themselves confronted with.
Some examples are I quote
from the interrogations.
Rectifying parts his previous
statements the detainee clarifies
that you needed many facts in order
to avoid [inaudible]
elements he had met and up
until then were not pointed
out in previous statements.
The next example is about
a political detainee
that I had later the
pleasure to meet in person.
He was in possession of the keys and
knew the position of the apartment
where one of the most
wanted left-wing leaders
at the time was hiding.
He didn't say anything until the
day when the interrogators found
out by another detainee that he
was interested with this task.
Asked why he had not said
anything he answered simply
because I was not asked about it.
The last example is a
quote from a note written
by the interrogators themselves
after having confronted
two detainees.
I quote note, in the face
of the absurd negatives
by the despondent this interrogation
team wants to make clear
that this element is insolent,
incoherent, cynical and untruthful.
And that even in the
phase of evidence
as to the facts concerning
him denies them
with the greatest cynicism
and [inaudible].
End of quote.
The comments of the interrogators
expose their only weakness.
The fact that even under torture
sometimes a detainee refused
collaborate keeping from them the
information they wanted so badly.
In those cases the
violence of torture was not
in quotes useful boiling down to
pure cruelty and in a scenario
that was supposed to
be extremely favorable
to the interrogators
their defeat was immense.
A conservative Brazilian
bishop once said I quote,
you don't get confessions
giving out chocolate candy.
Yet I claim that the use of
torture was not exclusively
about extracting useful information.
I came across situations where the
person was not even able to talk
because of the torture
he had suffered.
In a different case, a
commander asked his subordinates
to get the detainee
during an interrogation
because his screams were being
heard in the neighborhood.
There are also complaints
about the use of violence
without any questions being asked.
One interesting sorry,
one interesting piece
of evidence regarding this is that
we often read in what were supposed
to be faithful descriptions
of the detainees' declarations
expressions typically used
by the repressive agents that are
recognizable, recognizably different
from the vocabulary
of the militants.
Things for example an
interrogation where a student
of medicine belonging to the
communist party that had taken care
of a guerrilla fighter is
reported to have said that the help
that he gave to the and I
quote, infamous terrorist.
Well, it's hard to believe
that he would have in part
such terms to talk about a comrade.
It is not just about
using certain expressions
as the interrogator's logic was
sometimes itself appropriated
by the detainee.
We cannot assert whether it was
a strategy to escape torture
or an expression of sincere regret.
I found some interesting
cases as I quote,
I acknowledge having been a
full for keeping the material
without knowing what it was.
Or I quote, declare that was
totally diluted by his friend.
Or even more striking I
paraphrase, stated that he was glad
to have been arrested now
because otherwise he could have
committed further to the movement.
Many detainees denounced
that they were forced
to sign confessions whose content
comprised elements they had
not expressed.
Regardless to the [inaudible] of
torture as a means to force people
to talk its use was not officially
recognized by the government.
Creating a flagrant ambiguity
between the glorification
of the military government and its
sordid practice of law enforcement.
Carlos [inaudible], the commander
of [inaudible] of San Paolo,
the one recently celebrated
by the deputy's vote
for the impeachment published
two books about the dichotomy
and made an inflammatory
speech when forced
to attend to the Truth Commission.
He never not even once
recognized publicly
that the agency he
ruled employed torture.
This dichotomy between discourse
and practice extended [inaudible]
of the interrogators both by
hiding an action that did not need
to be accountable to society
and by the complicity created
between the repressive
agents and their superiors
in maintaining illegality.
A journalist wrote that torture was
a piece of the political game rather
than an investigative tool.
He's right in the sense that its use
was a result of a political choice
and not an act of individuals.
Nonetheless, being considered
a quick and effective means
of investigation the interrogation
under torture was adopted
as the main method of
identifying activities labeled
as political crimes.
This choice was not an
invasion having [inaudible]
in the inquisitorial practices
of the Brazilian police based
on the confession extracted by
force from suspected criminals.
This technique produced quick
results with loud financial cost,
although in the long-term it
presents a very high moral
and political price.
The investigative paradigm
that employs torture
as its main tool carries a paradox.
While it should be about
investigating facts it helps
to generate [inaudible]
versions because the collection
of information in this
context is inseparable
from the submission of the victim.
The detainee under
torture might say anything
to escape the pain be
it the truth or what he
or she supposes the
interrogators want to hear.
