João Belchior Marques
Goulart (March 1, 1919 — December 6, 1976) was a Brazilian
politician and the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed
him on April 1, 1964. He is considered to have been the last
left-wing President of the country before
Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva took office in 2003.
Name
João Goulart is nicknamed "
Jango". The
Jânio Quadros–João Goulart presidential
bid was thus called "Jan-Jan", an amalgamation of Jânio and
Jango.
His childhood nickname was "Janguinho" (little Jango), which came
from an uncle named Jango. Years later, when he entered the world
of politics, supported and advised by
Getúlio Vargas, his friends and
colleagues started to call him Jango.
His grandfather, Belchior Rodrigues Goulart, descended from
Azorean immigrants which arrived at Rio
Grande do Sul on the second half of the
18th century. In the group of first Azoreans
established in the state there were at least three immigrants with
the surname Govaert (latter adapted to Goulart or Gularte in
Portuguese) of
Flemish-Azorean origin.
Early life
João Belchior Marques Goulart was born at Yguariaçá Farm, on the
district (now town) of
Itacurubi,
São Borja,
Rio
Grande do Sul on March 1, 1919. His parents were Vicente
Rodrigues Goulart, an
estancieiro (a
rancher owner of large rural properties) and colonel of the
National Guard on the
1932 Revolution on the
field of Governor Borges de Medeiros, and Vicentina Marques
Goulart, a
housewife. Most sources
indicates his birth year as 1918, but is actually 1919.
This
happens because his father ordered a second birth certificate in which he added one
year to his son's age so Jango could attend the Law School at
Rio Grande do Sul Federal
University
.
When Jango was born, the Yguariaçá Farm was an isolated location on
the municipality of
São Borja. His
mother Vicentina, therefore, had no medical care during
childbirth. She had, however, the pivotal aid of
her mother Maria Thomaz Vasquez Marques, which prevented the
occurrence of a misfortune in the family. According to Jango's
sister Yolanda, "my grandmother was the one able to revive little
Jango which, at birth, already looked like dying". Like most
Azorean descendants, Maria Thomaz was a devout
Catholic. While trying to revive the grandson,
warming him, she prayed to
John the
Baptist. She promised the saint that if the newborn boy
survived he would be named after him and would not have his hair
cut until the age of 3, when he would follow the
Procession of
June 24
dressed as the saint.
Jango grew up as a skinny boy in Yguariaçá, alongside his five
sisters: Eufrides, Maria, Yolanda, Cila, and Neuza. Both his
brothers died prematurely: Rivadávia (b. 1920), died six months
after birth, and Ivan (b. 1925), to whom he was deeply attached,
died of
leukemia at 33.
Jango
leaving to the nearby town of Itaqui
to study,
resulted from the decision of his father Vicente to form a
partnership with Protásio Vargas, brother of Getúlio, after both
leased a small refrigerator house in that
town from an English businessman. While Vicente ran the
business for the following couple of years, Jango attended the
School of the Teresian Sisters, along with his sisters. But
although it was a
mixed-sex
school during the day, he could not stay the night at the
boarding school with his sisters. He
would have to sleep at the house of a friend of his father. It was
in Itaqui that Jango developed a taste for both
soccer and
swimming.
Upon his
return to São Borja, ending his experience as a partner in the
refrigerator house, Vicente decided to send Jango to attend the
Ginásio Santana, run by Marist
Brothers in Uruguaiana
. Jango studied from the first to the fourth
grade in the Santana boarding school, but failed to be approved for
the fifth grade on later 1931.
Angry with his son's poor achievements at
school, Vicente decided to send him to attend the Colégio Anchieta
in Porto
Alegre
. In the state capital, Jango lived at a
pension with his friends Almir
Palmeiro and Abadé dos Santos Ayub, the latter very attached to
him.
Aware of Jango's exceptional skills in soccer at school, where he
played in the
right back
position, Almir and Abadé convinced him to do a test for
Sport Club Internacional.
Jango was then selected for the club's juvenile team. In 1932, he
became a juvenile state champion. That same year he concluded the
third grade of then ginásio (
high
school) on Colégio Anchieta, with an irregular academic
achievement, what would repeat when he attended the Law School at
Rio Grande do Sul Federal University. Sent back to Uruguaiana,
Jango graduated on high school on Ginásio Santana.
