Joao Batista de Oliveira Figueiredo was a Brazilian army general and president.
Background
Joao Batista was born in Rio de Janeiro on January 15, 1918. His father, Colonel Euclides de Oliveira Figueiredo, opposed the revolution of 1930. He was one of the principal commanders in the Constitutionalist Revolt of 1932 and was an opponent of the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship (1937 - 1945).
Education
He received his secondary education in military schools in Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro before entering the Escola Militar do Realengo from which he graduated first in his class as an Aspirante in the cavalry in November 1937. An outstanding student, he won the Brazilian military's "triple crown": first in his Realengo class, first in the advanced officers' course, and first in the command and general staff course. After a three-year tour with the Brazilian military training mission in Paraguay, he went through the Escola Superior de Guerra and then joined the faculty at the general staff school in 1961, where he participated in the conspiracy that brought down Joao Goulart in 1964.
Career
Promoted to colonel in August 1964, he helped found the Serviço Nacional de Informaçoes (SNI) as the federal government's principal intelligence agency. Before Geisel named him head of the SNI in 1974, he served as chief of the Sao Paulo state police (1966 - 1968) and as commander of the prestigious 16t Cavalry Regiment in Brasília (1968 - 1969).
Promoted to brigadier general in 1969, he served as chief of staff of the Third Army headquartered in Porto Alegre and then in a like position at the SNI. When an "electoral college" of generals named his superior, General Emílio Garrastazu Médici, to succeed ailing President (General) Artur da Costa e Silva (October 30, 1969), he made Figueiredo chief of the presidential military staff. This put him in the Planalto Palace during years of increased repression of political dissidents, as dramatic actions by regime opponents-such as the 1969 kidnapping of the U. S. ambassador-were met with wide-spread arrests, torture, and death-squad activity.
Once in office Geisel appointed General Figueiredo as chief of the SNI. In that position Figueiredo was promoted to general of division. From 1974 to 1977 he was the short, barrelchested general in dark glasses who avoided press contact. Even so, in early 1977 knowledgeable politicians began to see him as the likely candidate for the succession. His eight years of daily contact with the Planalto under two presidents and his extensive security background strengthened his chances. Geisel maneuvered so as to diminish direct armed forces participation in the government's decision-making processes and to increase the power of the presidency by bending the military to his will. Neutralizing the military's political role gave him the space to select the man he believed would carry his policies to their logical conclusion. The year of decision was 1977.
In April Geisel briefly recessed the Congress to allow him to decree a package of measures that insured a safe electoral college to chose the next president in October 1978. In June Figueiredo's name was floated as a candidate. In October Geisel eliminated the opposition of Minister of Army General Sílvio Frota by firing him in a dramatic confrontation. And then, to avoid pushing through a promotion that would pass over senior generals, Geisel decided to ignore the custom that only four-star generals be considered as candidates. Minus the fourth star, he announced Figueiredo's candidacy.
He immediately faced strikes as workers reacted to the rapidly rising inflation that reached 110 percent by 1980, declining productivity, and an international debt of some $50 billion that soared with the skyrocketing interest rates in the United States - each new percentage point cost the Brazilians another $100 million. To improve the political atmosphere, he signed into law a general amnesty. A total of 4, 650 persons who had lost their political rights or been jailed, exiled, or dismissed from their jobs were affected.
In November 1979 party reform eliminated the two recognized parties, which were replaced by an alphabet soup of multiple parties. Figueiredo's advisers argued that multiplication would split the opposition into competing factions. The hard-line right-wing reacted to the regime's openness with a wave of terrorist bombings. Figueiredo challenged the terrorists to attack him instead of innocent people after a letter bomb killed a secretary at the lawyer's association. On April 30, 1981, a bomb exploded in a car outside a large convention center in Rio de Janeiro where 20, 000 people were attending a concert sponsored by opposition groups. The army sergeant holding the device was killed and the captain driving the vehicle was severely injured. The incident confirmed direct military involvement in the bombings. Strong, but as yet unexplained, pressures prevented Figueiredo from punishing the guilty. After hospitalization in Rio he was treated in Cleveland, Ohio. He paid a price in health for his position, suffering heart, eye, and back problems during the next several years.
The worsening international economic situation and the process of political liberalization jointly produced economic and social problems. Massive strikes in Sao Paulo's industrial zone in 1978 and 1980 led to the arrest of union leaders under the national security laws. Workers protested that their wage increases indexed to the inflation rate were far below a livable level. The government in turn was pressured by the International Monetary Fund to hold down wages as an anti-inflationary measure. Increasingly it became clear that debt repayment meant low incomes for Brazil's workers. In the north and northeast rural people began seizing unused lands, causing Figueiredo to create a new ministry to deal with land reform.
Tension with the Catholic Church, which was the major voice for societal change, reached a peak in the early 1980 with the expulsion of an Italian priest and the imprisonment of two French priests involved in political and land reform questions. To confront the growing debt, the government invested massively in natural resources for export, opened Brazil to foreign petroleum exploration, and completed the huge Itaipú hydroelectric project.
At the end of his term Figueiredo left growing inflation but also an extensive infrastructure to support Brazil's continued growth. In 1984, there were nationwide demonstrations calling for the direct election of a new president. Figueiredo kept his word to allow them. In January 1985, Tancredo de Almeida Neves was chosen president by the electoral college. On the eve of his inauguration, he was rushed to the hospital and died five weeks later. On March 15, 1985, Vice President and civilian José Sarney donned the presidential sash, and the Revolution of 1964's last president eagerly began his retirement.
He did not return to politics, lived away from the public attention and died on December 24, 1999. After his death President Fernando Henrique Cardoso declared three days of mourning.
Achievements
Politics
He was a member of National Renewal Alliance (1978–1979), later Democratic Social Party from 1979 to 1985. Elected in October, he took office of President in March 1979 declaring his intention "to make Brazil a democracy. " Considering the problems, that objective was a gigantic task.
In foreign policy he continued the pragmatic position of his predecessors that Brazil should pursue any relations that contribute to its development. The days of automatic alignment with the United States of America were over. Pointedly, he kept a certain distance from Washington, while intensifying relations with Europe, Asia, Africa, and Spanish America. The North-South dialogue was the cornerstone of Brazilian foreign policy.
Views
Quotations:
In 1981 he told a reporter that "I spend most of my leisure time trying to pretend that I am not President. .. . I wish they had chosen someone else for this job. "
Personality
Figueiredo, seeking to project a more accessible image, began wearing clear lens, shortened his public name to Joao Figueiredo, and shook hands and kissed babies from one end of Brazil to the other. He allowed photographs while doing exercises and horseback riding. His open, honest, often blunt manner touched the hearts of Brazilians accustomed to his somber predecessors.