A ditadura e os rastros da repressão no sudeste paraense: desvelando memórias sobre a Casa Azul

Abstract

Between 1972 and 1974 the Southeast of Pará State – as well as part of the Maranhão State and the region currently located in the Tocantins State – was arena for the Araguaia Guerrilla, a conflict that not only marked the recent history of Brazil but also left several cultural marks in the region, among which an authoritarian legacy marked by repression of social movements seeking land distribution within the context of the post-dictatorship redemocratization. In the City of Marabá-PA a structure was set during the Guerrilla period aiming at fighting PCdoB [political party] militants present in the region, which consisted in the formation of military barracks and in the use of other public agencies to support the actions of the Military Intelligence Center (CIE). One of these public agencies was called National Department of Roads and Highways (DNER) at the time, which headquarters were reported by local farmers and former soldiers as being a clandestine prison where serious human rights violations would have occurred against guerilla members and local farmers. Some accounts mention that some of the people missing within the context of the Guerrilla had been imprisoned, tortured, killed or last seen in that location, at the time called the Blue House. After the end of the conflicts, the Blue House would have been involved in the Cleaning Operation, described as the deletion of information concerning the violations perpetrated during the Guerrilla period on the part of Armed Forces agents. This article intends to provide context for the process of unveiling memories of that place, despite the silencing strategies created by the Dictatorship agents concerning the violations occurred in the Araguaia Guerrilla period; it aims at contributing with a better understanding about some of the staggering repression strategies adopted during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil through the few traces left by its perpetrators related to the Blue House.