The Army filed last Friday (22) appeal against the decision of the Comptroller General of the Union () which determined the delivery of the functional records of the military accused of involvement in the murder of former Deputy Rubens Paiva.
A, the result of appeal filed by, determined the sending of documents within 30 days. The strength of the force occurs just the week when it completes a year and returns to the news, access to military files still kept confidential.
More than 50 years after the crime, the judicial and administrative battle shows how difficult it is difficult to overcome the opacity culture that protected perpetrators of torture during the dictatorship. The army’s argument is that, even though it is half a century ago documents, delivery could threaten “institutional security” or the privacy of the accused, the deceased majority. The CGU correctly dismissed this thesis: These are facts of public interest and human rights violations that could never be protected by confidentiality.
The army has even claimed that “disciplinary sanctions applied to military constitute personal information, whose access is restricted.” The reasoning is unsustainable: the punishments of civil servants are already. There is no justification for a privileged treatment to the military, who are equally civil servants.
To the Lorrane Rodrigues column, executive coordinator of the area of memory, truth and justice of the Vladimir Herzog Institute, states: “These records are not only bureaucracy, but serve as proof in lawsuits, underpin reparation policies and offer indispensable material for researchers, journalists, educators and filmmakers” – as Walter Salles, whose work “brought to Brazil the first Oscar of international film.
The decision of the CGU, if confirmed by Minister Vinicius Marques de Carvalho, creates a historical precedent: for the first time, a military institution will be required to provide primary documents from its staff, instead of systematically used incomplete extracts to circumvent the Law on Access to Information (LAI). Even at the beginning of the year, they have revealed nonsense: the five accused were promoted after the murder, three received formal praise and all were transferred to the reserve.
The achievement was the highlight of the columnist, this Sheetand adds to a consistent history of civil society demands. In 2023, we revealed a military process that remained inaccessible for five decades and documents tortures practiced against the army’s own soldiers. The material resulted in the report, published in partnership with Piauí magazine, and brought to light the only conviction for known torture in the country.
Since this column was created, we have insisted at this point: In (Aug/24) and (Nov/24), we show how the culture of eternal secret Mina the construction of republican institutions. The Rubens Paiva case confirms that the dispute is far from over, but also shows that advances are possible when society insists.
The Lula government has made a commitment to give transparency to the facts of the dictatorship. It is up to CGU to support its decision and fully comply with it, without retreating to the resistance of the army.
Gift Link: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release seven free hits from any link per day. Just click on F Blue below.
