Former UNE president resigns from the GSI and the body’s future is uncertain

Chosen to lead the Institutional Security Office (GSI) on an interim basis, Ricardo Cappelli has accelerated the body’s staff changes in recent days. Cappelli – who is a former president of the National Union of Students (UNE), and one of the trusted men of the Minister of Justice, Flavio Dino (PSB) – took over the portfolio after General Gonçalves Dias resigned after the release of images of the January 8th. The videos show that the former chief minister and other members of the GSI were inside the Planalto Palace and did not act to contain the vandals who invaded and destroyed the seat of the Executive.

Officially, Cappelli occupies the position of executive secretary of the Ministry of Justice, but he acted as a security intervenor in the Federal District after the acts of vandalism. At the head of the GSI, he has already promoted the exchange of at least 35% of the military personnel who were acting in the portfolio since the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), on January 1st. He, however, did not specify how many GSI servers this percentage equates to. “35% of the servers working at the GSI have already been replaced. This is absolutely natural. When there is a change of government, it is natural to change most of the staff, it is part of normality, and we will speed up this process”, stated.

This Wednesday (26), for example, Cappelli signed 29 dismissals. The list is made up of cadres in management positions within the GSI, and includes general officers from the three armed forces. Among the 29 names announced, 26 return to their original forces.

One of them is Army reserve colonel Jorge Henrique Luz Fontes, who headed the office of the agency’s executive secretary. According to the Transparency Portal, Fontes had held the position since February 2022, the last year of Jair Bolsonaro’s government. Until last week, the executive secretary of the GSI was commanded by general Ricardo José Nigri.

In addition, on the night of this Wednesday (26), eight other names of exonerated military personnel and eight dismissed from the GSI of the aforementioned group were published in an extra edition of the Official Gazette.

It is not possible to know, however, how many of these soldiers took the initiative to ask for dismissal. A part of them does not agree with the measures taken by the Lula government and by the ex-president of the UNE placed at the head of the GSI. Sources linked to the folder told the report that many officers preferred to return to their forces than to remain under the direct command of the PT.

“There is a determination by the President of the Republic for us to accelerate the renewal of functional frameworks. It is a clear effort to collect data and information, so that I can present an x-ray to President Lula, when he returns next week”, said Cappeli on Monday (24).

The expectation is that the interim present to the president an assessment of the structure of functioning of the GSI. It is expected that Lula will receive a report on the subject on his return from his trip to Spain. From there, the petista will make an assessment of the format and a possible continuity or extinction of the GSI.

The body, which in previous governments was responsible for the security of the Presidency and the palaces of Planalto and Alvorada, had its functions emptied in the PT administration with the dissemination of the video in which the now ex-minister Gonçalves Dias and GSI employees appear circulating among the plateau invaders. Members of the PT defend the extinction of the body.

Lula’s allies claim that Cappelli is promoting an “x-ray” to find out which GSI soldiers are still in tune with the management of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). The idea is to make a new wave of dismissal of military personnel in the coming days.

“By inviting him to take over GSI on an interim basis, one of the things he [Lula] requested is, yes, to do an x-ray, an evaluation of anyone who had any participation in the terrorist acts of January 8”, said the Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha.

Reserve military is quoted by Lula to take over the GSI

Parallel to Cappelli’s work, Lula has been seeking alternatives for the new structure of the GSI. After the resignation of Gonçalves Dias, the PT spoke with reserve general Marcos Antônio Amaro dos Santos, one of those tipped to eventually take over the body.

General Amaro dos Santos was head of the GSI in the government of former President Dilma Rousseff (PT) and is considered a person of trust by members of the PT. Lula met with Amaro just last week and, according to Planalto advisors, the PT indicated that he has not yet defined the body’s future. If maintained, however, it will be with a hybrid structure, with the presence of civilians as well.

Amaro, however, even defended that the GSI maintain the status of a ministry and once again coordinate the security of the Presidency and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin). Currently, Lula’s security is handled by the Federal Police and Abin was transferred to the Civil House umbrella after the January 8 acts.

This Thursday (27), before a new meeting with Amaro, Lula intends to discuss the issue with ministers José Múcio Monteiro Filho (Defense), Flávio Dino (Justice) and Rui Costa (Civil House), in addition to interim Ricardo Cappelli . The defense in the Armed Forces, shared by Minister Múcio Monteiro, is that the structure remains in the first echelon of the Esplanada dos Ministérios.

Janja and PT members defend the demilitarization of the Security Cabinet

On another front, PT members and first lady Rosângela Silva, Janja, have been defending behind the scenes that Lula appoints a civilian to head the GSI. The government supporters defend, for example, the name of the director general of the Federal Police, Andrei Rodrigues, for the post. The Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, to whom Rodrigues reports, also supports the idea.

In recent days, federal delegate Alexsander Castro de Oliveira, who heads the Extraordinary Secretariat for Immediate Security and was appointed by Andrei Rodrigues, began to articulate within the Planalto Palace the appointment of a civilian to replace Gonçalves Dias. The secretariat commanded by Oliveira was created by Lula to assume the functions of protecting the Chief Executive, which were traditionally the responsibility of the GSI.

The new structure, formed predominantly by federal police, would operate until June 30, while the government completes what it claims to be the “depoliticization” of the Institutional Security Office. Alleging mistrust with the military, Janja and PT leaders in Congress defend that Lula chooses a civilian for the organ.

At the beginning of the year, shortly after the acts of January 8, approximately 60 GSI soldiers were dismissed from the Presidency of the Republic. They were of lower ranks, such as soldiers, corporals and sergeants. Most of the GSI members are members of the Armed Forces, who must return to their duties.

“Executive Secretary Ricardo Cappelli is there temporarily, as determined by President Lula, among other reasons, to carry out this analysis. And the President of the Republic, when he returns from the international trip he is making, will make the final decision on the nature of the GSI, whether it continues, under what terms, and how this eventual new structure will be”, defended Flávio Dino.