The perverse aspect of the
situation lies in the fact
that to some extent the
burden of denouncing someone
who will probably also be
tortured is carried by the detainee
for not being able to endure,
although it is a result
of the brutal means used
by the interrogators.
The logic established
by the interrogators protects
them of our accountability.
If the detainee does
not speak he deserves
to be beaten to reveal
what he knows.
If he provides the information
he's a traitor to his own ideology.
The aspect of submission
is repeatedly mentioned
in the denunciations made
by the political prisoners
at the military justice trials.
In one of those accounts
a militant explained.
I paraphrase, that in the
[inaudible] he has undergone
such treatment that his
psychological resilience
to deny the facts that they wanted
to impute him was reduced
to nothing.
A similar statement was
made by a sympathizer
of the left-wing organization.
I quote, she read the
mentioned statement
and disagree entirely
with its content.
If she signed it, it was because
she was emotionally depressed
and thereby would have signed
even her death sentence.
The question that arises
when employing torture beyond
all moral objections is
that there is no identifal sorry,
identifiable [inaudible] line
between the refusal
to provide information
and the actual impossibility
of doing so.
Thus we run through this
fear of extralegal punishment
where not only do the interrogators
anticipate a possible penalty
as they elevate it from the
deprivation of liberty to violation
of the detainee's physical
and psychological integrity.
The punishment function
of the torture explains
how the transmission
of information is sometimes
obstructed or frustrated
by the very physical abuse.
And also why some political
prisoners declare having been
tortured without even being
asked about their activities.
To counteract a possible future
release by the military justice,
which was conservative
but [inaudible].
For lack of legal proof the
punishment was often granted
by the dichotomy.
Moreover, beyond the direct
victims of torture the effects
of such violence were addressed
to the society as a whole
in another function of torture to
inhibit political participation,
particularly political dissidents.
Inside the intelligence community
the justification for the use
of coercive methods was based on its
efficacy and on a perpetual transfer
of the moral burden to
the left-wing militants.
Indeed, when we read the depositions
that repressive agents gave
to the Truth Commission or their
published interviews we quickly
observe how their discourse
is always viewed on a reaction
to what they consider
to be a serious threat.
They do not feel they
bear responsibility
since they were responding
to an external [inaudible].
The use of torture went as we
see far beyond the collection
of information.
It served multiple purposes.
To terrorize all those who
could possibly consider joining
or even helping the
left-wing organizations,
to destroy the clandestine
organizations,
to punish the left-wing activists,
to make the detainees change
their mind by affirming
through extremely violent
methods the political perspective
of the military dictatorship.
Though the military authorities
repeatedly claim they were acting
in defense of liberty and
democracy the society they dreamed
of was conservative
ordered and authoritarian.
A society where each individual
should limit him or herself
to his or her assigned role.
The student should worry
about his studies and career,
women should take care
of their families,
workers should work,
priests should pray.
The social and economical
boundaries should be respected
and the political matters should
be taken care of by the elite.
I want to conclude by Harry
Shue [assumed spelling],
a professor of politics
and international relations
at the University of Oxford.
Debating the classic ticking
bomb hypothetical case,
the one in which there is a ticking
bomb in a school full of children
and the only way to prevent a
huge disaster is to make the one
who knows the bomb's
placement confess its location.
Shue argues about the impossibility
to improvise torture
even to save lives.
I quote, successful torturers
must avoid sympathy and empathy
or they will go too easy.
But they must also avoid anger and
cruelty or they will go too hard
and merely knock the victim
senseless or drive him
into a dissociative state
and learning nothing useful
for the prevention of catastrophe.
Torture is not for amateurs.
Successful torturers
need to be real pros
and no one becomes a pro overnight.
At a minimum one must
practice, perhaps do research,
be mentored by the
similar experience.
In short, torture needs a
bureaucracy with apprentices
and experts of the kind that
torture in fact, always has.
[Inaudible] that was not an
independent consultant torture is
an institution.
End of quote.
What I wanted to show you
here today was the glimpse
of how the bureaucracy
Harry Shue talks
about was constituted
and how it operated.
The Brazilian rule established
torture as a state policy.
What required infrastructure,
training,
logistics, expert legal protection.
In the transition to democracy the
amnesty law of 1979 granted impunity
for torturers and for
their superiors.
