MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rousseff receives apology and compensation for tortures suffered when she was a guerrilla

On Wednesday the Brazilian president choked back tears as she read the names of relatives of disappeared guerrillas

President Dilma Rousseff will receive 10,000 US dollars in reparations from Rio do Janeiro state for torture she was subjected to while jailed as a leftist guerrilla during Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, her office said Friday.

”Ms Rousseff will donate the 10.000 she will receive in June from the Rio government for her jailing under the military regime (1964-85) to the group 'Torture Never Again,'“ said Thomas Traumann, a spokesman for the presidential office in a statement.

The presidency said the money would be shared out among a total of 316 people at the human rights group.

”Donations are always welcome, especially coming from the president,“ Cecilia Coimbra, founder of ”Torture Never Again”.

The Rio state government said it would offer apologies and award reparations to Rousseff and 119 other former political prisoners at a June 4 ceremony in a stadium in the city of Niteroi that was used as a torture centre during the dictatorship.

Since 2001, when a state law on the issue was passed, more than 1.100 people have sought reparations from the Rio government and 650 payments of 20.000 Reais (10.000 dollars) have been made, a government statement added.

“In defence of democracy, these people were jailed and interrogated inside a state organ and in the presence of a public agent, who legitimized the act of repression. This is the reason for the apologies and the reparation,” said Rodrigo Neves, secretary for human rights of the Rio state government.

Rousseff is also seeking reparations from the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, where she was interrogated, tried and sentenced, he added.

Rousseff, 64, joined the battle against the military dictatorship at age 16 in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais. She was a member of various revolutionary groups, although she has insisted that she never shot or killed anyone.

In 1970, she was arrested, held for nearly three years and repeatedly tortured in the hope that she would identify her fellow guerrillas.

Joined by all her living presidential predecessors on Wednesday, Rousseff swore in a seven-member Truth Commission tasked with probing the rights abuses perpetrated from 1946 to 1988, a time span exceeding the dictatorship.

But a 1979 amnesty law for those who carried out the dictatorship-era crimes was upheld by the Brazilian Supreme Court in 2010 and remains in effect.

“Brazil deserves the truth, the new generations deserve the truth and above all, those who lost friends and relatives and who continue to suffer as if they were dying again each day deserve the truth,” Rousseff said Wednesday, choking back tears as she read out names of relatives of the victims.

Unlike other South American countries ruled by right-wing dictatorships that committed political abuses and killings from the 1960s to the 1980s -- Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile -- Brazil has never put the perpetrators on trial.

The government officially recognizes 400 dead and missing during the military dictatorship, compared with 30,000 in Argentina and more than 3,200 in Chile.