The following statement was issued by Unidade Popular pelo Socialismo, translated by Red Phoenix staff. The original can be found here.

Unidade Popular vehemently repudiates the fascist act of the Bolsonaro Government in ordering the Ministry of Defense to hold commemorations of the Military Coup of 1964.

The declaration, made by the Government spokesman Otávio Rego Barros, on the 25th of March, is a complete affront to democracy in Brazil, to the memory of the 436 dead and disappeared politicians, to the more than 8,000 murdered indigenous people, and to the thousands of Brazilians who were persecuted, arrested and tortured, including military personnel who opposed the fascist regime.

The military coup that Bolsonaro wants to commemorate imposed terror on Brazil for 21 years. The Brazilian state, at the service of the United States and the large bourgeoisie, tortured, murdered and hid corpses. In addition it deposed the President-elect, ended the elections, cancelled mandates, closed the National Congress, banned demonstrations, intervened in unions, censored the press and persecuted opponents.

According to the report of the National Truth Commission, 377 agents of the dictatorship were identified as responsible for these crimes, including the five president-dictators.

Executioners such as Colonel Brilhante Ustra, recognized by the Brazilian State as a torturer, considered a hero by Bolsonaro, were nothing but cowardly monsters, commanding and executing torture sections even of children, using electric shocks, rapes, rats in women’s vaginas, sticks and many other forms of physical and psychological torture against the defenders of democracy and social justice.

For Unidade Popular, the heroes are men and women like Manoel Lisboa, Sônia Angel, Carlos Marighella, Helenira Rezende, Carlos Lamarca and Margarida Maria Alves, who did not bow before the fascist government and were killed fighting for freedom.

We sympathize with the tireless families of dead and disappeared politicians, who have never been frightened by the threats of the dictatorial state or by the neglect of the democratic state, always in struggling for the right to memory, truth and justice, shouting “where are our politically disappeared?”

Exalting the Military Dictatorship means strengthening impunity and the violation of human rights existing at the time and encouraging the military to continue torturing and murdering people up to the present.

We will not collude with such barbarity. We will fight uncompromisingly to punish the torturers of the dictatorship!

March 26, 2019.

National Executive – Unidade Popular pelo Socialismo

Categories: Brazil, International