Brazil’s Rousseff resists pressure to prosecute dictatorship crimes

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – As a young Marxist in the early 1970s, Dilma Rousseff was jailed, hung upside down and tortured with electric shocks to her feet, head and breasts by Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Yet today, as president, Rousseff is refusing to take steps forcing military officers from that era to face prosecution for such abuses, believing Brazil’s hard-won democratic stability matters more than her personal beliefs or past.

Her stance has disappointed some activists who believe they are closer than ever to putting leaders of the 1964-85 dictatorship, and those who aided them, on trial.

Unlike in other countries like Argentina or Chile, Brazil’s Cold War-era soldiers have never faced punishment for human rights crimes.

Past abuses have again become part of the public debate because of Rousseff’s own actions. A “truth commission” she appointed in 2012 to shed new light on the dictatorship’s crimes is due to present its findings to her tomorrow in Brasilia.

The report will contain new information on the more than 300 people who were killed by the dictatorship, as well as cases in which private companies helped the military identify leftist activists, according to Rosa Cardoso, one of the truth commission’s leaders.