Brazil's Truth Commission May Find Inconvenient Answers

Unlike countries such as Argentina and Uruguay, Brazil has never prosecuted anyone for human-rights offenses carried out during its military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985.

This is due to a 1979 amnesty law, which let sleeping dogs lie. And perhaps also because while Brazil’s military rulers were responsible for the torture and execution of dissidents, it was on a relatively small scale: Some 400 disappeared or killed is the widely used figure, compared with tens of thousands in Argentina.