In 2013, the Municipal Truth Commission of São Paulo concluded that Juscelino Kubitschek, former president of Brazil (1956-1961), was murdered in 1976, on the Presidente Dutra Highway. His black Opal allegedly lost control after colliding with a bus, crossed the road and collided head-on with a Scania trailer. JK and the driver, Geraldo Ribeiro, died instantly. The president of the commission, Gilberto Natalini, said he had more than 90 indications that “JK was the victim of a plot and political attack”.
The plot in question was Operation Condor, signed between the dictatorships of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay. In 1975, General João Figueiredo, head of the SNI (Brazilian government secret service), received a letter from Manuel Contreras, head of the Chilean secret service. The text said that JK and Orlando Letelier (former minister of Salvador Allende, president overthrown by the Chilean dictatorship) “could seriously influence the stability of the Southern Cone”.
In Brazil, JK, João Goulart and Carlos Lacerda articulated the creation of a Frente Ampla that fought for the return of democracy. Coincidence or not, in less than a year all three died under mysterious circumstances. On September 21, 1976, a month after Juscelino, Letelier was killed in an explosion in Washington (USA). At the time, Contreras was found guilty.
On August 7, 1976, it was reported that JK had died in the car on the way from his farm, in Luziânia (GO), to Brasília (DF). But it was a lie. He had even planned to do the route, but he gave up at the last minute. The farm, at the time, did not have a telephone. When he heard about the rumours, he would have commented to Serafim Jardim, his private secretary: “They are trying to kill me, but they still haven’t succeeded”. Then he received journalists to deny the information.
– (Caio Cacau/)
Sniper
Two weeks after the false alarm in Luziânia, the accident: the driver of JK reportedly lost control of the car after being shot in the head. The shot would have come from a Caravan or a sniper. According to reports, there was a metal fragment in the driver’s skull. Criminal expert Alberto de Minas stated that, on the day Geraldo Ribeiro’s body was exhumed, in 1996, he saw a bullet hole in the skull. When he tried to take pictures, he was stopped by police.
There are those who guarantee that an explosive was placed in the car when JK he stopped at the farm hotel Villa-Forte, in Engenheiro Passos, district of Resende (RJ) moments before he died. The hotel’s owner, Brigadier Newton Junqueira Villa-Forte, left shortly after Juscelino’s arrival, claiming he needed to go shopping. According to the commission, Junqueira was linked to the SNI and had been Figueiredo’s teacher. Another version says that the car’s brakes were sabotaged.
The driver of the truck that collided with the Opala, Ademar Jahn, also testified to the commission. He declared that, seconds before the crash, he saw Geraldo Ribeiro “bent over, with his head slumped between the steering wheel and the car door”. For Jahn, «there was no doubt that the driver was unconscious and unconscious, and was no longer in control of the vehicle, before the impact»
Josias de Oliveira, the driver of the bus accused of hitting the side of the Opala and making it go haywire, said that after the accident, was approached by two men who offered money to take the blame. But, according to him, there was no shock. The version was endorsed by a passenger on the bus, Paulo Olivier, who declared that the Opala hit a wall in Dutra before colliding with the truck. According to the official version, the bus would have “crashed” the car, causing it to lose control.
On the other hand
Reports confirm the accident. But there are still unspoken points in this story.
- In 2014, the National Truth Commission, after investigating the hypothesis of an attack raised by the Municipal Truth Commission, concluded that the military government had no role in the death of JK. Death was caused by the collision of the Opal against the trailer.
- According to an analysis by the coroner Márcio Alberto Cardoso, the metal fragment found in the driver’s skull was a rusty nail (from the coffin) and not a firearm projectile.
- The experts refuted the theses of explosion and sabotage. There were no residues of explosives on the body of the vehicle or evidence that the brake had been tampered with.
- According to the reports, the bus sideways hit Opal. Passengers didn’t notice because it was considered a subtle touch for a 12-tonne vehicle.
- At the time of accidentthe experts carried out an examination in which it was possible to determine that there were traces of paint from the black Opal on the side of the bus and vice versa.
- From the tire marks on the asphalt, the driver tried to regain control of the steering before colliding with the trailer, which indicates that he was not unconscious.
- The news of the false death still has no coherent explanation and only reinforces the fact that JK he was a feared and targeted element by the military. But she alone does not prove that JK was murdered.
SOURCES Books JK and the dictatorshipby Carlos Heitor Cony, The Kiss of Deathby Carlos Heitor Cony and Anna Lee, Juscelino Kubitschek – Where is the Truth?, by Serafim Jardim; newspapers O Globo, Folha de S.Paulo It is Brazilian Mail