Introduction: Hope in the Violent Land

Summary

Transitional justice follows a simple script. The promotion of accountability in the wake of systematic violence is supposed to take a given society from a state of ‘madness’ (ravaged by violence, authoritarianism and intractable divisions) into a future of ‘hope’ (a promised time when violence, authoritarianism or impunity never happen again). Efforts towards reconciliation and truth-seeking are meant to contribute to the goal of overcoming ‘cultures of impunity’ and vicious ‘cycles of violence’.

In Brazil, 18 November 2011 conveyed this sense of hope like no other day. This date marked the long-awaited creation of the Comissão Nacional da Verdade (National Truth Commission, CNV) in a country affected by the unwillingness to investigate gross violations of human rights (GVHRs) committed by agents of state in the recent past. Like other countries in the Southern Cone of Latin America, Brazil had endured a brutal civic-military dictatorship during the Cold War. The dictatorship instituted an authoritarian regime that lasted for twenty-one years (1964–85) and was responsible for 70,000 cases of political persecution, 20,000 cases of torture, 10,000 cases of forced exile and hundreds of deaths and forced disappearances. But unlike other countries such as Argentina, Chile, Germany and South Africa, the process of re-democratisation in Brazil witnessed no meaningful efforts towards accountability, no criminal trials and no official truth-seeking policies. The transition rested on a blanket amnesty, decreed in 1979 and respected ever since. Brazil was a latecomer to the global boom of transitional justice. The creation of the CNV during the presidency of Dilma Rousseff, herself a survivor of the military regime and a member of the Workers’ Party, was powerfully symbolic of a new era when, at last, a esperança tinha vencido o medo (hope had beaten fear).

Or was it? Most stories about transitions begin with a clear ending: the moment war turns into peace, authoritarianism into democracy, political enmity into civil disagreement. The moment conflict in its various forms stops, and efforts towards remembrance, redressing and coming to terms begin. This was allegedly the case with Germany in the post-1945 era, with Argentina in 1984, with Chile in 1990 and South Africa five years later. Arguably, time moved on in those places, bringing an aftermath to violence, authoritarianism and conflict.