CPMI report from 8/1 will leave doubts and questions unanswered

The rapporteur of the Joint Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) on January 8, senator Eliziane Gama (PSD-MA), reaffirmed on Tuesday (12) her intention to present her report on October 17. However, the opposition claims that the text has been ready for a long time and will only endorse the government narrative about an alleged coup attempt led by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), leaving a series of doubts in the CPMI. Furthermore, the section dedicated to omissions will leave out evidence against federal security authorities, obtained through evidence and testimony.

To persist in seeking clarification, the opposition plans to request an extension of CPMI’s work for another four months, but recognizes that it does not have enough votes to move the proposal forward.

“Despite all the obstacles faced and the many attempts to hide evidence of federal omissions, opposition parliamentarians made progress in the investigations and showed the public contradictions and questions still without official answers. Ideally, the commission would continue with its hearings until reaching points that are still obscure and protected by the government majority. But we know that the government will not allow it”, observed deputy Maurício Marcon (Podemos-RS).

The commission is dominated by the government, particularly the members of the Maranhão bench, linked to the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino. This raises concerns about the impartiality of the report, as important questions and doubts should be left open in the CPMI. Mainly: the omissions of the federal government that can be hidden.

The leniency of Union bodies, the opposition says, may have contributed decisively to the acts of vandalism and helped to corroborate the allegation of grassroots parliamentarians that there were attacks on democracy and crimes committed by former president Bolsonaro.

Uncomfortable questions and doubts will only appear in the CPMI parallel report

Rapporteur Eliziane Gama is being accused by the opposition of protecting Flávio Dino and focusing the investigation on military personnel and the Bolsonaro couple. The next testimonies, for example, should include Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, lieutenant colonel Mauro Cid, who has already been through the commission, and generals Augusto Heleno and Lourena Cid, Cid’s father.

In this likely scenario for the final stretch of the CPMI, important doubts may not even be addressed in the official report, leaving to be included in the parallel opinion of the opposition, coordinated by deputy Delegado Ramagem (PL-RJ). Included are some questions such as:

1. Why did the National Force not act firmly during the acts of vandalism?
2. What was Minister Flávio Dino’s stance at the Palace of Justice during the invasions at Praça dos Três Poderes and why did he not react promptly and correctly?
3. Were there violent protesters or those linked to opposing political groups infiltrating the camps in Brasília?
4. Was there an atypical nature of President Lula’s trip to the interior of São Paulo on the weekend the episode occurred?
5. Why was General Marco Gonçalves Dias not initially implicated in the leniency accusations?
6. Why was there a lack of transparency from the federal government, including the destruction of almost all images captured by cameras at the Palace of Justice?
7. Why didn’t the Shield Plan, to guarantee Planalto’s security within 25 minutes, work?
8. Who received or failed to receive warning messages from the intelligence system about acts of vandalism issued up to 48 hours before?
9. Why was there no action in response to these warnings?
10. What was the criterion for intervention in public security in the Federal District and why is the Military Police leadership still in prison?
11. Why have the abuses committed in the arrests of peaceful protesters not received the attention of the government, human rights bodies and defenders of constitutional guarantees?

These are fundamental questions that deserve to be investigated for a broad understanding of the events of January 8th and not just add ideological discourse.

The CPMI is heading towards a controlled outcome full of doubts, even though the opposition has advanced on issues such as the inactivity of National Force troops due to the indecision of the Minister of Justice and the explicit negligence of the GSI in the face of information received by the intelligence services. Flávio Dino insists that he would need authorization from the Federal District government to use the National Force. But there are precedents for this police force acting on the Esplanada dos Ministérios without this authorization from the Federal District government in 2017, 2019, 2020 and even during Lula’s inauguration.

At first, the Lula government was against the installation of the commission, but the release, in April, of embarrassing videos of Gonçalves Dias’ actions made it inevitable. These images were strangely protected by the secrecy imposed by the Presidency of the Republic. It remains to overcome the imposed tone of holding the Military Police exclusively responsible for security failures and clarify the doubts raised by the opposition in the CPMI.

Senator Sérgio Moro (União Brasil-PR) states that it is not possible to guarantee the government’s narrative that the invasions and depredations on January 8th were the result of coordinated and centralized action.

According to him, it is necessary to consider the hypothesis of a temporary collective illusion combined with the lack of control of the crowd in Praça dos Três Poderes. “Having federal and district security bodies been expressly warned since at least the 6th about the risks of invasion of public buildings and vandalism, according to alerts made by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin), as it was not possible, in advance, avoid violence?” he asks.

In addition to the GSI, he is surprised by the ineptitude of the Presidential Guard Battalion, the Planalto Military Command and, above all, the National Force. Sérgio Moro is not satisfied with what has been found so far about the communication between Gonçalves Dias, Lula and ministers in those circumstances and why the former head of the GSI ordered the information removed from the report sent by Abin to the Intelligence Committee of the National Congress. that he was one of the many recipients of the alerts.

Messages indicate a combination between the rapporteur and the deponent

Leaked WhatsApp messages from Gonçalves Dias indicated that his son, Gabriel Dias, had a conversation with an advisor to Eliziane Gama two days before the general testified to the CPMI on January 8th. In the session on Tuesday (12), deputy Filipe Barros (PL-PR) demanded the commission’s rapporteur for the meeting. She replied that she never exchanged messages with the former head of the GSI or anyone “around her”, and said that the first time she saw him was in the CPMI plenary, for the general’s testimony.

The deputy displayed messages that indicate a combination of anticipated questions and jointly prepared answers. The conversation would have taken place on August 29, two days before Gonçalves Dias testified before the collegiate. Shortly after the meeting, a document with questions and answers that would be asked on the day of the testimony was sent to the general.

“Senator Eliziane’s report is riddled with serious suspicion. The document basically contains the same questions asked by the rapporteur to the general. She could not send her chief of staff to meet a deponent being investigated in secret, which tarnishes the CPMI report,” said Barros.

General Carlos José Russo Assumpção Penteado, former executive secretary of the Institutional Security Office (GSI), blamed Gonçalves Dias for the disarticulation that led to the invasion of the Palácio do Planalto building. The former minister, in turn, blamed Penteado and other assistants for not having created the Military Police cordon in front of Planalto.

Penteado, however, told district deputies a different version. He alleged that Gonçalves Dias did not give him orders and that the former boss had withheld warnings from Abin, which would have contributed to the Shield Plan, to defend the palace, not having been activated.