Zuzu Angel

Life and career

Zuzu Angel was born on June 5, 1921, in Curvelo, Brazil. While still a child, she moved to Belo Horizonte, later living in Bahia. Bahian culture and colors significantly influenced the style of Angel's creations. In 1947, she went to live in Rio de Janeiro, then Brazil's capital city.

In the 1950s, Angel began her work as a seamstress, usually making clothing for close relatives. At the start of the 1970s, she opened up a store in Ipanema, at the same time beginning to exhibit her clothes on American catwalks. In her fashion expositions, she always harnessed the joy and richness of the colours of Brazilian culture, making a name for herself in the fashion world of her time.

Angel married an American salesman, Norman Angel Jones, and on January 11, 1946, they had a son, Stuart.

Forced disappearance of Stuart Angel

Stuart Angel was an undergraduate student at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro's School of Economics when he joined the left-wing urban guerrilla group Revolutionary Movement 8th October (Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro – MR-8). He was known by his fellow guerrillas by the codenames "Paulo" and "Henrique". He married fellow militant Sônia Maria Morais Angel Jones, who would later die in the custody of the military dictatorship's political police.

Stuart was arrested in the neighborhood of Grajaú, Rio de Janeiro, near Av. 28 de Setembro, around 9 a.m. on June 14, 1971, by officers of the Aeronautics Information Center (Centro de Informações da Aeronáutica – CISA). He was then taken under custody to CISA headquarters, where he was reportedly tortured. According to political prisoner Alex Polari, who claimed to have witnessed the incident, Stuart was then tied to the back of a jeep with his mouth glued to the vehicle's exhaust pipe and dragged through the courtyard of the Aeronautics headquarters, resulting in his death by asphyxiation and carbon monoxide poisoning. His body was never found.

Aftermath

Alex Polari wrote a letter to Zuzu Angel explaining the circumstances of her son's death. Based on Polari's letter and other evidence, Angel denounced the murder to Ted Kennedy, who revealed the case during a speech at the United States Senate. Angel also handed to then Secretary of State of the United States, Henry Kissinger, a letter she wrote herself, a translation of Polari's letter, and a copy of the twentieth volume of the book History of the Brazilian Republic by Hélio Silva, in which Stuart's death is discussed. According to Silva, among the reactions of the regime to the protests of the American-Brazilian community were the removal and subsequent retirement of Brigadier João Paulo Burnier, who Polari accused of being responsible for Stuart's death, and the dismissal of then Minister of Aeronautics, Márcio de Sousa Melo.

Death

Zuzu Angel was killed in a car crash on April 14, 1976. The suddenness of her death raised suspicions of further government involvement; the case was investigated by the Comissão de Mortos e Desaparecidos Políticos (Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances), under process number 237/96, who found many reasons to doubt the official version of events.

In 2014, the involvement of agents of the military repression regime in Brazil in her death was confirmed. A former agent named Cláudio Antônio Guerra, wrote the book Memories of a Dirty War, in which he details several crimes in which he participated and he also revealed details about historical events of that time, among them the Riocentro May Day Attack, the death of Zuzu Angel and others.

Cláudio Antônio Guerra, who was director of the Department of Political and Social Order, known as DOPS, a department notorious for the involvement in torture, extrajudicial kilings and forced disappearance, pointed out to the presence at the scene of the accident at the moment it occurred of army Colonel Freddie Perdigão, a repression agent and known torturer. In a photo taken at the scene of the accident that killed the stylist, Freddie Perdigão is seen standing close to the car as if a passer-by. The photo had been taken on April 14, 1976 and was published by the press on the day of disaster but Perdigão had not been identified in the photo until Guerra identified him to the members of the Commission.