He had his family at home in the south of Rio, when he was arrested by the military regime in 1971.
Although emblematic, his disappearance was not usually cited by talking about the repression of dictatorship in the country – less, that is, even the debut of “”. The film, which tells the struggle of the widow of the former consisting, Eunice, to clarify the circumstances of his death, became last year the Brazilian film of the highest box office in the postpandeia and now disputes the race for.
The journalist and researcher Juliana Dal Piva states that some factors, however, made the case of Rubens Paiva singular. He did not integrate armed groups; He was a white, upper -class man, and his calls with the power summit in the country due to his own acting as a congressman amplified his family’s attempts to draw attention to his case.
In addition, the moment of his arrest was witnessed by several people, unlike most of the regime’s disappearances, hijacked and clandestinely dead. This forced the military to forge documents to cover up their murder – which they would later be fundamental to point out those involved in the crime.
It is this trail of paper that Dal Piva, author of, follows in the publisher Matrix. “She allowed me, in a way, to set up this puzzle of how to find out who Rubens Paiva’s murderers were discovered over 40 years,” says the journalist, who departed from her master’s project, defended almost a decade ago, to compose the book.
The work travels all the investigation procedures on the crime, since the Army Internal Syndication (1971), followed by the Federal Police Inquiry (1986), then transformed into a military police inquiry (1987), through the National Truth Commission survey and the Rio Truth Commission (2012-2014) until investigations by the Federal Public Prosecution Service (2012-2014).
It also highlights the contribution of the press to the advancement of investigations by showing how, supported by relatives of victims and civil society, journalists often played roles that should be up to the public power.
The author argues that the case helps to clarify some myths about the dictatorship period. It would dismantle, for example, the false notions that regime actions were a response proportional to the threats of dissidents and that their violence was promoted by a select group of military.
After all, says Dal Piva, one of the officials notified about the death of the former deputy was a subordinate of the Army Ministry. “The violent apparatus of the dictatorship was top to bottom,” he says.
He departed from the regime’s summit and was known by the generals who occupied the Presidency of the Republic. Military, including low -patent, were trained to become torturers “with money from the Brazilian taxpayer” in her words.
The journalist adds that another of the reasons that make the search journey to account for Paiva’s killers in such a relevant courts concern a legal discussion that he helped open. A appeal about the case referred to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in 2021 and Alexandre de Moraes that challenges the current understanding of the Amnesty Law in the country reinforced the need for a discussion about crimes against humanity in the country, according to Dal Piva.
“The way the amnesty law is interpreted today, it is a blank check. We do not know that crimes have been committed, who has committed them. Not allowing an investigation so that the facts are clarified, they are discussed.” , she says. “And that would be a gateway to the other cases.”
Dal Piva has already dedicated himself to ascertaining several of these stories. One of its main research projects about the Casa da Death in Petrópolis (RJ), which functioned as a torture center during the regime. She prepares, alongside Chico Otavio, former colleague of the newspaper O Globo, a book on the subject, to be published by Companhia das Letras.
“Ideally, you don’t stop in the movie. We take the opportunity to make your way to talk about others,” says the journalist. Above all, she adds, in a historic moment such as what is lived in Brazil, in which the involvement of the military is discussed in an attempt to coup from January 8. “The way Brazil faced its transition to democracy was incomplete, without moving the structures. This has consequences.”
