Companies, violation of human rights and the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship: a National Truth Commission perspective

Abstract This article means to identify and highlight, using documented sources provided by the National Truth Commission, the involvement of Brazilian companies in acts and processes involving human rights violations during the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship years. In order to achieve this objective, our focus of interest has been concentrated on analyzing the second volume of the final report, more specifically, text n. 2 (“Human rights violations relating to workers”) and text n. 8 (“Civilians who collaborated with the dictatorship”). According to this document, corporate human rights violations occurred on four fronts: (1) through the use of repression and control by means of persecution, imprisonment and torture; (2) through the portrayal of workers as subversives and enemies of the Brazilian nation; (3) through the creation and publication of black lists, and; (4) through political, ideological and financial aid given to the repressive structures of the dictatorial regime.