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$Unique_ID{bob00146}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Brazil
Chapter 5D.   Public Order and Internal Security}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Eugene K. Keefe}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{police
military
security
forces
state
army
government
general
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federal
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Title:       Brazil
Book:        Brazil, A Country Study
Author:      Eugene K. Keefe
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 5D.   Public Order and Internal Security

Federal Police

     The Constitution assigns to the "union of the states, the Federal
District, and the territories" the power to organize and maintain federal
police for the purposes of performing the services of maritime, air, and
border police; preventing and suppressing narcotics traffic; investigating
criminal activities involving national security, activities that have
repercussions on the social and political order, or other infractions having
interstate implications; and providing censorship of public amusements. In
1982 the overall strength of the federal police (sometimes referred to as
Public Security Forces) was estimated at 185,000. Officially, the federal
police force was known as the Department of Federal Police (Departmento de
Policia Federal-DPF), and its headquarters was located in Brasilia. In
addition to the Federal District, DPF units were distributed throughout the
states and territories. The DPF headquarters provided technical services
relating to data processing, collection and dissemination of police
intelligence, and scientific assistance to the state police forces and was
also responsible for Brazil's input to and cooperation with the Paris-based
International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol. Among the many
agencies subordinated to the DPF were the National Police Academy, the
National
Institute of Criminalistics, and the National Institute of Identification,
all located in Brasilia.

     The DPF is headed by a director general who is appointed by the
president and has usually been an active-duty army general. The minister of
army in President Figueiredo's cabinet in 1982, General Walter Pires, was
director general of the DPF under President Medici in the early 1970s. The
line of command extended from Brasilia to the nationwide DPF units through
the superintendencies of federal police established in each state.

     Because of the intense preoccupation with internal threats to national
security on the part of the military governments of the post-1964 era, a
special division of the DPF, the Division of Political and Social Order
(Divisao de Ordem Politica e Social-DOPS), was created during the
dictatorship of Getulio Vargas to concentrate on national security affairs
and has continued in that role. DOPS has collaborated closely with the
military commands in the fulfillment of its missions. Among its specialized
functions, DOPS has provided protection for Brazilian dignitaries as well as
to the many foreign officials posted to Brasilia. Two other federal law
enforcement agencies-the Federal Highway Police and the Federal Railroad
Police-were subordinated to the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works.
The highway police controlled traffic on major interstate roads and
supplemented state traffic police forces. The railroad police, uniformed and
plainclothes, maintained order at railroad stations and yards and aboard
trains. The Maritime, Air, and Border Police, also a federal force, was
located at the ports of entry, international airports, and border crossing
points to handle the customs and maintain registers of foreign visitors or
immigrants entering the country.

State Police

     The police forces of the several states, nominally under the supervision
of the state governors, were in fact closely associated with federal
authorities. The state police, by definition, were powerful forces in their
states because municipal police did not exist. All police functions not
performed by personnel of the DPF were responsibilities of the state forces.
State police generally consisted of three separate forces: the Military
Police, the Civil Police, and the Traffic Police. The Secretariat of Public
Security, an important agency of each state government, supervised police
activities. The secretary of public security, usually an active-duty army
general or colonel, was, in fact, the chief of police.

     The Military Police, sometimes referred to as the State Militia, have
been controlled by the Ministry of Army during periods of declared national
emergency since 1969. Historically, these forces had been under individual
state control, and frequently "the governors' armies," as they were sometimes
dubbed, outnumbered regular troops in many states. The Military Police of any
state are organized as a military force, and rank structure is military;
training is weighted more heavily toward police matters, but substantial
counterinsurgency training is included. Arms and equipment of states forces
included machine guns and armored cars, in addition to other items generally
associated with police. In effect, the Military Police are auxiliary army
forces that could be quickly mobilized to augment national armed forces in an
emergency. In the past Military Police units were often commanded by
active-duty army officers, but that has occurred less frequently as
professional police officers have achieved higher ranks and positions. The
commandant of a state's Military Police was usually a general or colonel
whose command was divided into police regions, which deployed police
battalions and companies. Fire fighting was also a Military Police function;
fire fighters were organized in separate battalions.

