German Volkswagen will pay about 36 million Brazilian reais ($ 6.5 million) in compensation and donations to compensate for the persecution of former employees during the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1964-1985, the company said. Volkswagen actively participated in political persecution and repression against opponents of the regime, according to information provided by the daily “Sueddeutsche Zeitung” and two regional German radio and television stations, NDR and SWR, back in 2017.
The industrial guard of the Sao Paulo factory operated as a secret service that spied on its own workers. A VW group subsidiary in Brazil has allowed secret police arrests on the factory premises of at least seven people, knowing that the detainees could be tortured. The management of the concern in Wolfsburg knew about the arrests – the newspaper lists.
The Brazilian governmental commission investigating dictatorial abuses has confirmed these allegations, finding evidence that some companies, including Volkswagen, secretly assisted the military in identifying suspected “subversives” and union activists among their employees, reports the Reuters agency.
Many of them were subsequently released, detained and harassed by security services; they were often unable to find a new job for years, according to a journalistic investigation conducted by Reuters in 2014.
Volkswagen said it signed an agreement on Wednesday with Brazil’s state and federal prosecutors in Sao Paulo to pay 16.8 million reais to the company’s former employees’ association and surviving employees. The rest of the money will go to various human rights initiatives.
Brazilian prosecutors said the settlement ends three class action proceedings brought by former employees of the group in 2015.
After the publications in the “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”, NDR and SWR in 2017, historian from the University of Bielefeld Christopher Kopper conducted research on behalf of the concern, which also confirmed the company’s systematic cooperation with the regime.
The first case
This will be the first time a German company has assumed responsibility for violating the human rights of its own employees in the post-Nazi era.
– Kopper commented in the German media.
It is important to responsibly deal with this negative chapter in Brazil’s history and to promote transparency
– wrote a member of the board of the Hiltrud Werner concern in a statement commenting on the matter. It added that although Kopper’s investigation documented the collaboration between the company and the Brazilian military regime, there is no clear evidence that it was institutionalized.
According to the Brazilian truth commission investigating crimes during the dictatorship, the military regime is responsible for the death or disappearance of at least 434 people and the torture of around 20,000. – reminds the AFP agency.
This decision sends an important signal to Brazil, especially as right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro is glorifying the times of the military dictatorship. For ex-workers, this means the justice they have waited for decades
– podsumowuje “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”.
mly / PAP
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