Military Personnel Trained by the CIA Used Napalm Against Indigenous People in Brazil
Sunday, 09 November 2014 00:00 By Santiago Navarro F., Renata Bessi and Translated by Miriam Taylor, Truthout | News Analysis- font size
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Indigenous people of ethnic Pataxo struggle to return their lands. In October 2014, they closed the highway to pressure the government. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)
For the first time in the history of Brazil, the federal government is investigating the deaths and abuses suffered by Indigenous peoples during military dictatorship (1964-1985). The death toll may be twenty times more than previously known.
Just as in World War II and Vietnam, napalm manufactured in the US burned the bodies of hundreds of indigenous individuals in Brazil, people without an army and without weapons. The objective was to take over their lands. Indigenous peoples in this country suffered the most from the atrocities committed during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) - with the support of the United States. For the first time in Brazil's history, the National Truth Commission, created by the federal government in 2012 in order to investigate political crimes committed by the State during the military dictatorship, gives statistics showing that the number of indigenous individuals killed could be 20 times greater than was previously officially registered by leftist militants.
Unlike other crimes committed by the State during that time period, no reparations or indemnification for the acts have been offered to indigenous people; they were not even considered victims of the military regime. "From the north to the south and from the east to the west, accusations of genocide, assassination of leaders and indigenous rights defenders, slavery, massacres, poisonings in small towns, forced displacement, secret prisons for indigenous people, the bombing of towns, torture, and denigrating treatment were registered [with the State Truth Commissions]," Marcelo Zelic, vice president of the anti-torture group Never Again - SP, one of the organizations that makes up the Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission, created in order to provide documents and information to the National Truth Commission - told Truthout during an audience with the Truth Commission of San Pablo open to journalists.
Pau de Arara device developed during the Brazilian military dictatorship. It can also refer to a physical torture technique designed to cause severe joint and muscle pain, as well as headaches and psychological trauma. (Photo: Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission of Brazil)Guaraní leader Timoteo Popyguá is from the El Dorado community in the state of Sao Paulo. He tells of his parents and grandparents, who lived in the municipality of the Manguerinha region in southern Brazil's Paraná state, and who were victims of the military regime. Popyguá explained to Truthout that his relatives were forcibly removed from their lands, and those who managed to stay suffered from a drastic reduction in their territories. Because these indigenous groups require "ample space" for the reproduction of their cultural life, according to him this is another form of violence that they were subjected to. "My parents were victims of abuses, chained to tree trunks. The reason was land," he says. "There must be reparations for the loss of our land and our culture."
The Commission for Amnesty - a different body that the Truth Commission - was put into place in 2001 by the Ministry of Justice with the goal of analyzing the requirements for political amnesty. Currently, their official documents count 457 victims who were either murdered or disappeared by the military. The Truth Commission determined that the total number of registered cases was 8,000 indigenous individuals, and another thousand people who belonged to political organizations who were killed between 1964 and 1985.
For the indigenous people affected by the military dictatorship, there should be reparations.
"For the indigenous people affected by the military dictatorship, there should be reparations. The same reparations that were given to the families of murder victims, the families of people from political organizations who were disappeared, and to political prisoners. Legislation should be passed for collective reparations for these people. Their lands must be demarcated, both as a sign of respect to these people and to mitigate the violence that they continue to suffer today," argues Zelic.
Zelic warns that the numbers provided do not take into account all of the cases that occurred during the military period. Therefore they should be viewed incomplete, since the official data about indigenous populations are not well-defined, and the military alleges that many documents were destroyed. The most reliable data were obtained during field studies carried out by researchers, anthropologists and indigenous experts.
"Actually, the discussion should not center around the number of dead people, because this is a statistic that is absolutely impossible to calculate with precision, since the majority of indigenous people don't even have a population census. What we do need to discuss is the action of the State in its development processes and how they have affected indigenous groups. These processes have taken place since 1940 and include the development policies carried out up to the present day by the State. Reparations would have to include a change in the behavior of the State," says Zelic.