     Each state also maintained a Civil Police that was the investigatory
force, handling routine criminal cases and public security affairs. Because
there were no municipal police, the state forces were stationed in populated
areas and were responsible for all police functions. Cities were divided into
precincts through which the Civil Police operated, using methods familiar to
detective agencies in most other countries. Senior officers of the Civil
Police were known as delegates (delegados), and the force was usually
commanded by the delegate general, whose rank was equal to that of the
commandant of the Military Police. Lower ranking officers were known as
investigators. Promotion to the higher ranks of the Civil Police usually
required a law degree.

Criminal Law and Procedure

     The Penal Code in use in 1982 has been considerably amended since its
adoption in 1940 as a replacement for an older code. A general section of the
code distinguishes between felonies and misdemeanors and outlines the
individual citizen's responsibilities under the law. Another section defines
criminal behavior more comprehensively, spelling out crimes against persons,
property, custom, public welfare, and public trust. Misdemeanors are also
defined.

     The power of arrest vested in the police, other than the power arising
from judicial warrant, is derived from decree-laws. These provide that any
member of the public can-and police must-arrest anyone found in flagrante
delicto. The privilege of not being subject to arrest unless caught in the
act or by judicial warrant derives from the constitution of 1891 and has
been included in subsequent versions. Paragraph 12 of Article 153 of the
Constitution of 1967 states: "No one shall be arrested except in the act of
committing a crime or by written order issued by competent authority" and
further states that an arrest must be immediately communicated to a competent
judge who, if he finds the arrest to be illegal, must order the release of the
arrestee. The arrest power is also limited by Paragraph 10 of the same
article, which declares the home to be "the inviolable refuge of the
individual." In practice, there have been many violations of the
constitutional guarantees, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

     The process of bringing violators or suspected violators of the law to
justice usually begins in one of three ways. The first and most simple occurs
in cases of flagrante delicto. The second method is followed when illegal
activity is uncovered during routine investigative work, after which a
competent judge issues a warrant for the persons involved, and arrests are
made. The third method involves complaints from private citizens that, if
borne out by evidence or otherwise deemed reasonable, result in the issuance
of a warrant. Violations of these official procedures have been reported
frequently, particularly when police have been operating under the provisions
of the National Security Law (the collected decree-laws and legislation that
delineate crimes against the state).

     The handling of arrestees varies according to the nature of the crime
or the nature of the charges. Felonies that are punishable by imprisonment
and for which the arrestee must be detained require thorough investigation
followed by trial in an appropriate court (see The Judiciary, ch. 4).
Offenses punishable by ordinary confinement of 30 days or less, or by small
fines, are usually disposed of quickly at the lowest court level possible. A
judge may direct that a prisoner be held in custody pending a preliminary
hearing, or he may allow bail depending on the severity of the case. Prisoners
may also be released on writs of habeas corpus.

     According to law, within 24 hours of arrest a prisoner must be given a
copy of the complaint, signed by competent authority and containing not only
the details of the charge or charges but also the names of accusers and
witnesses. To comply with these provisions the police must immediately
initiate an investigation, including a visit to the scene of the incident, the
collection of available evidence, the interrogation of witnesses, and the
compilation of a coherent account of what actually occurred. This information
is presented as a police report to a judge, who then sets a date for a
hearing.

     The first step in the legal process is a hearing, popularly known as an
instruction session, to identify the parties involved and to determine
whether a punishable offense occurred. Except for misdemeanors, the
instruction session is not a trial but rather a hearing at which both the
prosecution and the defense are heard in presentation, rebuttal, and final
argument. If the offense is a misdemeanor, the judge is permitted to turn the
proceeding into a summary court and pronounce sentence. If the case involves
a felony, no judgment is possible at the instruction session. If the judge
believes that there is evidence of probable guilt, the accused is indicted,
and a trial date is set.

