Brazil is booming. The economy is expanding and the country is getting ready to host the Football World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. But the Latin American giant has not even begun dealing with its dark past, ruled by a dictatorial military regime from 1964 until 1985. 27 years later, on November 18th, President Dilma Rousseff signed a law establishing a truth commission.

By Lindy Janssen, Sao Paulo

Brazil played an active role in the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and constantly lobbies to gain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. But “Brazil has done so few things compared with Argentina and Chile in terms of dealing with its past. Nobody is ever sentenced for the crimes committed during the dictatorship,” says Cecília Coimbra, president of the NGO that represents the social movement Grupo Turtura Nunca Mais, born in 1985. During 20 years of dictatorship, over 400 people were killed or disappeared, and thousands were tortured or subjected to other human rights violations. The Grupo’s main objective is to tell people what happened. “Yes, we want punishment. Not because of grievances or revenge. We want those people in court because we want them out of the shadows.”

The bill does not, however, overturn the 1979 Amnesty Law which shields military officials from prosecution for crimes committed during the country’s dictatorship. “The truth commission is a joke,” Cecília Coimba sighs. Led by seven members, who still have to be appointed by President Rousseff – a former left-wing guerrilla who has herself been tortured by the military – the commission is going to investigate from 1946 to 1988. It will have two years to complete its report, but no starting date has yet been announced. According to the new law, the truth commission will be directly attached to the House of the Presidency, which “will give technical, administrative and financial support”. “42 years! The military doesn’t want the commission but they can’t say that. When the dictatorship ended, the military made sure their influence continued. Extending the mandate of the commission diminishes the emphasis on the bad side of the military.”

In her small office, stacked with documents, reports and papers, stands a huge poster with the faces of (mostly) young men. All missing. “The man there above on the left is my husband,” says Victoria Grabois, vice-president of the Grupo Tortura Nunca Mais. “He disappeared together with my father. I was 29 years old, married and had a seven year-old son when they disappeared. My father and my husband were part of the Araguaia guerrilla movement that fought against the military regime. But since they didn’t return after 1973 I registered them as officially lost in 1979.” Grabois takes a break and laughs cynically. “I don’t have any hope the truth commission will help me to find out what happened!”

Glenda Mezarobba, a political scientist involved in the legislation that made the commission possible doesn’t agree. “The fact that the period of investigation is longer than the dictatorship period isn’t a problem. At least the whole dictatorial period is included. And in Brazil we had no commission and no trials, but we had Brazil Nunca Mais.” She refers to a project started during the dictatorship, when lawyers and church activists secretly documented the torture of the regime. The book was kept secret until the first civilian government was installed in 1985. Two weeks after publication, Brazil: Never Again was a number-one best-seller. The book stated that the repression and the economic liberal policy was a unified project. It was only in 1995 that Brazil finally acknowledged its responsibility for the human rights violations committed during the military regime and offered some partial compensation.

“There’s no recipe on how to deal with transitional justice,” declares Mezarobba. “Lula, our former president, did a lot to finally have this truth commission. Why only now? Maybe we are now ready for it, or maybe because Lula held several important union positions during the dictatorship through which he then already opposed the regime. Victims will relate what happened, how they suffered. Then they will receive recognition of what happened and that’s very important - also for people in the military who didn’t agree with it or regret it now. But the truth commission won’t deal with criminal justice. Because of amnesty laws passed in 1979, that is not possible.”

While many predecessors on the continent have already had a truth commission including Argentina [1983-1984], Chile [1990-1991], El Salvador [1992-1993], Haiti [1995-1996], Guatemala [1997-1999], Peru [2001-2003] and Ecuador [2007-2009] - Brazil remains the Latin America champion of late truth.