STUDENT: DEMONSTRATIONS SWEEP BRAZIL
Every possible safeguard seems to have. been thought of in arranging for a successorship to the.Castelo Branco regime in.:Brazil which seized power in a coup d'état April 1, 1964. Another. army’ general, Marshal Artur da Costa e Silva, was selected to run as president in the October 3 election. No one was permitted to oppose him. In addition, the election was confined to the legislature. And in the past two years this body has been thoroughly purged, sifted. and hand selected by the military. When Costa e Silva is sworn in next March 15, it should come. as close to a routine changing. of the guard § as such things ‘can be under a bight military dictatorship.
“Yet the . reports. from Brazil indicate "serious | concern" among the ruling clique. Their concern is not over the rigged up election for Costa e Silva but over the sudden flaring up of student demonstrations. from one end of the vast country to the other.
During September, students by. the thousands struck, demon~. | strated and battled with police from Belém in the north, near. the mouth of the Amazon, to Porto Alegre in the south. Among the many cities involved were Santos, the coffee port, Sao Paulo, the main industrial center, Brasilia, the national capital, Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, capital of Bahia, Natal, on the Atlantic bulge, and’ Recife, the center of. the endemic. peasarit movement. ee
The demonstrations in Recife were typical of those elsewhere. As reported by Juan de Onis, in a September 17. dispatch to the New York Times, about 400 students: gathered.in the patio of the Catholic university. "Two squads of helmeted military policemen with clubs and tear gas had taken up positions in the vicinity. Student leaders used ia loudspeaker to encourage many nervous stu- dents to enter ‘the patio.
"But in a few moments, girls ‘were jumping with glee as. Pedro Roberto Lucio, a° young Roman Catholic priest studying journalism, -raised a ballpoint: pen to the police and said, 'This is my only arms, because ideas are stronger than bayonets.' The assembly applauded wildly."
The meeting was called to protest the imprisonment of a student leader held by the military for five months without charges on the accusation of being a "subversive."
‘Leaflets appeared during the assembly denouncing the "fascist dictatorship ‘in Brazil that plunders the country: for the benefit. of the North American imperialists. ot
A fourth-year law student, Marco Antonie. Braga, who took the floor was quoted by the Times correspondent as saying: "The Government says peace but we don't want this peace of the tomb! We want freedom and the right to be heard!" :
Some of the demonstrations were marked: by police brutality and considerable heroism on the part of the students.
At the medical school in Rio de Janeiro on September 23, for instance, police forced students, including coeds to run a gauntlet of flailing nightsticks. — ~ oo Doe _
- The students had piled bricks in. second and third story win- . dows and pushéd desks against doors. The action was part:of a pro-. _ test against continuation of the dictatorship.
After a police siege, the students met to discuss whether . they should hold out longer. The police. charged in and the students ran up the stairs to a lecture hall which they barricaded with desks. The police broke down the door, and twenty of them entered.
~ The students prepared to. leave the room, but the police con-— pelled them to pass in front of a line of police stretching 200 feet. "One by one the students ran through a hail of flailing nightsticks, many of which: splintered in the assaults," said the UPI. "One policeman replaced-his club with-a piece of lumber three feet long." Oo, So “f. De Py ee
The editors. of the New York-Times issued: reassuring words to: the Brazilian ruling class September 26. "In.reality the disturbances are still superficial and the Government of Marshal Castelo Branco is quite strong."
‘But looking beyond the immediate situation,’ the Times had to admit that. "the future is uncertain." oe
The fact is that: the current:student movement, surging: up. -only.a- little more than two years after establishment of a military dictatorship and a savage nationwide witch-hunt, testifies to the acuteness of Brazil's unresolved economic and social problems. The workers. and peasants,:.it is to be hoped, will take courage from the example set by the students and once again move into action, this. time with a revolutionary party capable of leading them to the socialist victory that alone can open the way to the future.
“EISENHOWER: