cover image Torture in Brazil-V456

Torture in Brazil-V456

Catholic Church, Archdiocese San Paolo. Vintage Books USA, $10.95 (238pp) ISBN 978-0-394-74456-8

An investigation of human rights violations committed in Brazil between 1964 and 1979, this exhaustive document relies upon the official proceedings of the military courts of that period and constitutes a powerful, withering indictment of Brazil's military era. Survivors among the 10,000 political exiles and 300 ""disappeared'' testify about such refinements of torture as the ``dragon's chair'' and the ``icebox''along with the more familiar methods of electric shock and drowning. The authors argue convincingly against conferring moral amnesty upon the hangmen. Clearly and calmly they furnish incontrovertible evidence that torture lay at the heart of official state policy; indeed, that it kept the wheels of the Brazilian military machine in motion. (September)