Ipatinga massacre

Ipatinga Massacre

Partial view of Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Date	October 7, 1963
Location	Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Type	Mass murder, industrial strike
Cause	Clashes between military police and employees over working conditions and union activities
Target	Usiminas employees
Outcome	Eight officially reported dead, 79 wounded; subsequent salary increases, changes in security personnel, and later investigations into the event
Deaths	8 (officially reported)

The Ipatinga massacre was an episode of aggression and mass murder that took place in Ipatinga, a Brazilian city that was until then a village belonging to Coronel Fabriciano, in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais, on October 7, 1963. The event consisted of a clash between military officers, then under orders from Governor of Minas Gerais José de Magalhães Pinto, and Usiminas employees, who were outraged at the poor working conditions and the humiliation they suffered when they were searched before entering and leaving the company for their workday.^[1]

The night before the day of the massacre, workers leaving the night shift were subjected to a heavy search, in which milk and food could not be taken home. The Military Police had recently discovered plans for resistance and union meetings in the village, which were resisted.^[2] Outraged by the facts, workers clashed with the Police Cavalry after trying to break up a gathering in the Santa Monica lodge (now the Horto neighborhood)^[3] and only with the intermediation of Avelino Marques, priest of the Church of Our Lady of Hope, was it decided that at dawn there would be a meeting between Usiminas management and representatives of the police, the local union and the workers.^[4]

On the morning of the 7th, about six thousand workers on strike in front of the Usiminas gate awaited the end of a meeting,^[5] in which it was decided that the police cavalry would be suspended during the investigations into the aggressions of the previous day. At the same time, armed soldiers insisted on remaining at the site and intimidated the rioters, who began to rebuke them with stones and curses. Just as Father Avelino and Geraldo Ribeiro, president of the union, were getting into a car to address the crowd, nineteen policemen on top of a truck started shooting at the workers,^[6] officially resulting in eight dead (including a child on his mother's lap) and 79 wounded. Such numbers, however, are contested.^[7]

In the following months, there were salary increases, the replacement of the vigilante staff, and the conviction of the soldiers involved in aggression and the massacre. The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, however, removed then-president João Goulart, initiating the military dictatorship. This culminated in the imprisonment of local trade unionists and labor movement leaders and the acquittal of the police officers involved.^[8] Only in 2004 were compensation paid to the families of the victims^[9] and in 2013, with the establishment of the National Truth Commission (CNV), the case was investigated again.^[10]