In Latin America, many countries have suffered from a military regime at one point or another. Chile, Brazil, Argentina, among others, all had a military rule during the 20th century. However, the focus of this research paper will focus on Argentina and Brazil. By far, these two countries had a very long military rule. The Argentine military regime lasted six years, 1976-1982. Brazil’s lasted 21 years, 1964-1985. However, they each experienced them in a completely different manner. At the end of the Argentine military regime, the Latin American country had had 30,000 extrajudicial killings, whereas Brazil had had 10,000, even though the Brazilian military regime lasted 15 years longer than Argentina’s. During the late 20th century, Brazil and
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The military regime of Brazil had a running period of 21 years, from 1964-1985. This began when armed forced were led against president Jao Goulart. However, the causes of the military regime did not happen overnight. It all started during the Vargas era, prior to Goulart. Getulio Vargas, a populist, was president of Brazil in the early 20th century. For many years, the Brazilian economy hadn’t done well since coffee’s price, their main export at the time plummeted. Consequently, this caused an economic downfall in Brazil. Due to this, people were not happy and Vargas intended to address their unhappiness by trying to link nationalism with capitalism. With his policies, Vargas intended to address the concerns of the working class since they felt that their government was ignoring them. Through Vargas’ populist views, he adopted economic systems, such as the ISI (Import substitution Industrialization). Brazil started producing more products at home, instead of importing them. (Levine, Crocitti) ISI, however, was not fool proof and even though it did have some benefits in Brazil like encourage home-based capitalism, it also had its downsides. For example, since home production and consumption was encouraged and the consumption of foreign goods was discouraged, tariff prices for foreign investors were very high. Considering that investors had to pay a large fee to sell their products in Brazil, for many foreign investors, Brazil didn’t offer …show more content…
Unfortunately, one of the things that the army gained a reputation for was torture. As Joan Dassin mentions on Torture in Brazil: A shocking Report on the Pervasive Use of Torture by Brazilian Military Governments, 1964-1979, “Torture became a daily fact of Brazilian life because those sectors within the military that justified all measures in the maintenance of internal security held sway within the state apparatus. At the same time, the political regime closed down, eventually excluding even segments of the traditional elite from political participation. In brief, by 1968 a powerful system of repression and control was entrenched in Brazil.” (Dassin, 41) In the Latin American country, torture was used as a way to extract information from the victim, regardless of their race, social status, religion, age, or gender. Many of the tortured revealed self-incriminating information that the Brazilian military would in turn use to further suppress people. All of this was done with justification to obtain information. (Dassin, 25) Torturers found ways to justify torture. These included but were not limited to: Preventing harm to others (protecting the innocent through getting information about violent groups), it was the victim’s fault since he or she is not cooperating, they were following order and doing a job, corrupt security personnel that torture for gratification, it is ethical as
The military regime of Brazil had a running period of 21 years, from 1964-1985. This began when armed forced were led against president Jao Goulart. However, the causes of the military regime did not happen overnight. It all started during the Vargas era, prior to Goulart. Getulio Vargas, a populist, was president of Brazil in the early 20th century. For many years, the Brazilian economy hadn’t done well since coffee’s price, their main export at the time plummeted. Consequently, this caused an economic downfall in Brazil. Due to this, people were not happy and Vargas intended to address their unhappiness by trying to link nationalism with capitalism. With his policies, Vargas intended to address the concerns of the working class since they felt that their government was ignoring them. Through Vargas’ populist views, he adopted economic systems, such as the ISI (Import substitution Industrialization). Brazil started producing more products at home, instead of importing them. (Levine, Crocitti) ISI, however, was not fool proof and even though it did have some benefits in Brazil like encourage home-based capitalism, it also had its downsides. For example, since home production and consumption was encouraged and the consumption of foreign goods was discouraged, tariff prices for foreign investors were very high. Considering that investors had to pay a large fee to sell their products in Brazil, for many foreign investors, Brazil didn’t offer …show more content…
Unfortunately, one of the things that the army gained a reputation for was torture. As Joan Dassin mentions on Torture in Brazil: A shocking Report on the Pervasive Use of Torture by Brazilian Military Governments, 1964-1979, “Torture became a daily fact of Brazilian life because those sectors within the military that justified all measures in the maintenance of internal security held sway within the state apparatus. At the same time, the political regime closed down, eventually excluding even segments of the traditional elite from political participation. In brief, by 1968 a powerful system of repression and control was entrenched in Brazil.” (Dassin, 41) In the Latin American country, torture was used as a way to extract information from the victim, regardless of their race, social status, religion, age, or gender. Many of the tortured revealed self-incriminating information that the Brazilian military would in turn use to further suppress people. All of this was done with justification to obtain information. (Dassin, 25) Torturers found ways to justify torture. These included but were not limited to: Preventing harm to others (protecting the innocent through getting information about violent groups), it was the victim’s fault since he or she is not cooperating, they were following order and doing a job, corrupt security personnel that torture for gratification, it is ethical as