Political career
Sent back to Porto Alegre after graduating on high school, Jango
attended the Law School, to satisfy his father's will, which
desired to see his son with a higher education degree. There he
restored contact with youth friends Abadé Ayub, and Salvador
Arísio, and secured new friendships, making his first excursions in
the state capital's nightlife. It was during that time of an
intense
bohemian lifestyle that Jango
acquired a
venereal disease which
paralyzed his left knee almost entirely.
His family paid for
expensive medical treatment, including a trip to São Paulo
, but he lost his expectations to walk normally
again. Because of the paralysis on the knee, Jango graduated
separately from the rest of his class on 1939. He would never
really act as a
lawyer.
Soon after, Jango returned to São Borja. His
depression because of the leg problem was
visible. He isolated himself from the rest of the city at Yguariaçá
Farm. According to his sister Yolanda, his depression would not
last long. In early 1940s he decided to make fun of his own walking
disability in the
Carnival, participating
on the parade of the block Comigo Ninguém Pode (With me no one
can).
Beginning at PTB
Vicente died in 1943, leaving his older son the responsibility of
taking care of his rural properties. Jango soon became one of the
most influential estancieiros of the region. Upon the resignation
of President Getúlio Vargas and his return to São Borja in October
1945, Jango already a wealthy man before his 30s. He did not need
to enter politics to rise socially, but the frequent meetings with
Vargas, a close friend of his father, were decisive in Jango's
decision to pursue a public life.
The first invitation Jango received to enter a
political party was by Protásio Vargas,
Getúlio's brother, which was in charge of organizing the
Social Democratic Party
(Partido Social Democrático - PSD) in São Borja. Protásio realized
that Jango could succeed in the world of politics, but Jango
declined. Months later, however, he accepted Getúlio's invitation
to join the
Brazilian Labour
Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro - PTB). He was the first
president of local PTB, and would later become statewide and
nationwide president of the party.
In 1947, Getúlio convinced Jango to run for a seat in the
State Assembly. He was elected with 4,150
votes, becoming the fifth top voted of 23 deputies, ahead his
future brother-in-law
Leonel Brizola
(which was married to his siter Neusa until her death in 1993),
another rising star of PTB. He was not an active member of the
Assembly, but fought for the needy to have a way of buying cheaper
food. He soon became a confidant and political protégée of Vargas,
becoming one of the party members to most insistently require him
to launch a presidential candidacy for the
1950 elections. On
April 19, 1949, Jango launched Getúlio's candidacy for President at
a birthday party held for the former President at Granja São
Vicente, owned by Goulart.
In 1950, Goulart was elected for the
Chamber of Deputies. He
achieved 39,832 votes, becoming the second top voted candidate of
PTB on Rio Grande do Sul. Jango took office as a Federal Deputy on
February 1951, but soon asked for temporary resignation from his
term to become Secretary of the Interior and Justice in the
administration of Rio Grande do Sul Governor
Ernesto Dornelles. During the period in
which he was a Secretary, which lasted until March 24, 1952, Jango
engaged in restructuring the
prison
system, intending to improve life conditions of prisoners. He
later resigned his job as Secretary, at the request of Vargas, in
order to help the President with a political deadlock at the
Ministry of Labor, using his major influence on the
labor union movement.transoy de madrugado com 7
prostitutas
Minister of Labor
In 1953, after an aggravation of the deadlock, Vargas appointed
Jango as the Minister of Labor. The Vargas administration was in a
deep crisis: the workers, unsatisfied with the low wages, were
promoting
strikes, and the
right-wing party
National Democratic Union (União
Democrática Nacional - UDN) was mobilizing a
coup d'état among the
mass media, the
upper middle class and the
Military forces. As he took office, Jango
had to reply accusations from several newspapers, including the
New York Times. As
Minister of Labor, Goulart held the 1
st Brazilian
Congress of Social Security. He signed a series of decrees favoring
the social security, such as financing housing, regulation of loans
by the Institute of Retirement and Pensions of Bank Employees
(Instituto de Aposentadoria e Pensões dos Bancários - IAPB), and
recognizing the employees of the Audit Committee of the Institute
of Retirement and Pensions of Industry Employees (Conselho Fiscal
do Instituto de Aposentadoria e Pensões dos Industriários).
In January 1954, Jango began studies for the review of the
minimum wage, facing two types of pressure: the
mobilization of workers in great cities to claim for a readjustment
of 100%, what would rise the wage from
Cr$ 1,200.00 to Cr$ 2,400.00, and, on the
other hand, the rejection of entrepreneurs to the policy of
reviewing the wage since the
Eurico
Gaspar Dutra administration, which contributed for the
impoverishment of several segments of the Brazilian society. The
business community said it would agree with a 42% raise on the
minimum wage, a measure that, according to them, would match the
cost of living in 1951. On
May Day, Vargas
signed into law the new minimum wage, increased 100% as demanded by
the working class.
