WHERE - Pindaré-Mirim and Sao
Luis (Maranhão), Rio de Janeiro and
São Paulo.

WHO - Manuel da Conceição,
rural community leader, semi illiterate,
married, father of under aged children.
Mayors of the region of Pindaré Mirim
and at the time the governor of
Maranhão José Sarney (former
President of Brazil) and torturers.

WHAT - In 1968 the military police
dispersed with bullets a reunion at
which children were present. They
threw Manuel with both feet wounded
by gun shots, in a cell and eight days
later in Sao Luis they amputated one of
his legs. In 1972 with a mechanic leg,
they arrested him again. He stayed eight
months and then disappeared. Tortured
at the Doi-Codi in Rio. Without his
mechanic leg, he was dragged or forced
to walk in one leg. In 1975 he was
acquitted but arrested again in Sao Paulo
under the allegation that the Justice had
been "incompetent" when it acquitted
him. He was tortured again.

HOW - Beating, sexual assault,
electrical shocks, death threats.

" - ... and threw us in a cell with skulls? People who from what they say, were against the military regime, they were there, dry, hanging in the walls, you know?"
" -They threatened: if you . . ."
" - Did you see this in . . . ?"
" - Here in Rio de Janeiro at the Military headquarters. It has an underground there. As they say themselves, whoever goes there, never walks out. Stayed right there, dry , hanging. there were between eight and twelve skulls."
" - Skeletons?"
" - Skeletons! Dry skeletons. Men, with beards - there, hanging, dry, in the steeps, in the bars. This is horrible. They said: Look, if you do not tell us something you are going to end like this."

Excerpt from Manuel's interview with the newspaper "Reporter" in 1979.