CENTRO ACADÊMICO CÂNDIDO DE OLIVEIRA (CACO)
Address: Rua Moncorvo Filho, 8, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Universities and the Student Movement
Translated from the Portuguese by Benjamin Brooks
The Cândido de Oliveira Academic Center (CACO) of the National Law School (FND) of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) is an important entity for student representation in Brazil. Located in the Conde dos Arcos Palace, which houses the FND and once housed the Brazilian Senate (during imperial period and part of the republican era), at Rua Moncorvo Filho, 8, Caco’s origin was born from the need for law students to organize in 1916. In 2015, Caco represents more the more than three thousand students enrolled in the UFRJ law school. During the military dictatorship, it garnered attention in its fights for political change in Brazil.
The FND formed from the integration of two private law schools: the Free Law School and the Free School for Juridical and Social Sciences of Rio de Janeiro. In the former, students gathered and created a literary legal union in 1916. In 1920, the FND was incorporated into the University of Rio de Janeiro (later to become the University of Brazil, then the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). Thus, the literary legal union became the Cândido de Oliveira Academic Center, named in honor of a professor.
In the political climate of the Vargas Era in the 1930s, there was wide ideological polarization among FND students (largely split between fascist “integralism” and fundamentalism). After a communist rebellion in 1935, three professors were dismissed: Edgard de Castro Rebelo, Leônidas de Rezende and Hermes Lima, all accused, with assistance from fundamentalist students, of favoring communism.
Conversely, the academic center steadily grew in prominence within the student movement, until 1943, when, under the Estado Novo dictatorship, the academic directory of the FND fused with CACO, becoming the official representational body for those students. In this same period, the FND relocated to Rua Moncorvo Filho, in the center of the city.
CACO continued as an important character in the political and social history of Brazil, positioning itself in favor of the country’s involvement in World War II. In the 1950s, it was important in its defence of state monopolization of petroleum and expressed support for the Juscelino Kubitschek administration, which did not want to meet certain demands imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), when faced with expansionist policies.
The intense politicization within CACO redefined itself in the 1960s. New leftist political forces allied themselves with the academic center, including Workers’ Politic (POLOP), Popular Action (AP), and The Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). The flags that CACO defended in this period were in defense of mass education and university reform.
On April 1, 1964, supporters of the coup attacked the FND building. There were accounts of advances by the Command for Hunting Communists (CCC) and the civil police in the area in front of the university known as “CACO Square.” Ari de Oliveira Mendes Cunha, a bystander, was shot and killed during the encounter. Other attacks in the area by supporters of the coup claimed a second victim: Labibe Elias Abduch, who, like Ari Cunha, had no relation whatsoever to the student movement of leftist groups. Students from various programs locked themselves in the FND building to protect themselves against a possible invasion. They did not suffer major consequences because of the actions of Captain Ivan Cavalcante Proença who, along with his subordinates and a tank, dispersed the attackers. As a result, he was jailed by the regime.
In the days that followed, police raided and destroyed the CACO offices. The students connected to the academic center were detained and held in internal disciplinary processes.
In November of 1964, the Suplicy de Lacerda Law sought to eliminate any student political action at a national level, instituting the operation of Academic Directories (DAs) as restrictions on each program and excluding their participation in politics. In 1965, FND students opposed to the dictatorship refused to participate in the official elections, organizing “Free CACO” in opposition to the “Official CACO,” which submitted to the government. The “Official CACO,” organized by students identified as the conservative Academic Liberator Alliance (ALA), lost representative space within the FND to “Free CACO.”
In 1966, “Free CACO” raised a flag against annuity payments in public universities. The group’s prominence can be understood in the importance that its president, Wladimir Palmeira, had in the Brazilian student movement. In 1968, the academic center mobilized to particpate in the March of the One Hundred Thousand.
With the intensification of the military dictatorship, former leftist student militants of the FND went into hiding, fled the country, or ended up captured and tortured by the regime. In the case of the kidnapping of ambassador Charles Elbrick in 1969, Maria Augusta Carneiro Ribeiro (former vice president of CACO) and Vladimir Palmeira (former president of CACO) were activists who were imprisoned and then exiled. Former FND student, Antônio Sérgio de Mattos, regional leader of the National Liberation Action (ALN), met a different fate: in 1971, he killed in São Paulo in an ambush organized by the Information Operations Detail – Internal Defense Operations Center (DOI-CODI) of the II Army.
Beginning in the 1970s and the period of political opening, public universities experienced a moment of crisis due to purges of professors and students. The quality of education at the FND suffered because it did not have sufficient teaching staff. When CACO reclaimed its legal status in 1978, it tried to reconcile its activist tradition with demands for improving the teaching quality. One of the consequential actions that sought to resolve FND’s internal problems was the students’ invasion of the university council in 1986. The students accused the director, Atamir Quadro Mercês, of administrative failure and demanded improvements in the Conde do Arcos Palace facilities, and in teaching methodology.
After Brazil’s return to democracy, the Cândido de Oliveira Academic Center stayed active. In 1992, it supported the impeachment demonstrations of former president Fernando Collor de Meio, who was later removed from the position on active corruption charges.
In June 2013, CACO participated in demonstrations and the FND faced a siege by the Rio de Janeiro Military Police (PM). This recent police intervention suggests that CACO remains an important space for the expression of student activism in Rio de Janeiro.
In the 2000s, the space’s presence as a site for student resistance is notable in CACO’s efforts to preserve the memory of the students who confronted the military dictatorship. On September 1, 2010, he UFRJ held a ceremony to pay respects to former student Antônio Sérgio de Mattos, honoring him with a plaque in the FND building.