Defense and Army seek return of military personnel to safety – 01/24/2024 – Power

Since the beginning of his government, President Lula (PT) said that he would no longer resort to the use of the Armed Forces in Law and Order Guarantee operations. “As long as I’m president, there’s no GLO”, he reiterated in October, days before decreeing a GLO operation involving the use of military personnel in Rio’s ports and airports.

The justification for the retreat was that the action in Rio is aimed at federal areas, and not urban areas, such as the hills and favelas of Rio that have so often received military personnel in GLOs.

The next step, as far as the Ministry of Defense and the Army are concerned, is to allow other operations of this type to occur again in a timely manner, including in urban areas and above all to mitigate public security crises.

Minister José Múcio and the Army commander, Tomás Ribeiro Paiva, continue to act behind the scenes to break resistance from Lula and the PT in relation to the device.

As the topic remains sensitive, and was revived by the first anniversary of the January 8th coup attacks, Múcio does not verbalize these articulations in public.

In private conversations, however, the minister declares that the current GLO in Rio served to show that it is safe to resort to the military in specific situations, without the risk of an uprising or clash of power with those in uniform, and considers that it is a matter of time before the resort returns. without configuring a crisis with the left.

GLO operations are provided for in article 142 of the Constitution, according to which the Armed Forces “are intended to defend the Homeland, guarantee constitutional powers and, at the initiative of any of these, law and order”.

These attributions have been distorted in recent years by Bolsonarists to maintain that the Armed Forces could act as a “moderating power” in institutional crises – an interpretation already rejected by the STF (Federal Supreme Court) and the National Congress.

GLO operations were used extensively by post-redemocratization governments. Its recurring use by the Dilma and Temer governments, starting with the occupation of Morro do Alemão, in 2010, and culminating with the federal intervention in Rio’s security, in 2018, is seen as crucial for the political strengthening of the military and its return to the scene politics in the Temer governments and, with much more force, Bolsonaro.

Hence the left’s resistance or even aversion to the resource. This is also why Lula refused to decree a GLO on January 8th – even though the Ministry of Defense and the Army were prepared for the call –, opting instead only for federal intervention in the security of the Federal District.

Since then, Múcio has tried to break this resistance, and with the influence of the Army, whose willingness for troops to be used again in GLOs is growing. This posture of the land force is a change in relation to the issue since the Bolsonaro government, when the corporation’s leadership endorsed the president’s decision to no longer carry out this type of operation during public security crises.

The military demanded more “legal security” to participate in GLOs in conflict zones, that is, the expansion of safeguards so that they would not be punished in the event of homicides during operations. The argument is that, when they are under fire in a favela dominated by drug trafficking, for example, it is natural for what they euphemistically call “collateral damage” to occur – civilian deaths.

This is, in fact, the title of journalist Natália Viana’s book on the subject, in which she cataloged cases of 35 civilian victims in GLO operations from 2011 to 2019, showing that the Military Justice practice absolve military personnel who kill, written broken recently with the conviction of members of the Army involved in the deaths of musician Evaldo Rosa and waste picker Luciano Macedo. The appeal of those convicted to the Superior Military Court should be judged in February, and the tendency is for the conviction to be maintained.

The episode increased pressure from the military for the legislation to be changed, expanding protection that they had already achieved in 2017, when Temer sanctioned a law that transfers to the Military Justice the competence to judge intentional crimes against life committed by military personnel against civilians during specific military operations, including GLO. Even so, the military thinks little, and worked for the approval, by Congress, of the expansion of the so-called exclusion of illegality.

In 2019, the then Minister of Justice, Sergio Moro, presented a project that would free military personnel who committed excesses out of “fear, surprise or violent emotion” from punishment, but the proposal was rejected. Shortly after taking office, the Lula government requested the project be withdrawn from processing.

In the Army Command, it is now being said that the conflagration in Rio last October following the death of the leader of the state’s largest militia – when buses and a train were set on fire – was a circumstance for the use of a GLO.

In this assessment, calling the National Force, as was done, is not enough, not even in cases of PM stoppages – especially because this detachment is made up of military police officers from several states.

For federal deputy Carlos Zarattini (PT-SP), author of a PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) to amend article 142 that had no support in the Chamber, the problem with the return of GLOs is not the fear of a coup by part of the military personnel called up for the operation.

“What they want is to occupy space in public security and, at the same time, increase the Army’s resources, because the GLO has money involved. It has to pay for the work of the general, the colonel, the sergeant, putting the troops on the streets. On the one hand, it means occupying political space on the issue of security and, on the other hand, occupying budgetary space as well.”

Zarattini admits that GLOs can be valid in cases where there is a vacuum in state security – in the event of a PM strike, for example.

“But I think that GLO has been sought as a way to solve the crime problem. And it definitely doesn’t work. It’s a mistake to take advantage of the wave of violence, which is real, to try to combat crime – drug dealers, militias, etc. – with GLO. This depends on investigation. It’s much more for the Federal and Civil Police than for troops on the street.”

The government’s fear of resorting to GLOs led minister Flávio Dino to study a change in legislation to allow the use of military personnel in security without having to change article 142. The project did not get off the ground, a victory for Múcio and the military. With GLO in ports and airports, progress has advanced even further.

Even if they manage to further undermine resistance to GLOs in the government, Múcio and the Army still have the opposition of a significant part of the STF, summarized in the opinion of Gilmar Mendes, dean of the court.

For the minister, the attacks on January 8 are directly related to the excessive use of the military in public security operations through GLOs. Gilmar considers it necessary to examine the legislation on the subject more carefully.