$Unique_ID{bob00124} $Pretitle{} $Title{Brazil Chapter 1G. President Emilio Garrastazu Medici} $Subtitle{} $Author{Jan Knippers Black} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{brazil government military political geisel medici percent president brazilian de} $Date{1982} $Log{} Title: Brazil Book: Brazil, A Country Study Author: Jan Knippers Black Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1982 Chapter 1G. President Emilio Garrastazu Medici On October 7, 1969, the High Command of the Armed Forces (Alto-Comando das Forcas Armada-ACFA) announced the selection as presidential candidate of General Emilio Garrastazu Medici, commander of the Third Army and former chief of the National Intelligence Service (Servico Nacional de Informacoes-SNI). Medici, who was to govern for five years, had served 42 years in the army but was little known by the public. The military triumvirate promulgated provisions that incorporated the numerous Institutional Acts and other decrees into the 1967 Constitution, which legitimized increased authoritarian rule. The Congress was reconvened from its 10-month forced recess to validate the selection of Medici and was then again recessed. Some of President Medici's ambitions for his term in office were contained in a master plan entitled "Project Brazil: Great Power." In particular he sought-and in large measure achieved-dramatic increases in economic growth, expansion in the provision of technical training and of "moral and civic" education, expansion in governmental capabilities in the areas of intelligence and communications, and progress toward the physical integration of the country through the construction of the Transamazon and peripheral highway systems. Upon assuming office, he had pledged to leave democracy firmly installed by the end of his term. In early 1970, however, he explained that the pledge had been an expression of hope rather than a commitment and that in the meantime the president would retain extraordinary emergency powers. Meanwhile, in late 1969 and in 1970, conflict had escalated between the Roman Catholic Church and the military over the issue of torture. The use of torture on political prisoners and the kidnapping of diplomats by guerrilla groups in order to free political prisoners appeared to reinforce each other. The arrests of some 4,000 persons in November 1970, the month when congressional elections were held, were condemned by the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops. The following month the Swiss ambassador was kidnapped and ransomed for the release of 70 political prisoners. Elections posed no problem for the Medici government. In October 1970 gubernatorial candidates, personally selected by the president, were routinely ratified by the previously purged state legislatures. The congressional elections in November returned a heavy majority of Arena members. Congress became increasingly cooperative. In 1971 it approved 100 percent of the projects introduced by the executive. Media censorship was tightened more each year, and regulations designed to control the flow of information proliferated. In November 1971 Medici issued a presidential decree authorizing the president to make secret laws. In August 1972 O Estado de Sao Paulo, the leading newspaper of that city, in a marked departure from the caution generally displayed by all of the communications media, questioned why the frequency of arbitrary arrests should be even greater at that time than at the height of the incidence of political kidnappings and other such revolutionary acts. Elections continued to be held more or less on schedule. In fact, voting remained compulsory, and those who refused to participate were subject to severe penalties. Thus in the elections of November 15, 1972, voter turnout was higher than it had ever been, but blank or nullified ballots outnumbered valid ones, which by law invalidated the election. This produced some extraordinary electoral results. For example, in the city of Sao Sebastiao de Lagoa de Roca, in Paraiba, an Arena candidate ran without opposition and lost; that is, there were more blank or nullified ballots than votes for the sole candidate. In various cities a significant number of votes were cast for "Sujismundo," a government-created cartoon character that represented a nationwide cleanliness campaign, and for a reputed international Mafia figure who had been arrested in Brazil. In Salvador, Bahia, a wildcat that had just escaped from the local zoo polled more than 5,000 votes, more than the candidates of both government and opposition parties. Although censorship had spared the public from many categories of information, the media had not ceased to be an important vehicle for political communication. The government made extensive use of radio and television to identify the military leaders with the Brazilian soccer team's victory in the 1970 World Cup competition, to disseminate patriotic oratory and symbolism in connection with the celebrations of the sesquicentennial of national independence that went on throughout 1972, and in general to provide the public with a sense of vicarious participation in the national prosperity, modernization, and progress toward great-power status that had come about since 1964. In 1973 Medici expressed his evaluation of the accomplishments of the military government in the political sphere on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of the "Brazilian Revolution." "Uniformity in thought and action," he said, "is the principal reason for the speed and efficiency with which our country is being modernized and the bonds of solidarity between Brazilians are being forged." On the issue of the selection of a successor to Medici in the presidency, such uniformity was encouraged by a strictly enforced ban on any mention of the topic until June 18, 1973. Medici then announced that General Ernesto Geisel would be the