Since that point is already taken in this thread, and there has been requests that i explained this further, i think posting about it is in order.
However, i'll do it here only this time, because it's WAY off-toppic. If any further discussion is required after that, people can either send me private messages or start a new thread, ok?
Now, to really measure the extent of the USA interference in the Military Overthrow here in Brazil is a task rather difficult, because it was something really sutile, carried on in shadows by intelligence agancies. I have already mentioned that.
In order to make the whole process understandable, i'll describe a little bit the whole picture. After that, every one can take their own conclusions.
Brazil have turned into a republic in the late days of 19th century, and the 1th president elected by an universal election was "Prudente de Morais" in the year of 1894.
It was a democracy until the year of 37, when a government of facist inspiration arised, much due to the influence of european reality. But that didn't last long, and in 1945, with the defeat of the Axis, their ways lost the appeal, what led to the ressuression of the Democracy, that was never again questioned untill the Military overthrown in 1964.
1964 was a very intense year in Brasil. After a short experience with parlamentarism, the presidentialism was re-established and the President, "João Goulart", had to deal with the internal clash of many internal political and economical sectors.
In the world scenario, it was one of the sharp years of the Cold War. The Communism had lots of sympathitic militants in South America, and Brazil was no exception.
The Communist Party was actually out-lawed, but it had undeniable power and influence within the government in many aspects.
The president, altough held a speech of trying to build a modern captalist nation, begun to take measures that resembles enormously communist propositions. Mostly, they had to do with increassing the rights and garantees of the proletary (exception to the amount of the salaries), and with "agrary reform" (a.k.a. - re-distribution of large amounts of land - private property - that was poorly used to the poor citzens).
Labor-unions were popping everywhere, and even if those organizatiuons not being intrinsically communists, they have such inspiration, and in the internal and external reality of that period, those boundaries were much stronger.
With the intention of sustaining the economical growth and stop the inflation, he faced the IMF demands, that didn't change much on those decades. So he limitated the money that could be taken out of the country and begun a process of creating state-controlled companies in key productive sectors.
Of course, he faced strong reactions from the land-owners and captalists. He lost a lot of support to his gevernment, and in order to reinforce his decisions, he approached to politics with communist tendencies (some of them to this day active in the internal political scenario and still with moderate forms of communist thinking).
The reaction grew stronger, and we saw some really stupid forms of protest. The most graphic of them was the "March of the Family, with God, for the freedom". Mainly, a protest of the conservatory sections of society against his line of government, that painted his limitations to private property as "lost of freedom" (what it was in a sense, i admit).
But the very naivity of the March's denomination is a signal of the level of sofistication of the political thinking behind it.
That kind of behavior from the most favored urban population and the insatisfaction of the great land owners created internal conditions favorable to a reaction. What was unexpected was it's depth.
So, between the last days of march and eraly of april, the democraicy was overthrown and the military took the government.
Ok, and what the hell USA have to do with all that? There are a few things to be said about that.
First, many can think that the internal heat would be enough to make the military overthrow a merely internal process. After all, Brazil is not a very well known country and i don't believe that much people around the globe will naturally give it's democratic institutions a vote of confidence.
Early in this topic, people have posted that the lesson to be learned from the USA's election process problems was exactly the strenth of such institutions. They were never threatened by such problem.
I'd like to speak about a fact still recent in Brazil's history. A decade ago, our elected President, "Fernando Collor de Mello", was charged guilty of corruption, suffered a impeachment process, lost his position and all his political rights for 8 years.
All that without the idea of tanks crossing the streets not even being considered. That aspect didn't even worried any of us, kind like of what happened in USA.
Also, it seens that everybody here agree that USA's worries about communist growth, despite understantable, were a little bit paranoid. Hehehehe. they hunted their own citzens with senator McCarthy, am i right?
Maybe Brazil would never turned communist, even with the line of thinking of the president. But the mere idea of it happening in USA's yard would be enought motivation to generate a response.
Also, Brazil was not the only example of Military overthorwn in the region. Almost the entire South America fell to dictatorial governments. So, even being reasonable to imagine that it could espontanioulsy happen in one or two countries, the universality of it makes it a lot suspicious.
I have to agree that all that, despite reasonable, is also incidental. But USA's "under the table" actions are not a conclusion that i reached. It's actually something that is documented and now admited by it's agencies. In fact, a decade ago, before such a confession, i'd be one of the voices saying that we shouldn't jump to conclusions.
Now, what exactly were such actions is hard to say. It was, i repeat again, a very sutile process. A visible, active course of action would surely have generated reactions that were not interesting at that time, specially when USA was fighting to achieve the image of the "defender of the freedom against the soviet threat".
It's probably documented, for example, in CIA and FBI and even in the X-files (hehehe) or whatever agency that had some role in the process. But such material i have no access to.
Researching it entirely, something that never happened, would be a interest of Brazilian's historians. I don't blame the American ones to have never done that, since it's not something that seens utterly relevant to them.
Anyway, i must say that our own have little resources, and, snce it all already passed, it's not exactly a priority.
Anyway, since the return of Democracy in 1984, we have had a flawless history of respect to that.
I hope that it have enlighted the matter, and i repeat... anyone that wants do dig more on the theme, avoid doing that in this thread, but feel free to send me a private message or to open a new discussion on the theme.
Regards
.
