The war started for Fernando, who was Chico in that place on that day. Fish III was the name given to the anti-guerrilla operation, whose aim was to conduct an armed invasion of the “TARGET” in order to capture, neutralize and/or destroy the enemy (the “TARGET” being a particular region where they suspected that there were subversive elements).
Fernando told me that the guerrillas fled. It was a narrow escape. From the forest, they actually saw the army surrounding the main house, helicopter and everything.
In the following days, the army found other bases, further south. They didn’t catch anyone there either, but they seized homemade bombs, ammunition, food, medicine, a sewing machine, clothes, backpacks. As well as, of course, subversive literature. The army moved with difficulty through the forest. The only helicopter they had at the time was out on loan.
They were suspicious of a man moving a little too fast along a trail one morning. They stopped him and asked for explanations, the explanations weren’t enough and the man, who was really the guerrilla Geraldo, was arrested, beaten, held underwater and forced to stand on open cans. On his person they found a note that said C: army in the area. cmdr. B. He was doomed. In Brasilia, a few days later, they found out that Geraldo was really José Genoino Neto, a communist who had been underground for four years. For three of which he had been living there, on the Araguaia, preparing the guerrilla forces.
The military was preparing “Civic-Social Actions,” to mask the real reasons for its presence there and to try to win over the population, in a tug-of-war with the social work carried out by the communists. With Operation Fish IV, in May, the military intended to correct the mistakes of past operations and obtain more information on the enemy’s identity, numbers and location. Officers from the army, navy and air force and the Pará military police were given the task of infiltrating the population.
That month the first military officer was killed by the Araguaia guerrillas: twenty-six-year-old Corporal Odílio Rosa. With a bullet in his groin, in a surprise brook-side encounter, when everything seemed calm and the forest was almost pleasant, almost comfortable, set against a naïve symphony of insects and birds with no political leanings.
On one side, four army officers and the woodsman who was accompanying them. On the other, two communist guerrillas. In that first confrontation, the guerrillas Osvaldão and Simão fired two shots. One hit Sergeant Morais and the other killed Corporal Rosa, whose body was left in the forest for a week before it was retrieved.
The surprise factor and numerical advantage, according to the Armed Forces, explained the defeat. The report also attributed the difficulty of removing Corporal Rosa’s body to a supposed death threat made by the subversives to anyone who tried to retrieve it.
Along came Operation Fish V, whose mission was to retrieve the body.
The military decided on the ostensive deployment of troops in the region. This time they had observation planes and helicopters. Three platoons and a detachment of paratroopers headed for the Araguaia.
In that month of May the guerrillas also issued their first official announcement. It didn’t mention the Party or the training that had been taking place in the forest for some years. But it announced the creation of the Union for Freedom and the Rights of the People, the ULDP.
The people united and armed will defeat their enemies.
Down with land grabbing!
Long live freedom!
Death to the military dictatorship!
For a free, independent Brazil!
Somewhere in the Amazon, May 25, 1972.
Commanders of the Araguaia Guerrilla Forces
Then Chico felt fear, for the first time. And he learned the art of mistrust.
He didn’t know he had it in him. Maybe because he’d never looked death square in the face before, eye to eye. He had heard about it, heard descriptions of it, passed by it and perhaps even brushed past it unwittingly (scuse me, sorry) and kept walking, with the long strides and sunny whistle of the self-assured. Meanwhile, death, in a hat and overcoat, turned and frowned at that unconcerned individual’s back. But to look straight at it and find its eyes wide open, undisguised, with the unspeakable inside them, to get through that unfair fight, now that was something else. For the first time he told Manuela that he didn’t think the guerrillas would win.
They’re too strong, said Chico.
Don’t lose heart. They don’t know their way around the forest. We’ve been here much longer. (Could it be that, of the two of them, she, who didn’t have the Peking Military Academy under her belt, who didn’t know how to make weapons, would be the one to tame her fear like a snake charmer, to walk over hot coals and sleep on a bed of nails?)
It doesn’t matter, said Chico. They hire woodsmen. People sell themselves for next to nothing.
People sold themselves for next to nothing. The first guerrilla was killed not long afterwards, as a result of a tip-off from a peasant known as Cearensinho. Sent to his house to get a roll of tobacco, the guerrilla Jorge ran into the army and was machine-gunned down. Cearensinho had been considered a friend.
They’re too strong, said Chico. By the end of May the army had more than two hundred men in the region. Not that Chico was up on the numbers.
By the end of May the army also had a list of five prisoners in a document entitled Special information no. 1. Among them, a boat man and farmer who was found hanged in his cell, a “known communist,” a “lawyer” and another two men about whom nothing was said. It didn’t mention the arrests of a further four inhabitants of the region or the capture of four guerrillas.
The ULDP (or “the terrorists of southeastern Pará”) wrote a manifesto containing twenty-seven demands. Among them were: Land for farming and legal titles. Reduction of taxes for rural labor and small businesses; tax exemption for small and medium-size farmers; an end to police participation in tax collection. Medical assistance in all districts, with itinerant clinics in boats and trucks. The creation of schools in villages, on the banks of the major rivers and near plantations; the building of boarding schools for children from distant locations. Protection for women; in the event of divorce, the right to part of the couple’s estate and domestic possessions; pregnancy care; practical courses for the training of midwives. Work, schooling and physical education for young people; soccer and basketball fields, athletics tracks and recreation centers. Respect for all religious beliefs, with permission to practise all forms of shamanism and Spiritism. The employment of a good portion of taxes in the construction of highways, the paving of streets, the installation of electric and water facilities, the maintenance of schools and medical services. Plans for urbanization and development in cities and towns; aid for the building of homes; incentives for the creation of libraries and radio stations. Respect for the property of others, without harm to society; support for progressive private initiatives, small and medium-size factories and craftwork.