We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States

Radical Perspectives

by James N. Green

In 1964, Brazil’s democratically elected, left-wing government was ousted in a coup and replaced by a military junta. The Johnson administration quickly recognized the new government. The U.S. press and members of Congress were nearly unanimous in their support of the “revolution” and the coup leaders’ anticommunist agenda. Few Americans were aware of the human rights abuses perpetrated by Brazil’s new regime. By 1969, a small group of academics, clergy, Brazilian exiles, and political activists had begun to educate the American public about the violent repression in Brazil and mobilize opposition to the dictatorship. By 1974, most informed political activists in the United States associated the Brazilian government with its torture chambers. In We Cannot Remain Silent , James N. Green analyzes the U.S. grassroots activities against torture in Brazil, and the ways those efforts helped to create a new discourse about human-rights violations in Latin America. He explains how the campaign against Brazil’s dictatorship laid the groundwork for subsequent U.S. movements against human rights abuses in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Central America. Green interviewed many of the activists who educated journalists, government officials, and the public about the abuses taking place under the Brazilian dictatorship. Drawing on those interviews and archival research from Brazil and the United States, he describes the creation of a network of activists with international connections, the documentation of systematic torture and repression, and the cultivation of Congressional allies and the press. Those efforts helped to expose the terror of the dictatorship and undermine U.S. support for the regime. Against the background of the political and social changes of the 1960s and 1970s, Green tells the story of a decentralized, international grassroots movement that effectively challenged U.S. foreign policy.

Genres: Brazil, History, Latin American History

472 pages, Paperback

First published November 16, 2009

Reviews

[celia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really amazing view into opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship and responses to the torture it was responsable for, but it was definitely difficult to get through this book. The issues at hand are yes, very difficult to deal with but Green does a really good job of showing the terror while pulling back enough to also give the reader space to breathe. The difficulty on my part came from the writing style just being so dense, and while the accounts of different people interacting in different ways with the dictatorship was immensely useful for understanding these events, they at times bogged down the narrative and make it a slow read.