In 2010, the Supreme Court
reaffirmed this impunity rejecting
the order of attorneys of Brazil's
request to interpret the amnesty law
from the perspective
of the Constitution.
We as a society pay a high
cost for these choices
for impunity is an obstacle to
the punishment of state agents
that nowadays tortures suspects
from the [inaudible] classes.
And I finish quoting
Mario Quintana once more.
[Inaudible] we live in the fear
of the future, but it's the past
that runs over and kills us.
Thanks for your attention.
[ Applause ]
>> There is time for some
questions, so jump in.
>> I want to thank you because
I think it's a great speech,
have really touched me because
we've seen and we live in a past war
and that we have the
[inaudible] and that's not true.
We are really living under the
fear that the [inaudible] no voice.
And I want to thank you to voice
and also ask you if you think
that all these voices [inaudible].
You are not playing with the
problem, you are not going
to have problems [inaudible]?
>> Mariana Joffily: Wow, I hope not.
Well, we live under a democracy
regime that elected a president
who was imprisoned and tortured.
So if she can be a president
I don't think why I should be
in jail for saying what I say.
So it's true that sometimes we are
a little bit concerned when working
with this kind of topic
because there are some
individuals that are still there.
And I don't know if you're aware
of it, but recently military
that said many things
about the repressive system
in Brazil he was murdered
and no one explained how
and why and it's unexplained.
But I don't think that
it's that dangerous I hope.
>> A life is a dungeon.
>> Yeah, yeah that's it.
So yeah, I'd rather do
the thing [inaudible]
than live a free life yeah.
>> I would like to thank you
as well, this is really great
that you're bringing your
story here, especially here.
And linking to it a little bit
what she's saying about the danger
of doing these things [inaudible] to
where those [inaudible] to Brazil,
Latin Americas [inaudible].
And if you are I don't know
if everybody [inaudible].
With the School of the Americas back
in the 60's [inaudible] in Panama
and now it's here in
Georgia and still has
in training military
tactics and territory tactics
in Fort Benning in
Columbia, Georgia.
And we still have people there,
Brazil still have people there
and many other countries
[inaudible].
So if you're doing
this relationship,
this connection between,
you know, the US training
that the dictators [inaudible],
how do you [inaudible]
with the possible [inaudible].
Because it's still a
problem, it still exists.
>> Mariana Joffily: Well
thanks for your question,
you raised a very good point.
Well, I have no fear maybe
because I'm too naive to think
that they are really, you
know, looking for people as me.
But this research was
about the interrogations
and I couldn't find anything
related to the US in this research.
And now I'm here as a Fulbright
scholar and researching
on the US relationship with the
military dictatorships in Chile,
Brazil and Argentina regarding
the human rights violations.
And it's really hard to find
documents on the military training.
Actually I asked officially
to the national archives
and records administration and they
answered that they have nothing
about it, which I kind of doubt.
And they said that probably
in the army's archives
I could find something,
but they are much more
restricted, you know, to access.
And I'm working with a college, a
French colleague on another research
so that's the third one
about the trajectories,
professional trajectories of
repressive agents in Brazil.
And we are observing that they had
many different kinds of training
in the US from the School of
Americas, from Fort Benning,
for many, many places inside the US
to not just -- not only in Panama.
But it's much harder to find,
you know, documental proof
and to know exactly what
they were being taught
and how important was this training.
Because of course, we have to think
about the US role, but we also have
to take into account the experience
we had before and not just
as Brazilians, but Argentinians and
Chileans and Uruguayans in torture
and things for that matter.
And know that it was a kind of,
you know, a -- not a coincidence,
but they went to the same
point from different places.
And so we have to take into
account the military training given
by the US, but also that we have
some expertise by ourselves.
So don't make the US like the
big responsible for everything.
You have to balance it.
But I think it's really
important and I think
that the US played an important
role building and giving advice
to these kind to D9, Chile,
to the accord in Brazil.
We know that some of the US
consoles were [inaudible] frequently
to the dichotomy and
they knew everything.
When we read the documents
sent by the US government
to the Brazilian Truth
Commission we know
that the embassy was
informed about many things.
They were able to read
the interrogations.
So they knew when someone
disappeared
and the family was searching
for someone they already knew
that this person had been
killed under torture.
So it's a responsibility to bear.
>> I want to thank you for
giving such an illuminating talk.
I still don't understand
the connection
between the Truth Commission
and what's happening today
with the instability and Brazil.
