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Get to Know a Brazilian – José Ibrahim
One of the key moments in diplomatic history and in Brazilian history was the 1969 kidnapping of US ambassador Charles Elbrick. Living in the midst of a repressive dictatorship, a handful of students involved in the Revolutionary Movement October 8 (MR-8), with aid from the National Liberation Action (ANL), two leftist organizations who resisted military rule, decided to launch a daring plan: they would kidnap the US ambassador, a symbol of what they perceived as US imperialism in Latin America, and demand that the military regime release fifteen political prisoners and publicly release a manifesto the MR-8 had written. If their demands were not met, they said, they would kill Elbrick. The MR-8 provided a list of its 15 prisoners, including student activists, labor leaders, and lifelong members of the pro-Moscow Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). After much internal disagreement within the armed forces, the military agreed to accede to the demands; the regime released fifteen political prisoners, who were sent to Mexico and then on to Cuba. For its part, the MR-8, true to its word, released Elbrick.
The entire episode was transformative. It had been the first time any ambassador had been taken hostage in the modern world, and other groups both in Brazil and elsewhere in the world began to use similar tactics to make demands in what were often repressive regimes. Several of the members of MR-8 behind the action themselves were eventually caught and tortured (and at least two from the ANL died under torture); they, too were ultimately released when other leftists kidnapped West German ambassador Ehrenfried von Holleben in 1970. As for Elbrick, he returned to the US and, in his later years, forgave and spoke kindly of the youth who held him captive for 78 hours.
But what of the original fifteen political prisoners released in 1969? What happened to them after the events of early September, 1969? We will spend the coming weeks tracing their lives. A few weeks ago, we focused on one of those individuals, Maria Augusta Carneiro Ribeiro, the only woman among the 15 political prisoners released. Across the rest of the summer, we’ll look at the other fourteen people who were brought together on that fateful flight, the events that led them there, and the divergent paths they took after their exile in 1969. Today we begin with José Ibrahim.
Thirteen of the fifteen Brazilian political prisoners released into exile in exchange for US ambassador Charles Elbrick in 1969. José Ibrahim, a labor leader whose activism led to his imprisonment and his inclusion on the list of 15 names for release, stands in the second row, third from left.
José Ibrahim was born in the industrial city of Osasco, São Paulo, in 1946. His father, of Arabic ancestry, worked as a traveling salesman, and as a child, José often accompanied his father on trips. Like many working-class children, José received some education but did not end up attending university; indeed, by the early 1960s, Brazil had just over 100,000 university students in a country of over 70 million people. Thus, like many of his socioeconomic background, José’s education hinged on vocational training to prepare him for his own career as a blue-collar worker. Already at 14, José began working for COBRASMA, a privately owned company that manufactured materials for Brazil’s rail network. he also became active politically, joining the Juventude Operária Católica (Catholic Workers Youth; JOC) and later the Leninist Partido Comunista Brasileiro (Brazilian Communist Party), as well as in UBES, the secondary students’ movement. Although barely 21, in 1967 he already had several years’ experience of factory work, and, in spite of his youth, his colleagues elected him the president of the Metalworkers’ Union of Osasco.
The following year, José would become a national figure in the struggle against the military dictatorship. Though there had been voices of dissent and protest that challenged the military regime since 1964, by 1968, such criticisms were rapidly intensifying as hundreds of thousands of students were taking to the streets to demand democracy, often joined by parents, opposition politicians, musicians, artists, and others. However, the students were not alone. Workers themselves had increasingly been making their voices heard, joining in protests and marching in the streets. In July, well over 3000 industrial workers occupied a factory in Osasco and went on strike; it was only the second time since 1964 that the working class had mobilized on such a scale and in such a politicized fashion, and it was the biggest workers’ strike yet (the first, at Contagem in May of 1968, had fewer workers). As the president of the Union, José Ibrahim was at the forefront of the action, which, far from being spontaneous, was thought out and planned down to the slightest detail. The military regime, already losing control over the middle-class university students who were supposed to be the engine of national development, cracked down on the workers, invading the factory and arresting hundreds. Though José was not among those arrested, he had to go into clandestinity, constantly on the move throughout the rest of 1968. In spite of the military breaking the strike, however, José felt it to be a victory both politically and morally, as it showed that workers could still unify and mobilize even under conditions of repression, and it marked the first time that Brazilian workers had occupied their factories, and factory production continued to be paralyzed throughout much of 1968.
