João Goulart
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João Goulart
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24th President of Brazil
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| In office September 7, 1961 – April 1, 1964 |
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| Prime Minister | Tancredo Neves Manuel Alves Branco Hermes Lima |
| Preceded by | Jânio Quadros |
| Succeeded by | Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli |
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| In office January 31, 1956 – September 7, 1961 |
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| President | Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira Jânio Quadros |
| Preceded by | João Café Filho (1954) |
| Succeeded by | José Maria Alckmin (1964) |
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| Born | March 1, 1919[1] São Borja, Rio Grande do Sul |
| Died | December 6, 1976 (aged 58) Mercedes, Argentina |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Political party | Brazilian Labour Party - PTB |
| Spouse | Maria Teresa Fontela Goulart |
João Belchior Marques Goulart (March 1, 1919[1] — December 6, 1976) was a Brazilian politician and the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'etat deposed him on April 1, 1964.
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[edit] Name
Goulart is nicknamed "Jango". The Jânio-Goulart team was thus called the "Jan-Jan" bid for presidency, an amalgamation of Jânio and Jango.
The surname Goulart is probably from the Azorean-French surname Goulard [2]
[edit] Early career
João Goulart began as an estancieiro, a rancher with huge properties of land.
He studied law in Porto Alegre. In 1946, he was elected to the Rio Grande do Sul state legislature with the Brazilian Labor Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro, PTB). He later served as minister of justice and the interior.[citation needed]
In 1953 he was appointed by President Getúlio Vargas as minister of labour, industry, and commerce. Despite being rich, Goulart was very popular among lower classes and made connections with labour unions. Vargas took advantage of that just when the left wing sectors were deviating from his government. As minister of labour, Goulart carried out an 100% increase in the minimum wage.
[edit] Vice presidency
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.
[edit] 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 (Brazil).
[edit] 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.[3] They abolished all political parties and replaced them with only two, the military government's party called the National Renewal Alliance Party (ARENA) and the opposition's Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB). However, the 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.[4]
On April 1, at 12:45PM, João Goulart left Rio for the capital, Brasília, in an attempt to stop the coup politically.[5]
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".[6]
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.[7]
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.[8]
[edit] 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, alleged that the former presidents João Goulart and Juscelino Kubitschek were 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.[9][10]
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[11][12].
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by João Café Filho |
Vice-president of Brazil 1955–1961 |
Succeeded by José Maria Alkmim |
| Preceded by Jânio Quadros |
President of Brazil 1961–1964 |
Succeeded by Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli |
[edit] References
- ^ a b The year when Goulart was born is uncertain. Some say that it is 1918 while others argue that it is 1919. According to Almanaque Abril 2000,Parlamentares Gaúchos, and many other sources , the father of Goulart decreased in one year the birthdate of his son so that he could enter the university to study law. See (Portuguese) Constelar for more information.
- ^ (Portuguese) Parlamentares Gaúchos.
- ^ Gaspari, Elio (2002). A Ditadura Envergonhada. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras. ISBN 8535902775.
- ^ Olímpio Mourão Filho Fundação Getúlio Vargas: Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil. Retrieved on August 20, 2007.
- ^ Gaspari, Elio (2002). A Ditadura Envergonhada. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras. pp. 103. ISBN 8535902775.
- ^ Gaspari, Elio (2002). A Ditadura Envergonhada. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras. pp. 111. ISBN 8535902775.
- ^ Gaspari, Elio (2002). A Ditadura Envergonhada. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras. pp. 112. ISBN 8535902775.
- ^ Gaspari, Elio (2002). A Ditadura Envergonhada. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras. pp. 113. ISBN 8535902775.
- ^ 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]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Archontology: João Belchior Marques Goulart
- Jango: Um perfil (1945-1964) English review of his biography in Portuguese by Marco Antonio Villa.
- National Security Archive Article about the declassification of secret documents.
- Cooperative research
- Third world traveler
- Brazil: Documents Shed New Light on US Support for 1964 Coup
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