Brazil: The courageous work of Clamor

Jan Rocha, author of LAB’s widely-read Brazil blogs, has just published a new history of  Clamor, the group which took in refugees from the South American dictatorships and denounced the crimes of Plan Condor. The book, Solidariedade Não Tem Fronteiras, with a foreword by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, is launched on 10 July in São Paulo, at the Bar Tubaína, Rua Haddock Lobo 74. Jan writes: Exactly 40 years to, the World Cup was held in Argentina. But, not far from the chosen stadiums with their impeccable grass pitches, thousands of men and women were being tortured and killed in secret prison camps, victims of the bloody repression of a military dictatorship. In São Paulo, the recently formed group Clamor, taking advantage of the international attention focused on Argentina, published its first bulletin denouncing these crimes. For the next 13 years, the group, supported by the Archbishop of São Paulo, Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, revealed the regimes of terror deployed by the various dictatorships of the Southern Cone. These dictatorships created an international terror organization named Condor which, among other criminal activities, engaged in the kidnapping of children and the assassination of political exiles.’ The author, Jan Rocha, was one of the members of Clamor. Here she tells, for the first time, the secret details of the campaigns, missions and audacious actions of a group which stood up to the dictatorships and offered solidarity to the refugees arriving in São Paulo.