Fernando Gabeira

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Fernando Gabeira.

Fernando Paulo Nagle Gabeira (born February 17, 1943 in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais) is a Brazilian politician, author and journalist. He has been a federal deputy from the State of Rio de Janeiro since 1995.

He is best known for his book O que é isso, companheiro? (literally "What is this, comrade?" and colloquially "What are you doing, comrade?"). Written in 1979, the book tells of the armed resistance to the military dictatorship in Brazil, and particularly describes the 1969 episode of the kidnapping of the American ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick, in which Gabeira took part as a member of MR8. The book was made into a movie in 1997, titled Four Days in September in English.

Gabeira was also one of the founding members of the Green Party of Brazil, but left the group in 2002 to join the Workers' Party. Recently 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.

Gabeira is a cousin of Leda Nagle, a well-known Brazilian TV hostess. Gabeira has lived many years exiled from Brazil, during the military dictatorship, and returned to his country in 1979. Just after his return to Brazil, a photo of Gabeira wearing a very small knitted swimsuit on Ipanema beach turned into a national scandal. Many years later, Gabeira revealed that his scandalous bathing suit was indeed the bottom part of one of Leda Nagle's bikinis.^{[citation needed]}

Gabeira has repeatedly voiced his ideological support for the legalization of marijuana.