Workers being taken away after the military occupation and repression of the Osasco strike of July 1968, in what had been the biggest workers’ movement against the military dictatorship yet.
Though José went underground, by the end of 1968, Brazil had entered a new phase of repression, and the state security apparatuses were out to arrest anybody suspected of any form of “subversion”; given his role in Osasco, that included José , and in February 1969, the police caught him where he was staying. Even before they could get him to prison, they began torturing him, trying to find out anybody else he knew and exacting “revenge” on him for his actions the previous year. He was then taken to prison, where he continued to suffer torture at the hands of state agents. He remained imprisoned for seven months, until the kidnapping of Charles Elbrick. Given his role as a labor leader and his status in the wake of the Osasco strike, José was included on the list of the fifteen political prisoners to be released, a fact he heard on the radio that he had smuggled into his prison cell and hidden from officials. The plane, Hercules 56 (named for the model of plane, and the number), landed in Mexico, where the exiles arrived to much fanfare and international attention; after all, the kidnapping of an ambassador had never been attempted before, and that it was the US ambassador made the story resonate throughout much of the world.
After a brief time in Mexico, most of the exiles continued on to Cuba to receive training. However, José’s time in Cuba was a mixed experience. While many of the student leaders who had been freed were eager to continue studying and receive training to fight against the dictatorship, José with his blue-collar background, felt estranged from their goals. He ultimately opted to build on his experience as a labor leader, opting to work in a variety of factories, sugar mills, and elsewhere in Cuba. Feeling he’d done all he could in Cuba, he decided to go to Chile.
Chile was a common destination for exiles and for leftist activists from Brazil. In 1970, socialist Salvador Allende had won election as president at the head of the Popular Unity, a leftist coalition. Many Brazilian leftists saw Chile as a place where they could participate in the social and political revolution they’d sought in Brazil. Thus, like many other Brazilians, José headed to Chile. However, he and many other Brazilians ultimately saw their hopes dashed; on September 11, 1973, Chile’s military launched a coup that overthrew Allende. Suddenly, thousands of Brazilians who had fled from one right-wing dictatorship found themselves living in another one. They flooded embassies, seeking refuge and exile yet again. José was among them. Twenty-one days after Augusto Pinochet’s September 11 coup, he went to the Panamanian embassy, not so much out of any desire to travel to Panama, but because most of the other embassies were already overflowing, monitored by the right-wing dictatorship, and/or closed off. José managed to gain asylum in the Panamanian embassy, heading off to Panama before continuing on to Belgium.
While in Belgium, he worked with other labor leaders as well as other exiles and human rights organizations, ultimately helping create the Casa Latino-Americana, which, with support from the UN, helped exiles from Latin American dictatorships. José served as president of the Casa for five years. In spite of his activism, however, he continued to seek a way back to Brazil. Indeed, his experiences provided a reminder of how devastating even exile could be for those fleeing repressive dictatorships; although he’d escaped the repression and torture in Brazil, he still felt what he called a “civil death,” cut off entirely from his own home and a citizen of nowhere. This rupture even filtered into his family life; his son was born overseas and, given José’s status as a pariah in his own country, he had difficulties getting his son’s status as a Brazilian citizen (with all the rights citizenship entailed) established. As José’s experiences remind us, though exiles often avoided the torture, persecution, and even murder that activists in right-wing dictatorships like Brazil, Chile, or Argentina suffered, the trials of life in exile brought its own forms of suffering and difficulty.
As the political climate continued to slowly reopen in Brazil in the late-1970s, José plotted his return to Brazil, ultimately coming back in May 1979, just a few months before President João Figueiredo announced a general amnesty that pardoned political prisoners, exiles, and torturers alike. Upon returning, he drew again upon his labor activism; he came into contact with Luíz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, a metalworker and union leader who had been at the forefront of labor activism in the latter half of the 1970s. With Lula and seven others, José became one of the nine labor leaders who helped create the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party; PT).
