The Brazilian dictatorship against Caetano Veloso: the complete files of the repression

In 1968, the album with the song

, by Caetano Veloso, was seized by the Federal Police for making subversive socialist propaganda and supporting the Cuban revolution.

At that time, Caetano was a member of the Baiano Group and of other organizations constituted "by singers and composers of a philocommunist orientation."

At a concert at the Sucata club, Caetano and Gilberto Gil sang a parody of the National Anthem to the “Tropicalia rhythm”.

None of that was true.

There was no album or song called

.

There was no “Baiano Group”: it was the way the press referred to the group of singers and composers who had just arrived from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro.

No parody of the national anthem was made (nor was there ever a “Tropicalia rhythm”).

However, these allegations are present in the 330 pages of the process that the Brazilian State opened at that time against Caetano Veloso.

The singer was arrested on December 27, 1968, 14 days after AI-5 was promulgated, a measure decreed by the military dictatorship (1964-1985) to close Congress and repress dissent.

The document served as a starting point for the documentary

, by Renato Terra and Ricardo Calil, which had its world premiere on September 7 at the Venice Film Festival.

But the film does not reveal all the content of the documentation, to which EL PAÍS has had access.

At the top of the first page you can see the coat of arms of the Republic or, in a more precise and symbolically sharper nomenclature, the coat of arms of Brazil.

At the bottom, the content of the document is identified, formally written in capital letters.

However, under the bureaucratic banality, what is written in a few words unfolds into meanings marked as scars on the skin of the history of Brazil, of its Republic, of its weapons.

"COUNCIL OF NATIONAL SECURITY

GENERAL SECRETARY

INSTITUTIONAL ACT No. 5

PROCESS OF CAETANO EMANOEL VIANA TELES VELOSO "

The heading of the second page clearly states what was intended in the volume: "Documentation organized with a view to the application of Article 4 of Institutional Act No. 5".

The article in question states: “In the interest of preserving the Revolution, the President of the Republic, having listened to the National Security Council, and without the limitations provided for in the Constitution, may suspend the political rights of any citizen for a period of 10 years and revoke mandates of elected federal, state and municipal representatives ”.

Caetano, according to the file contained in the document, was arrested for "subversion and incitement to disorder," elastic categories into which whatever the accuser wanted can be fitted.

Just below the heading, an index lists the principles of the prosecution, with the seemingly impeccable order of a troop being reviewed:

"A - Statement of reasons

B - Individual file

C - Information from the National Information Service and other organizations ".

However, nothing that appears in the following pages suggests that the principles of logic and objectivity are obeyed.

What is revealed in the document is an inconsistent and arbitrary investigation, based on primary verification errors (or simply propositional lies), defining characteristics of judicial processes in a dictatorship.

“The document is very didactic in the sense that it reveals the logic of the dictatorial regime.

That is, to catch someone who is already considered guilty and gather elements to substantiate that suspicion, without much criterion ", says historian Lucas Pedretti, who discovered the document in the National Archives in 2018." The dictatorship had a clear concern to do make their actions seem legitimate.

This case shows a mark of the Brazilian dictatorial regime, that is, opening a legal process to make an arbitrary arrest.

This characteristic, this desire to appear legal, has allowed us documents like this one ”.

"Subversive propaganda"

The first accusation that appears in the document exactly illustrates Pedretti's words: "It is related to elements that spread propaganda of a subversive nature, especially through

, seized in 1968 by the Federal Police."

But the

album

, as already mentioned, never existed.

Therefore, it was never seized by the Federal Police.

In an unpublished excerpt from Caetano's interview with the directors of

, the artist comments on his perplexity at the accusation: “It's crazy, I never did any song called

, no record was seized.

No record of mine was seized at that time.

Lies, lack of care with the investigation of the facts, that cannot be, ”says Caetano.

"There is a remote possibility that someone assumes that

, that it is not mine, but that I entrusted it to Gil and Capinam ... There is a sketch of tribute to Guevara, but as an inside joke."

Another accusation that enters the Kafkaesque whirlwind of the process in question is that Caetano spoke “about 'the paths of popular music' in the Culture Week (...) of the Barão de Mauá Academic Directory of the Faculty of Sciences Policies and Economics of Rio ”.

The accusation itself - being in a debate on popular music, without pointing out any supposedly "subversive" content of his speech - shows the objective of absolute surveillance of the dictatorship, of cultural control.

But it becomes even more absurd when Caetano, in a statement transcribed in the document, says that he was not at the event.