candidate of the government party. Geisel had been chief of the Military Household in the government of Castello Branco and more recently had served as president of Petrobras. He represented a faction of relatively moderate and nationalistic officers, as opposed to the more rigidly authoritarian group that was also more favorable to foreign business interests. On January 15, 1974, the electoral college gave Geisel 400 of the 476 votes cast. The MDB charged that the electoral college was a farce, for thousands of dissenters had been banned from any participation in politics. Twenty-one of the party's would-be electors refused to vote at all, maintaining that voting would signify going along with the farce. The remaining 76, however, agreed to participate in exchange for the right to express themselves more or less openly in an "anti-campaign." Speaking to the electoral college, MDM party leader and presidential "anti-candidate" Ulysses Guimaraes urged the government to do away with "unemployment, arbitrary arrests and persecution, police terrorism, torture, and violence." The Economy under the Military Regime During the first three years after the military seizure of power, Brazil's economic performance continued to be dismal by anyone's standards. Inflation and unemployment were high, growth and new direct investment low, and in response to the policy known as "constructive bankruptcy," nationally owned businesses were eliminated or sold off at a rapid pace. Inflation was gradually dampened, however, through a cutback in effective demand. Demand was reduced through the pruning of social services, particularly those involving income transfer, and through wage freezes. Frozen wages, along with other indicators that the government had brought labor under control, eventually began to inspire the confidence of investors, particularly foreign ones. Other measures, such as credit, tax, and tariff policies, commonly favored foreign businesses over domestic ones, and limitations on the repatriation of profits were lifted. By 1968 the transnational corporate community had gained confidence in the Brazilian system. Spurred by massive foreign investment, Brazil in 1968 entered a phase that came to be known as the "economic miracle." The miracle was reflected for some six years in annual growth rates of about 10 percent. The rate of 12 percent growth, attained in 1973, was probably the highest in Brazil's history. Some economists have argued that the normal condition of the Brazilian economy is to grow and that only the rapid inflation started by Kubitschek, the confusion of the parliamentary regime, and the international credit freeze imposed on the Goulart presidency had slowed down the economy's growth. Nevertheless, the military regime did begin several new policies that assisted in the growth process. In addition to breaking the power of trade unions and courting foreign investors, the military government introduced a system of mini-devaluations of the cruzeiro in place of rigid exchange rates that had led to speculation and in turn had forced substantial devaluations. Government policy favored exportation, particularly of new products and manufactured goods. A massive reorientation of Brazil's external trade also took place so that the country became less dependent on coffee exports. Soybeans have been cultivated on a large scale as an export crop, rivaling coffee in its foreign exchange earnings. At the same time, however, beans, which had been raised for local consumption on land devoted to soybeans, had to be imported, at greater cost to consumers. Brazil's proudest boast has been that it was exporting manufactured goods-even watches to Switzerland, computer components to the United States, and shoes to Italy. Volkswagen located a major plant in Brazil, exporting not only assembled cars to surrounding countries but also components to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Although the middle class and some sectors of the skilled working class benefited from the boom, income distribution became more regressive. In 1960 the wealthiest 5 percent of the economically active population earned 27 percent of the total national income; by 1970 the top 5 percent received 35 percent of the total income. The income of the poorest 80 percent shrank from 46 percent to 37 percent of the total during the same period. The government later revealed that Antonio Delfim Netto, the architect of the economic miracle, had rigged the consumer price index so that wages linked with the index would not rise to reflect the full amount of inflation, as they were supposed to do, thereby holding down lower class incomes. The miracle came to an abrupt end with the sudden rise in world oil prices in 1973. Brazil is a heavy importer of oil; exploration for domestic petroleum deposits was stepped up, and some small deposits were found, but they covered only a small fraction of the country's requirements (see Energy, ch. 3). A colossal program of production of alcohol from sugarcane to supply the country's fuel needs was undertaken, at very great cost, and automobiles were produced that ran on either hydrous alcohol or a mixture of gasoline and alcohol. But some participants in the program have questioned the wisdom of using arable land in the production of fuel rather than food. Finally, Brazil had to fill the gap between exports and imports caused by the sudden jump in petroleum prices by resorting to heavy foreign borrowing, which in turn saddled the country with excessive repayments of principal and interest (see Balance of Payments, ch. 3). The process of abertura (political opening), beginning in the mid-1970s, meant that a certain amount of labor union activity had to be allowed and that workers' wages would no longer be made to bear such a disproportionate burden of the costs of development. The newly active labor movement generated a new popular leader in the