Jango Page #8

of the Constitution and of legality."

Jango and his family went to So Borja

to spent the holy week holidays,

in March 1964.

Earlier pictures in the family album

reveal the relaxed lifestyle of

of a farmer president.

His life with Maria Teresa,

the barbecues, the chimarro,

the horse riding along the fields,

all of which was tinted by

an anxious mood this time around.

In fact, that would be the

last time Jango and his family

spent time together at the ranch

where he'd briefly stay in April, lonely

and on his way to the exile in Uruguay.

By late March,

after watching the movie

about the battleship Potemkin,

the Brazilian navy

was seduced by a dream.

Gathering in the steeI workers' union,

during the celebration of the

2nd anniversary of their association,

which had been kept a secret from the Navy,

hundreds of mariners claimed their rights:

freedom for mates held in confinement,

better meals

and the right to get married.

In attendance, as a role modeI and witness,

was an elderly Joo Cndido,

a hero who had survived the rebellion

that brought an end to

physical punishment back in 1910.

Like in the movie,

the population supported the rebels.

Gathered in mutiny at the

Navy Club,rallying for discipline,

officers called for the punishment

of the rebellious mariners.

Back in Rio,

Jango finds a solution:

the mariners are arrested

and subsequently released.

The Minister of Navy quits.

Minister of the Army,

Jair Dantas Ribeiro,

left office and was hospitalized,

due to renal problems.

The impact of the events in the Armed Forces

caused the adhesion of legalist officers to

the movement that deposed the president.

For them, it was intolerable

to see hierarchy crumbling.

Rumors of a military rebellion

had already been around

when the president attended,

on March 30th,

at the headquarters

of the Automobile Club,

a ceremony in his honor, sponsored by

the Association of Sergeants

and sub-officers of the military police.

The president energetically prohibited

any subversion in the name of order.

His improvised greeting

to the subordinates

was a belated warning

to higher-ranking officers.

JANGO:
WE DO NOT WAN A CLOSED CONGRESS.

In the early hours of March 31st,

a few hours after the end of the celebration,

the troops of general Olmpio Mouro Filho,

commander of the 4th Military Region,

marched over Guanabara.

The rebellion, coming from Minas Gerais,

triggered the coup.

In Guanabara, army tanks

rolled into the cities

without resistance.

The middle class exorcized its ghosts

by setting the building

of the National Union of Students on fire

In the afternoon of ApriI 1st,

in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro,

victory was already being celebrated.

President Joo Goulart

had left Guanabara,

the enemy quarters, and gone to Braslia.

The Capital was not safe

for the president either.

Jango went to Porto Alegre.

The battle in Congress

would soon be over.

Presiding over the tumuItuous

session of ApriI 1st,

senator Aldo de Moura Andrade,

in an act of solemn disregard

for the destiny of the legal institutions,

declared the office of president

of the republic to be vacant

while the head of state, Joo Goulart,

was still on Brazilian soil.

The president of the republic

has left the headquarters of the government.

He left a headless nation behind.

That's not true.!

In a very grave time in our history.

When it is necessary that the head of state

remain in the command of the government.

He has abandoned the government.

And I hereby give notice to the

National Congress...

This abandonment...

This abandonment configures...

the need to have the National Congress,

as the civiI power,

immediately take

the action expected from it

Under the Brazilian Constitution

in order to restore

in this turbulent nation

the authority of the government...

and the existence of the government.

We cannot allow...

BraziI to remain without a government,

abandoned.

Under our responsibility

is the people of Brazil.

The people. The order.

That being so, I hereby declare

the office of president of republic to be vacant.

Conspirator.!

Conspirator.!

In Rio Grande do Sul, the defeat

was not yet consummated.

Former governor LeoneI Brizola

used the radio as his best weapon.

People on the streets promised to repeat

the resistance of '61 .

When president Joo Goulart

arrived in Porto Alegre,

in the middle of the full-blown crisis,

a meeting was held at the residence

of the commander of the 3rd army,

who was general Ladrio Teles,

a great man and

military chief.

President Joo Goulart was in attendance

together with eight generals and myself.

And my proposal was:

that the president retreated

to the interior of Rio Grande do Sul,

precisely to So Borja,

and that, at that time, he appointed

General Ladrio as minister of the army

and I would accept the appointment

for the office of minister of justice.

And we would organize the resistance.

General Ladrio said

he agreed with my proposal

completely.

And that the 3rd army had enough

weapons to organize civil

corps that could include

over 100 thousand men,

in addition to the army troops.

And that he considered the situation

to be complex, difficuIt,

with a number of followers

within the 3rd Army,

but he thought it was possible

to defend legality.

The final decision of the meeting was

to be made by the president.

Who decided that no resistance

would be offered

because he considered it to be

too high a price to be paid in blood

by the Brazilian people

to restore its rights.

In fact, I got myself ready

for a potential reaction

of the state of Minas Gerais,

one year and a half before March '64.

When I appointed

ColoneI Jos Geraldo

to command the Military Police,

I gave him the task

of preparing the police for a reaction.

Because I was sure,

that with the difficuIties

I had with the government,

they would end up

attempting an intervention in Minas.

And I would react.

So I got ready for a reaction

to a potential intervention

rather than to depose a president.

Magalhes had assumed a

national responsibility.

And in this case he thought he should

use Palcio da Liberdade to develop

a government that had a national

characteristic as well

So he called MiIton Campos,

Jos Maria de Alckmin and myself.

I was informed of that

a few weeks beforehand.

And was told that I would be called

the day my presence was needed

in Belo Horizonte.

My office, which was

that of nonspecific minister -

the three of us, MiIton Campos,

Jos Maria de Alckmin and l,

were appointed nonspecific secretaries.

And my duty as nonspecific secretary

was to attain potential

international support

to have recognition of our belligerent status,

if the actual conditions of

the movement we were expecting

came to that.

Recognition of a belligerent

status, as you know,

entails the supply

of elements that can support

the political movement underway.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes