RESTAURANTE CALABOUÇO
Address: Between Av. General Justo and Av. Marechal Câmara, s/n, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Universities and the Student movement
Translated from the Portuguese by Katy Blake Burch-Hudson
The Student Center Restaurant, known as the Calabouço (“Dungeon”), was active from 1951 to 1968. Known for its budget prices, students from different schools in the state of Guanabara were its main clientele. Originally built on the so-called “Calabouço Point,” on Beira-Mar Avenue, it was transferred to a nearby location between General Justo and Marechal Câmara Avenues, close to the current “Student Intersection.” The Calabouço was an important space for socializing and student organization, was the site for large protests against the government during the period of military dictatorship, most importantly in 1968. The position of the restaurant as a space of resistance against the dictatorship which caused the government to interfere by closing down the restaurant.
The story of the Calabouço Restaurant began in 1949 when the Dutra administration shut down the National Student Union (UNE) Restaurant, with little justification (the reasons cited were a lack of hygiene and the building’s inability to accommodate an ever growing demand). As a mitigating measure, student meals were to be distributed in the Labor Ministry and Education Ministry (MEC) buildings.
The Metropolitan Student Union (UME) requested the construction of a student restaurant in the underground garage located in the Castelo Promenade, a space that the city council was not using and thus would not require federal funds. However, the recently elected governor, Getúlio Vargas, announced the construction of the restaurant on Beira-Mar avenue on April 19, 1951. Inaugurated on November 5 of that year, the restaurant had the capacity to serve three thousand meals daily, with six hundred seating spaces. Meals in the restaurant cost two cruzeiros. The Student Restaurant was established, then, in the region referred to as Calabouço Point, in reference to the old Calabouço Fort (where slaves were corralled for physical punishment starting in the 18th century). As a result, the reference became the nickname for the student restaurant.
The Nutrition Services of Social Welfare (SAPS) of the Vargas government established The Calabouço, and in the 1950s received various criticism of its operation. In 1953, after multiple student demands, the space underwent a renovation so as to be able to adequately attend those who used the restaurant, who had suffered from a low quality of meals and unsanitary conditions due to the accumulation of garbage near the establishment.
Regardless, the restaurant had a large appeal because of its low prices. Prior registration was necessary to frequent the location. Through their respective courses, students respected a registration card, provided by the UME. Still, in the 1950s, the Restaurant’s crisis grew larger with the increasing number of students to be served. The space would close temporarily and the Ministry of Education had to intervene in order for the restaurant to continue functioning.
It should be stressed that, even during the democratic government before the 1964 coup, there were violent clashes between students and the Military Police (PM) and agents from the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS/GB). In December of 1959, there was a bloody confrontation triggered when the DOPS/GB prohibited a student rally (in protest of the price increase from two to 25 cruzeiros for a meal at the Calabouço). As a result, one police officer and five students were injured.
After the 1964 coup, the Calabouço became even more closely associated with the UME, which made the restaurant a space of resistance to the dictatorship. In retaliation, on September 16, 1965, the Minister of Education, Suplicy da Lacerda, revoked the Student Clinic and the Calabouço from the direction of the UME, closing the establishments and sending MEC officials and DOPS/GB agents to occupy the locations.
Working students were the major demographic that frequented the Calabouço. Many of them came from other states of Brazil (mostly from the North and Northeast), seeking a better quality of life in what was at that time, the state of Guanabara. The Restaurant’s reach was large, with more than three thousand people attended to daily. Besides being a location where students could find a low-cost meal, the restaurant was also an important site for student movements.
Since 1963, urban reforms had already planned the demolition of the Calabouço building in order to construct a road interchange (currently the Student Intersection) and the UME sought another headquarters for the restaurant. In 1967, that location was confirmed and the restaurant was demolished. Without a place to eat, the students began the well known “operation hang up” on August 4, 1967. Groups of five would eat lunch in boarding homes and restaurants in the city center and then one of the participants would stand on a chair and announce that they did not have the conditions to pay because they were poor students and that the bill should be sent to the Ministry of Education.
After a series of protests that were violently repressed by the police, the UME, the Candido de Oliveira Academic Center (CACO UFRJ) and other student unions were able to reopen the restaurant within the year, but in a new location. Elinor Brito, President of the United Student Front of Calabouço (FUEC), in her testimony for the Truth Commission of Rio (CEV-Rio), considered this to be the first victory of the student movement during the military dictatorship:
I ate at the Calabouço Restaurant that we inherited the Vargas’ populist politics. He was another dictator who tortured many people during the Estado Novo. And the Calabouço was shut down […] I came out of that: the so-named group of the Northeasterners of Calabouço. Our fundamental goal: the reopening of our restaurant, of our clinic, of our remedial education course, of our library, of our small shopping center – the barbershop, the watch store, etc. – closed by the dictatorship. Therefore, the Calabouço, was similar to all the other social achievements, and so its closing was the first shock for us. Our fight, to reopen the Calabouço and have student participation in its management. We accomplished this, it was the first victory: we reopened the Calabouço, our participation in the fight and everything… (Elinor Brito, Depoimento á CEV-Rio, 2014).
The restaurant reopened before the renovations were complete, and the old problem worsened: the building had terrible hygiene conditions. This precarious situation caused rallies and protests. The Calabouço Student Management (AEC), formed with significant influence from the UME and made available a remedial education course (similar to the current Youth and Adult Teaching Program) through the Teaching Cooperative Institute (ICE). Its director, Adolfo Rodrigues, was being monitored by state intelligence. Due to the importance of the Calabouço for the student movement and as a space of resistance to the military dictatorship, the military intelligence organizations infiltrated the establishment with agents (the sailor Gilberto de Oliveiro Melo, who took over Época magazine in the 2000s, was a secret agent for the Information Center of the Navy – CENIMAR – in the restaurant).
In 1968, in one of the protests, a military police officer invaded the establishment and shot at student Edson Luís de lima Souto, who died immediately. The incident generated a national movement amongst students and the general population, in opposition to the dictatorship. At the same time, public opinion was affected by this explicit show of state violence towards students.
Edson Luís was an 18-year-old high school student. From a poor background in the state of Pará, the student worked as a shoeshiner and janitor as he prepared to take the college entrance exam and tried to make it in Rio de Janeiro. He studied at the Teaching Cooperative Institute, in the annex of the Calabouço, and it was there that he ate his meals. His death caused a national commotion. Academic directors from various universities went on strike. Between the student’s assassination and the seventh day mass in his honor, countless protests occurred all over the country.
The seventh day mass for Edson Luís took place on April 4 and was organized by intellectuals and members of the church who were aware of the tragedy. It happened at the Church of Candelaria, in the center of the city, and was conducted by Bishop José de Castro Pinto. On the day, DOPS/GB agents spied on the mass from rooftops, tanks were parked on President Vargas Avenue, military planes flew in the vicinity and military police patrolled the neighborhood around the church on horseback.
The result was another show of arbitrary violence. The military police cavalry attacked 600 people at the site as they were leaving the church. The military police stood in a group outside the entrance of the Church of Candelaria, stoking a climate of terror with constant trotting of horse hooves. The general impression was that there would be an invasion at any moment. The church clergy provided a solution with a courageous act. They left the church holding hands and made a line, clearing a path from the church to Rio Branco Avenue in order to assure that everyone was able to leave without major issues.
In the context of negative public opinion, the military regime chose to minimize both the event of the student’s death and the subsequent protests. The Calabouço Restaurant would not open its doors until March 28, 1968. So as not to further erode the government’s image with this measure of closing the restaurant, they conceded to provide meal scholarships for students they considered low-income. Of the three thousand students attended to by the Calabouço, there were fewer than two thousand requests for the scholarship, and only 1,650 were granted. On January 20, 1969, the Calabouço Restaurant building was demolished.
The death of Edson Luís remains in the memory of the military dictatorship as an example of the state’s arbitrary use of violence. In honor of the student, a statue of Edson Luís was inaugurated on March 28, 2008, the 40th anniversary of his death. The monument, by the artist Cristina Pozzobon, can be found in the Ana Amelia Square in the Center of the city and close to where the Calabouço restaurant was located. The state is a representation of a torn flag with shards of glass, all rendered in steel. It was made is to represent the student deaths during the military dictatorship.