Pernambuco Truth Commission gains access to unpublished records

Last Wednesday (Aug. 6), members of the Truth Commission of Pernambuco received a DVD containing all the documents and findings made by the Congressional Commission of Inquiry (CPI) set up in 1963 to investigate campaign funding in the last elections before the 1964 military coup.

The primary target of these findings was the Brazilian Institute for Democratic Action (IBAD), established in 1959 with funding from Brazilian and foreign business leaders. The organization was designed to influence the economic, social and political directions of the country with an anticommunist agenda. In 1962, the foreign funding and overt engagement of IBAD and its subsidiaries in the election campaign raised suspicions in Congress, leading to the creation of a Congressional Commission to investigate the issue the following year.

Following the military coup of 1964, records of those findings were shelved, only to be uncovered again by the Chamber of Deputies leadership this year. The files include receipts, records and names of companies and people in any way associated with IBAD.

“We've been looking for these documents for two years as they can hopefully unveil an important part of the circumstances surrounding the genesis of the 1964 coup – IBAD's efforts to garner political support to oppose the government of João Goulart,” said Truth Commission Secretary-General Henry Mariano. Statements heard back then include that of Miguel Arraes, then governor of Pernambuco. There is an expectation that the files could also help shed a light on certain torture and forced disappearance cases associated with the military dictatorship.

Next week in Brasília, the committee will meet with the president of the Superior Military Court (STM), Mary Elizabeth Rocha, with the aim of securing the court's cooperation with the investigations. The commission will also turn to the Foreign Ministry to obtain copies of the requests for investigation filed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in the period.

Translated by Mayra Borges