Audios of trial sessions at the Superior Military Court (STM) revealing physical and psychological torture suffered by prisoners during the period of the military dictatorship in Brazil (1969-1985) were released last weekend.
THE CNN had access to part of the content, which totals 10,000 hours of recordings of hearings in the Military Justice between 1975 and 1979. of the violence practiced in that period.
At the opening of the court’s session this Tuesday (19), the current president of the institution, General Luis Carlos Gomes Mattos, spoke about the revelation of the audios and said that what happened “did not spoil anyone’s Easter”. According to Mattos, the STM is “absolutely transparent in its judgments”.
“That over there [divulgação dos áudios] we already know the reasons why this has been happening now, in these last few days, repeatedly, from various directions, wanting to reach the Armed Forces, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and, without a doubt, we, who are the ones who take care of the discipline and hierarchy, which are the pillars of our Armed Forces”, said Mattos.
The general also highlighted that he told Colonel Didio Pereira de Campos, the court’s communications adviser, that “they would not do anything” about the files and that “we have no answer to give.”
“I guarantee you didn’t spoil anyone’s Easter. Mine didn’t break. I guarantee it didn’t spoil Easter for any of us”, added the general.
On the subject, vice-president Hamilton Mourão ruled out, on Monday (18), the possibility of investigating torture: “Find out what? The guys are all dead (sic). What are you going to do? Bring the graveyard guys back there?”
In the audios, it is possible to hear that generals recognize the “apparent veracity” of the denunciations. They show, however, fear that the facts could damage the image of the Army and make the “fight against subversion” difficult.
Among the reports of violence and torture, there is the testimony of Nádia Lúcia do Nascimento, who suffered shocks and beatings while pregnant, resulting in the death of the baby. In addition, other testimonies report “moral action with profanity”, in addition to physical abuse.
During the opening of this Tuesday’s session, General Mattos said that the annoyance caused by the disclosure of the audios is that “it turns and moves, there’s nothing to look for. Today, they will search the past. They only sweep one side, not the other.”
He ended by pointing out that it was necessary to continue the work of the court “as we always did, in the best possible way”.
Obtaining the audios
The STM began to record the sessions from 1975 onwards, including the secret ones. In 2006, lawyer Fernando Augusto Fernandes asked the SMT for access to the material, but did not obtain authorization. He went to the Federal Supreme Court and got the release. However, the STM did not answer.
Five years later, in 2011, Minister Cármen Lúcia determined that the lawyer had unrestricted access to the file and was accompanied by the plenary. In 2015, hundreds of roll tapes were digitized. In 2017, Fernandes managed to copy all the sessions.
Historian Carlos Fico, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), improved the audio — even so, many excerpts are still inaudible — and started listening to all the content. For now, half of the audios have been analyzed.
Lawyer Fernando Augusto Fernandes plans to launch a website with all the material stored and transcribed. The portal will be called “Human Voice”. The recordings cover the period from 1975 to 1979.
*with information from Iuri Corsini and Maria Mazzei, from CNN
Source: CNN Brasil