Jango resigned as Minister of Labor on February 1954, passing the
job to his legal substitute Hugo de Faria, and resumed his term as
Federal Deputy. Among the reasons for his resignation was the
strong reaction of the mass media and the Military forces against
the new minimum wage.
The political crisis of the Vargas administration deepened after
one of his bodyguards was involved in an assassination attempt
against UDN leader
Carlos Lacerda on
August 5, 1954. Vargas was put under pressure by the media, which
demanded his resignation. The pro-coup movement at the Military was
public.
On
August 24, 1954, at 1 a.m., Vargas called Jango on Catete Palace
and handed him a document to be read only after he
got on Rio Grande do Sul. It was his
suicide letter.
Vice President
After Vargas' suicide, Jango thought about leaving politics
forever. However, at the President's burial on August 26, 1954 he
seemed to have given up the idea, declaring that "we, within the
law and order, we'll know how to fight with patriotism and dignity,
inspired by the example that you [Vargas] left us".
In October 1954, there were elections for the
Federal Senate, the Chamber of
Deputies, state governments, and State Assemblies. The second half
of the year started off with uncertainties for PTB and its allies.
Emotionally and politically shaken by attacks made by Vargas'
rivals, Jango departs from political activities for a few weeks. He
only returns after a series of meeting with the PTB leaders in Rio
Grande do Sul. Upon the end of such meetings it was decided that
Jango would run for the Senate. However, both Jango and fellow PTB
leader Ruy Ramos (two seats were being contested) were defeated on
the dispute. PTB also lost the gubernatorial election in Rio Grande
do Sul, although it was able to elect a large number of deputies in
both State Assembly and Chamber of Deputies.
On November 1954, PTB and PSD began to discuss an electoral
coalition for the 1955 elections.
Governor of Minas Gerais
, Juscelino
Kubitschek, is PSD's big bet for the Presidency of the
Republic. On November 7, Kubitschek gave an interview
suggesting a coalition between the two parties. His candidacy was
aproved by the Minas Gerais branch of the party as soon as November
ended. Then began the discussions for whom would run as his Vice
Presidential candidate. After troubled negotiations, it was chosen
the name he had initially proposed: João Goulart. The PSD National
Convention was carried on February 10, 1955, with the confirmation
of Kubitschek as the party's presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, Vargas' Vice President,
Café
Filho formed a government with several UDN Ministers, which
impeded governance, and proved himself uncommitted with the latter
President's government plans.
Juarez
Távora, his Chief of Military Staff threatened, on December
1954, to veto Jango as a Vice Presidential candidate. In April
1955, the National Directory of PSD accepted the nomination of
Jango and, on the same month, the alliance was approved by the PTB
National Convention. The candidacy was ready, if not for new vetos
to Jango in the Military and alongside dissidents leaders of
PSD.
After the PTB National Convention, a leter from
Brazilian Communist Party (Partido
Comunista Brasileiro - PCB) leader
Luiz Carlos Prestes to Jango was
published on the press. On the leter, Prestes suggested that PTB
and PCB could work together for the benefit of the Brazilian
population. That was enough to intensify the actions of coup
plotters. In addition to the smear campaign run by Carlos Lacerda
on his newspaper
Tribuna da
Imprensa and the usual plotting inside the Military, April
ended with a statement by former President Dutra on
O Globo that he personally opposed Jango's
candidacy. From the institutional point of view, the crisis did not
had major repercussions and PSD, even with the dissidence of the
party in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Pernambuco,
ratified its support to João Goulart as running mate of Juscelino
Kubitschek in a convention in June.
In 1956, Goulart was elected
Vice
President, as the
running mate of
President
Juscelino Kubitschek.
Goulart was again elected Vice President in 1960. This time,
however, the president was
Jânio
Quadros, a member of a different party. (At the time,
Brazilians could vote for a ticket that had candidates for
president and vice president from different parties.)Quadros
resigned in 1961. According to some chroniclers, this was an
attempt to promote a
self-coup. After this
alleged coup failed, Goulart assumed the presidency after a
ten-day-long crisis.
The Goulart administration
Congress was reluctant to give Goulart the mandate because of
military opposition to his
left-wing
tendencies, because he was the political heir of
Getúlio Vargas and advanced nationalist
policies and not integration with the capitalist block.
