BRAZIL: THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS:

...For want of nerve, desire, power, or time-it is impossible to determine from here-Geisel has yet to dismantle the local security apparatuses...

...More decisive perhaps is the hardline commitment to purge Communists and other critics of government policy from the mass media, centered in Sao Paulo...

...Old-line Brazilian Communists, whose conservatism in the sixties erected as much a bulwark against urban guerrillas as the arms of the military, are now the prime targets...

...In proclaiming last November 14 a day of fast throughout Sao Paulo in defense of human rights, Dom Evaristo has certainly won the...

...The Cardinal Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro canceled a requiem mass at the last moment because the deceased was not a Catholic...

...This will explain why the moderates attempted to rally massive popular support, why, for example, they permitted the opposition Movemento Democratico Brasileiro party to win their impressive victory in 1974...

...Indeed their policies can find neither solace nor legitimation in the Cardinal Archbishop, a Franciscan monk until his elevation in 1969, who uncompromisingly adheres to the belief in universal brotherhood preached by his order's founder: in defending the human rights of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Marxists, Dom Evaristo proclaims the essential humanity of them all...

...In contrast, Sao Paulo's Archbishop, Paulo Evaristo Cardinal Arns, offered his cathedral for the ecumenical memorial service...

...For the middle class, the future spells decreased mobility and a declining standard of living...

...in the industrial centers of the nation, it has stood up for a just wage and the right to organize...

...a year ago, he promoted free elections, but recently set the limits of public criticism...

...For over a year, it has been an open secret that the Second Army in Sao Paulo "answers to no one...

...Moreover, we are not going to let them make a Portugal...

...He eased up but didn't abolish press censorship...

...Thus, decompression's first objective was to recast class politics to combat the depressed Brazilian economy...

...In the past, the church protected only its own from military outrages...

...The next day, the army released his corpse in a sealed coffin, barred it from public and family view and, after rejecting his widow's appeal Ralph della cava teaches Latin American history at Queens College, City University of New York...

...One, the much publized "economic miracle"- that 11 percent annual growth rate which became the regime's showcase for four consecutive years-was acknowledged to be heading for trouble...

...Since mid-1974 the moderates' policy has aimed to neutralize two potentially disturbing threats to Gei-sel's remaining tenure...

...The roots of the Herzog affair lie in the widening division between hardliners and moderates within Brazil's ruling military elite...

...Significantly, the well-disciplined security apparatuses at the local level have seized considerable autonomy from the military high command in Brasilia...

...Dom Evaristo's stance before Herzog's putative murder and almost certain suicide is borne of bitter struggle...

...If hardliners can make the Communist charge stick on journalists like Herzog who were recently hired by state-financed entities, then-according to an authoritative source-civilian allies of the moderates can be more easily discredited by "red-baiting," if not entirely removed from office...

...Catholic Church's Position One last area of inquiry merits consideration: what has been the position of the Roman Catholic Church in recent events...

...Moreover, they boldly maintained ties to several champions of private industry whom the moderates, favoring state control of the economy, view suspiciously and had barred from key political offices, especially in Sao Paulo...

...So too is their systematic enforcement of "labor peace" and silencing of intellectual dissent that made industrial Sao Paulo the motor force of the "economic miracle"-much to the pleasure and profits of national and multinational investors...

...Judging Geisel's candidacy to signify a reduction of their own power to affect military policy, hardliners independently stepped up sporadic purges in a show of strength...

...Under Dom Evaristo, it publicly shielded the Indians of Goias from the land speculators and those of the Amazons from mineral grubbers...

...The hardliners' response is a matter of record...

...Since the beginning of 1975- much to the moderates' consternation-the church incessantly denounced the new waves of torture and repression, regardless of the victims' religious or political identifications...

...As on many other vital questions, the Brazilian church was divided over the Herzog case...

...But the showdown never came...

...He also was the prime mover last All Saints' Day behind the collective denunciation by the bishops of Sao Paulo State of the growing desecration of human rights in Brazil...

...Several weeks ago, the suspicious death of a Brazilian TV news editor, journalist and professor confirmed that the rule of force still prevails over the rule of law...

...The other threat came from the hardline security forces...

...In the race against time, however, they would extend a limited partnership to civilians schooled in technological skills and patriotism (hence the enormous funding for graduate programs and literacy campaigns, of late...

...BRAZIL: THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS RALPH DELLA CAVA The rule of force still prevails over the rule of law Five years ago, I argued in Commonweal [April 24, 1970] that the Brazilian "Revolution of 1964" had transformed torture and other repressive methods into an instrument of national policy...

