An emotional President Dilma Rousseff. Source: AP

The nearly 2000-page report of the National Truth Commission names 377 people allegedly responsible for 434 deaths and disappearances, and thousands of acts of torture.

But while the commission’s work has renewed debate on how Brazil has handled its dirty war legacy, there’s little will for overturning a 1979 amnesty that has protected military figures and leftists since the 1964 to 1985 dictatorship. Only 46 per cent of Brazilians say they want to scrap the amnesty.

Even President Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerilla tortured in the 1970s, seems unwilling to push for prosecutions.

“Truth doesn’t mean vengeance. Truth mustn’t be the source of hatred or ­score-­settling,” said Ms Rousseff, pausing several times to stave off tears as the audience in Brasilia rose in a standing ovation.

“Truth frees us all from that which went unsaid. It frees us from what remained hidden.”

Created by congress in 2011, the seven-member commission researched government and ­corporate archives and hospital and morgue records.

Commissioners conducted more than 1200 interviews with victims, their families and the ­alleged perpetrators. The panel consulted religious leaders, and visited the military installations where “subversives” ­including students, unionists, factory workers, farm workers, indigenous tribespeople and gays were tortured and killed.

In all, the report documents 224 killings and 210 disappearances. These were not rare ­exceptions, but rather the result of a “systematic practice” by the military, it said.

“Repression and the elimination of political opposition ­became the policy of the state,” the report said.

The commission “therefore totally rejects the explanation ­offered up till today that the ­serious violations of human rights constituted a few isolated acts or excesses resulting from the zeal of a few soldiers”.

The report does not examine crimes committed by leftists ­during Brazil’s dictatorship era.

This nearly three-year effort is the most thorough accounting to date of the crimes of the military regime, and provides a new official death toll, but its authors said continuing resistance from the military left an unknown number of victims unaccounted for.

“These numbers certainly don’t correspond to the total of deaths and disappearances,” the report cautioned, “but only to cases it was possible to prove.”

Ms Rousseff was among those interviewed and in the report details the torture she underwent in detention, including taking such hard punches to the face that many of her teeth were knocked out, causing her jaw problems to this day. She was also subjected to electrical shocks, beatings and long hours in the “macaw’s perch” stress position, which kept her hanging upside down, her arms and legs strapped to a wooden pole.

“None of us can explain the lasting damages — we’ll just ­always be different,” she said.

“I was held for three years. The stress was fierce. ... I faced death and loneliness. There is something to it that will mark us for life. The scars of torture are part of me.”

AP