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Brazil's ex-President Joao Goulart's remains honoured
President, Dilma Rousseff headed the ceremony in the capital Brasilia
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The ceremony was headed by the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff.
Goulart, known as Jango, died in exile in Argentina. A heart attack was given as the official cause of death.
But a former Uruguayan spy has said Goulart was poisoned by agents working for the region's military governments.
Goulart governed from 1961 to 1964.
When he died in exile, in 1976, the Brazilian military authorities refused to give him state honours or to declare a day of mourning.
'Meeting with history'
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
Julia Carneiro BBC Brasil, Rio de Janeiro
Brazilians born after the military coup grew accustomed to learning history with several question marks punctuating official facts.
At school, I remember the portrayal of Joao Goulart as a charismatic leftist leader who had to flee Brazil after the military proclaimed their "revolution" in 1964.
Goulart died of a heart attack 12 years after the coup, in exile in Argentina. Or so the story goes.
The former president was only allowed to return to his country in a coffin. A burial in his hometown was as much as the military would grant him.
Now his remains have arrived in the capital, Brasilia, to applause. The wooden coffin was wrapped in a flag, carried by military soldiers as trumpeters played and shots were fired in the air.
His wife, Maria Teresa Goulart, stood next to President Dilma Rousseff as the military ritual was belatedly performed.
But many here say investigations into the circumstances of his and other deaths must continue so that the question marks can finally be removed from Brazil's history.
Goulart was the only Brazilian president to be buried without the honours usually given to a former head of state.
"Today, Brazil is having a meeting with its history," President Rousseff wrote on Twitter.
The celebration was an affirmation of Brazilian democracy, she said.
Goulart's family and a number of authorities and former presidents, including Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Fernando Collor de Mello, took part in the state ceremony that welcomed former President Joao Goulart's remains into the capital.
Forensic scientists exhumed the remains on Wednesday from the family pantheon in Sao Borja, a small Brazilian town near the Argentine border.
The remains were taken by car to the nearby town of Santa Maria before being flown to Brasilia on Thursday.
Toxicology tests will be carried out on the remains, and samples sent abroad to be analysed, local reports say.
But it could be months before any results are known.
A progressive leader with left-wing sympathies during the height of the Cold War, Goulart was deposed in the 1964 military coup.
Joao Goulart, nicknamed Jango, was deposed in a bloodless coup in 1964
He fled first to Uruguay, where he settled as a farmer, and in 1973 to Argentina on the invitation of its president, Juan Peron.
Goulart was found dead on 6 December 1976 in the Argentine city of Mercedes, nine months after a military junta had overthrown the government of Juan Peron's widow, Isabel Peron.
Officials at the time said he had died of a heart attack, but no post mortem examination was carried out by the authorities in either Argentina or Brazil, where he was taken for burial.
Doubts about his death resurfaced five years ago when a former Uruguayan intelligence officer serving a sentence for drug smuggling in Brazil alleged that Goulart was poisoned by Uruguayan agents at the request of Brazilian military rulers.
The intelligence officer, Mario Neira, said the alleged murder was part of Operation Condor, a plan under which the military governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay collaborated to eliminate their political opponents in the 1970s and '80s.
Neira alleges that Goulart died after his heart medication was swapped with one altered to cause a cardiac attack, by agents working on behalf of the Brazilian military.
Brazil's National Truth Commission, which started work last year, agreed to investigate the claims with the help of the presidency's human rights commission.
Up to 500 people were killed or disappeared under Brazil's military rule - a far lower number than in shorter periods of military rule in neighbouring Argentina and Chile.
But thousands of Brazilians were tortured, exiled or deprived of their political rights.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24948782
Continue reading the main story
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The ceremony was headed by the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff.
Goulart, known as Jango, died in exile in Argentina. A heart attack was given as the official cause of death.
But a former Uruguayan spy has said Goulart was poisoned by agents working for the region's military governments.
Goulart governed from 1961 to 1964.
When he died in exile, in 1976, the Brazilian military authorities refused to give him state honours or to declare a day of mourning.
'Meeting with history'
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
Brazilians born after the military coup grew accustomed to learning history with several question marks punctuating official facts.
At school, I remember the portrayal of Joao Goulart as a charismatic leftist leader who had to flee Brazil after the military proclaimed their "revolution" in 1964.
Goulart died of a heart attack 12 years after the coup, in exile in Argentina. Or so the story goes.
The former president was only allowed to return to his country in a coffin. A burial in his hometown was as much as the military would grant him.
Now his remains have arrived in the capital, Brasilia, to applause. The wooden coffin was wrapped in a flag, carried by military soldiers as trumpeters played and shots were fired in the air.
His wife, Maria Teresa Goulart, stood next to President Dilma Rousseff as the military ritual was belatedly performed.
But many here say investigations into the circumstances of his and other deaths must continue so that the question marks can finally be removed from Brazil's history.
Goulart was the only Brazilian president to be buried without the honours usually given to a former head of state.
"Today, Brazil is having a meeting with its history," President Rousseff wrote on Twitter.
The celebration was an affirmation of Brazilian democracy, she said.
Goulart's family and a number of authorities and former presidents, including Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Fernando Collor de Mello, took part in the state ceremony that welcomed former President Joao Goulart's remains into the capital.
Forensic scientists exhumed the remains on Wednesday from the family pantheon in Sao Borja, a small Brazilian town near the Argentine border.
The remains were taken by car to the nearby town of Santa Maria before being flown to Brasilia on Thursday.
Toxicology tests will be carried out on the remains, and samples sent abroad to be analysed, local reports say.
But it could be months before any results are known.
A progressive leader with left-wing sympathies during the height of the Cold War, Goulart was deposed in the 1964 military coup.
He fled first to Uruguay, where he settled as a farmer, and in 1973 to Argentina on the invitation of its president, Juan Peron.
Goulart was found dead on 6 December 1976 in the Argentine city of Mercedes, nine months after a military junta had overthrown the government of Juan Peron's widow, Isabel Peron.
Officials at the time said he had died of a heart attack, but no post mortem examination was carried out by the authorities in either Argentina or Brazil, where he was taken for burial.
Doubts about his death resurfaced five years ago when a former Uruguayan intelligence officer serving a sentence for drug smuggling in Brazil alleged that Goulart was poisoned by Uruguayan agents at the request of Brazilian military rulers.
The intelligence officer, Mario Neira, said the alleged murder was part of Operation Condor, a plan under which the military governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay collaborated to eliminate their political opponents in the 1970s and '80s.
Neira alleges that Goulart died after his heart medication was swapped with one altered to cause a cardiac attack, by agents working on behalf of the Brazilian military.
Brazil's National Truth Commission, which started work last year, agreed to investigate the claims with the help of the presidency's human rights commission.
Up to 500 people were killed or disappeared under Brazil's military rule - a far lower number than in shorter periods of military rule in neighbouring Argentina and Chile.
But thousands of Brazilians were tortured, exiled or deprived of their political rights.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24948782