Brazil’s House of Representatives approved on Wednesday the creation of a Truth Commission to investigate the human rights violations during the country’s military dictatorship (1964-1985). The bill to create the commission was first introduced during the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. President Dilma Rousseff—an ex-guerilla who was tortured and imprisoned during the 21-year dictatorship—is now urging the Senate to also approve the bill.
The Truth Commission will be comprised of seven members appointed by President Rousseff to examine instances of forced disappearance and other human rights abuses between 1946 and 1988. Regardless of the Commission’s conclusions, however, military personnel and guerillas found guilty of human rights abuses cannot be tried due to the Amnesty Law passed by the military junta itself in 1979. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared the 1979 Amnesty Law judicially null and void in 2010, but the Brazilian Supreme Court confirmed its legality the same year.
According to the Brazilian government, 400 people were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship, compared to over 30,000 in Argentina and 3,200 in Chile.