A compromise was agreed upon thanks to
Leonel Brizola and the "cadeia de legalidade"
(chain of legality), and Goulart was able to take the presidency,
but with the limited powers of a prime minister, under a
parliamentary system of government.
During this period Goulart chose the three year plan as the
economic plan of his government under the advisement of
Celso Furtado, his Minister of Planning. In
order to strengthen the energy sector and to foster Brazilian
development,
Eletrobrás - Latin
America's largest power utility company - was created in
1962.
As part of the compromise reached that chose parliamentarism, a
plebiscite was set for 1963. Parliamentarism was overwhelmingly
rejected in
plebiscite in 1963 and
Goulart gained presidential powers.
The Goulart years were marked by national reforms, he signed
decrees expropriating oil refineries and uncultivated land owned by
foreign companies, as well as
Land
reform.
Politically it was marked by the government's closer ties to
center-left political groups, and conflict with more conservative
sectors of the society, specifically the
National Democratic Union
.
Goulart also led Brazil in the drive for a nuclear-free Latin
America, providing the impetus for the Five Presidents' Declaration
and the Treaty of Tlatelolc. Brazil's leadership on nuclear
disarmament was a casualty of the military coup, and Mexico
eventually stepped in to continue to drive for a nuclear-free
region.
The military coup
On the night of March 31, 1964, a military-led coup overthrew
Goulart. The coup installed successive
right-wing hardliners as
heads of state who suspended civil rights and
liberties of the Brazilian people. They abolished all political
parties and replaced them with only two, the military government's
party called the
National Renewal Alliance
Party (Aliança Renovadora Nacional - ARENA) and the consented
opposition
Brazilian
Democratic Movement (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro - MDB).
However, MDB had no real power, and the military rule was marked by
widespread disappearance, torture, and exile of many politicians,
university students, writers, singers, painters, filmmakers and
other artists.
In the
first of hours of March 31, 1964, General Olímpio Mourão Filho, in
charge of the 4th Military Region, headquartered in Juiz de Fora
, Minas
Gerais, ordered his troops to start moving towards Rio de
Janeiro, to depose Goulart.
On April
1, at 12:45PM, João Goulart left Rio for the capital, Brasília
, in an attempt to stop the coup
politically.
When he reached Brasília, Goulart realized he lacked any political
support. The Senate president,
Auro
Moura Andrade, was already articulating for congressional
support of the coup. Goulart stayed for a short time in Brasília,
gathering his wife and two children, and flying to Porto Alegre in
an
Air Force Avro 748 aircraft. Soon after Goulart's plane took
off, Auro Moura Andrade declared the position of President of
Brazil "vacant".
In the
first hours of April 2, Auro Moura de Andrade, along with the
president of the Supreme Federal Court
swore in Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli, the
speaker of the house, as president. This move was arguably
unconstitutional at the time, as João Goulart was still in the
country.
At the same time, Goulart, now in the headquarters of the 3rd Army
in Porto Alegre, (still loyal to him at the time) contemplated
resistance and counter-moves with Leonel Brizola, who argued for
armed resistance. In the morning, General Floriano Machado informed
the president that troops loyal to the coup were moving from
Curitiba to Porto Alegre, and that he had to leave the country,
risking arrest otherwise.
At 11:45AM, Goulart boarded a Douglas C-47 transport for his farm bordering
Uruguay
. Goulart would stay in his farms lands, until
April 4, when he finally boarded the plane
for the last time, heading for Montevideo
.
Political views
Accusations of being a communist
Jango, like many other progressive politicians of the
Cold War era, was more than once accused of being a
communist. As a response to Carlos
Lacerda, his most frequent accuser, he cited politicians also
supported by the Brazilian Communist Party which the latter would
not criticize. In an interview to the newspaper
O Jornal,
Jango declared: "regarding the communists, they have supported
indistinctly candidates of several political affiliations,
conservatives or populists. I do not wish to distinguish such
support, but I will only allow myself this question: is perhaps
Colonel
Virgilio Tavora communist,
just because, ostensibly, he accepts the support of the Communists
in Ceará? How to say that the illustrious patriot of UDN
Milton Campos is communist, for accepting, as
he did in Minas, the same votes requested by Mr.
Afonso Arinos here in Rio?".
Afro-Brazilians
The intimacy with poor people, specially
Afro-Brazilians, was a normal behavior for
young Jango. The main leader of his Carnival block
Comigo
Ninguém Pode,
mãe-de-santo
Jorgina Vieira, reported in an interview to the newspaper
Zero Hora that Jango was one of
the few white boys of São Borja to be a member of the block. In a
particular Carnival celebration in the 1940s, he broke the
high society rules and led the block inside the
aristocratic Clube Comercial, which would not allow blacks in their
halls until the late 1960s.
