By JEAN MARC VON DER WEID*
In addition to imposing exemplary punishment, it is time to open the discussion on the role of the Armed Forces to redefine their mission and dimension.
1.
So much ink has been spilled since the first revelations of the Federal Police investigation into the attempted coup d'état by the unspeakable that it is almost pretentious to give any opinion on the matter. I will avoid the many approaches to raise some concerns that I have not seen reflected in what I have read or heard.
There is so much and such detailed information about the military coup attempt that it is not even worth discussing the ridiculous narrative of the defense of Jair Bolsonaro and his accomplices. We have reached the point where lawyers and the accused themselves want us to believe that conspiring to stage a coup and kill the highest authorities of the Republic are not crimes because they were no more than intentions (“who has never dreamed of killing their enemy”?).
What concerns me is not the guilt of those indicted, which has been amply demonstrated, but a curious selection of criminals within the much broader universe of conspirators. Why these thirty-odd? Why only thirty-odd?
There is a narrative, adopted early on by the representative of the Armed Forces in the Ministry of Defense, José Múcio, seeking to separate “CPF from CNPJ”. In other words, pointing to the guilt of individuals and exempting military institutions. Much of the conventional media has embarked on this line and is searching with a magnifying glass for evidence showing that the Army, Navy and Air Force stopped the coup by refusing their leaders to participate in the military coup.
General Freire Gomes and Brigadier Batista appear as candidates for national heroes for their “defense of democratic institutions.” There is an embarrassed silence about the coup-mongering behavior of the Navy commander, Admiral Garnier. After all, if the non-adherence of the first two allows us to say that the Army and Air Force were not involved in the coup, the admiral’s adherence would implicate the Navy as an institution.
These narratives omit an essential fact in this crisis involving the Armed Forces: the total anarchy that has taken hold among the officers of the three forces under the government of the madman. Three-star generals exchange messages discussing the coup with subordinates, generals and colonels, without any respect for hierarchy. Social media campaigns have been promoted to pressure and intimidate general officers.
A petition signed by active and retired colonels was sent to the Army High Command urging it to join the coup. Colonels took responsibility for allowing camps to be set up outside the barracks, ignoring military security rules, without their superiors daring or wanting to take them to task. Officers of all ranks openly published their political opinions on their websites, whether they were active or retired. In this chaos, who speaks on behalf of the military institutions?
The Army High Command discussed the coup in its meetings for months on end, without anyone warning about the total subversion of order in this behavior. If there was any institutional message, it was limited to a statement supporting the subversion underway in the camps where people prayed for a military dictatorship, a statement signed by the commanders of the three branches of the military.
2.
There is no good explanation for the arrest of some and the non-arrest of others who were denounced, especially because among them are two of the most implicated in the conspiracy, generals Braga Neto and Augusto Heleno. And Bolsonaro himself. Also excluded from the process are numerous officers who engaged in subversion at various levels, not to mention the many who failed to fulfill their duty to denounce the ongoing coup.
The reason the Federal Police gave for not jailing the three mentioned and others may have been more political than procedural. As Braga Neto himself commented to a WhatsApp interlocutor cited by the investigation: “they (the Supreme Court) will not have the courage to mess with the army”. It seems that they did, but only to a certain extent.
I wonder why officers who were widely implicated in the attempted coup were left out of the investigation. General Arruda, for example, briefly served as Army commander at the beginning of Lula's government and who confronted Justice Minister Flávio Dino on the night of the riot in Praça dos Três Poderes. The general threatened the Military Police of the Federal District with tanks formed in combat position.
The direct and brutal threat (“I have more weapons than you”) had the apparent objective of protecting the coup plotters who had fled from the Esplanada to seek refuge in the camp protected for months by troops from the Army General Headquarters.
Since the general allowed the Military Police to break up the camp and arrest more than a thousand protesters the following day, logic suggests that it was necessary to facilitate the escape of the most important elements, who were removed from the site during the night. The press mentioned General Villas Boas' wife and "dozens of black kids" who infiltrated the demonstration to guide her in the destruction. It will never be known how many and who were removed in the dead of night, but the responsibility of the Army commander is obvious.
The same officer confronted President Lula when he vetoed the appointment of Colonel Mauro Cid to command the Special Forces in Goiânia, which led to the dismissal of General Arruda from the Army command, an act that put an end to the attempt.