Could you clarify that a little bit?
>> Mariana Joffily:
Okay, great question.
The Truth Commission in Brazil was
created very late if you compare
with the other dictator, other
countries that had a dictatorship.
So it was -- it started its work
in 2012 and it was very difficult
to the Dilma government
to build these consensus
on this Truth Commission.
And the military were really
reluctant to accept it.
So I would say that the Truth
Commission among other things
for example, having in schools
materials about LGBT education
and the economic policies
and that tried a little bit
to distribute the wealth,
the Brazilian wealth
and not concentrated so much.
So many things contributed to give
these to the right-wing groups
and parties this willingness to take
their work party from the government
for now for once because
they are really angry
about all these politics.
And the Truth Commission I
would say that is a part of it,
but it's not -- maybe not the
element, but it's one of them.
>> Thanks for the great
presentation Mariana.
I have a question that stems
from [inaudible] talking
about the bureaucracy that's
needed to have a state
that tortures [inaudible]
policy for torture.
And I'm fascinated by the documents
you used and how you looked
at the time and what
you took from them.
And I'm wondering if you
were able to see anything
about in the bureaucracy those
that were being sort of apprenticed
and trained for this sort of world
that were underachievers [inaudible]
to look at it, but those that rose
to the top and those that didn't.
Do you see that in what you
were able to look at and sort
of the selection of those that
would [inaudible] to that role?
>> Mariana Joffily: Actually
I'm working on these right now
in this new research because with
these interrogation I didn't really
have access to the hierarchy.
And that was a main concern of the
Truth Commission to know who was
above the perpetrators
and to establish exactly
who was responsible for what.
And so it's really recent to
have access to this information
and I'm trying to understand
with [inaudible] how these people
were selected in which basis
which were the criteria and how much
time they spend on each [inaudible]
and if there was a logic
from going to another agency
to one agency to another.
If there are some recognizable
paths and things like that.
So I hope I will have
something to tell you quickly.
[ Inaudible Comment ]
Because actually it is.
I mean they worked a lot on --
I tried to explain that it goes
beyond information, but not to say
that the information was
not important it was vital.
Because for the repressive
agencies of course.
Because they were able to having
many interrogations for many people,
so they were able to compare
different statements day-by-day
and compare them with other
people's statements, interrogations,
and compare that with the
findings they could perform
in these hideouts.
So an important part of this
information collecting is
that you put information together
to see what really stands
and what it's a lie.
So it works sort of.
But also because it works,
but also because it's a way
to impose a certain
way of seeing things.
So you don't do that to, you know,
you don't do that with former
politicians that are in jail
because they are corrupt.
We don't do that with, you know, so
I don't know maybe someone very new
in sports, an athlete that made
something wrong and was in jail.
You don't do that to regular
people, you do that against people.
So it's not just about information
you do that against people
that you want to massacre really.
>> Or systems that you want destroy.
>> Mariana Joffily: Yes, yes.
>> Guerilla system and also just --
it's just part of the artillery
on the repressive government.
>> Mariana Joffily: Exactly,
it's a weapon and very useful.
[ Inaudible Comment ]
Well there are many
different perspectives,
so we have former prisoners
who built institutions,
memorial institutions and that try
to keep this past present in a way
to teach people, to teach
the Brazilian society
that it's not a good thing
to have a dictatorship.
And you have those as
Cabera [assumed spelling]
that okay, it's over.
It was something back in
the time and let's think --
let's look to the other side.
And well, I'd say that it's not
a perspective I like the most
because I think actually he changed
his mind about the guerrilla itself.
So it's the way he thinks about
the dictatorship is related
to the way he thinks --
reflects on the guerilla now.
And one thing that was
very important all these 60
and 70 years they were
important to --
I think to banish the idea of
revolution of our societies.
And it was very, very strong
and very effective to that.
So today when you're thinking
revolution it doesn't make sense,
it's something that maybe
it was fancy I don't know
in the 70's, but not now.
It's something that has
been really banished
of our perspective of possibilities.
And I think he's a part of it, I
think he really changed his mind
and he has a completely
different perspective,
political perspective
today currently.
>> Thank you Mariana for talking.
>> Mariana Joffily: Thank you.
>> [Inaudible] complete a
survey I would love to have it.
>> Mariana Joffily:
So thank you everyone.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at LOC.gov.