Whispers of genocide: racist and colonial legal practices of the Brazilian dictatorship towards indigenous peoples

Abstract

Towards the end of the 1960s, as accusations of genocide against Brazil appeared in several national and international newspapers, a sense of growing unrest crept into the military dictatorship. In 1968, the United Nations organised the First International Conference on Human Rights in Tehran. The dictatorship’s legal argumentation was based on an assimilationist orientation directed at ‘civilizing’ the Indigenous population and ignoring genocide allegations. The military regime intertwined a tradition of civilising mission with an authoritarian ideology of national unity to produce racist and colonial legal practices towards Indigenous peoples in Brazil. Reports of genocide caused quite a stir among activists and academics, but the Tehran episode also illustrates how events unfolding in international arenas such as the Conference did not substantially vex the Brazilian dictatorship. Exactly seven months after the meeting, the regime passed the Institutional Act 5, which inaugurated the most repressive years of its history. To subsidise such points, we review documents found in the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.