Document of the Week — We have to find a way, my friend¹: Surveillance and the disappearances of the Paiva family

Check out this week's featured document! We need to find a way, my friend: Surveillance and the disappearances of the Paiva family

Check out the full document in our collection: Air Telegram sent by William Manning Rountree to the State Department regarding the D'Alembert Jaccoud case

Under the announcement of secret at the opening, the document of 27/09/1971 deals with the arrest of the correspondent of New York Times, D'Alambert Jaccoud. The surveillance customarily undertaken by the US Department of State verified in conversation between the prisoner's defense attorney, Claudio Lacombe, and the Consul of Salvador, Alexander F. Watson, that the arrest was allegedly due to D'Alambert's connection with a member of the Paiva family, more specifically due to an alleged report that had been passed on to the newspaper reporting the case of Rubens, taken from his residence by security forces in January of that year and never seen again.

Throughout the writing, Rubens Paiva appears twice: in both cases, he appears as “former deputy” (Federal Deputy) and “murdered by security forces” (murder by security forces). In fact, as a parliamentarian of the PTB had his mandate revoked and political rights suspended by art. 10 of the Institutional Act No. 1, with the 1964 coup. Conclusive evidence regarding his murder, however, remains lacking, as the fate of his body has never been revealed, although his entry into the DOI be certified in a document analyzed by National Truth Commission (2014, p. 523).

As is evident in the recent I'm Still Here, the disappearance of the engineer and father caused a deep gap in the entire family network: the absence of the body also meant the absence of a response, leaving each member of the clan with the task of promoting individual mourning with precarious symbolic tools, such as observing the scene of the donation of Rubens' personal objects.

On the other hand, the document draws attention to the mention of another person, also cited on two occasions. The “widow of Paiva" (Paiva's widow) or "Rubens Paiva's wife" is the figure who supports Lacombe's argument about the motivation for D'Alambert's arrest. Years later, the journalist's widow, Gioconda Metoni, reported that her husband accompanied the head of the Paiva family in reporting activities.

Maria Lucrecia Eunice Facciola Paiva. This is the full name of the woman whose identity is not stated even once in the document. This is the name she repeats for 12 days while prey at DOI-CODI/RJ shortly after Rubens' capture. His forceful actions allowed for the death certificate that records Rubens Paiva's death in 1996 and contributed to promoting the memory of the dictatorship period.

¹ The song É preciso dar um jeito meu amigo (1971) by Erasmo Carlos and Roberto Carlos makes up the soundtrack of the film Ainda estou aqui.

Prof. Dr. Paula Franco
General Coordinator of Memory and Truth Policies
Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship