"Lamentable and dangerous!" A dejected Joana D'arc Fernandes Ferraz didn't mince her words when it came to describing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's attitude. Ferraz, a sociologist and left-wing activist, is a member of the organization Tortura Nunca Mais ("Torture never again"), which fights to preserve the memory of the crimes committed by Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1985). But the president's recent statements on the subject have disgusted her. "How can he say such a thing when Brazil is going through such a critical period?" she asked.

Her anger stems from Lula's decision to ban any official commemoration of the coup d'état that took place 60 years ago, on March 31 and April 1, 1964. The head of state has forbidden members of his government to speak publicly on the subject, even when it comes to the victims of the dictatorship. However, the human rights minister, Silvio Almeida, had planned an awareness-raising campaign on the subject, entitled "Without memory, there is no future." It has been shelved.

"I'm not going to continually rehash [the past]," Lula said firmly on February 27 in an interview with the RedeTV! channel. He said he was "more concerned about the January 2023 putsch," which saw thousands of far-right militants ransack Brasilia's institutions, "than about the one in 1964." The latter "is part of history, it has already caused the suffering it caused. The people have already won the right to democratize this country," he concluded.

Lula has not stopped at banning official ceremonies. He has also abandoned the idea of a museum of memory and human rights, focusing on the dictatorship. Furthermore, he has not reinstated the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, abolished by his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, a former captain nostalgic for the dictatorship who had no qualms about celebrating the 1964 putsch. Yet this measure was one of the left-wing president's campaign promises.

These actions have provoked an unusual outcry, even within Lula's Workers' Party (PT). "There is no future if we don't learn from the lessons of the past," said Rui Falcao, MP and former president of the Workers' Party. Historian Heloisa Starling denounced a "disaster" in the daily Folha de Sao Paulo, and the left-wing group of law experts Prerrogativas called any silence on the events of 1964 "unacceptable." "Lula gives comfort to those on the far right who would like to organize another coup d'état," said Ferraz of Tortura Nunca Mais.

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