General Heleno says that 8/1 was not a coup attempt – 06/01/2023 – Politics

General Augusto Heleno, former minister of the GSI (Institutional Security Office), said this Thursday (1st) that the attacks on the headquarters of the Three Powers on January 8 were not an attempted coup against democracy.

He told the CPI of Antidemocratic Acts of the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District that there was no planning or leader – in an effort to shield former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

“A coup, to be successful, needs to have leaders, a main leader, who is willing to assume this role. It is not a simple attitude, considering the size of Brazil. This term ‘coup’ is being used with extreme vulgarity, and not it is simple to assess that a manifestation can characterize a coup”, said Heleno.

The former minister also said that a coordinated coup could have been successful.

“It would have been able to happen if it had been planned. This happens all over the world, we see it all over the world, sometimes this story happens. But it’s not like that, going out into the street and carrying out a coup, even more so in a country like Brazil”, said Heleno after denying that he had acted in the articulation of the coup camps in front of the headquarters.

Augusto Heleno testifies this Thursday after canceling the first invitation to clarify the GSI’s role in the face of the coup-mongering camps. The general said that he only saw the manifestations through “photography” and that they seemed “healthy, where many prayers were said”.

“I think that the camp was an activity that lasted a long time, without any event of major bad consequences and it was a new experience in terms of orderly and disciplined political manifestation, which must have added some things to the Brazilian political movements”, said the former -minister.

Despite Heleno’s statement, members of the camp carried out at least three attacks. The first, on November 12, when they burned buses and cars and tried to invade the headquarters of the PF (Federal Police) after the arrest of an indigenous leader.

Another, on Christmas Eve, when Bolsonarist George Washington Sousa tried to blow up a tank truck at Brasília International Airport. The last one, on January 8, with the depredation of the seats of the Powers.

Heleno also denied that the fact that Bolsonaro attacked the Electoral Justice, the electronic voting machines and did not recognize the result of the elections had inflated coup demonstrations by his supporters.

He said that the former president would have signaled that he would respect the election result by stating, after an electoral debate in the second round, that “whoever has the most votes wins.” And he stated that it would not be up to him or the Army, after the December attacks, to give statements confirming that the inauguration of President-elect Lula (PT) would take office.

“In the history of Brazil it is very clear that the Army has always been guided by legality, democracy and by these democratic principles. This had no reason to be said”, he said. “I, as a minister, could not go over the president and do something that would be within his competence”.

Heleno also exempted General Gonçalves Dias, who succeeded him as head of the GSI, from the January 8 attacks. He stated that it is not possible to become an “expert” in the folder in a short time. “It’s natural, these role changes generate this”, he added.

He also refused to comment on the performance of Major José Eduardo Natale, who delivered water to the coup plotters who were close to the presidential office during the attacks.

The former minister contradicted himself when asked by district deputy Fábio Felix (PSOL) about the interaction he had with a Bolsonaro supporter as he left the Alvorada Palace on December 19.

At the time, Heleno was asked if “a bandit goes up the ramp” — a cry of order adopted by radical Bolsonaristas who camped in front of the Army HQ. The then minister replied “no”.

“There was no name in the question and I still think that a thief does not go up the ramp. I keep thinking that, there was no name in the question”, said Heleno to the CPI. In December, the former minister had denied the answer to the Metrópoles portal.

“Do you think it’s correct to answer us this way? Because we are in a context, you are a political leader of this sector, who was camped in front of the barracks. It seems incorrect for you to answer us this way, because, sorry, with all due respect, it seems like a joke on our intelligence,” replied Felix.

Heleno added that “several questions had been asked at the same time” and that the journalists “attributed this ‘no’ to the question ‘whether there is a thief on the ramp'”. “There is no major problem with that, no. The narratives are what are fanciful,” she said.

District deputies also questioned Heleno about the draft decree found at the home of former minister Anderson Torres that suggested a coup by Bolsonaro against the TSE. The general replied that he did not participate in meetings with the former president on the subject.

“It is an apocryphal document that made some conjectures that were never considered, because it was a document without credibility, without construction that could be respected and put into execution,” he said.