Crime

     According to the Anuario Estatistico do Brasil 1980, there were 64,915
arrests for felonies and 16,243 for misdemeanors during 1978. Of the total
number of felonies, 27,104, or almost 42 percent, were listed as crimes
against the person, that is, murder, attempted murder, inflicting bodily
injury, or other such crimes. Crimes against property-theft, robbery, and
extortion, swindling and other frauds, and similar violations-accounted for
25,239 (almost 39 percent). Three categories of crimes against custom-rape,
pandering, and similar acts-accounted for 2,961 (4.5 percent). Under crimes
against the public welfare, there were 6,848 arrests for trafficking in or
using illegal narcotics and 187 arrests listed under "others" of that general
heading, amounting to almost 11 percent of the total arrests. There were 841
arrests (1.2 percent) for crimes against the public trust, including
embezzlement, smuggling, and others. The remaining 1,735 arrests (about 2.6
percent) were simply listed under the heading "others". The 16,243 arrests on
misdemeanor charges were categorized as illegal carrying of weapons, illegal
gambling, vagrancy, and like offenses. Vagrancy, for which arrests numbered
6,516 for the year, was by far the leading misdemeanor. There were no
statistics available concerning the disposition of the cases resulting from
the arrests made in 1978.

     It was impossible to describe accurately the incidence of crime and the
penal situation in Brazil. The official data, for example, did not refer to
arrests and trials for violations of the National Security Law, yet such
occurrences were frequently reported in the media. Charges brought under the
National Security Law were handled by military courts, a system that has been
accused of flagrant violations of citizens' rights; however, the number of
reported violations dropped markedly under the presidencies of Geisel and
Figueiredo.

     As for ordinary crime, Brazil, like other industrialized or
industrializing countries in which large segments of the population continue
to live in abject poverty, has had a serious and rising crime problem. Robert
M. Levine, writing in the February 1982 issue of Current History, stated:
"Random, often violent, street crime continued to plague not only the cities
but the formerly placid towns and villages of the countryside. Stories of
assaults and armed robberies monopolized conversations among the affluent,
who demanded additional protection against the muggers and trambadinhas
(attackers, often children and adolescents) preying on a rising
number of victims." Crimes of violence also became prevalent during the
political campaigns leading up to the elections of November 1982. Threats
against candidates, vandalism, and the stoning of vehicles occurred, but more
serious incidents involved shootings, and some deaths were reported.

Penal Institutions

     There were two general categories of penal institutions: correctional
and detention, that is, roughly, prisons and jails. The first category
included penitentiaries, houses of custody and treatment, penal and
agricultural colonies, and houses of correction. The second category included
military prisons, houses of detention, and juvenile correctional institutions.
Operation of the penal system was a responsibility of the Military Police of
the states. The separate women's penal institutions were usually operated by
nuns. Prisoners in penitentiaries were assigned to work units in maintenance
shops and in light industrial plants that produced and maintained the clothing
and furnishings used in the institutions. In some minimum security
agricultural colonies, inmates had their families live with them during their
incarceration.

     The official statistics for 1977 stated that there were 3,343 prison
establishments: 234 for men, 23 for women, and 3,086 in which both sexes were
confined. The capacity of the penal system was listed as 92,500, and the
overall cost for maintenance of the system for 1977 was given as
Cr$672,882,000 (for value of the cruzeiro-see Glossary). The total number of
persons incarcerated at the end of 1977 was 37,251, much below the stated
capacity of the system. The data were incomplete concerning the breakdown of
prisoners according to sex (as well as for various other classifications),
but it appeared that men outnumbered women in prison by at least three to one,
and perhaps a much higher ratio actually existed.

Threats to Internal Security

     The Brazilian military in 1964 described the takeover of the government
as a "revolution" and proclaimed that the twin mainstays of their
revolutionary rule would be development and security. Although the governments
of the five military presidents who led the country, between 1964 and 1982
varied, particularly in their degree of authoritarianism, all placed extreme
emphasis on internal security and, to some degree, suppressed political
dissent. The so-called distensao (decompression) and abertura (literally,
opening; political liberalization) initiated by Geisel and carried forward
under Figueiredo have brought the regime a long way from its most
authoritarian era under their predecessors; nevertheless, some adherents of
the hard line still held high-level positions and still believed that rigid
authoriaritanism was the only course for Brazil.

