OPERATION PAJUSSARA (1971) IN BAHIA: MEMORIES, TRUTH AND JUSTICE IN BRAZIL
Operation Pajussara; Military dictatorship; Memoirs; True; Justice
The present work consists of the partial writing of our doctoral thesis in History, with a view to the academic qualification exam in the Postgraduate Program in History at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (PPGH/UFRN). Therefore, in this material we present the initial version of our thesis composed of the introduction, chapters 1 and 2 and the thesis writing plan. To this end, we focus on our object of study, namely: the historical developments of Operation Pajussara (1971) in the field of memories, truth and justice in Brazil. Through History, we analyze what was the largest operation of the military dictatorship in Bahia, whose effects resulted in a massacre perpetrated by repression against political activists of the Eight October Revolutionary Movement (MR-8), especially under the control of Carlos Lamarca, the revolutionary who was executed, as well as other organizational companions, in the surrounding region of Brotas de Macaúbas in the backlands of Bahia in 1971. Based on the complexity of Operation Pajussara, we aim to understand how State terrorism established after 1964 involved a dialectical process of construction and battle of memories, denial and affirmation of historical truth and legal disputes surrounding an intended transitional justice in Brazil. In this context, we place the “Celebration to the martyrs” - in mention of the victims of State repression, held annually since 2001 in that region, as a space of “place of memory”, in which the past of Operation Pajussara (1971) is made present in the tense reminiscences of the military dictatorship. From this perspective, this thesis writing reflects the theoretical development of our scope of study, as well as the contextualization and problematization of the topic raised, covered by theoretical-historiographical discussions and the preliminary methodological work that should be deepened over the next chapters to be writings.