Throughout the first half of the 1980s, José worked within the PT, becoming a member of the National Executive of the party. He ran as a PT candidate for the Chamber of Deputies in 1982. However, the PT itself was going through an identity crisis: some, like José, wanted to push for greater workers’ rights and a path towards socialism; others sought a more centrist approach that could perhaps lead to a broader appeal among the Brazilian electorate and greater strength within the government. This latter faction, known as the “Articulation,” gained a majority, and José (and others who shared his sentiments) left the PT. He worked for several years with leftist Leonel Brizola’s Partido Democrático Trabalhista (Brazilian Labor Party; PDT), but after Brizola failed to make it out of the first round of the 1989 presidential election, José left the PDT, choosing to focus on labor rights and organization rather than become further involved with the turbulent and fractured nature of partisan politics in Brazil. He helped form three different union groups and served as the Secretary-General of the Centro de Atendimento ao Trabalhador (Workers’ Service Center; CEAT), an organization designed to defend workers’ interests and provide them with education, representation, professional training, and other services. He also made a return to politics, running once more as a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, this time for the Partido Verde (Green Party; PV) in 2006. Though he did not win, he continued to speak out for and work for the organization of Brazil’s blue-collar employees up until a little over a month ago, when he passed away at the age of 66.
José Ibrahim left behind a legacy that went far beyond his role in 1968; indeed, for over 40 years, he worked tirelessly for Brazilian workers. Though his release in 1969 made him part of an iconic moment in Brazilian political history, it is in his labor activism that his legacy was made, and it will continue to be felt for years to come.
José Ibrahim – 1946-2013
This is part of an ongoing series. Previous entries can be found here.
El Salvador Refuses Basic Rights and Freedoms for Women’s Health
In recent weeks, the case of Beatriz has gained international attention. Beatriz is a pregnant Salvadoran woman who suffers from lupus whose baby has a lethal condition. Though the baby, which only has a brain stem, will not survive, carrying the pregnancy to completion also puts Beatriz’s life at extreme risk. However, thanks to El Salvador’s total ban on abortion, Beatriz cannot save her own life.
In an attempt to protect her own life, the case had reached El Salvador’s highest court. Sadly, the news was not good for women’s health and the basic right to survive, as the court ruled that the complete ban on abortion stands, even in Beatriz’s case, and that “the rights of the mother cannot be privileged over newborn’s,” even when that fetus will not survive birth. The five court members said that, while lupus would probably kill Beatriz eventually, they said there was no imminent threat to her health. The court thus ordered Beatriz to go through with the pregnancy in spite of the physical toll it will take on her (to say nothing of the mental and psychological toll of giving birth just to have the baby die). Perhaps not coincidentally, all five judges are men (with only one of them dissenting) who ultimately determined the trauma and fate of Beatriz without according her any control over her own life, even in the face of the risks to her life and the certainty of the inviability of life in the fetus. Suffice to say, it’s a terrible ruling for equal rights, reproductive freedom, and women’s health, and it offers yet another devastating reminder of the cost of total bans on abortion.
Around Latin America
-Two former executives from Ford in Argentina have been charged (among other things) with having ties to the abduction of 24 workers for Ford during the military regime of 1976-1983.
-El Salvador’s presidential election is shaping up to be a close three-way race, according to new polls.
-Mexico’s government says it will release a report that finds the number of disappeared in Mexico is “much lower” than an initial report that claimed that tens of thousands have been disappeared as part of the violence that has defined part of the drug trade in Mexico. Nonetheless, Mexico’s government has created a special unit to investigate and try to track down the fates of the tens of thousands of “disappeared” caught up in the drug trade and violence in Mexico.
-In what is perhaps curious timing, even while Efraín Ríos Montt’s conviction for genocide has been annulled, former Guatemalan president Alfonso Portillo was extradited to the US, where he will face charges of corruption and money laundering. As Mike Allison points out, the trial in the US provides another reminder that, although Guatemala’s courts are not as corrupt as they once were, they still have a long way to go, a fact that the recent decision on Ríos Montt all too tragically demonstrated.
