The Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj) approved on Tuesday (5), in a second discussion, the listing for historical interest of the Companhia Usina Cambahyba Industrial Park, in Campos dos Goytacazes, Norte Fluminense. Now, Governor Cláudio Castro has up to 15 working days to sanction or veto the measure.
The main objective of listing is to protect the site from modifications that could compromise its historical integrity. The bill only allows interventions that comply with preservation principles and that promote the creation of a cultural space, and prevents any destruction or mischaracterization of the area.
The place became better known to the public after the former delegate’s testimony Cláudio Guerra National Truth Commissionwhen he admitted to having incinerated, at the plant, the bodies of 12 missing politicians.
The victims were: Ana Rosa Kucinski Silva, Armando Teixeira Frutuoso, David Capistrano da Costa, Eduardo Collier Filho, Fernando Augusto Santa Cruz Oliveira, João Batista Rita, João Massena Melo, Joaquim Pires Cerveira, José Roman, Luís Inácio Maranhão Filho, Thomaz Antônio da Silva Meirelles Neto and Wilson Silva.
The Cambahyba Complex, made up of seven farms, has also been at the center of more recent social disputes. Since 1998, the area has been considered unproductive and the target of demands from the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST). In 2021, the Federal Court decreed the expropriation of one of the farms for the purposes of agrarian reform, giving rise to the Cícero Guedes Camp, today inhabited by 300 families.
“With the confirmation of this listing, we need to combine the two stories [da ditadura e do MST]because the space is very emblematic of State violence in Brazil. It does not begin in 1974 and it does not end in 1985, nor in 1988. It mainly affects the most subordinated sectors of society. This continues today, when we talk about rural workers, city workers, the black population, favela residents, the LGBT+ population”, says historian Lucas Pedretti.
“May the past of this place where serious human rights violations occurred be demarcated and this history can be passed on to new generations.”
Memory x oblivion
Traditionally, the country lacks memory policies regarding the military dictatorship, especially when talking about museums or memorials. In the state of Rio itself, where the Cambahyba Plant is located, a set of initiatives has been subject to social disputes for years.
One example is the Casa da Morte, in Petrópolis, in the Serrana Region, a place known for having housed clandestine torture and murder centers. In the second half of this year, it was announced that the federal government had entered into a partnership with the city hall to transform the residence into a memorial to the military dictatorship.
Another case is that of the building that belonged to the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), in the center of the capital of Rio de Janeiro, and which has been in dispute between the Civil Police and social movements for years. While the police want to build a museum about their own history, groups such as Coletivo RJ Memória Verdade Justiça e Reparação want the building to become a center of memory and human rights.
In October of this year, the National Human Rights Council (CNDH) announced that it was preparing a recommendation for the 1st Army Police Battalion in Rio de Janeiro, where the Information Operations Detachment – Internal Defense Operations Center (DOI) operated Codi), be transformed into a memorial. DOI-Codi was an intelligence and repression body of the military government.
One of the few successful examples in the state is the Museum of Labor and Human Rights, opened in May of this year in the municipality of Barra Mansa, in the same location where the Army’s 1st Armored Infantry Battalion operated. There, a torture center was set up against opponents of the military regime. The museum is organized by the Centro de Memória do Sul Fluminense Genival Luiz da Silva (CEMESF), of the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF).
“Proponents of oblivion have historically been very competent in Brazil in ensuring silence about this past. It is the predominance of the idea that these are pasts that should not be touched, should be forgotten. Left aside in the name of reconciliation and pacification. And we can see this as something broader: a society and country that have difficulty dealing with traumatic pasts. Until recently, for example, there was no initiative in Rio de Janeiro on slavery”, says Lucas Pedretti.
“We need to think less and less about compartmentalized victims, those of the dictatorship, the communists, the victims of violence in the countryside, etc. All of them are groups victimized by the same logic of State violence whose ultimate objective is to maintain an unequal, hierarchical and patriarchal social order”, adds the historian.