Furthermore, he assures that he did not even know that the Barão de Mauá Academic Directory had been made or known.

The nonsense doesn't end there.

The composer continues with his statement saying that the only debate in which he was present was that of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, in São Paulo, where he was harassed —the leftist students identified the

position

with the “surrender” to the “dominance imperialist ”- and ended up unable to speak.

In a document full of police jargon, the military clerk narrates Caetano's presence at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, based on the singer's statement: “The witness affirms that (...) he participated in a debate (...) about his work as a musician, so that the declarant could explain the meaning of his compositions, which were misunderstood and provoked discussions;

These discussions were more about the influence of American music on his music;

there were many shouts, the declarant was booed and the debate could not be established satisfactorily ”.

Even so, Major Hilton Justino Ferreira, responsible for the investigation, saw reasons to accuse Caetano: “The accused did not participate in a debate on Brazilian popular music in CULTURE WEEK (...), however, he did participate in a DEBATE about his music at the São Paulo School of Architecture and Urbanism ”.

The document continues: “In an atmosphere of boos and shouts, in an atmosphere of revelry, which makes evident their participation in the student movements of the faculties, in an environment of distortion of order, with a hidden orientation, perhaps communist and of philocommunists (...);

accused based on articles 38 and 55 of the National Security Law ”.

In other words, first Caetano was accused of being in a debate (about music) where he was not.

Once this was cleared up, he was accused of being in a debate (about music) that he had actually been in, but was unable to speak.

There are other similar moments in interrogations.

The accusation (stemming from a complaint by journalist Randal Juliano) that Caetano, along with Gil, had sung a parody of the national anthem gave rise to a dialogue that, were it not for the tragic burden of the episode, would have seemed like a humorous number of the Monty Python.

“When asked if he could sing the national anthem with the melody of Tropicalia, he replied that it is impossible, because the verses of the national anthem are decasyllables and the verses of Tropicalia have eight poetic syllables, and also the poetic accent is totally different from that of the anthem. national ”, says the document.

In the film

, Caetano comments on this dialogue.

He laughs when he reads it.

"I laugh, but it's ... it's very serious."

In the documentary, Caetano also laughs when he comes across the accusation that his music was "devirilizing."

"Great.

'Singer of protest music of a subversive and devirilizing nature'.

Look, devirilizadora okay, I liked it;

Subversive and devirilizing is a combination that has to do with me, I am that person, okay ”.

In the statement revealed in the documents, Caetano had already shown surprise: "I never had the idea of ​​making devirilizing music, I didn't even know what it was, until this interrogation."

What is perceived in the investigation is the effort to get something that would incriminate Caetano.

And the countless failed attempts.

Such as the letters addressed to the directors of the newspapers

and

requesting the files between September and December 1968 for investigative purposes, followed by succinct reports stating that “in the query made in the archives of the daily newspapers (.. .) nothing was found ”.

The Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS) of São Paulo requested a “dossier or whatever” of Caetano;

two days later, the reply was received: "Nothing has been found so far."

A few days later, a DOPS report clarified that "with this name [Caetano Emanoel Viana Teles Veloso] there is nothing here, however, an element with the name of Caetano Veloso is registered."

The DOPS file on Caetano indicates the musician as "a member of a group led by Martha Alencar, director of the cultural section of the newspaper

, which has become one of the main means of psychological action on the public."

O Sol

was a (against) cultural publication that brought together important Brazilian journalists, such as Reynaldo Jardim, Zuenir Ventura and Ana Arruda Callado, on its team.

Caetano's

song

, became the informal anthem of the tabloid, for the verses

).

It was not a "means of psychological action", but a newspaper.

And Caetano was not part of any organized group, "except the College of Musicians, by obligation, that is, by law, and the society that collects copyright," he says in a statement registered in the process.

His participation in a concert at the Paramount Theater in 1965 is noted with some seriousness: "A concert of those that serve to stimulate student movements of a clearly leftist character."

That night, Caetano had sung a song, his first recorded song, released that year on an album by his sister Maria Bethânia:

.

Some of his verses:

(

).

The investigation concluded and recorded in an official document: "The song that the defendant sang in that show,

, has no subversive character, as can be seen in the composition attached to this process."

It was no exception.

In the process appear, under dozens of stamps that say "secret", song lyrics in which the military could not identify an alleged "subversive character."

Danger, intellectuals

The evidence in the process was weak: participation in signature collections against specific arrests and against episodes of censorship.

