CEZAR FEITZA
BRASILIA, DF (FOLHAPRESS)
On November 10, 2022 in Brasília, a general looked out the window on the second floor of Forte Caxias, the Army Headquarters, and saw the crowd of people and tents in Praça dos Cristais.
Hours earlier he had received a note, signed by commanders Freire Gomes (Army), Almir Garnier (Navy) and Baptista Junior (Aeronautics), which would be published the following day.
Freire Gomes, discreetly, had previously sent the text to a few colleagues in uniform. He had not informed the High Command that the note would be published and had omitted information about the meeting he had that day with all the Army generals.
The day of publication of the note would be November 11th — the date on which, in 1955, General Henrique Lott carried out a preventive coup and guaranteed the inauguration of Juscelino Kubitschek. According to six general officers interviewed by Folha, the choice of date was a coincidence.
The soldier who received the text in advance told Freire Gomes that the tone seemed appropriate and did not suggest changes. Looking out the window, however, he assessed that the note had an excessively Bolsonarist content and could set the camp on fire, according to his own report to Folha.
The construction of the note began a week earlier, when the commanders participated in off-schedule meetings with Jair Bolsonaro at Palácio da Alvorada.
The conversations expressed concerns about roadblocks, criticized the Judiciary and defended the legitimacy of demonstrations in front of the barracks calling for a coup to prevent the inauguration of then-president-elect Lula (PT).
In the view of the military leaders, the protesters did not feel safe protesting in front of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) nor did they see the effectiveness of demanding responses from Congress in the face of what they considered abuses from corrupt ministers. Their target was also the TSE (Superior Electoral Court).
Therefore, in their interpretation, the Bolsonarists decided to resort to the barracks.
The note, with the title “to the Brazilian institutions and people”, was read three times on the morning of November 11th at the Army HQ camp in Brasília. The readings were interspersed with the “Army Song”.
The text said that the Armed Forces, “always present and moderating in the most important moments of our history”, have “an unrestricted and unshakable commitment to the Brazilian people, to democracy and political harmony”.
With messages to the Judiciary, the commanders spoke of condemning actions by individuals who “feed disharmony in society” and that the country had legal instruments to resolve “possible controversies”.
“We reiterate our belief in the importance of the independence of the Powers, in particular the Legislative Branch, the House of the People, the natural recipient of the wishes and demands of the population, in whose name it legislates and acts, always seeking to correct possible arbitrariness or autocratic missteps that may place the greatest good of our society, namely, its freedom, is at risk.”
The camped Bolsonarists understood the note as support from the military for the protests in the barracks. “Armed Forces, no communism. Armed Forces, save the nation”, they sang on the morning of November 11th.
The mood of the radicals changed during the two months in which they camped out in supplication for a military coup. The second week of November, when there was a record attendance even in the rain, was marked by euphoria with the note from the commanders of the Armed Forces.
As time passed, however, the leadership of the three Forces decided to remain silent. The silence opened space for countless theories to be raised by Bolsonarists — the main one, which circulated on the networks, stated that five generals of the Army High Command were communists.
Nicknamed “watermelons”, because they were seen in these Bolsonaro groups as “green on the outside and red on the inside”, generals Richard Nunes, Amin Naves, Tomás Paiva, André Luiz Novais and Valério Stumpf became the target of radicals camped in the Urban Military Sector, in Brasilia.
“(They) want Lula to take over, they have already reached an agreement with him and TOMAZ is the one who wants to be the commander of Lula’s army. Give it to them to become famous”, said one of the messages released on WhatsApp.
The accusations angered the Army leadership. The generals mentioned spoke with the then commander Freire Gomes in the second half of November and said that, in some cases, children of military personnel began to be offended.
Freire Gomes decided to send a statement to the Force.
“Such publications have been characterized by a malicious and criminal attempt to harm the personal honor of military personnel with more than 40 years of service to Brazil, as well as to tarnish the unshakable cohesion of the Caxias Army”, says an excerpt from the internal report.
As the camps flourished, Army generals found themselves forced to discuss a situation considered uncomfortable.
Minister Alexandre de Moraes, from the STF, constantly used the Planalto Military Command gym to do bodybuilding for three years.
The minister was a hit there. Soldiers interviewed by Folha say, with surprise, that he attached weights to his legs when he performed the pull-up, an exercise that involves going up and down a metal structure using only the strength of his arms.
In November, with the military’s dissatisfaction with Moraes and the establishment of camps in front of the site, generals decided to interrupt the minister’s routine. By cell phone, they informed Moraes that the gym would undergo renovations and, therefore, it would not be possible to use the space for a few weeks.
The minister understood the message and looked for another discreet gym to carry out physical exercises. He was only invited again to use the facilities of the Planalto Military Command by the current Army commander, Tomás Paiva, this year.
The military’s actions in the weeks following Bolsonaro’s defeat by Lula remain under scrutiny and have come under the radar of Federal Police investigators.
The most recent revelation that put the Armed Forces under pressure again was that of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who in a plea bargain statement said that Bolsonaro even consulted high-ranking military personnel about a possible coup d’état.
Also according to Cid’s report, revealed by UOL and the newspaper O Globo and confirmed by Folha, the then Navy commander, Almir Garnier, spoke in favor of the coup plan during behind-the-scenes conversations. Cid also told investigators that there was no support from the High Command of the Armed Forces.
The post Military note fired coup plotters after being omitted from the Army High Command appeared first in Jornal de Brasília.
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