The marks of the last dictatorship in Brazil echo in the country's daily life and, more than ever, it is essential that we address episodes, processes and consequences of the authoritarian period under military command (1964-1985). Interrupted lives and dreams are more than enough reasons to question the will, the interruption of the constitutional order and the excesses that were committed at the time. The trauma of the dictatorship, which some insist on relativizing, is so great that Brazilian society took a long time to address some aspects related to daily life and the functioning of institutions during the dictatorial period.
The recent publication of the Truth Commission of the University of São Paulo (CV-USP), in March 2018, falls within the spirit of the law that created the National Truth Commission and caused several commissions to emerge with more specific focuses. The work of CV-USP, as well as the work of the Unicamp Truth and Memory Commission, allow important reflections on the role of universities and how they are impacted in contexts of physical and symbolic repression of the circulation of ideas and free organization and discussion of people and groups.
The USP Commission report pointed out that more than 10% of the 434 people who died or disappeared during the dictatorship were related to USP: 6 teachers, 39 students and 2 employees lost their lives. 22 of the 47 victims disappeared between 1971 and 1973.
The work of the Commission, chaired by Janice Theodoro, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities (FFLCH), is divided into 10 volumes, extensively documented and with rich testimonies. The serious human rights violations, which severely affected teachers, staff and students, occurred with the participation of part of USP's central administration and its employees.
One of the highlights of the report is the role of the Special Security and Information Advisory (AESI), a body created in 1972, during the administration of rector Miguel Reale (1969-1973). AESI was an information agency linked to the Rectory of USP, “tasking those responsible for ideological screening and providing information to security bodies to persecute people based on their political positions contrary to the established order”, as stated in the report of the Commission. AESI operated for the following administrations and was only extinguished in 1982.
USP and Unicamp during the dictatorship
The Unicamp Truth Commission questioned the myth that Unicamp had been an “island” amid the persecution of the dictatorship. Reading the USP document makes direct connections to Unicamp and the specific way in which Zeferino Vaz's management acted in contrast to Miguel Reale's management. Unicamp, for example, did not create AESI and many professors who were prevented from working at USP worked at Unicamp, as is the case of Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida.
The testimony of the former IFCH director, Rubens Murillo Marques, used in the USP report, reinforces the idea of “an environment relatively safeguarded from the control and repression ostensibly present in other Brazilian universities during this period”.
However, there are more controversial situations. The USP report highlights the role of Krikor Tcherkesian, an AESI employee commissioned at USP during the administrations of Miguel Reale (1969-1973) and Orlando Marques de Paiva (1973-1977). Tcherkesian was responsible for reports about USP and Fapesp that not even the National Information Service (SNI) endorsed.
According to the report, the advisor denounced the “leftist focuses” of Fapesp, SBPC and cited more than 400 international and Brazilian researchers such as Fréderic Mauro, Michel Foucault, Paul Singer and Maria Isaura de Pereira Queirós. Tcherkesian's reports condemned “Fapesp's financial support for scientific research projects with the supposed purpose of '(...) misrepresenting historical facts'”. The document also records that, if Krikor's recommendations had been taken to the extreme, scientific research would have been severely compromised in several areas. In any case, career interruptions, obstacles to research funding and other reprehensible practices occurred as a result of AESI's actions.
Krikor Tcherkesian was appointed to the position, according to the report, because he is the brother of Arminak Tcherkesian, who was a trusted man of the Minister of Education, Jarbas Passarinho. The appointment by rector Miguel Reale indicates the rectory's express cooperation with the II Army. Tcherkesian was dismissed from USP on 01/04/1976. The SNI, in 1977, questioned the creation of AESI/USP, as the legislation provided for this body to operate only within federal jurisdiction, and questioned the suitability of the advisor.
The curious fact is that, without mention in the CV-USP documents, Mr. Krikor Tcherkesian was appointed to work at the Unicamp Rectory, as stated in the record in the Official Gazette of the State of São Paulo (06/07/176). The question, certainly, opens the way to investigate the mechanisms undertaken by collaborators of the dictatorial regime in public universities. What would have led Zeferino Vaz to incorporate the former USP advisor at Unicamp? Didn't Tcherkesian actually perform activities at Unicamp?
Facing issues and trauma
The fragile freedoms of a country that has gone through a long dictatorial experience, combined with the deep-rooted authoritarianism present also in periods considered democratic, make it more difficult and complex to approach the recent past. The disputes over the past and its memories indicate that, in the impossibility of a clear condemnation of political violence and crimes against human rights, there is resilience on the part of society that was or is a participant in a painful and shameful process. The voices that are raised on social media today to defend a “military intervention” are, potentially, the continuation of the voices that supported the regime of the past.
Continuing to ignore crimes or disqualify complaints is a way of corroborating, in the present, the emergence of authoritarian discourses that threaten the full functioning of a democratic regime. Work like that of the Truth Commissions is fundamental because it allows us to see not only the victims of the dictatorship, but also its operating mechanisms and its collaborators.
If we are not able to question the responsibilities of different social segments during the dictatorship, we run the risk of thinking of a dichotomous image in which the State alone, without individuals and popular support, would have committed so many atrocities and violence that compromised the future of the country. . At this exact moment, in the most immediate present, it seems evident that the harms of a dictatorship cannot be easily erased, and forgetfulness is one of its weapons to continue finding supporters.
The right to know and question the past is the minimum commitment of the present to future generations.
In the link below, the infographic with the main quantitative information from the USP Commission
http://jornal.usp.br/especial/comissao-da-verdade-da-usp-parte1/
