By ADRIANO DIOGO*

The graduation ceremony postmortem at FFLCH it was rather an act of forgetfulness, making a clean slate of the historical struggles of the movements of family members and former political prisoners

The Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP) held a tribute on August 26, 2024 to its students who died and disappeared during the military dictatorship: the “diplomacy of resistance”.

In a first call for the ceremony, these were the honorees; I mention them all, because they should never be forgotten: Antonio Benetazzo, Carlos Eduardo Pires Fleury, Catarina Helena Abi-Eçab, Fernando Borges de Paula Ferreira, Francisco José de Oliveira, Helenira Resende de Souza Nazareth, Heleny Ferreira Telles Guariba, Izis Dias de Oliveira (the University released the name with the erroneous spelling “Ísis”), Jane Vanini, João Antônio Santos Abi-Eçab, Luiz Eduardo da Rocha Merlino, Maria Regina Marcondes Pinto, Ruy Carlos Vieira Berbert, Sérgio Roberto Corrêa, Suely Yumiko Kanayama and Tito de Alencar Lima.

In a second call, the name of Heleny Guariba, who had taught at USP, was cut under the pretext that she had already graduated while she was still alive. This former student was a member of the Vanguarda Popular Revolucionária (VPR). She graduated from USP in philosophy, but was, above all, a subversive theater artist: she directed several plays, created theater groups in schools and worked with Augusto Boal. The Teatro Studio Heleny Guariba, in Praça Roosevelt, pays homage to her. At the Truth Commission of the State of São Paulo “Rubens Paiva”, which I presided over, we investigated her case.

Maria Silvia Betti protested against the erasure of this artist and activist by the FFLCH as “the suppression of the history of Heleny Guariba’s struggle and work within USP and within the theater is unacceptable”.^[I] Heleny Guariba continues to be one of the political disappearances of the dictatorship: not even the National Truth Commission has been able to find her remains.

It is hard to believe that USP has decided to do away with her again: the ceremony did not even mention her. However, a young councilwoman, Luna Zarattini, was mentioned at the event because, according to the Pro-Rector of Inclusion and Belonging, Professor Ana Lanna, she had given “a contribution, a imput” for the event – ​​that was all she could say about the parliamentarian’s contribution.

This series of tributes at USP to victims of the dictatorship suffered from a very serious initial flaw: it was disconnected from the groups of relatives of the dead and disappeared politically and former political prisoners, who have been fighting for years for memory and justice. It was taken over by political opportunism. The institution decided to ignore the historical militancy of these movements that gave rise to the various truth commissions that have existed in Brazil, including those at USP, which was shamefully excluded from the ceremony: none of its members were at the table to speak during the diploma ceremony.

The only family member present at the table was young Yara Nazareth Souto dos Santos, great-niece of Helenira Resende de Souza Nazareth. Jane Vanini's family was prevented by the table from reading a letter from the missing student herself, under the pretext that, at the end, the microphone would be open for demonstrations, and because the other families would not be allowed to speak either. This was not agreed with the families; some of them came from other states, only to be censored in the end.

However, university authorities left the ceremony at the moment the microphone was “opened” and, in order to document the FFLCH management’s disdain for the voices that were excluded, the moment of the “demonstrations” was not recorded in the official video of the event, which was interrupted before that.^[ii]

Before the end, there is a video, which was shown at the ceremony, with a few seconds of recorded testimonies from the families of some of the graduates. For some reason, the FFLCH excluded from this short video several names, whose families were not recorded: Antonio Benetazzo, Carlos Eduardo Pires Fleury, Fernando Borges de Paula Ferreira, Maria Regina Marcondes Pinto, Sérgio Roberto Corrêa, Suely Yumiko Kanayama, Tito de Alencar Lima (Frei Tito).

The student movements were present at the ceremony, but despite the slogans chanted repeatedly, they did not seem to be aware of the exclusions and silencing.

In this way, the family members were censored and Heleny Guariba disappeared again. The “diplomacy of resistance” ended up demonstrating that the FFLCH was much closer to the spirit of censorship of institutional acts than to the measures of memory, truth and justice advocated by the truth commissions.

The report of the USP Truth Commission, published in 2018, presents this recommendation, number nine (the Pro-Rector of Inclusion and Belonging, at the ceremony, confused it with the eighth): “Graduation of students who died or disappeared due to the violation of their human rights by the civil-military dictatorship;”.^[iii] The director of FFLCH, professor Paulo Martins, when he read this passage at the event, changed it to “violation of their human rights”, which may be a slip of the tongue.

The Commission planned other memorial measures, such as the tenth, the creation of a mural indicating the persecuted students, which could have been done on August 26 by the FFLCH as a tribute to all those affected, including Heleny Guariba. All of these measures, naturally, came from the historical demands of the families of those killed and disappeared politically and of the student movement.

Before the USP Commission, there were the state and national ones. The São Paulo State Commission “Rubens Paiva” included in its 2015 report a chapter on the student movement, recommending “the creation of Memorials (or other similar symbolic elements) in memory of the victims of the dictatorship.”^[iv]

The National Truth Commission wrote in 2014, in recommendation 29 of its report, that “The establishment of lines of research, the production of content, the taking of testimonies, the recording of information and the collection and technical treatment of collections on facts not yet known or clarified about the period of the military dictatorship should be encouraged and supported in universities, archives and museums.”^[v]

However, the graduation ceremony postmortem at FFLCH it was rather an act of forgetfulness, making a clean slate of the historical struggles of the movements of family members and former political prisoners, erased by supposed parliamentary voluntarism and by the university's disregard for its own history and, mainly, for those who honored this institution and the Brazilian people by fighting against the dictatorship.

*Adriano Diogo, geologist graduated from USP, fought against the military dictatorship, was a councilman in the capital of São Paulo for four terms and state deputy three times. He presided over the Truth Commission of the State of São Paulo “Rubens Paiva”.

Notes

^[I] BETTI, Maria Silvia. Heleny Guariba: facing exclusion. 19/08/2024. Available at https://blogdaciafagulha.blogspot.com/2024/08/heleny-guariba-enfrentando-exclusao-por.html

^[ii] The video of the ceremony can be seen at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oqMhEOoKOo

^[iii] The USP report is available at: https://sites.usp.br/comissaodaverdade/relatorio-final/.

^[iv] The chapter is available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20171013052226/http://comissaodaverdade.al.sp.gov.br/relatorio/tomo-i/parte-ii-cap6.html

^[v] The recommendations of the National Truth Commission are available at this link: http://cnv.memoriasreveladas.gov.br/images/pdf/relatorio/Capitulo%2018.pdf

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