Dan Mitrione: "The Master of Torture" in Brazilian Territories
An indigenous woman from Brazil who was cut in half by the hands of landowners. (Photo: Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission of Brazil)In the state of Minas Gerais in southeast Brazil, the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) created two prisons for indigenous people, under the supervision of the military police in that state. One was Krenak, in the municipality of Resplandor, and the other was called Fazenda Guaraní, in Carmesia.
The prisons were like concentration camps, where native people from across Brazil were sent if they were considered to be dangerous by the State. They were obligated to do forced labor and were placed in individual holding cells, isolated from one another. They were subjected to beatings and torture. In addition to this, there were even clandestine prisons across the country built on indigenous land.
In addition, the State created the Rural Indigenous Guard (GRI) in 1969, to assist with repressing and containing discontent in indigenous towns. They recruited indigenous individuals who were subjected to three months of training with the Battalion School for Military Police in Minas Gerais.
A document created by the Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission, titled The National Truth Commission and Indigenous Peoples: One Step Away From Omission, presents the following question: Who are the military personnel that worked with the indigenous people during those three months? The creators of the document, through a series of investigations, identified Dan Mitrione, "The Master of Torture."
CIA agent Daniel A. Mitrione was sent to train police in Latin America in the "art" of interrogation and torture.
CIA agent Daniel A. Mitrione was sent by the United States in the 1960s to train police in Latin America. He principally worked with the police of the Brazilian dictatorship and Uruguayans in the "art" of interrogation, torture, and the repression of revolutionary social movements. Mitrione came under the Office of Public Security for the United States International Development Agency (USAID).
During his time in Brazil, Mitrione trained the military police in the state of Minas Gerais, who were responsible for building the prisons for indigenous people and for the formation of the Rural Indigenous Guard. "Marcelo Zelic found part of a film made by a German photographer, Jesko Putkamer. The clip shows a line of uniformed members of the Rural Indigenous Guard being applauded as they march by those present at the time, including military members. Two indigenous individuals hold a prisoner in a ‘pau de arara,’ (a technique used by the CIA), as evidence of the repressive techniques learned by the Indigenous Rural Guard," says the report (watch the video here).
The document also highlights the information contained in the book The Hidden Face of Terror, by AJ Lagguth, which contextualizes the origin of the presence of Dan Mitrione in Brazil and how it was related to the creation of the Rural Indigenous Guard and the Krenak Reformatory.
"In the first part of the 1960s, the US was more convinced than ever of its technical expertise - engineers, agronomists, the police - they were all holders of vital knowledge that should have been transferred to less-developed countries in the world. In Washington, Byron Engle was in charge of organizing a team capable of training police in Asia, Africa, and especially in Latin America," says the report from the National Indigenous Truth and Justice Commission. He adds, "That's where Dan Mitrione comes in. The creation of the Rural Indigenous Guard is the replica of the course that he gave to the police in Minas Gerais."
Documents discovered in an archive in Washington confirmed the participation of the United States in the military coup that the Brazilian people suffered in 1964.
In 2006, historian Carlos Fico of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), discovered documents in an archive in Washington, which confirmed the participation of the United States in the military coup that the Brazilian people suffered in 1964. One of the documents, titled "A contingency plan for Brazil," was created with the help of Lincoln Gordon, the ambassador during the coup. The United States helped those who participated in the coup in order to put up a front against what he called "a communist intervention." The Brazilian State Department coined the operation "Brother Sam."
This culminated in a complaint brought forth in 1997 by a Brazilian Human Rights group called Torture, Never Again, which documented that at least 20 military members graduated from the School of the Americas (SOA) in the United States, better known as the "torture school." The group maintained that at least two instructors from SOA were directly connected to repression and human rights abuses, including false imprisonment and torture, using methods such as the electric prod, asphyxiation, and injections of "truth serum."
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