-Speaking of institutional failures and undoing justice, a Brazilian court has overturned the 2010 conviction of landowner Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura for his role in the murder of land activist Dorothy Stang in 2005. It is the second time a conviction of Bastos de Moura has been overturned, though he will remain in jail while a third trial takes place. Meanwhile, three other, poorer men hired to murder Stang remain in prison without having access to multiple trials and a court system favorable to their cause the way it is to the wealthier and more powerful Bastos de Moura.
-Chile has fined Canadian mining company Barrick Gold and suspended all operations at the Pascua-Lama mine after environmental degradation, water contamination, and other environmental issues. Though seemingly large, the fine represents only %0.1 of the cost of operating the mine.
-Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes is facing criticism for his inability to deal with criticisms after he punched a man in the face while out to dinner last Saturday.
-Following the footsteps of gangs in El Salvador, the MS-13 and Calle 18 gangs in Honduras have agreed to a truce that may reduce (but won’t eliminate) all gang violence and rivalries.
-Ten years since the rise of “Kirchnerism” in Argentina, poverty has declined, though to what degree and by what metrics are apparently up for debate.
-Efforts to reforest and aid the environment in Latin America have slowed to a crawl, caught in bureaucratic red tape, political fear of social movements, and a slowness (or unwillingness) of governments to help environmental causes in the region.
-Digital currency business owner Arthur Budovsky, whose company, Liberty Reserve, operates in Costa Rica, was arrested in Spain this week on charges of money laundering.
Pyramids, Pavement, and “Progress”
This is sickening and horrible:
A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.
The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2,300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico. [...]
Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field, and lacked the even stone sides frequently seen in reconstructed or better-preserved pyramids. But Awe said the builders could not possibly have mistaken the pyramid mound, which is about 100 feet tall, for a natural hill because the ruins were well-known and the landscape there is naturally flat.
This is not the first time the destruction of ruins has taken place in recent memory. Still, there is almost never a time where wanton destruction of valuable historical sites isn’t awful. It’s reasonable to build paved roads, but there had to be better ways to go about it than such destruction. It’s just an awful story.
Around Latin America
-30,000: that is the number of families who have been relocated as Brazil has prepared for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
-New Paraguayan President and wealthy businessman Horacio Cartes is set to reform social aid to the poor, saying the program that provides aid to 88,000 impoverished families did not “create results.”
-Joe Biden is on a quick tour of Latin America, with stops in Colombia, Trinidad & Tobago, and Brazil. In Colombia, he said that economics, and not security issues, would now be the top priority in US-Colombia relations, an important declaration in a country where the US has provided billions of dollars in military aid over the years. Meanwhile, as the peace talks between FARC and the Santos administration continue, a United Nations rep has said the UN will not support amnesty for crimes against humanity for participants in the peace process.
-After Brazil’s court system opened the path towards marriage equality throughout the country, perhaps as many as 100,000 evangelical Brazilians recently took to the streets to protest against marriage equality.
-An Argentine suspected of crimes committed during the military regime of 1976-1983 was arrested in Uruguay.
-Overcrowding and poor conditions in prisons are a common, if tragic, feature of Brazil’s prison system (and of many prison systems in South America). Another problem? Ten percent of the Nigerians (500) who live in Brazil are in those prisons, a rather alarming and high rate for any social group, even given the relatively small sample size.
-There have been a number of stories on indigenous struggles throughout the hemisphere.
- In Mexico, a judge ordered the release of two indigenous men who had spent 10 years in jail, basing the decision on irregularities in the trial and other legal issues.
- In Nicaragua, the Mayangna people are mobilizing in an effort to halt the arrival of illegal settlers and the logging that is leading to deforestation and is destroying indigenous lands and resources.
- In Argentina, members of the Qom indigenous group are asking President Cristina Kirchner’s government to help survey, set aside, and protect indigenous lands.
- And in a reminder that not all challenges facing indigenous people are tied to land issues, nine Brazilians have been arrested for sexually abusing indigenous girls.
-Finally, will the 2014 World Cup take place without any games in São Paulo?
An Agreement for Land Reform in Colombia – Peace to Follow?
Colombian government and guerrilla delegates have announced an agreement on the question of land reform – an important step in the peace talks that began six months ago in Havana.
“This first document…is the ‘golden gate’ for the continuation of talks on the rest of the issues,” FARC negotiator Andrés París commented to IPS shortly after Sunday’s announcement.