...To offset their alienation (and defuse potential threats to military rule), the moderates promoted their controlled return to limited liberties and at the same time implied that further cuts in real wages-which fell about 30 to 38 percent between 1960 and 1970-would be borne as usual on the already burdened backs of rural and urban workers...

...Perhaps his actions may even signal the forging of a common front-similar in many respects to that of the Italian partisans in 1945-and usher in a new phase in the Brazilian struggle against the rule of force and on behalf of human rights.nd on behalf of human rights...

...of Brazil...

...Welcome as Geisel's policy of "decompression" may have been, it should obviously not be confused with "redemocratization," as some observers have concluded...

...Shocked and indignant, the Journalists Union to which Herzog belonged convened in permanent session until federal spokesmen finally pledged to open an inquiry into his death and Second Army officers guaranteed the physical safety of ten other recently imprisoned journalists...

...It also cast doubt on whether recent efforts for a limited return to civil liberties are still workable...

...church more enemies among the generals and their capitalist wizards...

...Not surprising either is the ensuing growth and concentration of hardliners' power-chiefly but by no means exclusively-within the security apparatuses of the Sao Paulo-based Second Army...

...Ten hours later, military interrogators asserted he had hung himself in his cell after tearing up an admittedly illegibly signed confession to purported membership in Brazil's outlawed Communist party...

...With the worldwide recession of 1974, Brazil's inflation skyrocketed, creditors called in their debts and Arab oil prices rose astronomically...

...It was widely assumed that the moderates were preparing for a showdown with "the army within the army...

...Might the press purge also be anti-Semitic...

...Herzog, like an unusually high number of recently arrested journalists, was a Jew...

...Indeed, since early 197S hardliners have arrogantly responded to civilian inquiries about the fate of political prisoners with new reprisals against "subversives...

...finally he has courted churchmen, intellectuals, students and exiles, but has failed to legally redress the wrongs which his predecessors inflicted on so many of them over, the past eleven years...

...Moreover, his pointed homily about the fifth commandment publicly implied that military accounts of the 38-year-old's suicide are patently unreliable...

...I also insisted that Brazil's military rulers had systematically deployed those measures for the prime purpose of silencing civilian opposition and only incidentally for routing scattered urban terrorists, then more prominent in newspaper headlines than in reality...

...On the morning of October 25, Vladimir Herzog voluntarily appeared for questioning at the headquarters of Brazil's Second Army in Sao Paulo...

...But when it recognized how powerless it in fact was, the church grew swiftly in wisdom and grace...

...Moderates' Policy More and more "decompression" seems intimately related to the very survival of military rule by moderates...

...In solidarity, some 30,000 students and professors from the University of Sao Paulo and the Catholic Pontifical University struck for a week, calling attention to the fate of 85 additional political prisoners...

...Obviously, the loss of military control over Brazil's largest industrial center is tantamount to losing political and economic grip over Brazil...

...Moreover, his failure to strike first may put his remaining tenure in jeopardy, just as the enduring autonomy of the Second Army proved a key element in the Herzog case...

...Aware of hardline hostility, Geisel chose a middle course...

...Fear of the Portuguese revolution partially explains the recent anti-Communist witchhunts...

...Catholic, Protestant and Jewish religious leaders conducted an ecumenical memorial service in the Arch-diocesan Cathedral which 8,000 mourners attended, first skirting a government-abetted traffic jam on their way in, then dodging innumerable police cameras on their way out...

...Not since mid-1968 when hundreds of thousands of marchers peaceably demonstrated in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro-and were beaten, gassed and shot at-had civilians dared brave the military in such a spontaneous indictment of arbitrary rule, and a massive outpouring in defense of human rights...

...Led by General Ernesto Geisel, inaugurated in March 1974 as Brazil's fourth "Revolutionary" President, the moderates accordingly embarked on a policy of "decompressing" sources of past military-civilian tension...

...The moderates, for their part, share the hardliners' abhorrence of "subversion" and have no intention of yielding much power to civilians...

...At issue is whether civilians should be accorded a share in the policy, and if so, how much...

...Their repression of "subversives" after 1964, their dismantling of voluntary associations, and their brutal campaign against urban guerrillas between 1968 and 1970 are well documented...

...They believe foremost in the military's urgent mission to achieve Brazil's greatness within this century...

...Was that purely a coincidence or did it signify unwillingness in high quarters to brook any resistance-real or imagined-to oil-dependent Brazil's recent courting of Arab powers...

...As one hardline officer declared recently: "War is war and we are at war...

...The press purge, however, appears to have a more direct political target, namely the present civilian governor of Sao Paulo, Geisel's handpicked appointee...

...for an autopsy, ordered it buried with haste...