Lula dismays relatives of dictatorship’s victims by ignoring coup anniversary

Relatives of the victims of Brazil’s brutal two-decade dictatorship have voiced anger and dismay over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reported decision to block official remembrance events marking the 60th anniversary of the 1964 military coup d’état.

Activists had hoped the leftist’s government would mark the 31 March 2024 anniversary of that power-grab with a series of memorials honouring the thousands who were killed, disappeared or tortured by the 1964-85 regime.

The human rights minister, Silvio Almeida, had planned a ceremony and an awareness campaign with the slogan: “Without remembrance there is no future.”

But Lula reportedly scuppered those plans by giving explicit orders against such commemorations. The decision was seemingly intended to avoid irking military chiefs at a time when several senior military figures are facing jail for allegedly conspiring to stop Lula taking power after his 2022 election. That alleged plot culminated in the failed 8 January 2023 uprising, when Bolsonaro backers stormed the presidential palace, congress and supreme court in Brasília.

In early March, Lula reportedly told his cabinet he wanted to avoid “inflaming” the political atmosphere. Defense chiefs were also told the armed forces should not celebrate an event some in the military consider a “revolution” that saved Brazil from communist rule.

In a recent interview, Lula said: “I’m more worried about the January 2023 coup than the 1964 one, when I was 17. This belongs to history now. It’s already caused the suffering it caused. The people won the right to democratize the country, and the generals in power today were children back then.

“I’m not going to keep dwelling on this,” Lula added, vowing to “move this country forward”.

Lula’s decision and that declaration have horrified those whose loved ones died at the hands of the US-backed dictatorship.

How did it begin?

Brazil’s leftist president, João Goulart, was toppled in a coup in April 1964. General Humberto Castelo Branco became leader, political parties were banned, and the country was plunged into 21 years of military rule.

The repression intensified under Castelo Branco’s hardline successor, Artur da Costa e Silva, who took power in 1967. He was responsible for a notorious decree called AI-5 that gave him wide ranging dictatorial powers and kicked off the so-called “anos de chumbo” (years of lead), a bleak period of tyranny and violence which would last until…