The dark years of the military juntas in South America leave echoes many would like to hear silenced, but the blood of the victims of the torture and persecution by the military forces demand to be heard, even if it is decades later.
The man now scheduled to stand in front of a judge in Brazil is one of the legendary 'asesinos' who not only hunted rebels and dissidents, in Brazil and neighboring countries, but also personally tortured and killed his prey.
He was a high ranking military official with the rank of Colonel. Sebastiao de Moura, 40 years ago, was the king of a domain of blood and violence.
He was nicknamed after an indigenous amazonian bird, that fights when in the presence of his kin to the death the Curio`. He's the col. Kurtz of the Americas.
His story begins in 1969, when he started hunting a group of idealist guerrilla that hid among the natives along the Amazon.
When he began hunting the rebels, myths started to circulate about his cruelty. Soon everyone knew that if Curio` was coming for you, you would not be taken alive.
Storied surfaced of Curio` beheading people and supervising the worst torture sessions. And there were reports too, that some of the locals were snared together with the rebels and perished with them by happenstance.
By 1980 Curio` was deeply entrenched in Brazil's power structure, even owning a gold mine, and building brothels around it for himself and the workers.
Enter Dilma Roussef, just elected president of Brazil two years ago. And that's when the lid finally came off the complacency of the Brazilian government towards those war crimes Curio` and others like him committed.
Roussef herself used to be a guerilla fighter, and had been tortured and humiliated by the minions of Curio` in a Sao Paulo prison.
She soon established a truth commission, which wanted to solve politically motivated crimes. This was bolstered by the rebels' own families who brought suit against the government to the Inter American Court of Human Rights.
In 2010, the Court struck down the previously granted amnesty as invalid and made all those people who had settled in the Brazilian countryside in peace rattle with fear.
And the prosecutors are eager to get their hands on the worst elements, the torturers and jailkeepers, like Curio`. As a matter of fact, he's the first person they sought.
Although Curio` is now 78, and had long faded into the countryside, he stands a good chance of finally been punished for his crimes.
In order to bolster their case, the prosecutors have ordered searched a pit where many rebels were believed to have been buried after torture and killing. And their work paid off.
But the colonel is well represented and is even sanguine about it. He says he has even forgiven his victims.
Many though, family of the desaparecidos and the people who survived the brutal torture, are finally getting a chance to see their tormentor face justice.
Source: Spiegel online 4.26.13
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