     In a report prepared for the United States Department of State by the
Rand Corporation in 1971, Luigi R. Einaudi and Stepan posed a series of
questions about security and development under the military regimes of
Brazil and Peru. They asked, for example, whether the major threat to national
security came from outside the country or from within and, if from within,
did underdevelopment constitute a threat. They also wondered what the role of
the military should be in the institutional development of such countries and,
in the case of Brazil, should the regime try to push the country toward
military great-power status.

     The Brazilian military obviously decided at the outset of their
"revolution" that the internal threat greatly outweighed any danger from
outside the borders. The armed forces and the police forces have been closely
interwoven, particularly regarding command and control of the latter, and the
principal mission of both has been maintenance of internal security. At times,
critics have complained that such concerns have been grossly overemphasized,
resulting in repression rather than security.

     The blocking of the encroachment of communism was high on the agenda of
the new military government in 1964 and, because of the success of Fidel
Castro in Cuba and his pledge to spread the communist doctrine to all of Latin
America, Brazil's leaders could justify their concern about the possibility of
subversion. Countering the activities of foreign and indigenous agents of the
communist movement became the most important objective of the armed forces and
the police. Antiguerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency were included in the
curricula of the service schools, particularly at the ESG, which had become
the dominant academic influence on the country's leaders, both military and
civilian. At the Army Command and General Staff School, according to Einaudi
and Stepan, "the 1956 curriculum of the ECEME had included no lectures on
counterguerrilla warfare, internal security, or communism," but by 1968 "222
hours on internal security and 129 hours on irregular warfare" had been added.
Military personnel were also being sent to the School of the Americas in
Panama, where the curriculum was heavily weighted with counterinsurgency
and antiguerrilla courses.

     Through four presidencies and part of a fifth, the military regime has
followed the dual course of development and security, always seeking to
balance the objectives, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. Castello
Branco's time in office was a period of adjustment during which the military
tried to adapt to its new posture, and the opposition tried to get the
military to return to barracks. In general, the armed forces intervention of
1964 had been accepted, even condoned, by a rather large segment of the
politically aware public, but after the restoration of order and the deposal
of the"radical" Goulart, the military was expected to withdraw. The
indications by the "revolutionary" military government that it intended to
stay in power indefinitely were much less well received than the initial
intervention. The first purge of political opponents and military officers who
opposed the military government alerted the public to the authoritarian nature
of the new rulers. By 1965, in their zeal to ensure the security of the state,
the security forces were ignoring the civil rights of the people, and reports
of brutality and torture were becoming commonplace.

     Costa e Silva seemed unable to translate his extensive military
experience into presidential terms as his predecessor had done. When economic
problems brought street demonstrations and the killing of a student by police
resulted in riots, Costa e Silva and the CSN were convinced that the
demonstrators and rioters wanted to overthrow the government. In December 1968
the president promulgated Institutional Act Number 5, proroguing the
legislature and greatly increasing the powers of the executive. Despite the
new hard-line rule (or possibly spurred on by it), opposition to the
government, political unrest, and terrorism increased. The military hierarchy,
convinced that the forces arrayed against the government (communists,
leftists, students, clergy, workers, and large numbers of the poorest members
of society were an imminent threat to the security of the state, ignored the
Constitution. When Costa e Silva suffered a stroke, the ministers of army,
navy, and aeronautics refused to allow the civilian vice president to assume
the office of president as provided in the Constitution and instead installed
another general, Medici, in the presidency (see The Military in Power, ch. 1).

     Medici certainly inherited a country in chaos or at least on the verge of
chaos, but Institutional Act Number 5 had provided the president with tools to
deal with the situation. Congress was suspended, the right of habeas corpus
was set aside, the constitutional limitations on the federal government's
right to intervene in state and municipal affairs were suspended, the death
penalty was restored, censorship was introduced, and public demonstrations
were banned. In the view of many Brazilians, the country had become a
military dictatorship. As government repression increased, so too did crime
and violence, ensuring an escalation of repression, thus perpetuating the
cycle.

