In 2012, the Federal Government appointed a group of jurists and professors to be part of the so-called truth commission. The purpose of this commission is to carry out investigations into the various crimes committed by the Brazilian State between 1937 and 1985. In this time frame, there is a special interest in searching for the crimes that happened in the two dictatorial regimes of this period: the Estado Novo, created during the Getúlio Vargas government between 1937 and 1945, and the Military Dictatorship, which took place between 1964 and 1985.
The importance of this action focuses on revealing several incidents of abuse of power where, usually, agents representing the government promoted arrests, torture and deaths that contradicted respect for human rights and the constitution of a democratic culture in the country. To this end, a series of files kept confidential will be consulted and names involved in such incidents will be called in order to testify in the same commission.
Contrary to what some suggest, the Truth Commission will not have the power to carry out criminal proceedings against people who have been proven to have committed some type of crime of this nature. Such punitive power, especially with regard to the facts that occurred during the Military Dictatorship, will not exist, therefore, in the In 1979, the Brazilian government signed the Amnesty Law, which granted pardon to the military and militants of left.
According to some preliminary estimates, the Truth Commission will have the mission of carrying out the investigation of a thousand crimes that took place at that time. A first list of crimes was produced by the Amnesty Commission and the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, which counted more than 450 incidents. A second was organized by the Secretariat for Human Rights and cites 370 victims. Finally, there are still 119 victims who emerged from various complaints.
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Even though it does not have a punitive function, the Commission will be quite important to reveal a series of actions that marked this time. Until today, we have a war of versions about several facts from that time. Based on the work of the commission, we will have the public exposure of a series of documents that will deepen our understanding about Brazilian history and, mainly, to reinforce the struggles that marked the consolidation of the democratic regime in our country.
It is important to emphasize that the work of the Truth Commission cannot claim to impose a single vision on the truth of this period. First of all, we must look to the commission for an opportunity to better understand our history. At the same time, from the publicity of the documents, it will be possible to carry out other and new researches capable of exposing new perspectives of understanding and truths about the periods when individual rights and democracy were seriously violated.
By Rainer Gonçalves Sousa
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in History from the Federal University of Goiás - UFG
Master in History from the Federal University of Goiás - UFG
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SOUSA, Rainer Gonçalves. "Truth Commission"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiab/comissao-verdade.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
