O preço do passado: anistia e reparação de perseguidos políticos no Brasil

Abstract

In the past few years, laws have been passed in Brazil directed towards maintaining and amplifying a process that was started in 1979 with promulgation of the Amnesty. The process named generically of “reparation” goes beyond what is established by the laws. Compensations in money are paid to those who suffered political persecution, present legislatures have restored to a previous effective state the honorability for representatives who were serving during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and lost their mandate by arbitrary annulment, institutions pay homage to illustrious citizens who became known for their struggle against the regime, and symbolically reinstated them to their former positions. Those acts bring up distinct meanings of a moral, political, juridical, material and symbolic nature involving several levels beyond which stand those who were directly hit. Thus, families, newsmen, private organizations and public juridical institutions join the dispute in order to advance their own versions of the past. This thesis aims at understanding how those values, disputes and representations fit themselves around those amending movements that are seen as public arenas spurred by different events found in the time of reparation, in the struggles created in the media and in the stories told by the victims.