Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04BRASILIA784
2004-04-01 13:14:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Brasilia
Cable title:  

BRAZIL: FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MILITARY COUP

Tags:  PGOV PINR PREL SOCI BR 
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRASILIA 000784 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL SOCI BR
SUBJECT: BRAZIL: FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MILITARY COUP

REF: BUENOS AIRES 961

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRASILIA 000784

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL SOCI BR
SUBJECT: BRAZIL: FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MILITARY COUP

REF: BUENOS AIRES 961


1. (SBU) Introduction and Summary. Unlike the
civil-military contretemps surrounding the 28th anniversary
of Argentina's military coup (reftel),Brazil has marked the
40th anniversary (March 31) of its coup in a more circumspect
fashion. The monumental transition to full democracy during
the last two decades seems almost taken for granted in much
of the coverage, as the Brazilian media has focused on
unresolved human rights cases, rehashed the conditions that
led to the military action, and opined on other long-term
effects of the military's nineteen-year regime. While
steadily receding, the military regime era still casts some
shadows on Brazil-U.S. relations. End introduction and
summary

Forty Years Ago
--------------


2. (SBU) Mainstream Brazilian news outlets have detailed
the circumstances and legacy of the 1964 military coup that
ousted President Goulart and ushered in two decades of
"General-Presidents." While bemoaning the military's human
and civil rights violations, misguided pharaonic projects in
the Amazon, and ultimately failed economic policies, some
pundits credit the military presidents for modernizing
Brazil, and occasionally standing up to the United States.
This "on the other hand" praise recalls comments by
then-candidate Lula da Silva in 2002, who credited the same
military government that jailed him with pursuing strategic
planning that benefited the country. Other legacies of that
era have received less media attention. These include the
unwieldy, novel-sized 1988 Constitution -- an over-reaction
to the dictatorship that hobbled effective governance by
minutely detailing a vast range of states' and citizens'
rights -- and the inordinate influence of the regime-endorsed
opposition party, the PMDB, which evolved into a patronage
machine that still frustrates presidents today.

The Military Today
--------------


3. (SBU) Not surprisingly, the Brazilian military is
perhaps the single Brazilian institution most changed since
the dictatorship era. The military's experience in
governance was in large measure controversial and
frustrating, and today's soldiers want no part in politics.
The Brazilian armed forces are now securely under civilian

authority, and willingly play a diminished role in national
decisionmaking. Although Brazil's constitution gives the
military an internal order role in crises, officers no longer
see themselves as the nation's bulwark against incompetent
politicians. Instead, they are keenly focused on
professionalism, seeking to protect national borders, prepare
for peacekeeping missions and provide assistance to remote
populations. The change is widely perceived and public
opinion polls consistently show the military among the
country's most trusted institutions, even though its funding
has plummeted through the years.


4. (SBU) There remains some negative residue. There is a
feeling among some older and retired officers that the steps
the military took to move the country back toward democracy
are not appreciated today. And there remains a subtle degree
of rancor toward the USG, owing to a sense among some older
officers that the U.S. switched abruptly from supporting the
military government to condemning it for human rights
violations. In addition, the Brazilian military's reluctance
to take on some counterdrug and crime control missions which
could involve violent engagement with civilians is reinforced
by lingering questions about unresolved 1970s
counterinsurgency-related disappearances.

Economic Legacy
--------------


5. (SBU) The most trumpeted positive aspect of the
dictatorship was its supposed "economic miracle," commonly
attributed to the direction of state industrial development
by skilled teams of non-ideological technocrats. Brazil's
GDP growth was said to be the world's highest from the late
1960s until halted by the world oil crisis in the 1970s. The
dictatorship completed monster energy and infrastructure
projects. The generals also nurtured and protected (with
rigid market reserves) some key heavy industries (e.g.
automobiles) and "strategic" production, most notably
informatics. (Ironically, it was in part the emphasis on
protected heavy industries that made the labor movement's
strikes in the 1970s such effective platforms for the growing
democratic opposition.)


6. (SBU) At the same time, it eventually became recognized
that the "miracle" did little to lessen Brazil's historic
curse of poverty and income disparities -- wealth accrued
mostly to the elite and a slowly broadening middle class in
the south and also brought benefits to industrial workers,
but the country's poor grew poorer. Even the statistics upon
which the regime based its claims of overall growth
transpired toward the end to be debatable. In the context of
official economic policies and attitudes, Brazil's
dictatorship left few discernible marks. Everyone in both
public and the private sectors here acknowledges that the
state can never again dispose of the resources to launch a
broad-based development design.

Some Lingering Repercussions for U.S. Interests
-------------- --


7. (SBU) Some journalists and academics portray the U.S. as
directly encouraging the coup plotters, or at least having
foreknowledge of the planning. Some of the more
sensationalist publications draw labored parallels between
1964 and the level of U.S. influence in Brazil today. But
other Brazilian reporters note that the USG has provided
greater access to documents and tape recordings of official
conversations from that era than are available in Brazilian
archives, and "O Estado de Sao Paulo's" 31 March edition
featured an essay by former U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon
(1961-65) debunking accusations of USG collusion with the
coup makers. Most informed observers have concluded that the
Brazilian civilian political leadership of that era bears a
significant measure of responsibility, and that the generals
and admirals who mounted the coup were prepared to move
regardless of U.S. signals.


8. (SBU) Weekly newsmagazine VEJA has pointed out that an
important legacy of the military regime is the state of
Brazil's nuclear program. The dictatorship's failed attempts
to fabricate a nuclear weapon and its cooperation with Iraq
and others still color Brazilian policy decisions. The
militarization of that program contributed to Brazil's not
signing the NPT until 1998 and for a time slowed Brazil's
evolution into a regional non-proliferation success story.


9. (SBU) The coup also indirectly built up the prestige
Fidel Castro still holds among Brazil's left. Goulart's
flirtation with Castro and Che had rankled the Brazilian
military even before the coup. Castro's support for the
failed Brazilian insurgents of the early 1970s and opposition
political and union movements still endear him to key members
of the current government, some of whom sought refuge in Cuba
during the military era, including Presidential Chief of
Staff Jose Dirceu.

Water Under the Bridge
--------------


10. (SBU) Comment. Two of Brasilia's three bridges are named
after military presidents. The third and newest commemorates
a popular civilian president who lost his political rights
under the military regime and whose death some blame on the
dictatorship. Brazil's culture, economy, and political life
still contain many such ironies (e.g., Brazil's
privately-owned aviation giant EMBRAER began as a parastatal
sinecure for ex-Air Force officers in 1969, and Foreign
Minister Amorim and his left-leaning Deputy Minister worked
for a film parastatal during the dictatorship.). The harsher
aspects of the dictatorship and the long return to democracy
are not forgotten. However, 40 years since the coup and 19
years since the return to civilian rule, the military era is
of less and less relevance to a forward-looking society in
which a third of the population was born after the
restoration of democracy. Brazil's civil and political
institutions are now fully democratic, the military is a
respected (if underfunded) professional force, and some of
the opposition figures of the military era are now running
the country.

HRINAK