Lula government makes nods to PMs after mistrust with attack – 01/23/2023 – Politics

In a context of distrust of the federal government with security forces and exchanges in command of the Army after the coup acts of January 8, the Ministry of Justice, headed by Flávio Dino (PSB), has waved to military police in an attempt to avoid erode a relationship already strained by the alignment of part of the troops to former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

The government’s assessment was that President Lula’s (PT) intervention in the security of the Federal District has the potential to intensify the animosity of the military police and, therefore, the strategy is to blame only the top of the corporation, emphasizing the heroism of the agents who expelled the vandals from the headquarters of the three Powers.

On the part of the police there are complaints about the intervention and the arrest of the former commander of the Military Police of the Federal District Fábio Augusto Vieira.

From the institutional point of view, representatives of the class claim that the criticisms are personal and specific and that the Military Police repudiate violent acts and are faithful to the constituted authorities, without signs of instability or subversion.

The national secretary of Public Security, Tadeu Alencar (PSB), tells the Sheet space to “establish another type of relationship” with these police officers. He defends the dialogue and says that “this measure begins in this episode that seriously marks the PM-DF”.

Alencar states that attributing “full and complete responsibility to the entire institution would not be to recognize that from the intervention, with the command recomposed, as well as in the presidential inauguration, the Military Police reacted and served the interests of society”.

He points out that there may have been occasional negligence on the part of police officers who seemed to fraternize with the scammers and took pictures, for example.

“What we are trying to do is to separate the objective responsibility of authorities that have action from the PM-DF institution. It is not a narrative strategy, it is the necessary separation, because nobody does public security without the forces […] Of course, the intervention may have hurt the pride [da PM]but there was no episode of corporate reactivity.”

Asked about Bolsonarism in the police, the secretary says that “Bolsonaro managed to approach, but he didn’t deliver anything”.

“Bolsonaro had ascendancy for his willingness to dialogue and praise. That is why we know from the outset that dialogue is fundamental”, he completes, mentioning that the federal government will pay attention to the demands of the class.

The appeasement speech with the military police was evident in an event promoted by the Ministry of Justice, on the last 13th, to honor the forces that acted on the 8th.

“We decided to make this event […] to show that the federal intervention decided by President Lula was not an act against security corporations in the Federal District. It was an act in support of security corporations and the justice system,” said Dino, Minister of Justice.

On the part of the president himself, on the contrary, the lines have been tougher. Lula stated that “there were a lot of people from the PM conniving” and recalled that there was dissatisfaction with the PM’s performance since Bolsonarists promoted chaos in Brasília on December 12.

“It’s easy for us to see the policemen talking to the aggressors in the invasions. On the 12th, in my diplomacy, the riot that took place in Brasilia, the PM accompanied people setting fire to buses and nothing was done. There was explicit connivance of the police supporting the demonstrators,” he said.

At the time, the operations department was headed by Colonel Jorge Naime who, according to the arrested former PM commander, was present at the coup act despite being on vacation. He is president of the association of PM-DF officers, who declined to comment.

Vieira, former commander of the PM-DF, also reported that there was a major from the corporation’s reserves called Claudio Santos among the coup plotters. A survey by the newspaper O Globo points out that nine military police officers, from the DF and from three states, were involved in the attacks – seven of them were arrested.

Intervenor Ricardo Cappelli, who is a civilian and a journalist, often says that it is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, that he has full confidence in the corporation and calls the police heroes.

He visited the 44 soldiers injured in the operation and announced that they will be awarded a medal and eventual promotion for an act of bravery.

For Renato Sérgio de Lima, president of the Brazilian Public Security Forum and professor at FGV, the Ministry of Justice adopts a cautious tone in the crisis with the security forces in a “strategy of measuring impacts and not generating more friction in an ongoing process, since that any new variable can destabilize everything again”.

Lima points out that another gesture by Cappelli was to maintain the line of command of the PM-DF.

“That is, we are going to determine individual responsibilities, because the institution is bigger than that. In politics, it is a correct gesture, but not enough. A transformation horizon is needed. Establishing control, transparency and accountability in the institutional culture”, he says.

The researcher also recalls that, in the riot in Ceará, in 2020, the Bolsonaro government also adopted a speech of reverence for the police.

“A politician’s arsenal in the face of a security crisis is to try to overcome the crisis without breaking with the police force, because it is the guarantor of order. This reverence needs to be one of recognition of the institutional role, but also of demanding responsibility.”

Sub-lieutenant Heder de Oliveira, president of the association of squares of Minas Gerais and of Anaspra (National Association of Squares), says that the entity is against the intervention and that it generates concern in other states regarding the “excessive use of power” .

“Any medicine in a large dose becomes poison. The intervention affected the troop’s morale, it’s as if all the military police were colluding with everything”, he says, for whom “the facts were very serious and there must be accountability in accordance with the law , but not generally.

Oliveira says that the military police do not find dialogue in the government and says he hopes that this provision exists not only in rhetoric.

“The big problem that threw public security into the lap of the right is because the left never opened a window with us, because, for the left, the police are criminals. Bolsonaro waved to hear us.”

Colonel of the PM of Santa Catarina Marlon Teza, president of Feneme (national federation of officers), says there is no fear of interventions in other states “due to the complete climate of present order” and affirms that the criticisms of the government are individual and restricted and not express the collective feeling.

In a note, the entity repudiated the acts of violence and demanded accountability.

Teza says that the political preferences of the military do not contaminate the work, that the characteristic of police officers is to comply with the law and ensure the democratic rule of law, and that recognition by the federal government is healthy.