Brazil Investigates Death of Former President

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil Investigates Death of Former President
SAO PAULO January 23, 2013 (AP)

A Truth Commission in Brazil says it is looking into the death of former President Juscelino Kubistchek, who died in a 1976 car accident.

A commission official Wednesday said by telephone the investigation began late last year after the bar association of Minas Gerais state delivered a report saying the death was ordered by Brazil's 1964-1985 military regime. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the press.

In 2000, then-Rio de Janeiro Gov. Leonel Brizola said the crash that killed Kubistchek was a part of Operation Condor, a continentwide campaign of political killings and torture. Kubistchek was a centrist who opposed the military coup and had hoped to run again for president in 1965. He was president from 1956 to 1961.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/brazil-investigates-death-president-18293837

(Short article, no more at link.)

[center]

President Kubistcchek's car. [/center]

Operation Condor:

Latin America in the 1970s: "Operation Condor", an International Organization for Kidnapping Opponents

Translated Monday 1 January 2007


Under the aegis of the CIA, and with the complicity of several Western countries, the dictatorships of Latin America in the 1970s united their "services" against activists and progressive opponents to military regimes.


In 1975, a meeting in Santiago, Chile, between Manuel Contreras, chief of the political police, the DINA, and representatives of the CIA, provided the official launching of "Operation Condor", a secret operation which all the dictatorships of a continent would join, a real common market of disappearances, as has been proven by documents discovered five years ago in a hanger behind a police station in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion. This is being confirmed by "declassified" files that the CIA is releasing - at a snail’s pace.

In June 1976, Nixon’s senior advisor, Henry Kissinger and secretary of inter-American affairs, William Rogers, gave the green light to the dictatorship in Buenos Aires to "eliminate subversion within ten months".

The foundations of "Condor" were actually laid before the Pinochet coup d’état in 1973. Under the umbrella of the CIA, with the goal of eradicating "Marxist subversion and terrorist activities", the aim was to eliminate the principal obstacles to the ultraliberal economic policies Washington sought to impose on Latin America.

More:
http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/article478.html

[wilsonbooks]

1. quoting for the article

"the aim was to eliminate the principal obstacles to the ultraliberal economic policies Washington sought to impose on Latin America. "

It would seem that the policies were ultra right wing rather than ultra liberal.

[naaman fletcher]

3. Also I highly doubt that...

It seems that the author is taking a shot at the "neoliberal" economic policies that the US has supported around the world in the 1980's and 1990's.

However, Nixon did not believe in such policies himself. Nixon himself was a supporter of price controls and all sorts of other things that caused George Schultz and the other Chicago people on his staff to go bananas.

When Pinochet took over, it is not true that he immediately pursued such policies. It wasn't until 1975 that Milton Friedman got involved an Pinochet employed such policies.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Brazil’s Truth Commission investigates death of former president Juscelino Kubitschek

Brazil’s Truth Commission investigates death of former president Juscelino Kubitschek
By Associated Press,
Published: January 23

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s Truth Commission, which is investigating human rights abuses committed during the nation’s military dictatorship, said Wednesday it’s looking into the death of former President Juscelino Kubitschek, who died in a 1976 car accident.

~snip~
Separately on Wednesday, the Organization of American States said it has begun investigating the dictatorship-era death of noted journalist Brazilian Vladimir Herzog, who was tortured and killed while being held by the regime.

The Brazil office of the Center for Justice and International Law, a Washington-based human rights advocacy group, said in an emailed statement that the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will investigate the 1975 murder of Vladimir Herzog while in an army jail in Sao Paulo.

The army said at the time Herzog had been detained because he was suspected of “subversive” activities and that he committed suicide by hanging himself with his belt.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazils-truth-commission-investigates-death-of-former-president-juscelino-kubistchek/2013/01/23/2782800a-6587-11e2-889b-f23c246aa446_story.html

[ocpagu]

4. I was skeptical about the outcome of the truth commission...

...since the amnesty law is still standing. But the amount of topics that have been produced or clarified about Brazilian history shows that even though the thugs involved won't be prosecuted, it's really worthy. We've heard during decades that Presidents Kubistchek and João Goulart were murdered by the military junta, but our media have always labeled that as conspiracy theories (well... what else could they do? they financed and backed the dictactorship monsters for years).

Anyway, we know enough to state that the former Brazilian progressive presidents have always had tragic fates.

It started with Getúlio Vargas, the president that led the 1930 Revolution, taking the conservative oligarchies of Minas Gerais and São Paulo from power. He extended the right to vote to women, turned land reform into a constitutional obligation, created the country's first code of worker's rights, the country's first electoral code, the first forest code, etc. He then became a target of a very strong demonization campaign, very similar to the one that the mainstream media promotes now against Chávez. The intention was deconstructing his popular image and works. It didn't work, he's still remembered with love by the people, but they did achive their objective by driving Vargas to commit suicide.

We also found out quite recently that João Goulart was murdered by the operation Condor. And now, Kubistchek. All the three progressive presidents Brazil had before the military junta, all of them with their lives interrupted by violent deaths.

They now try to do with Lula and Dilma the same they did to Vargas. Demonize. And I guess Brazil is the only country in the world where the local media talks more about the former president than the current one. Lula is everyday on the newspapers, always portrayed in a very negative light.

Murder is the only solution that the Brazilian right-wing knows when it comes to politics. Regular murders or reputation murders.

Thank you for the articles, Judi.

[Judi Lynn]

5. That's the way the right-wing monsters work in the U.S., as well. Unbelievable, aren't they?

Their reign of evil is going to end someday.

I have noticed the strange emergence of all the anti-Lula stories, and realized immediately it is organized. These guys never sleep, do they? They are ALWAYS attempting to advance their power, to get more control of the world, and it's a constant effort with them.

They have NO respect for democracy, or the will of the people.

Thank you for sharing your insights on previous progressive Brazilian Presidents. There really is a pattern, clearly. What a shame these criminals are free to keep on plotting against the people of the world, ready to bring back ALL of their tools of power, torture, terrorism, absolutely hellish behavior, and all just to get more power, more wealth, more satisfaction, all at the total expense of the human beings living on the planet.

I had never been familiar with the name, Getúlio Vargas. It's nice knowing the name of the person who broke with tradition of self-seeking elitism, and directed his attention to thinking of his fellow human beings.

We all know who the good people are in this world, and honor, and respect can't be earned by monsters. They will never have that, no matter how hard they try.