CRACKDOWN IN BRAZIL

THREE months ago, after police stormed the campus of Brasilia University, Congressman Marcio Moreira Alves rose in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies and urged his countrymen to boycott Independence Day military parades to show their disapproval. Last week that seemingly insignificant act led to some startlingly drastic consequences for South America's biggest, most populous nation. The government imposed censorship on the country's radio and press, put the armed forces on alert, sent tanks rumbling down Rio de Janeiro's broad Avenida Brasil and, finally, suspended Brazil's constitution and shut down its Congress--both indefinitely. . Nest of Torturers. Alves, 32, is the chief parliamentary critic of the military strongmen behind Brazil's President Arthur da Costa e Silva. Last year, he wrote Tortures and the Tortured, a study of the brutal manner in which Brazil's military deal with their political opponents. The book was banned temporarily. After his September speech, in which he assailed the military as a "nest of torturers," the generals decided that it was time to ban Alves himself. They insisted that he be arrested, tried by the Supreme Court and stripped of his political rights for ten years. Before he could be brought to trial, however, the normally compliant Congress had to agree to suspend his immunity. The government foresaw little trouble.

Last week, just before the issue came to a vote, Alves rose to implore his colleagues to refuse "to turn over to a small group of extremists the cleaver for their beheading." One by one the 369 assembled Congressmen left their seats in Brasilia's modern Chamber of Deputies to deliver the ballots. When the count was in, the government had suffered a stunning defeat. Nearly 100 of Costa e Silva's followers crossed party lines to vote with the opposition. By a margin of 216 to 141, the deputies quashed the government's motion to lift Alves' parliamentary immunity and permit his conviction for "publicly inciting animosity between the armed forces or between these and social class es or institutions." A handful of spectators in the galleries jumped to their feet cheering, then began to sing the national anthem. After a moment's hesitation, most of the deputies in the chamber joined in.

Their joy was short-lived. Brazil's military wasted no time in acting. General Siseno Sarmento, commander of the crack First Army based in Rio de Janeiro, conferred for 50 minutes with Costa e Silva and other military leaders at Laranjeiras, the President's Rio residence. Having failed to remove Alves by legal parliamentary procedures, they decided to do away with the procedures themselves. Costa e Silva, a former marshal, resisted briefly, then caved in--as he almost invariably has since succeeding another retired officer, Humberto Castello Branco, 22 months ago.

Temper Tantrum. Considering the original provocation, what followed was a temper tantrum unmatched even in the annals of petulant Latin American military men. The generals, feeling surrounded by hostility from much of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the press, the students and many businessmen, overreacted when even the meek Congress dared to defy them. Radio stations were ordered to stop broadcasting the result of the Alves vote. Censors and policemen invaded newspapers and press-agency offices. The respected daily O Estado de Sao Paulo was ordered to kill its morning edition because a critical editorial warned Costa e Silva: "You can't run a country of 80 million people like an army division." So rapid and efficient was the clamp down on the press and radio that few citizens became aware of the crisis. Under the bright sun, workers left for their weekends and fishermen placidly cast their lines from the banks of Guanabara Bay.

Just before midnight on the day following the Alves vote, a solemn-faced Justice Minister Luiz Antonio da Gama e Silva interrupted radio and television broadcasts to announce that the President had signed the Fifth Institutional Act, giving him full dictatorial powers in "defense of the necessary interests of the nation." The act, the fifth of its kind in the last four years, gave Costa e Silva the right to close Congress, rule by decree, cancel the political rights of any person, declare a state of siege, dismiss public officials, waive writs of habeas corpus, and permit the seizure of assets of those who illegally enriched themselves.

One of the first to be arrested under the new decree was former President Juscelino Kubitschek, whose popularity has consistently gained as that of Costa has waned. He was whisked away from the steps of Rio's downtown Teatro Municipal, where he had just addressed a graduating class. Also reported arrested: Helio Fernandes, publisher of the newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa; Osvaldo Peralva, director of the opposition paper Correio da Manha; several high officials of former regimes; and Singer-Composer Chico Buarque de Hollanda. His stage play, Roda Viva, was recently raided by right-wing thugs and its leading lady was tossed nude into the street, supposedly because it portrayed sexual intercourse on the stage. In addition, as many as 40 Congressmen, including members of Costa e Silva's majority, as well as the opposition, may be stripped of their political rights.

Strong Winds. Presumably, Alves will be one of them--though the man who touched off the whole furor was no where to be found. Once they were allowed to resume publication, newspapers gave the story banner play, but they understandably shied away from overt editorial comment. Rio's Jornal do Brasil, however, printed a wry weather report that bore no relation to actual meteorological conditions. "Weather black," it said. "Temperature suffocating. The air is unbreathable. The country is being swept by a strong wind." With parliamentary democracy and the rule of law temporarily suspended once again, the wind of popular resentment may well increase in velocity. What Costa e Silva and his generals may have overlooked is that in classical drama the fifth act is also usually the last.

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