person of Luis Inacio da Silva, "Lula," the leader of the Sao Paulo metalworkers. Lula and other labor leaders have been arrested from time to time, but their wildcat strikes have often been successful in securing wage increases and other concessions. President Ernesto Geisel Immediately after assuming office, Geisel sought to open a dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church, generating speculation that his administration might tolerate a degree of political liberalization. The Rio de Janeiro newspaper Jornal do Brasil, for example, editorialized in March that "political stagnation, deemed necessary until now, must be followed by some no less necessary democratic activity." Such speculation was dampened before the end of Geisel's first month in office by the arrests in Sao Paulo of about 60 clergymen, professors, students, and labor leaders, as well as by the closing of Jornal do Brasil and two radio stations. Although the 10-year suspension of political rights ran out in April 1974 for about 100 of the more than 1,200 persons affected, Minister of Justice Armando Falcao made it clear that "challenges and contradiction" would not be allowed and that the government would" use the legal instruments, ordinary or extraordinary, available to it to continue guaranteeing maximum order, peace, and stability...." He added that under no circumstances would those responsible for "the situation which threatened to lead the country to chaos" be allowed to return. On another occasion Falcao commented that "our struggle is hard and difficult against common crime, subversion, and communism," and he said it was urgent that Brazil rationalize and modernize the entire police structure, availing itself of the latest technological advances (see Public Order and Internal Security, ch. 5). The Abertura, or Political Opening Geisel did begin tentative steps, however, in the direction of what came to be known as distensao (decompression, relaxation of tension) or abertura. Congressional debates became livelier as the MDB found that it could criticize the government. In the 1974 elections for the state and federal legislatures, the MDB received almost 5.5 million of the 8 million votes cast and won 16 of the senatorial seats up for election, against the six won by Arena. Arena still held the majority in both houses of Congress, but it no longer held the two-thirds majority necessary for approval of constitutional amendments. Geisel's political strategy seemed to be to economize on the use of force and to reduce the widespread abuses-the assassinations and torture that had reached a peak during the Medici administration-without losing control of the liberalizing process. He removed from their posts officers associated with the worst excesses of the regime. Liberalization stopped far short of relinquishing military control of the government to civilian politicians,however. In the campaign for the 1978 election of state governors, when it appeared that the MDB might be too successful, Geisel changed the rules of the game by introducing the "April package." This provided that the Constitution could be amended by a simple majority of Congress, which Arena still had, and changed the electoral laws to the disadvantage of the opposition. Moreover, the "package" reaffirmed the president's powers to remove members of Congress and to suspend the political rights of individuals, a power used freely by Geisel against MDB members of Congress. The military hard-liners believed that measures such as this were only temporizing a bad situation and that the attempt at abertura should be abandoned completely. In the jockeying for the nomination to succeed Geisel as president, the candidate of the authoritarian right was the war minister, General Silvio Coelho da Frota. Geisel took advantage of extreme statements made by Frota to remove him for insubordination. Frota's ambitions were permanently crushed when his attempt to topple Geisel in a coup d'etat aborted. Geisel was thus able to impose his own choice as the regime's candidate for the presidential term beginning in 1979. This was General Joao Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo, whose branch of service was technically the cavalry but who had served most recently as head of the SNI. Figueiredo, in a peculiarly populist style, in 1982 continued along the path of abertura (see Elections under Military Rule, ch. 4). * * * There are many outstanding books, both in English and in Portuguese, covering various segments and aspects of Brazilian history. Donald Worcester's Brazil: From Colony to World Power offers a wealth of fascinating detail on the colonial period and the transition to independence. The early national period receives good coverage in Richard Graham's Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 1850-1914 and A Century of Brazilian History since 1865. Among the best studies of the Vargas era and the Second Republic are Thomas E. Skidmore's Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy and E. Bradford Burns' Nationalism in Brazil: A Historical Survey. The best of the many books dealing with the demise of Brazil's last constitutional government in 1964 are probably O Governo Joao Goulart: as Lutas Sociais no Brasil, 1961-1964 (1978) by Luis Alberto Moniz Bandeira and 1964: A Conquista do Estado: Acao Politica, Poder e Golpe de Classe (1981) by Rene Armand Dreifuss. Moniz and Dreifuss had exclusive access to some of the most important documents of the period. That time of troubles is covered in English by Alfred Stepan in The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil (1971) and by Jan Knippers Black in United States Penetration of Brazil (1977). Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies, and Future (1973), edited by Stepan, provides a wide-ranging assessment of the early years of military rule. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)