“This is a firm step towards a final agreement to end the conflict,” he said, adding that the peace process “is being strengthened as the government’s spirit of change and reform grows stronger and as Colombians begin to see a future of peace in these talks, as well as changes that benefit them and improve their living conditions.”
A Latin American diplomat close to the talks told IPS that it was important that the positions of the government of conservative President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) insurgents had come closer together on the question of rural development, and that the talks could now move forward on other issues on the agenda.
Land reform is the first item on the agenda for the peace talks aimed at putting an end to the conflict that began in 1964, when the FARC emerged on the scene.
The importance of the government and the FARC have finding common ground on issues of land reform cannot be overstated. When the civil war (now in its 49th year) began, land reform was at the core of FARC demands. Indeed, inequalities and a lack of land reform have been a major source of social unrest and political mobilization since at least the 1920s, and the FARC, one of the largest guerrilla groups of the civil war, had its roots in peasant activism and mobilization. That they and the Santos government seem to have come to some agreement is truly staggering. To be clear, that is not to say that peace is all but inevitable, that such an agreement can be fulfilled, or that either party cannot back out of the talks and of the peace process. Nonetheless, land reform is one of the centerpieces of the FARC’s goals, and no agreement on the issue of land reform would undo all other prospects for peace; that such an agreement has taken place on the biggest issue for the FARC and can now proceed to other matters is cause for real hope for an end to the conflict.
The Cold War in Central America – To What Extent Was the US Responsible?
I was on the Burt Cohen Show yesterday, discussing the nature of the Cold War in Central America, the annulment of the Rios Montt trial, human rights and justice for ex-dictators, and the complex roles of the US in Latin America in the 1980s. You can hear the whole thing here.
On Guatemala and the US in the Cold War
I am remiss in posting this (travels took me away from the computer when it went up) but Rob Farley (of the University of Kentucky Patterson School and of Lawyers, Guns & Money) and I recently discussed the genocide conviction (since annulled) of Ríos Montt, the Cold War in Latin America, and democratization in the Americas in the last 30 years. You can watch the whole discussion here at Bloggingheads TV.
Bunkers in the Everglades – Relics of the Cold War
This is a remarkable story of a bygone era:
The Cuban Missile Crisis was over in 1962. But the militarization of Florida and its national parks had only just begun. Nike Hercules Missile Site — also called Alpha Battery or HM-69 — was completed in 1964. “Nike,” like the Greek goddess of victory, was the name the United States’ government gave to a widely deployed, guided surface-to-air missile system installed to protect the country from any missile attack — threatened or real. From the mid-20th century, Nike Missile defense sites were built all over the United States in rings around cities and major industrial sites — around 260 all told. But no other state was as physically close to an “enemy” nation as Florida. Though the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with an uneasy détente, it was only after 1962 that the U.S. government realized how especially vulnerable south Florida was. HM-69 — and all south Florida — became the frontline defense against enemy attack.
146 U.S. Army soldiers and technicians made HM-69 their home. Their main task was to operate the site’s three aboveground launchers and, ostensibly, protect south Florida from Cuban air strikes. Flight time for a supersonic jet bomber launched from Cuba to Miami was very short. This meant that the people manning HM-69 were on perpetual high alert. They lived daily with the knowledge that they would receive little or no warning if there was an attack, and that they would not live to tell the story. “We were the first line of defense the Russians would have had to take out before they could attack the rest of the country,” Charles Carter, a veteran who served on the base for three years, told theSouth Dade News Leader last year. The highly restricted HM-69 was also a training ground for CIA-sponsored Cuban exile espionage teams, and a research lab for advanced Cold War-related military sensor technology.
Though the story seems quaint, it’s actually a rather powerful reminder of the daily lived experiences and mindsets of the Cold War. Likewise, the story illustrates how often the mechanisms of nuclear war and militarization were (and are) right next to civilians, and they remain completely unaware of it. No doubt, this applies not only to Florida, but to most of the US – those Cold War relics can often be glimpsed tucked in in landscapes throughout the country, providing a compelling example of the fact that, while the Cold War antagonisms have transformed and faded, the tools of destruction, including nuclear weapons, remain very much a part of the landscape today.
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