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The Gospel and Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Tito de Alencar O.P.
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‘For many Catholics in Brazil, the Dominican Order is synonymous with subversion and the destruction of genuine values.’

(Brazilian daily O Globo, 1969)

Tito de Alencar was one of the Dominicans imprisoned and tortured in Brazil; he was released in exchange for the kidnapped Swiss Ambassador. He is interviewed here by CLAUDIO ZANCHETTIN.

* * *

There are two sorts of revolutionaries; those of the drawing room and the real ones. The first talk about revolution, the others make it. Tito de Alencar, the young Dominican I went to interview in the convent of St Jacques in Paris is one of the real sort. His revolutionary struggles, imprisonment, torture and exile could have made a ‘hero’ of him. But Tito has nothing about him of the vain exhibitionist. For him revolution is a terribly serious matter.

His sufferings have marked him greatly. When he speaks he conceals his emotion with difficulty. With fixed eyes he tries to get to the bottom of things straight away. His young life is consumed by two great passions; revolution and the gospel.

At this time when the limelight of news is no longer directed at Brazil, I believe it to be a matter of urgency to contribute to breaking the wall of silence and complicity that surrounds the sufferings of the entire Brazilian people. It is so that this silence may be broken that Tito has agreed to answer my questions.

Claudio Zanchettin

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 54 , Issue 632 , January 1973 , pp. 4 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

Footnotes

1

Translated by Robert Ombres, O. P.

References

2 Cf. ‘Military Repression in Brazil’, Tito de Alencar, O.P., New Blackfriars, July, 1970, p. 335.

3 Pau de arara: ‘The victim's wrists and ankles are tied. He is made to sit on the floor and grasp his knees with his arms. A bar is passed through, under his knees which are placed between the arms of the individual bent forward. The bar passes, therefore, above the forearms. The ends of the bar are supported by two tables or two chairs or two high crates. The torture victim is left hanging in the air. The weight of his body rests on the joints of the knees and on the forearms. It is as if a sixty or seventy kilogram weight were put on a certain spot on the forearms and left there for several hours. After half an hour the instrument begins to take its toll. The bonds on ankles and wrists, because they are stretched by the weight of the body, practically cut off all the blood circulation. Hands and feet become purple, then numb; initially this provokes a feeling like itching, afterwards a swelling progressing to plethora and finally ischemia. The victim thinks that his fingers will explode at any moment. A dark liquid begins to flow which darkens his limbs and makes them swell. This sensation is reinforced by the words of the torturers, who insinuate constantly that that is what is going to happen to his fingers, his spinal column, his lungs. This part of the torture is called ‘sugesta’ (suggestion). It is psychological pressure designed to break the prisoner's morale.

1 Institutional Act No. 5 provides, amongst other things, that ‘In preservation of the revolution, the President of the Republic, after consultation with the Council of National Security and without the limitations specified in the Constitution, will be authorized to suspend the political rights of any citizen for a term of ten years and make void elective political mandates…. The guarantee of habeas corpus is suspended in cases of political crimes against national security, economic and social order, and the popular economy. All acts practised in accordance with the Institutional Act and its complementary acts, as well as the respective effects, are excluded from any juridical judgments.’ (Editor.)