I could name dozens of officers commanding barracks throughout the country who allowed the setting up of coup camps for months on end, with subversive harangues from civilians to soldiers and even statements by the most daring officers in support of the aims of crowds carrying banners calling for a military coup.
Are you going to tell me that these people did not participate in the coup attempt? Both in the acts and in the assessments of the coup coordinators, it is clear that involvement was widespread. “From two stars down, everyone is with us,” appears in one of the many compromising recordings of Mauro Cid. The phrase indicates that the division and brigade generals, the colonels and majors, the captains and lieutenants, were sympathetic to the coup.
How many would be ready to act once the order was given? It would require a huge investigation, but it would not be difficult to identify the involvement of the coup plotters, since the coup was openly discussed at all levels of the officialdom. A survey of the websites of the officers, over the period between September 2021, 8 and January 2023, XNUMX, would fill terabytes of compromising information. And we now know that there is no point in deleting the messages; there are ways to recover everything.
3.
What I want to question in this article is the tactic, strategy or mere subterfuge that seeks to “set an example”, punishing in an exemplary manner some of those implicated and covering up the involvement of the Armed Forces, as institutions, in the attempted coup. As a tactic (“let’s gradually catch those implicated”), or strategy (“the scare will dissuade the candidates for the coup”), the approach is flawed. As a subterfuge, that is, as part of a historically repetitive behavior in dealing with coups and attempted coups by the right, and which leads to a supposed pacification, it is suicidal.
We must not bury our heads in the sand, like the legendary ostrich. Not wanting to see the problem does not make it go away. The fact is that the Brazilian Armed Forces have always had a tendency to carry out coups and have always sought a way to supervise civil society and the institutions of the Republic, since its proclamation in 1889.
In the most recent and prolonged episode of this behavior, the dictatorship of 64/85, the return to the barracks only occurred through the action of the president/dictator on duty. General Ernesto Geisel realized the corrosive nature of the military presence in the executive branch and the hierarchical rupture caused by the strengthening of the apparatus of political repression, creating a parallel power. To preserve the military institution, Ernesto Geisel promoted a controlled withdrawal, seeking to guarantee the untouchability of those involved, both in the coup acts and in acts of repression, such as torture and murder.
Ernesto Geisel had to overcome the resistance of the “tiger gang”, even dismissing three-star generals, including the Army commander, and dissolving the special repression units, sending torturers and murderers to posts abroad. Ernesto Geisel did not realize that the integrity and discipline of the army and other forces would not be consolidated without the purge of criminals, but since he was part of this group, he preferred to deal “with some CPFs”, leaving the machine untouched.
The Armed Forces have stepped back from exercising direct power, but they have never ceased to be a threat to our young, restored democracy. There has been no transitional justice, no collaboration in finding the missing, not even a statement acknowledging and apologizing for the two crimes: the coup and the repression. Quite the opposite. The cult of the “redemptive revolution” has continued to roll on, with highly subversive agendas every March 31, with progressive presidents pretending not to see it.
It was more unsustainable to publicly defend torturers and murderers with official statements, especially since the Armed Forces have never admitted their criminal acts. But there were many statements defending the need for a “war on terror,” implicitly justifying the “dirty war,” not to mention reserve officers openly worshiping characters like Brilhante Ustra, and the execrable Jair Bolsonaro.
The breeding ground in which the officers were formed is the apology of the dictatorship and torturers, with the political expression of this position being Jair Bolsonaro himself, who has been applauded at dozens of officers' graduations over the last 10 years. The unspeakable man has never hidden the fact that he considered the dictatorship to be too soft, for not having killed some “30 thousand communists”.
But if Jair Bolsonaro is the most evident political and ideological expression of the officialdom, his rise did not happen by chance. In the whirlwind of the beginning of Dilma Rousseff's second term, with Lava Jato going full steam ahead with widely publicized accusations, the economic crisis eroding the income gains of the poor (earned under popular governments) and the right wing raising its head since the 2013 demonstrations, the leaders of what is called the "military party" saw an opportunity to resume a leading role.
The military brass, led by General Villas Boas, swallowed the contempt they had for the undisciplined lieutenant and would-be terrorist who was transferred to the reserve as a captain with all rights to avoid further problems with an expulsion, and supported him as a candidate for the presidency of the Republic. To make the path of the madman easier, General Villas Boas, then commander of the Army, framed the Supreme Federal Court and managed to arrest Lula, favorite for the 2018 elections.
4.
