Forced Glimpse into Brazil's Jails

One of Rosalyn Carter’s goals in her recent trip to Latin America was to improve relations with Brazil’s military government. But the realities of life in Brazil could not have been more aptly demonstrated than by two American missionaries arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned, and beaten, sharing for four days the plight experienced by tens of thousands of Brazilians for months and years.

Mrs. Carter met with them for 15 minutes while in Recife, Brazil. She said she would carry home a personal message from them to Jimmy. Whatever it was, it made no difference in the administration’s policy toward human rights legislation. A few days later, administration lobbyists marshaled their forces to defeat a Senate amendment offered by Senators Mark O. Hatfield and James Abourezk, which previously passed in the House, that would have cut off multilateral aid to countries grossly violating human rights unless such assistance directly benefited the poor.

Printed below, as part of our editorial section, is the account of their arrest and treatment. We print it not because it is unusual, but because it is normal for millions of people throughout the world, living under regimes like those in Brazil.

On May 15, Mennonite Central Committee volunteer Thomas Capuano of Altamont, N.Y., and Father Lawrence Rosenbaugh, an American Catholic priest, were arrested without charge in Recife, Brazil, and held for four days until the American consulate, notified that they were missing, was able to arrange for their release.

The two men were pushing a hand cart toward a market place about noon, intending to pick up sacks of fruit and vegetables for distribution among the poor, when two police officers accosted them. The police asked to see their documents, which were in perfect order, and bombarded them with questions.

“We informed them that we were members of foreign mission organizations; I identified myself as a member of the Mennonite Central Committee, a Protestant mission organization, and Lawrence identified himself as a Catholic priest,” Capuano says. “For no apparent reason we were then told we would be taken in and our documents checked. We were handcuffed and told to enter a car.”

Capuano and Rosenbaugh were taken to a police station which deals especially with robberies and thieves. The man behind the front desk wrote down their names, addresses and telephone numbers, took their wallets and glasses and told them their case would be resolved the following day.

“As we stood before the desk, a very heavy-set man with a gun in a case entered the room with various other men,” Capuano recalls. “He hit me on the side of the head lightly with his gun barrel and said, ‘Communists, eh?’ Then he pushed me violently into the desk, poking his gun into my stomach.

“Next he pushed Lawrence in the same way though even more violently into the opposite wall and said, ‘Subversives, are you? This is a case for the Department of Public and Social Order.’”

The men were taken to the jail where they were ordered to strip naked, then were placed in an 11-foot by 16-foot cell which already contained 24 male prisoners, also nude.

Although the room was totally devoid of any furnishings, it was filled far beyond its capacity with prisoners. Sweat, excrement and mold gave the air a nauseating smell. The two men were threatened, then beaten for about 20 minute by one of the prisoners with no attempt at intervention by any of the guards.

“We learned from the prisoners that many had been in jail for 20-30 days and did not know when they would be released,” Capuano says. “Many did not know the charges against them. All were held incommunicado, ourselves included, as our every request to telephone the U.S. consulate was consistently ignored, deferred, or outright denied.”

Before nightfall Capuano and Rosenbaugh were led into the hallway to take a shower during which they could hear guards slapping and punching other showering prisoners, then taken to a new cell. This cell, measuring 11 feet by 26 feet, contained 34 prisoners. “The beatings of smaller prisoners by larger prisoners continued in this cell also, though we were not hurt again,” Capuano remembers.

No supper was served, and the prisoners were forced to lie down on the floor for the night even though space was inadequate. “Sleep was impossible since the heat, the smell, and the sweat were unbearable. It was so crowded that the legs and arms of other persons were all over us, and many people could not even stretch out their legs as there was not room. The most unfortunate prisoners had to lie over a hole in one corner of the room which served as the toilet because of the overcrowded conditions.”

By the fourth day of their detainment, it was clear that all prisoners were being subjected to a series of calculatedly demoralizing inhumanities, the two men report.

“The daily diet consisted of a handful of manioc flour placed in our hands and a one-inch piece of salted meat at midday, and approximately one ounce of bread in the evening, although the first night there was not even bread,” Capuano says. “Those prisoners who had been jailed for long periods of time were emaciated and weak, their rib cages and collar bones protruding.”

Drinking water was available at most twice a day on an irregular basis. “The thirst and parched mouth and throat were agonizing throughout our time in jail,” Capuano recalls.

A second inhumanity was arbitrary violence. Throughout their time in prison the two men heard the screams of prisoners beaten by the guards. On their fourth day there they watched guards beat and shove two adolescent boys, then force them to hold out their hands while their hands were smashed over and over with a board.

Unsanitary conditions also contributed to the dehumanization of the prisoners. “Lice were everywhere, and by the second day we were infested.”

“The prisoners were allowed no visitors whatsoever. Contact with the officials of the jail was extremely restricted,” Capuano says. “Consequently the prisoners, too poor to have lawyers, were forced into an agonizing waiting game, never knowing how many more days of jail lay ahead of them.”

On the fourth day Capuano encountered a police investigator who happened to be at the front desk when he passed on the way to the showers. He again requested permission to call the American consulate, but the officer responded angrily, “Don’t you know this is Brazil, not the United States? You got that? Brazil, not the United States.” When Capuano, who had understood that a call to the consulate was a right, asked again, the officer responded brusquely with a string of profanity.

Finally, about noon on the fourth day of their imprisonment, the two Americans were called to the front desk and asked for their names and the names of their organizations. Twenty minutes later they were released with valuables returned intact except for their money. No explanation for either their imprisonment or release was given.

“Tom Capuano is a committed volunteer,” affirms Latin America MCC Secretary Gerald Shank. “He is in no way a political agitator nor did he break any Brazilian laws. He is a deeply committed, compassionate Christian and is seriously trying to live out his Christian faith among the poor of Brazil.”

“We suffered for three days, then it was over,” Capuano points out. “What is needed is the regaining and protecting of the inalienable human rights of those poor, suffering guys whose unfortunate lives we glimpsed, and who are still in jail without a trial, subjected to prison conditions that easily match those of the colonial era.”

Wes Michaelson was managing editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.