CPMI wants to blame few military personnel, but debate on article 142 was broad

Opposition members of the Joint Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) are protesting against the government majority’s attempt to not only incriminate former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) as the leader of an alleged failed coup d’état, but also to blame a small group of military personnel for supporting the alleged “conspiracy”.

Parliamentarians and analysts say they suspect that the leak on Thursday (21) of part of the police statement by Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, gave rise to a selective hunt against military personnel who supported the former president. . The information leak occurred through reports from the UOL and the newspaper The globe.

Cid reportedly told the police that Bolsonaro met with members of the Armed Forces leadership at Palácio da Alvorada to discuss the possibility of activating article 142 of the Constitution to reestablish institutional order after the 2022 elections.

According to the leaks, Navy Admiral Almir Garnier would have been the only force commander to support the instrument at the meeting, which would result in military intervention in the country’s politics.

A People’s Gazette found that Bolsonaro met with commanders of the Armed Forces. But Garnier would not have been the only one in favor of the use of article 142 of the Constitution. At least two generals from the Army High Command, who were also in favor, participated in meetings with Bolsonaro and the then Army commander, Marco Antônio Freire Gomes.

These generals said they believed that it was not a case of defending a coup d’état. In their view, article 142 would allow order in institutions to be reestablished in the country by the Armed Forces within the law. The action would be motivated by abuses by the Judiciary and an alleged lack of transparency and disproportionality in the electoral process – particularly due to the granting of less time for electoral propaganda on the radio to Bolsonaro.

Then-commander Freire Gomes took the discussion to the Army High Command, where at least two other generals were in favor. Thus, at least four of the 17 generals supported the use of article 142. In addition to them, there was a large portion of officers and soldiers in favor of the option, not just Garnier. This contradicts the statement made by the Minister of Defense that “at no time” were the Armed Forces interested in intervention.

But the then commander Freire Gomes decided against the intervention and stopped discussing the matter in the Army. Bolsonaro also ruled out the possibility, which later ended up being widely interpreted as mistaken.

The use of article 142 of the Constitution to promote military intervention to reestablish institutional order in the country is considered in legal jargon as a “prohibition error” regarding what a constitutional norm authorizes. In other words, there was no desire to act in disregard of the Constitution to promote a coup. But if the intervention were carried out, it could be considered a crime of violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law (described in article 359-L of the Penal Code) or a coup d’état (article 359-M of the same Code).

Discussing article 142 of the Constitution is not a criminal act, says deputy

Representative Júlia Zanatta (PL-SC) argues that the fact that high-ranking military personnel gathered to discuss a constitutional article (142), which had never been activated, cannot be considered a criminal act. For her, the simple act of discussion is not a crime. The parliamentarian believes that, despite the Federal Supreme Court considering January 8th as an action by coup plotters, there was a widespread feeling of perplexity and concern in the country regarding the results of the polls and the perception of bias in the electoral process. “The conversation among the military, as among the citizens, reflected this same concern,” she said.

Political analyst Juan Carlos Gonçalvez, from think tank Ranking of Politicians, said that there is freedom of thought in the country, so neither Bolsonaro nor the military can be guilty of disrespecting the Constitution because of the meetings.

“Thinking is different from executing. Staying in the field of hypothesis is a matter of freedom of thought. As far as we know, no idea was taken forward”, he stated.

According to him, despite article 142 having been widely debated in society, in Congress and at the top of the Armed Forces, government parliamentarians from the CPMI are now trying to use the leak of Cid’s testimony to try to blame only Bolsonaro and only a small group of military personnel who supported him.

Summons of military personnel to CPMI take focus away from government omissions

Former Navy commander Almir Garnier became one of the CPMI’s main targets and could still be called to testify. Reserve general Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira, who was chief minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet under Bolsonaro (and was not even mentioned by Cid) also ended up called to testify next Tuesday (26). The former minister and former candidate for Bolsonaro’s vice president, retired general Walter Souza Braga Netto, was already scheduled to testify on October 5th. These calls outraged members of the opposition.

“We had a commitment from the president of CPMI to only issue new calls as a block and all of them agreed in advance. The members of the government, however, are trying to take the focus away from the commission once and for all, which should be those who were really responsible and those who were omitted in the acts of January 8th,” said deputy Maurício Marcon (Podemos-RS) to People’s Gazette.

“While the commander of the National Force is not heard, with platoons that did not act to prevent acts of vandalism, government supporters and parliamentarians bought by the government continue trying to dissuade the truth with factoids”, he protested.

Defense, Army and president of CPMI had an agreement not to call up military personnel for CPMI

The selective leak also caused embarrassment to the Armed Forces leadership and undermined the agreement previously reached between the government, generals and parliamentarians to prevent active and reserve military personnel from being drawn into the CPMI political ring.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also expressed concern about the consequences of these clashes. The prudence not to involve active members of the Armed Forces included the collaboration of decisions by ministers André Mendonça and Kássio Nunes Marques, of the STF, to suspend the arrival of testimonies.

The agreement signed between Maia, the current Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, and the Army commander, General Tomás Paiva, provided that the forces would only take action in relation to military personnel investigated by the Federal Supreme Court after the investigations had concluded. This position was reaffirmed by Paiva, despite all the media pressure.

Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid must return to the commission, but warned that he will remain silent again. The proposal for a confrontation between Bolsonaro and Cid was rejected by Arthur Maia, who seeks to maintain the focus on completing the work by October 17th.

Calls from government officials aimed to support a specific narrative in the CPMI

The CPMI’s final report on January 8 will call for Bolsonaro’s indictment for at least four crimes, including coup d’état, illegal wiretapping, incitement to crime and false self-accusation. The core of the report is the narrative that the vandalism in Praça dos Três Poderes represented a failed coup attempt led by him.

Representative Júlia Zanatta (PL-SC) also believes that the selective leak of Cid’s testimony highlights the intention of government supporters to funnel investigations to just a few officers of the Armed Forces and other less prominent military personnel, given the difficulty of sustaining any blames Bolsonaro directly. “It is curious that the former president, the main person accused of plotting a coup d’état, remains the only person about whom there is no evidence of incitement,” she told People’s Gazette.

The deputy considers the idea that Bolsonaro was inciting protest movements aimed at a coup that culminated on January 8th to be absurd. She said she believes that part of the government supporters in the CPMI want direct confrontation with the Armed Forces, while another part fears this approach.

In his opinion, the commission’s leadership selected too many witnesses to favor a specific narrative, but deliberately excluded those who could provide insight, especially those arbitrarily detained.

“Although the opposition minority may have lost in votes and the official report, they managed to show the public that the government is unwilling to investigate what really happened, including the Justice Minister’s refusal to provide images of the day captured in his ministry”, he highlighted. For the deputy, January 8th was used to persecute and “extirpate political opponents”, as Lula himself stated.