What was the AI-5?
O Institutional Act No. 5, commonly known as AI-5, was a decree issued by the Military dictatorship during the government of Artur da Costa e Silva on December 13, 1968. The AI-5 is understood as the landmark that inaugurated the darkest period of the dictatorship and that concluded a transition that actually established a dictatorial period in Brazil.
The AI-5 should not be interpreted as a “hit within the blow”, that is, it should not be seen as the result of an arms struggle in the military milieu that led a victorious group to harden the regime. It must be seen as the final result of a process that gradually introduced authoritarianism in Brazil in the period between 1964 and 1968. It was the conclusion of a process that aimed to govern Brazil in an authoritarian way in the long term.
The AI-5, in the view of historians Lilia Schwarcz and Heloísa Starling, “was an intimidation tool due to fear, it had no term of validity and would be used by the dictatorship against opposition and disagreement
|1|. Historian Kenneth P. Serbin says that, through AI-5, government security forces had carte blanche to expand the campaign of persecution and repression against the revolutionary left, democratic opposition and church|2|.This institutional act was presented to the Brazilian population on a national radio channel and was read by the Minister of Justice, Luís Antônio da Gama e Silva. It had twelve articles and brought radical changes to Brazil. Through this decree, the guarantee of habeas corpus in cases of political crimes was prohibited.
It also decreed the closing of the National Congress, for the first time since 1937, and authorized the president to decree a state of siege indefinitely, dismiss people from the public service, revoke mandates, confiscate private property and intervene in all states and counties.
Through AI-5, the Military Dictatorship began its most rigid period, and the censorship of the means of communication and torture as a practice of government agents were consolidated as common actions of the Dictatorship Military.
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Historical context
AI-5 was enacted on December 13, 1968. This year for the history of Brazil and the world was marked by great popular mobilization. The student movement joined against the regime from March of that year and, at the end of that month, the student Edson Luis de Lima Souto was killed by police in a protest held in Rio de Janeiro.
The death of Edson Luis sensitized the country and gave strength to the student movement. The student's funeral was attended by more than 60,000 people|3| and, from that moment, new student demonstrations took place. In June, there were violent police clashes against students calling for an end to the dictatorship.
In June 1968, the Hundred Thousand March, which mobilized 100,000 people on the streets of Rio de Janeiro and had the presence of artists and intellectuals. In July, the dictatorship banned demonstrations and, in August, began to intervene directly in public universities. The dictatorship acted to end the strength of the student movement, and many of the students, cornered, chose to join the armed struggle.
Opposition to the regime not only happened through the students, but also through the armed struggle. Due to the implantation of the dictatorship and the persecution of the opposition, certain groups in society joined the armed struggle as a way to fight the dictatorship. One of the great names in the armed struggle that engaged against the dictatorship was Carlos Marighella, who claimed responsibility for an attack on the US Consulate in São Paulo, for example.
In addition to the student movement and the armed struggle, the dictatorship also had to deal with opposition from the labor movement, which, in 1968, engaged against the dictatorship because of all the losses that workers had with the social tightening policy implemented by that regime from 1964 onwards. There were large mobilizations of workers in Contagem (Minas Gerais) and Osasco (São Paulo). It can be seen, therefore, that 1968 was an intense year in Brazilian history, and the opposition against the Military Dictatorship gained strength on several fronts.
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Fuse for the AI-5
The trigger for the Military Dictatorship to implement the AI-5 in our country happened with the speech of the deputy Márcio Moreira Alves, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB). The speech of the emedebista deputy took place on September 3, 1968 and, on that occasion, harsh attacks were made on the dictatorship.
Márcio Moreira spoke against violence committed by the military, called on the population to boycott the 7 September parades and questioned when the Army would cease to be a “valcouto of torturers”. The speech was made with the Plenary empty, but it infuriated the military.
The army demanded punishment of the opposition deputy, but the Chamber of Deputies refused to punish Márcio Moreira. This defeat showed that the opposition against the dictatorship was gaining strength even in political circles. With that, the National Security Council organized a meeting known as “massblack”.
During the black mass, the vice president, Pedro Aleixo, tried to convince the military not to impose AI-5 and just establish a state of siege. Pedro Aleixo's proposal was rejected, and AI-5 was announced on the aforementioned day, December 13, 1968.
AI-5 was the military regime's response to the entire crisis that the Military Dictatorship was facing in 1968. Due to the mobilizations of students, workers, artists and intellectuals, added to the armed struggle and the opposition of politicians to the government's orders, the military leadership met to harden the regime. Thus, as already pointed out, the AI-5 was not a “coup within the coup”, but a thoughtful response by the military to the attempts of Brazilian society to resist the dictatorship.
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Consequences of AI-5
AI-5 gave the president the right to carry out numerous arbitrary actions and reinforced censorship and torture as practices of the dictatorship. Furthermore, as an immediate effect of this act|4|:
500 people lost their political rights;
5 instance judges, 95 deputies and 4 senators lost their mandates.
Another immediate reflection of the AI-5 was that influential personalities in Brazilian politics, such as Carlos Lacerda and Juscelino Kubitschek, were arrested by order of the military. In addition, intellectuals and artists became more persecuted, and 66 university professors were fired|5|.
Revocation of AI-5
AI-5 was revoked ten years later during the Ernesto Geisel's government. The repeal of AI-5 happened with the Constitutional Amendment No. 11, of October 13, 1978. However, this amendment only took effect from January 1, 1979 and was part of the process of political opening carried out during the Geisel Government.
|1| SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and STARLING, Heloísa Murgel. Brazil: A Biography. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015, p. 455.
|2| SERBIN, Kenneth P. Shadow dialogues: bishops and military, torture and social justice in the dictatorship. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2001, p. 22.
|3| NAPOLITANO, Marcos. History of the Brazilian Military Regime. São Paulo: Context, 2016, p. 89.
|4| Idem, p. 94.
|5| GASPARI, Elio. The embarrassed dictatorship. Rio de Janeiro: Intrinsic, 2014, p. 344.
*Image credits: FGV/CPDOC
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/historia/o-que-foi-ai-5.htm
