A special “truth commission” appointed by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2012 is due to present its report on the crimes of the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985.  But there are concerns that Rousseff will not act on the report with criminal charges against the dictatorship’s killers and torturers.

Dilma Rousseff herself was a Marxist partisan in the 1970s.  She was arrested by the fascist junta, jailed, hung upside down and tortured with electric shocks to her feet, head and breasts.  Over the years, Rousseff’s politics moderated to the Democratic Socialist she is today.  Rousseff believes that maintaining Brazil’s three decades of democratic stability is more important than pursuing justice that might rip the scars off of old wounds.

The report expected when Wednesday rolls around the globe to Brazil will contain new information on the 300 people killed by the dictatorship, as well as on the private contractors that helped the military identify Leftists for arrest and worse.

It will also recommend that a 1979 amnesty law for soldiers committing junta atrocities be overturned. 

“The truth isn’t enough,” says Rosa Cardoso, one of the commission members.  “We want justice.”

But a bill to modify the law failed in Congress in Brasilia, due to lack of support.

Like President Rousseff, Jane Alencar was a victim of politically-motivated arrest, imprisonment, and torture.  She says the 1979 amnesty has made life difficult in modern Brazil.

“There’s a feeling of impunity in Brazil that I think is one of the root causes of all the violence here today,” Alencar said.  “No-one has been held accountable for the violent and horrible things that happened during the dictatorship.  They've still not been punished.”

Brazil is one of the last South American countries to deal with its fascist past in the dark decades from the 1960s through the ‘80s, when most countries had some form of US-backed fascist dictatorship, repressing political rights and stomping the underclass – all in the name of defeating “Communism”.  Individual soldiers and officers have been successfully prosecuted for their crimes, but the top leaders have largely skated.  Chile’s Augusto Pinochet successfully delayed charges for years until he died.  Prosecutors convicted Guatemala’s Ephraim Rios Montt of a 1982 genocide, only to have it overturned.  At 88 years old, Rios Montt may escape justice.