From Revolutionary to Ruler: The Life Story of Paulo de Tarso Vannucchi in Contemporary Brazil

This paper is part of a larger project that seeks to deepen our understanding of the fragile nature of democracy in Latin America by exploring the lives of revolutionaries who violently resisted Brazil’s military regime (1964-1985) but now peacefully coexist with and even support democracy. To what extent could these guerrillas and their supporters be considered “terrorists,” as the military labeled them? How and why did they later adopt a new strategy of nonviolence and democracy, and how do they interpret this shift? How have their more recent actions contributed to the impressive flowering of post-authoritarian civil society, including the human rights movement? How do their lives reflect Brazilian, Latin American, and world history during the Cold War and its aftermath? My paper will focus on these key questions and themes by examining the case of Paulo de Tarso Vannuchi, a former ALN guerrilla who is currently serving as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Minister of the Special Secretariat for Human Rights, a cabinet-level position. Vannuchi, his brother, and a cousin were all jailed by the regime. His brother belonged to another revolutionary organization, and his cousin, an ALN political operative, was murdered by the security forces in 1973. The paper will discuss Vannuchi’s entrance into the ALN, his beliefs about guerrilla warfare, his capture and brutal torture by the security forces, his attempted suicide, his intellectual and political development as a political prisoner, his desire to resume the armed struggle upon his release, his switch to political work in Catholic and other grassroots movements, his involvement in the Workers’ Party, his work as one of Lula’s most trusted advisors, and his role in the Brazilian human rights movement. The focus will be on the shift in his political ideology as a result of the Brazilian political process.