Death
João
Goulart died in Mercedes
, Argentina
in December 6, 1976 of an alleged heart attack. Since Goulart's body was
not submitted to an
autopsy, his real
cause of death is unknown.
On April 26, 2000, former governor of Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de
Janeiro,
Leonel Brizola, said that
former presidents João Goulart and
Juscelino Kubitschek were allegedly
assassinated in the frame of
Operation
Condor and requested the opening of investigations on their
death. They died allegedly of a heart attack and a car accident,
respectively.
On January 27, 2008, the newspaper
Folha de S. Paulo printed a story with a
statement of Mario Neira Barreiro, a former member of the
intelligence service of Uruguay's dictatorship, declaring that Goulart was poisoned, endorsing Brizola's suspicions. The
order to assassinate Goulart, according to him, came from Sérgio
Fleury, head of the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social
(Department of Political and Social Order) and the licence to kill
came from the president
Ernesto
Geisel.
Tributes and amnesty
In 1984, exactly twenty years after the coup, filmmaker
Sílvio Tendler directed a documentary
rebuilding Jango's political career through archive footage and
interviews with influential politicians.
Jango brought over half a million people
to the movies theaters, becoming the sixth largest grossing
documentary of Brazil. It was also critically acclaimed, receiving
three awards at the
Gramado Film
Festival and one at the
Havana
Film Festival, beside the Silver Daisy, given by the National
Conference of Brazilian Bishops (Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do
Brasil - CNBB).
There are at least ten schools all over Brazil named after João
Goulart, according to
Google Maps.
Most of
them are located on Rio Grande do
Sul, on the municipalities of Alvorada
, Ijuí
, Novo Hamburgo
, Porto
Alegre, Viamão
, and Jango's
native São Borja. There are three
schools named after Jango in Rio de Janeiro
and in Balneário Camboriú
, Santa Catarina
. Also in Balneário Camboriú it was
inaugurated, on December 6, 2007, exactly thirty-one years after
the death of the President, a monument of Jango sitting in a bench
of the Avenida Atlântica (in front to the Atlantic Ocean
) with his two children. It was designed by
artist Jorge Schroder upon the request of mayor Rubens
Spernau.
On June
28, 2008, it was inaugurated the Avenida Presidente João Goulart
(President João Goulart Avenue) in Osasco
, São
Paulo
. The boulevard is about 760 meters long and
is the first of the city with a
bicycle
path.
Other cities, like Canoas
, Caxias do Sul, Cuiabá
, Lages
, Pelotas
, Porto Alegre, Porto Velho
, Ribeirão Preto
, Rio de Janeiro, Rondonópolis
, São Borja, São Leopoldo
, São
Paulo, and Sobral already have
roads honoring Jango, according to Google Maps.
On
November 15,
2008, Jango and his widow Maria Teresa received
political
amnesty from the
Federal Government at the
20
th National Congress of Lawyers in
Natal,
Rio Grande do
Norte. The former First Lady will receive a
restitution of
R$
644,000 (around
US$ 322,000) to
be paid in pensions of R$ 5,425 (around US$ 2,712) per month for
Jango being restrained from practicing his job as a lawyer. She
will also receive a restitution of R$ 100,000 (around US$ 50,000)
for the 15 years in which her family was forbidden to return to
Brazil.
See also
References
Notes
- Morton, David. "Looking at Lula: Brazil's Amazon deforestation
worsens--despite a "Green" president", E Magazine,
September 1, 2005.
- Jango em 3 atos (first part). Documentary by
João Vicente Goulart aired on TV Senado.
- Hugh B. Stinson and James D. Cochrane, “The Movement for
Regional Arms Control in Latin America,” Journal of Interamerican
Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1971): 1-17.
- Olímpio Mourão Filho Fundação Getúlio Vargas:
Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do
Brasil. Retrieved on August 20, 2007.
- Brasil examina su pasado represivo en la
Operación Cóndor, El Mostrador, 11 May 2000
- Operación Cóndor: presión de Brizola sobre la
Argentina, El Clarín, 6 May 2000
- [1]
- [2]
- "Avenida Presidente João Goulart projeta Osasco
para o futuro" , Osasco Agora, July 2, 2008.
- Aquino, Yara. "Jango recebe anistia quase meio século depois de
derrubado pela ditadura militar" , Agência Brasil,
November 15, 2008.
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