     Medici's administration proved to be the nadir of military rule during
the period from 1964 to 1982. The police and the armed forces (acting as
police) were accused of brutality and torture, and the first death squad made
its appearance in Sao Paulo, a phenomenon that would repeat itself many times
in many parts of the country. The death squads were made up of off-duty
policemen who appointed themselves (vigilante style) to assist the government
by eliminating criminal or subversive elements. They acquired a reputation for
viciousness, brutality, torture, and murder, and their activities continued
even after some policemen were brought to trial, convicted and sentenced to
long prison terms. The government move (under pressure) against the death
squads did not discourage other right-wing groups from joining the battle
against subversives. The Command for Hunting Communists and the Anticommunist
Movement both sent vigilante groups into the fray, evidently in the mistaken
belief that the official security forces were unequal to the task.

     The Medici government has been criticized for the violence of its
reaction against the terrorists; in effect, it has been criticized for the
lawlessness of its officers of the law. However justified the criticism, the
fact remains that there was a real threat to the national security. Random
terrorist acts had turned into urban guerrilla warfare. Bank robberies to
finance guerrilla operations, diplomatic kidnappings to force release of
imprisoned guerrillas, and attacks on police and army barracks demanded and
received government reaction. Whether or not the government overreacted
remains controversial; nevertheless, in a relatively short time the security
forces had killed, imprisoned, or exiled communists and other dissident
leaders and had dispersed the guerrilla units. The problem that plagued the
Medici, Geisel, and even the Figueiredo administrations has been the retention
of harsh attitudes and brutal methods by the security forces. The level of
police brutality in 1982, however, could not be compared to that which existed
a decade earlier.

     By the time that President Geisel took over in 1974, the militant
opposition had been defeated. Geisel had the opportunity to lead the country
toward the democratization that his military predecessors had verbally
advocated but had been advocated but had been unable to approach actively.
Geisel accepted the opportunity for the building of a less repressive regime
by appointing an almost completely new cabinet, but faced with an economic
downturn and the fact that many hard-line military and civilian personnel
still held important positions, the new president was, of necessity cautious
in altering the rigid authoritarianism of the recent past. Reining in the
security forces-police and military-was a priority item on his agenda,
however. An embarrassment to the administration occurred in 1975 when a
well-known journalist, Vladimir Herzog, was arrested and a short time later
found dead in his cell at an army interrogation center-a suicide according to
army authorities, another case of death by torture as far as the public was
concerned. Geisel reprimanded the commanding general of the Second Army within
whose jurisdiction the incident occurred, and a few months later he fired the
general when another death occurred under similar circumstances. That a
military president would fire a member of the Army High Command over a case
of police brutality was an important example, not only to the security
forces but also to the public. Some years later a federal court ruled that
Herzog's death had, in fact, been caused by the authorities, and his widow was
entitled to collect damages.

     Geisel's administration was not without turmoil-workers went out on
strike in several cities, and students demonstrated against the government
on several campuses. The president, however, did not see every strike and
every demonstration as a move to overthrow his government, leading some
right-wing critics to complain about his leniency; but in curbing the abuses
of power, Geisel had not relinquished his power. Political opponents were
repressed if the president and his associates decided that their rivals had
overstepped the bounds of acceptable opposition, and the bounds were
established by the administration. When a local politician predicted the
downfall of the government "if not through its own rottenness, because of
corruption," and another said that it was time to put an end to the
"dictatorship," Geisel issued decrees abrogating their civil and political
rights, thus denying them their seats in the state legislature. When a federal
deputy complained about such high-handed treatment of political opponents, he
was afforded the same treatment. Although Geisel was operating under a plan
for democratization and the political climate had improved significantly
during his administration, authoritarianism remained real, particularly in the
face of a perceived threat.

