Medicilândia, Pará, and five other Brazilian cities have names that honor former presidents of (1964-1985). The municipality of Pará was appointed in reference to former President Emílio Garrastazu Médici (1969-1974), as well as the cities Presidente Médici in and no.
In the south, two municipalities pay tribute to former President Humberto Castello Branco (1964-1967), one in.
Already in the state of, the name of the city Presidente Figueiredo (125.5 km from Manaus) may be related to the last president of the regime, João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo (1979-1985), but the origin is unclear.
According to the city, the municipality was appointed for this reason. According to the City Council, the initial idea was to honor the ruler, but he did not accept that the city received his name. The municipality would have then honored João Baptista de Figueiredo Tenreiro Aranha, president of the province of Amazonas in the time of the Empire.
As a survey shows by Sheetbased on data from the 2022 of the Census, at least 2,039 addresses in the country – such as streets, squares, bridges and avenues – still preserve the names of the 377 people in the CNV report () as regime criminals, as well as references to “31 March”, the date of the coup.
Among the five Brazilian cities with the most addresses that honor the dictatorship, the only one that is not a capital is Altamira (PA), Marco Zero of the Transamazon Highway (BR-230), one of the great works that became a symbol of military governments.
To this day, many cities around Transamazônica have references and honors to the rulers of the time, especially Emilio Garrastazu Médici, which inaugurated the still unfinished highway in 1972.
The 4,260 km highway, ranging from the coast of the interior of Amazonas, was part of the military government project to occupy the north of the country. According to the History Professor of UFPA (Federal University of Pará) César Augusto Martins de Souza, the Amazon region was seen as a demographic void, disregarding the populations and riverside that already occupied the space.
Along with the construction of the highway, the government began the National Integration Program, which aimed mainly to bring landless families from the Northeast and South regions to integrate agrovilas in the interior of Pará and Amazonas. “They received a minimum wage for six months and financing for housing and lots. For these people, it was a transformation of life,” says the professor.
Nevertheless, Souza says that the villages did not receive adequate health or education structure after the foundation, becoming vulnerable to insect diseases and attacks. “After the dictatorship, the Transamazon became a ghost. It was only a few asphalted passages with the construction of, in the government,” he says.
Medicilândia is one of the cities that began as an agrovila, built in the 1970s, but emancipated only in 1988, three years after the end of the military dictatorship.
Agricultural technician Márcio Oliveira arrived in the city with his family at the age of 8 in 1981. His father, former public employee, left, won a lot from Incra (National Institute of Colonization and) and almost died of in the early years. “It was a tremendous difficulty at the time. All very far, there was no road, very insect, all kinds of suffering,” says Oliveira, today at 52 years.
According to the agricultural technician, the medical government project required farmers to cultivate sugarcane. A plant for sugar and ethanol production was installed, but the initiative was not expected success.
“Imagine you demand this from a farmer who had never seen a sugarcane foot before. It has joined a bad management, the inexperience of farmers and the flow problem, and the project was decaying,” says Oliveira.
Professor César de Souza states that there are reports from the 1990s about attempts to change the name of the municipality, but still seek documents that confirm this.
Márcio Oliveira, in turn, says he does not remember initiatives in the sense of change of name, but nor see residents praising the dictatorship.
“The comments I hear are from people who are unaware of the history of the dictatorship, but I do not see this romanticism. Especially because Medici left the work unfinished, and in 2013 only the asphalt arrived. We spent 40 years abandoned,” he says.
Tributes to the military last after the end of the dictatorship
President Médici, in Maranhão, was the last municipality to be created among those who pay tribute to dictators who ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. The city was founded in 1994, during the government of Itamar Franco (1992-1994).
According to the professor of UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) Caroline Bauer, certain ideals characteristic of the dictatorship remained after the end of the military regime.
“Chronologically no longer lived a dictatorship, but that no longer means that people have changed their political-ideological conceptions. One of the positive perspectives of a social memory about medical government is that associated with the representation of, a modern Brazil and great works,” he says.
The first cities registered with names of dictatorship presidents were the homonymous President Castello Branco (SC) and President Castelo Branco (PR).
The municipality of Paraná was founded in late 1964 and definitely installed in 1965, based in the former district of Iroí, being dismembered territory from other municipalities.
Already the city of Santa Catarina originates in the former village of Dois Irmãos, in the west of the state. In 1952, the region became district and, in 1963, was elevated to the category of municipality. Two years later, a state law changed the city name to President Castello Branco.
A Sheet He tried to contact the city halls that honor military presidents to find out if there are initiatives that seek to change the names, but did not respond until the publication of this report.
