Word: braziller
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Swiss Businessman Rudi Bucher was celebrating his 54th birthday at his home near Lake Como when a congratulatory letter arrived from his brother, Switzerland's Ambassador to Brazil. Life in Rio, wrote Giovanni Enrico Bucher, 57, a suave, popular bachelor, was "pleasant and uneventful." One day, he predicted, Brazil would be one of the "stablest nations of Latin America." One day, perhaps, but not just yet. Moments after Rudi Bucher finished reading the letter, he heard that his brother had been kidnaped by urban guerrillas...
...Bucher's case, the price−like the price of almost everything in Brazil−has risen precipitously. Bucher's captors, members of the V.P.R. (for Popular Revolutionary Vanguard), a Sao Paulo-based group credited with the Japanese and West German kidnapings, demanded the release of 70 imprisoned guerrillas, who are to be flown to Mexico, Algeria or Chile. At week's end, negotiations were still in progress...
Beginning Backfire. Brazil's city terrorists have long been trying to provoke the generals into the sort of crackdown that could lead to chaos and revolution. In response, the regime has set aside the constitution, fired the legislature, ruled by decree, tortured suspected terrorists and canceled the political rights of more than 1,000 opponents. But lately the terrorism, which has cost nearly 50 lives so far, has begun to backfire. A growing number of Brazilians are outraged not only by the guerrillas, but also by foreign criticism of the generals' methods...
...years after the generals ousted President Joao Goulart's chaotic civilian regime and set out to reshape the country, they can at last point to some solid accomplishments. Exports are at record levels, and the economy is booming. Inflation still plagues Brazil, but it has been reduced from the 87% of Goulart's days to 22% this year. Employees are being cut in on their companies' revenues under a new "participation fund" plan, and work has begun on the epic 3,000-mile Transamazon Highway...
Ersatz Election. Overwhelming problems still face President Emilio Garrastazii Medici, a former four-star general who was named President 14 months ago. Brazil's prosperity is benefiting mainly the upper 10% of the country's 90 million people. The more than one-third of Brazil's workers who are tied to the minimum wage (now $40 a month) have watched their real purchasing power shrink by about 50% over the last ten years. Then, too, Medici has yet to make good on his early talk of "free universities, free political parties, free unions and freedom...