In the reproduction of one of these collections of signatures, in a footnote it is appreciated that the intelligence service had a special folder for the executioners of that (and any) authoritarian government: "See the original in: INTELLECTUALS".

Details like this are hidden among the many stamps and signatures and patents and acronyms.

There is Caetano's declaration of assets, written in his own handwriting in jail: “1 (a) Mercedes-Benz car (...), green (...);

this car was acquired from citizen Décio, Hebe Camargo's husband;

1 (one) Sony brand stereo turntable (...);

a refrigerator of a brand that I don't remember, but medium in size;

1 (one) Arno brand blender;

1 (one) set of lights consisting of an acrylic box and colored bulbs, connected to the turntable by means of 1 (one) transformer (...).

I also have furniture for domestic use in my residence, the dining room is made of acrylic ”.

In the midst of the typical accessories of the middle class of the time (car, blender, refrigerator), coldly listed, stand out the play of lights and the acrylic furniture, which were, for the artist, a mark of who he was, his choices aesthetic, your home.

This has a special force at a time when Caetano was psychologically broken: he came to believe that he had not had a life before prison and explains that he felt "spiritually parched", he could not even cry or come.

In addition, he spent the entire period of his imprisonment (54 days) without seeing himself in the mirror.

Hence also comes the name of

, which originally named the chapter of the book

in which Caetano narrates the period he spent in prison.

In an unpublished extract from the interview for the film, Caetano reinforces that relationship with his apartment, recalling the space: “I loved our apartment in São Paulo.

He was very, very original, inventive, crazy.

First we leave it without furniture;

then a colleague of ours who did some things put a fiberglass mannequin, which was a woman without hair, naked, but inside an acrylic box ”.

The mannequin was life-size and had light bulbs, "colored bulbs that were plugged into the turntable, so the bass turned on the blue ones, the middle turned on the red ones, there were also yellow and green ones."

Caetano says that they listened to the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson: “I had a recording of her singing

and

on the same track, she sang one and continued with the other.

It was very moving, and we turned everything off, we left only his voice and the lights corresponding to the bass, middle and treble of his voice, which were not few.

The lights danced in the dark, it was a psychedelic experience without psychotropic drugs and I really liked it ”.

An exile imposed

They released Caetano, along with Gil, on the Ash Wednesday of the 1969 carnival. They were sent to Salvador, where they were obliged to report daily to the Federal Police colonel in charge of the case;

otherwise they would be arrested.

After four months, the military "suggested" that they leave the country.

In

, Caetano recounts: “Having arrested two rising stars of popular music who had their famous hair shaved, fearing that they would become, after unjustified imprisonment, more ferocious enemies than they had supposed - and powerful enemies on public opinion - the military did not know what to do with them.

Exile, imposed with the same rude informality as prison, was a solution that seemed intelligent to them ”.

In Brazil, the following years were those of the imposition of AI-5, the bloodiest phase of the dictatorship: the torture that the singer claims to have heard from his cell intensified.

Officially, 434 people were murdered by state agents or disappeared between 1946 and 1988, not counting the crimes committed against indigenous peoples.

Lucas Pedretti, the historian responsible for the discovery of the document, believes that there is still much to reveal about the history of the period of the military dictatorship in the collection of bodies such as the National Information Service (SNI), which is in the National Archive.

“Brazil did not settle the accounts well with its dictatorial past in several aspects: we did not hold the torturers responsible, due to the existence of the Amnesty Law of 1979;

we do not create museums, memorials like those that exist in Argentina and Germany.

We took a long time to establish a National Truth Commission.

But one thing we did well was to keep the archives of the time, ”says Pedretti.

The only exception is the archives of the Armed Forces, which are not available.

The official discourse of the military is that these papers were destroyed according to the legislation of the time, but the historian and his colleagues are convinced that this was not the case.

"At the same time, the longer that passes, especially in the current circumstances, the greater the chances that this destruction will come true," he says, and encourages journalists, researchers and historians to search these archives.

The investigation of these documents is, in Pedretti's opinion, even more important than their enormous historical value.

“It is important that we look at documents like this one in Brazil in 2020, at a time when the Ministry of Justice is writing files on figures like [anthropologist] Luiz Eduardo Soares,” says the historian.

"[In the Caetano trial] a show Caetano attended in 1965 is reported that contributed to his arrest in 1968. Therefore, a harmless file in 2020 may not be so harmless in 2021 or 2022," he warns.