     Whatever his perceptions about the internal threat during his presidency,
Geisel before leaving office abolished the despised Institutional Act Number
5, which he had used on different occasions to declare a state of exception,
to override congressional actions, to relieve congressional deputies of their
mandated offices, or to suspend the rights of ordinary citizens. Toward the
end of his term, Geisel must have believed that his chosen successor would not
need the exceptional powers given to the president by Institutional Act Number
5. Additional reforms approved at the same time included the abolition of the
death penalty, life imprisonment,and banishment; the reinstatement of habeas
corpus; and the further easing of censorship. The formation of new political
parties was also to be made easier by the lifting of restrictions that had
been in force.

     President Figueiredo, taking office in March 1979, was faced with a
strike by 160,000 metalworkers in the heavily industrialized cities of Sao
Paulo state. For the new president the situation grew tense as security forces
seized the metalworkers union headquarters and arrested several hundred
workers. A cooling-off period of 45 days was arranged through negotiations,
but this strike was only the beginning of labor troubles that would plague the
administration. The progress toward abertura, however, was not suspended
because of this "threat", to the regime; Figueiredo insisted that a greater
threat was posed by the high rate of inflation that was severely damaging the
economy and hurting the people.

     Figueiredo also declared that bombs would not derail abertura-after a
sensational bombing incident received widespread publicity for about two
months in early 1981 and reportedly raised tensions within the regime to
crisis proportions. On April 30, 1981, a bomb exploded in the car being used
by two security officers, killing one, an army sergeant, and severely wounding
the other, an army captain. Both were agents of a high-level military security
and intelligence agency. The car in which they were sitting when the bomb
exploded was parked near the Rio de Janeiro Convention Center, where a May
Day observance was in progress. Charges and countercharges from left-wing and
right-wing group filled the news media. Left-wing groups charged that the two
agents had been attempting to plant bombs in the Convention Center in order to
cause a panic among the leftists assembled there. A bomb did explode in the
power plant of the center about 10 minutes after the car explosion. The
left-wing groups charged that the bomb in the car exploded prematurely.
Right-wing militants attributed the the automobile explosion to left-wing
terrorists who attempted to assassinate both agents, intending to spread the
story about their being blown up by one of their own bombs.

     Some supporters of Figueiredo and some opponents expressed the opinion
that the bombing was instigated by hard-line military elements opposed to
abertura. Figueiredo ordered an investigation to be conducted by the First
Army, within whose jurisdiction the incident occurred. The results were
inconclusive, the army investigators asserting that they could not unravel the
mystery. Some outspoken opposition deputies in Congress expressed the opinion
that the army covered up the findings of the investigators in order to protect
right-wing military factions.

     Although the first three and one-half years of Figueiredo's six-year term
presented a great many problems-economic, political, social-his government was
not seriously threatened by internal subversion. Because of his program of
abertura, there had been opposition from hard-line groups, but the dichotomy
between the hard-liners and the more moderate factions had existed since 1964,
and Figueiredo appeared to be in control of that situation. Some labor
problems, industrial and agricultural, at times led to ugly incidents, but the
security forces were quickly in control of those situations. The communists
operated and organized openly but were factionalized and did not pose a threat
either from underground or through political channels. By late 1982 there did
not appear to be any major threat to internal security from subversive
elements (see Elections under Military Rule, ch.4).

                                     * * *

     Alfred Stepan's The Military in Politics, even though published in 1971,
continues to be an excellent source not only on Brazilian military
participation in politics but also on the military per se. His Authoritarian
Brazil is also a reliable source. Several general studies on the politics or
on the foreign policy of Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s naturally include
significant information on the armed forces and national security in general;
among these are Georges-Andre Fiechter's Brazil since 1964, Ronald M.
Schneider's The Political System of Brazil, and Robert G. Wesson's The
United States and Brazil. Of particular importance because of its historical
perspective and the detail provided on the post-1964 military regime is Peter
Flynn's Brazil: A Political Analysis. Two interesting articles by Eduardo
Italo Pesce, "The Brazilian Mk-10 Frigates" and "The Brazilian Naval
Modernization Program," appeared in the United States Naval Institute
Proceedings for March 1981 and March 1982, respectively. (For further
information and complete citation, see Bibliography.)