Herbert Eustáquio de Carvalho (December 14, 1946 – March 29, 1992), known as Herbert Daniel, was a Brazilian writer, sociologist, journalist, and guerrilla, involved in the armed resistance to the

military dictatorship A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

that held power in Brazil from 1964 to 1985.

Life

Herbert Daniel was born Herbert Eustáquio de Carvalho in 1946 in

Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...

, Brazil. He studied medicine at the

Federal University of Minas Gerais The Federal University of Minas Gerais ( pt, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, UFMG) is a federalIn the Brazilian Higher Education context, ''Federal'' does not mean ''collegiate'' (even though most Federal Universities in Brazil enjoy a sim ...

but did not graduate. Adopting the clandestine nom-de-guerre Daniel, he fought as a guerrilla against the Brazilian government during the years of the military dictatorship,Rômulo Medeiros Pereira. "Escritas Transgressoras e Literaturas Marginais: um Olhar Histórico sobre a Geração pós 68 no Brasil". joining the paramilitary organizations Organização Revolucionária Marxista Política Operária (POLOP),

Comando de Libertação Nacional The Comando de Libertação Nacional (Colina, en, National Liberation Command) was a far left political organization in Brazil. It originated on 1967 in the state of Minas Gerais, through the merger of Worker's Politics ( pt, Política Operária ...

(COLINA),

Vanguarda Armada Revolucionária Palmares The Vanguarda Armada Revolucionária Palmares (VAR Palmares, en, Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard) was a far left guerrilla organization in Brazil, which fought against the military dictatorship installed after the 1964 coup d'état in the ...

, and Vanguarda Popular Revolucionária (VPR). According to his fellow fighter

Alfredo Sirkis Alfredo Hélio Syrkis (8 December 1950 – 10 July 2020) was a Brazilian writer (winner of the Jabuti Award, in 1981), journalist, urban environmental manager and former parliamentarian, having served as the chairman of the Joint Climate Change ...

, Daniel was for a period the intellectual leader of the Guevarist VPR. As a member of that organization, Daniel participated in the

kidnapping In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...

s of the German ambassador Ehrenfried von Holleben, in June 1970, and the Swiss ambassador Giovanni Bucher, in December 1970. Carlos Lamarca, who also participated in the Swiss ambassador's kidnapping, joined forces with him to found the guerrilla force in

Vale do Ribeira Vale do Ribeira is a region in the south of the state of São Paulo and the northeast of the state of Paraná, Brazil. It contains a large part of the Ribeira de Iguape River valley, from which it takes its name, as well as the coastal Iguape-Can ...

in 1969. Daniel was one of the few participants in the armed resistance to avoid prison and torture at the hands of the regime. He self-exiled in 1974, moving to live with his partner in Portugal, where he returned to studying medicine, and in France, where he worked as a journalist. He was the very last exile of the military regime to be pardoned. He returned to Brazil in 1981, after the country began its redemocratization process. Daniel became active in the Workers' Party, then participated in the founding of the Brazilian

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

alongside other Workers' Party dissidents. He was a lifelong activist for environmentalism and for

gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , 3 ...

—he himself had a 20-year relationship with the graphic artist Cláudio Mesquita. Daniel wrote several books, including ''Passagem para o Próximo Sonho'', ''Meu Corpo Daria um Romance'', and ''Vida antes da Morte''. He died in 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, of complications caused by

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

. The Green Party's policy arm is named Fundação Verde Herbert Daniel in his honor.

References

Bibliography

* Green, James N. (2018). ''Exile Within Exiles: Herbert Daniel, Gay Brazilian Revolutionary''. Durham: Duke University Press. 334 pages. {{Authority control 1946 births 1992 deaths Brazilian guerrillas Brazilian activists 20th-century Brazilian writers Queer writers Brazilian LGBT writers LGBT rights in Brazil Brazilian environmentalists Members of paramilitary organizations AIDS-related deaths in Rio de Janeiro (state) 20th-century Brazilian LGBT people