Abstract
Thisstudy aims to understand the exile of Miguel Arraes, who was the governor of Pernambuco State during the 1964 civil--military coup d’état. In the aftermath of the coup, Arraes was arrested and left Brazil in mid-1965, seeking refuge in Algeria, which was known as the “Revolution Mecca” at that time. He remained in exile there until 1979. Meanwhile, he gathered a group of political supporters, which were mainly linked to his deposed government. Together, they developed strategies to resist the dictatorship in Brazil, such as coordinating opposition fronts, publishing complaints of international scope, and participating in the Bertrand Russell II Court. Despite being in exile, he remained under the surveillance of the dictatorial regime, particularly through the actions of the Brazilian embassy in Algiers. In order to do so, we examine memoirs of exile, whistleblowing bulletins published abroad, documents produced by the dictatorial government’s information agencies, as well as diplomatic correspondence exchanged between the Brazilian embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thus, we seek to understand how exile, although a strategy deployed to cast out those who were considered enemies, eventually became an opportunity for new strategies of resistance and insurgency to take hold.
Keywords
Civil-Military dictatorship; exile; Miguel Arraes