Fernando Gabeira

In the late 1960s, he joined the armed struggle against the military dictatorship. He was arrested, tortured and exiled. In ten years of exile, he's been in several countries, such as Algeria, Cuba, Chile and Sweden.

Born in Juíz de Fora, Minas Gerais, lives in Rio de Janeiro since 1963. He has two daughters, Tami and Maya Gabeira.

He distinguished himself early in his career as an editor of "Jornal do Brasil", where he worked from 1964 to 1968. Writing colleagues said that the striking style of Gabeira's texts could be recognized even on notes.

His military history started with the 8th October Revolutionary Movement (MR8). To achieve a radical result, militants believed that extreme attitudes were necessary. It was in late 1969 that a group kidnapped the American ex-ambassador Charles Elbrick. Gabeira was responsible for renting the house where Elbrick stayed, as well as carrying messages and the list of prisoners who should be released in exchange for the ambassador.

He witnessed in Chile, in 1973, the military coup that overthrew Salvador Allende. Later, it would portray the fall and the murder of Allende on a script for Swedish TV. In Sweden, where he spent most of his time in exile, he worked in journalism, mainly on Radio Sweden, even as a subway driver in Stockholm.

With the amnesty, he returned to Brazil at the end of 1979. In the following years, Gabeira dedicated himself to an intense literary production, constructing the first critical analyzes of the armed struggle and boosting in Brazil subjects such as individual freedoms and ecology.

Books like "O Que é Isso, Companheiro?" (1979), "O Crepúsculo do Macho" (1980), "Entradas e Bandeiras" (1981), "Hóspede da Utopia" (1981), "Nós que Amávamos tanto a Revolução" (1985) and "Vida Alternativa" (1985), set new horizons in the field of mentalities and put in the limelight a series of old concepts of Brazilian life.

In 1986, he applied to the state government for the Green Party (Partido Verde, PV), where he was one of the founding members. His political and journalistic work was notable in several other important events of national life, particularly those related to the environmental issue, such as the investigation of the Chico Mendes murder, the banning of the Angra I nuclear power plant due to security problems and the world meeting of the indigenous people in Altamira, Pará.

In 1988, he launched the book "Greenpeace: Green Guerrilla of Peace", a reportage that presented to Brazil the philosophy and backstage of the largest environmental organization in the world.

In 1989, was candidate to President of the Republic. Gabeira was already the most visible leadership of a new public opinion, more scholarly, more attentive to environmental, cultural and ethical issues. In the same year, as a journalist, he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 1994, he was elected Federal Deputy for the first time.

Fernando Gabeira is a writer, journalist and former Federal Deputy for Rio de Janeiro (1995-2011).

From 1998 to 2002 he was one of the most influential members of the National Congress.

He was one of the founding members of the Green Party of Brazil (Partido Verde, PV), but left the group in 2002 to join the Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT). Then he rejoined the Greens, due to his disappointment with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government, and also because of the way the Worker's Party was dealing with its remaining far-left members.

Maya Gabeira, one of his daughters with fashion designer Yamê Reis, has become a top female big wave surfer. She said the trauma of her parents' divorce drove her to leave home at age 15 and go to Australia on a student program. She moved to Hawaii in 2004 at age 17 to surf world class waves. She quickly emerged as the world's top female big-wave surfer, winning global championships surfing challenging spots like Mavericks, Waimea, Todos Santos, and South Africa's shark-infested "Dungeons".

In 2006, he was the top-ranked candidate in the state. He has served four consecutive terms and changed his party on several occasions.

In 2011, at the end of the fourth term, he decided to abandon politics. Defender of the Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato), says that the operation only opened the decadence of the Brazilian party system.