Brazil: Justifying the Crackdown

The only politician in Brazil able and anxious to make a public speech last week was Arthur da Costa e Silva, President of the republic. In the wake of an army coup the week before that had closed down the Congress, caused widespread arrests and limited civil rights, Costa e Silva chose an obvious audience. In a 15-minute speech, the retired marshal gave the commencement address to the graduating class of the army's high-command school in Rio de Janeiro. Since the audience included military men who had engineered the coup, Costa e Silva went out of his way to stress two points. One, hardly necessary for him to state to such a group, was that the officers were justified in their crackdown.

The other was more significant: he asked, not too subtly, for the army to keep him in his job. Brazil's officer corps, like others on the continent, is currently split into at least two philosophies of governing. One follows the familiar military tradition of moving in when things go off course, then moving out again once matters have been set straight. The second group, deeply interested in economic growth, believes that progress in Brazil can only come about through continuing military rule. This latter group, whose spokesman is First Army Commander Syseno Sarmento, so far controls the military in Brazil—and is unhappy with what it considers a more lenient posture by Costa e Silva. The old marshal therefore declared himself to be "a companion in arms" who "not even for one day forgets his loved days in the Brazilian army. The tranquillity and the order of this country are our responsibility."

Who Are "They"? "They want to divide you," Costa e Silva told the officers. "They will cast doubts among you, at the same time attacking you in the eyes of the public. They will try to demoralize the government, and they will try to demoralize you." Who were "they"? Almost anyone in Brazil's elite who wore mufti, if Costa e Silva was to be believed: "You have heard voices raise themselves from the pulpit, from the courts, from Congress, from the universities and from the press." Some were even members of the National Renewal Alliance, the government party established after the first military takeover in March 1964 against Leftist Joao Goulart. The government last week indicated that it may disband the party. One embarrassing reason: 70 of its members were among the Congressmen who refused to indict Fellow Legislator Márcio Moreira Alves for slurs against the army. It was the "no" vote of a normally compliant Congress that ostensibly touched off the military's intervention.