The group of generals that surrounded Jair Bolsonaro during the campaign had the prospect of being able to manipulate him in the presidency. They forgot to talk to him, who got rid of the most reticent or independent generals and attracted thousands of active and reserve officers to government posts.
Jair Bolsonaro granted privileges to officers (much less to non-commissioned officers and soldiers) in the pension reform, gave the Armed Forces budgets larger than those for health and education combined, and continued his efforts to become the “myth” adored by the officers, with his anti-communist discourse and praise for the dictatorship. The creature swallowed its creator and became the political and ideological reference, overriding hierarchies. The Bolsonaro government period produced an officer corps with strong far-right political activism, mirroring the president’s behavior.
The military party ended up demoralizing itself along with its creation in the long and deep COVID-19 crisis and in the mediocre management of the executive in all aspects: economy, education, health, environment, etc. The coup bet, openly defended by Jair Bolsonaro throughout his administration, became dependent on his charisma as an ideological political leader, both among the far-right among voters and among the officers.
Jair Bolsonaro and the military party’s power project ran into a backlash from society in defense of democracy, which ended up leading to a polarization that gave Lula the victory, albeit a very narrow one. Jair Bolsonaro worked the whole time with a gamble that I called the “ball or ball” game: win the vote or lose, demoralize the elections and carry out a coup. If he had won the elections, he would have four years to prepare his perpetuation in power, in the style of the Hungarian dictator Orban or the dictator Maduro of Venezuela.
5.
At this point, I want to return to a discussion about the causes of the fiasco of the attempted coup. Comparing it to the conditions of the successful coup of 1964, Jair Bolsonaro had some advantages and some disadvantages in achieving the same result.
As an advantage, he had a much stronger support base among the officers than the coup leadership of Castelo Branco and Costa e Silva. The coup reflex in 1964 came from the officers' fear of several progressive demonstrations among the non-commissioned officers and soldiers. The coup had the support of the American "big brother", with the CIA participating in the plot and a mixed armed force positioned on the northeast coast as possible support.
The High Command was divided between loyalists and insurgents, with the commanders of the Third and Second Armies loyal to Jango until the eleventh hour. The coup leadership hesitated in giving the order to march until General Mourão took the bait and moved his brigade from Juiz de Fora to Rio de Janeiro, demonstrating that the legalist military device was a house of cards.
Jair Bolsonaro already had a combative unanimity in the officers “below the three stars”, ready to march upon receiving the order. But the high command was divided, not out of attachment to democracy and legality, but out of fear of day after, without American support.
The emphatic support for the institutional order in Brazil, expressed by President Joe Biden and the American military commanders, was a key element in this hesitation. According to the PF investigation, three generals were openly in favor of the coup, five were against it, and the other eight were on the fence. Once again, it was the commanders of the southern and southeastern regions who had the most influence in the decision-making process that paralyzed the coup, in addition to the commander of the Army.
Note that this position was far from what a democratic stance demands. None of the opponents of the coup denounced the attempted coup nor arrested the coup president who invited them to violate the constitution and overthrow the regime. In a more rigorous investigation, they would all be accused of complicity or malfeasance.
Since he did not have the unanimous support of the Army High Command, nor the support of the Air Force commander, Jair Bolsonaro tried to convince them to join in, disguising the coup with pseudo-constitutional decrees such as a state of siege. On the other hand, the coup plotters were counting on an intensification of the mobilizations of society in favor of the coup, but time passed and the camps were emptied of their less seasoned participants.
The attempted invasion of the TSE on December 12, with strong participation by black kids inciting the protesters, was not enough to get the crowd to try to break through the barrier where some DF police officers were pretending to defend the place where Lula was being awarded his diploma. They went on to commit a series of acts of vandalism that anticipated January 8, including burning buses and a Federal Police building. The attempted and failed terrorist attack at the Brasília airport, days later, also weakened the coup movement.
All the data obtained by the PF investigation confirms that the military men in Jair Bolsonaro's circle insisted on signing a decree that would be the trigger for the coup throughout the country, but the president chickened out. At the crucial moment, the charismatic leadership factor centered on the figure of the myth began to act as a brake on the coup, since the would-be dictator lacked the courage to take a leap of faith and appeal to the officers "below the three stars", bypassing the highest-ranking officers. Afraid of being arrested, Jair Bolsonaro went to visit Mickey Mouse in Miami, leaving the responsibility for the attempted coup in the hands of his cronies. Just in case, the madman took the Arabian jewels and other gifts to make a nest egg.
