Ten years later, the first military member (1964-1985) for Justice, Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, is experiencing a reflux of image on the right, rocked by the loss of breath in Bolsonarism.
Died on October 15, 2015 from cancer, he was in the Chamber of Deputies for the then president’s trial (). But his relationship with the politician, who even treated him as a hero, is greater than that, says writer and researcher Pádua Fernandes, .
The decline in public demonstrations in favor of the torturer, however, did not stop references in a laudatory tone in the Legislature, whether at the local or national level.
He also remains one of the executioners most remembered by family members of those killed and disappeared during the military dictatorship, who recall with horror the tribute to the colonel in the House of one of the three Powers that support democracy.
Brilhante Ustra played a central role in the repression by commanding, between 1970 and 1974, the DOI-Codi (Information Operations Detachment — Internal Defense Operations Center) of the 2nd Army, in São Paulo. He is accused of torturing and kidnapping, for example, a seven-month pregnant woman, Criméia de Almeida, and two children aged 5 and 4, Janaína and Edson Teles.
At the time, there was censorship, political persecution. According to , 434 people were victims of the State between 1946 and 1988.
According to historians, however, the data does not include the real number of victims, which tends to be much higher, since the commission itself recognizes more than 8,000 deaths of indigenous people linked to the period.
“As there was a lot of evidence against him [Ustra]including documents, he was recognized by the Brazilian courts as a torturer. However, as this was in a civil case, it did not generate any penalty”, says Fernandes.
After being reformed, Ustra played a key role in a network on and off the internet that would later help bring Bolsonaro to the Presidency. The colonel also acted as a propagandist for the dictatorship, writings still found on the internet today.
Ustra’s wife, Joseíta, joined military wives in 2005 supporting Bolsonaro, recalls Fernandes. “Bolsonaro had a bond of gratitude, of loyalty, because the couple [Joseíta e Brilhante Ustra] had supported him within the Armed Forces at least since 2005.”
The image of Ustra was frequent during the period of right-wing expansion in Brazil, forming part of the 2015 marches against Dilma’s re-election, the writer points out. “At that time, the right was on the rise, partly in reaction to the PT governments and the National Truth Commission.”
Now, however, the image of the torturer is in decline, as is Bolsonarism itself, assesses the researcher. “We see this in the pro-coup demonstrations. The public is not only smaller than it was ten years ago, but it is also older.”
According to Glenda Mezarobba, political scientist and advisor at the Vladimir Herzog Institute, it was during the Bolsonaro government that the centrality given to Ustra was observed, since he “seems, in fact, to embody values that were dear to the administration that ended in 2022”.
Mezarobba also remembers the former president’s tributes to the torturer and Joseíta. “[Bolsonaro] and his management had an appreciation for this figure and used him as an apology for their ideas.”
Even with the current ebb after Bolsonaro’s departure from power, tributes to Ustra continue in the local and national Legislature.
In the Chamber of Deputies, there was recent talk on the topic. In May, federal deputy Delegado Caveira (-PA) alluded that the colonel “protected Brazil”.
“Now, ‘Papa Smurf’ [deputado Ivan Valente] Next door, from PSOL, likes to criticize those who praise Carlos Brilhante Ustra. We will continue defending those who protected Brazil and those who are the terror of the leftists, the terror of Dilma Rousseff.”
The speech alluded to Bolsonaro’s praise when he was a deputy, in 2016. At the time, the Chamber’s Ethics Council was calling for the politician’s impeachment.
At the regional level, Marcelo Ustra, a relative of the colonel and leader of the PL bench in the Porto Alegre Chamber, says he is “Ustra with great pride”. “My uncle, Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, has already fought communism and its atrocities in the past. Now it’s my turn!”, he stated in a September post on social media.
to the dead and missing during the military dictatorship, held on October 8 in São Paulo, was marked by emotional phrases that recalled episodes of torture involving Ustra.
Relatives of victims report outrage at the fact that the soldier was honored in the Chamber plenary without any sanction, in reference to Bolsonaro.
Relatives of the dead and missing such as Izis Dias de Oliveira and the brothers Jaime, Lúcio and Maria Lúcia Petit called the request for amnesty to those who publicly praised Ustra a “slap in the face”.
The families spoke of the connection between the 1964 coup and the attempt that led to more than 27 years in prison.
They also said that it was the extension of the 1979 Amnesty Law to state agents that guaranteed Ustra’s impunity, later hailed as a national hero by the former president. The families asked at the event that the historic error not be repeated with an amnesty for Bolsonaro and his allies.