With Lula in power, with a grand inauguration in Brasília, and with Jair Bolsonaro in Miami, the conditions for a coup became much more limited. Who could take the initiative and give the marching order? The new army commander was a coup plotter from the start, but the opposition in the High Command became more consistent. Garnier was no longer the commander of the Navy and the position of the new commander of the Air Force is unknown. The black kids continued to mobilize and the DF police, under the command of Bolsonaro's former justice minister, counted on support.
The mobilization of the far right for the “Selma party” on January 8th was an open call for a spectacular subversive act, but it went undetected by the new government’s intelligence services. What did the coup plotters expect? Taking over the palaces of the three branches of government was an important symbolic gesture, but alone it would not bring down any government. Note that there was no movement of troops and the police present watched the riot without blinking. Without opposition, the howling masses grew tired of the rioting and retreated to the camp at the Army Headquarters when the federal government’s intervention in the DF’s security forced the Military Police to move and clear the Esplanade of the stragglers.
The act of destruction on the Esplanade led to an initiative by the military command, through its representative in the Ministry of Defense, proposing to Lula that he sign a decree to Guarantee Law and Order (GLO) for the entire region of Brasília. If Lula had taken the bait, the government would not have fallen at that moment, but would have been at the mercy of the Military Command of the Planalto. Could this have been a tactical maneuver to consolidate positions and blackmail the government, demanding, for example, total autonomy for the Army command in the promotions and appointments of general officers (a privilege of Lula as commander general of the armed forces), in addition to other perks, such as keeping the officers hired by Jair Bolsonaro, or large budgets for the three Forces?
6.
The fact is that the events of the 8th occurred in a political context much less favorable to a coup and, despite the tense moment of the confrontation mentioned above between General Arruda and Flávio Dino, the widespread reaction of society and institutions against the coup isolated the leadership of the attempted coup. Shortly thereafter, with Lula refusing to sign the GLO, arresting the protesters and dissolving the encampments, the turnaround was completely ruled out when Lula fired the Army commander who insisted on appointing Colonel Mauro Cid to command the special forces, without any reaction at all levels of the three forces.
Lula did not clean up the high-ranking officers who were involved in the coup and did not even dare to appoint a new army commander outside the natural line of succession. By luck or calculation, he got the right name for General Tomás Paiva, accused by the coup plotters of being a “watermelon” (green on the outside and red on the inside), who took office with a legalistic speech and emphasizing discipline, hierarchy and professionalism. The general is far from being a democrat and also did not arrest Bolsonaro when he was invited to join the coup. A few years ago, he was one of those who followed General Villas Boas’s advice and opened the AMAN (Agulhas Negras Military Academy) to pay tribute to the legendary presidential candidate.
In my opinion, January 8th was not part of a continuation of the coup attempted in December. The objective was more modest: the assertion of power by the military, aiming to shield the Armed Forces from any intervention by the new president. I do not see how those movements could have led, at that time, to the overthrow of Lula. The campers were a pawn for a less ambitious move by the military, to preserve their autonomy while waiting for another opportunity in the future.
To conclude: what we are seeing with the investigations is yet another stage in the tug-of-war between the “military party” and the civil power. Both General Paiva and the Federal Police and the Supreme Court (and the Lula government?) are trying to minimize losses and contain the damage, reducing the purge of the coup to the tip of the iceberg.
With the conviction of Bolsonaro, Braga Neto, Heleno and the entire gang indicted, we will not be freed from the permanent shadow of the coup. A resentful and threatening far-right officialdom will continue to seek the opportunity for revenge.
The time has come to open the discussion on the role of the Armed Forces to redefine their mission and dimension. And to deepen the investigation into the responsibilities of hundreds of officers who should be removed from the Armed Forces for their total refrain from democratic principles.
I am now ready to hear or read the critical comments of all the “realpolitikers“From our left: how can we do this with the current correlation of forces in Congress, society, the media and the officers? I agree that there is not enough force today to radically change the role of the Armed Forces (and the military police) and to cleanse the officers of their deeply ingrained coup-mongering brand. But we need to open this debate in society to try to change the correlation of forces. Without this, we will forever be at the mercy of the mood of the barracks.
*Jean Marc von der Weid is a former president of the UNE (1969-71). Founder of the non-governmental organization Family Agriculture and Agroecology (ASTA).
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