Military personnel remain without accountability one year after 8/1 – 07/01/2024 – Power

Senior officers of the Military Police of the Federal District were denounced and arrested on charges of connivance with the attacks on January 8th. Almost 1,400 direct and indirect participants in the actions at Praça dos Três Poderes suffered a similar fate. Financiers began to be held responsible and charged, both by the Federal Public Ministry and the AGU (Attorney General of the Union).

Senior officers of the Armed Forces have so far been free from accountability, despite influential voices from the Three Powers considering that part of them was at least omissive.

“There are certainly authorities [das Forças Armadas] that somehow encouraged. I remember a phrase from General Braga [Netto] telling those protesters to have faith and therefore promising some kind of evolution, just a few days before these developments,” he told Sheet Minister Gilmar Mendes, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court).

Both Gilmar and his colleague Alexandre de Moraes consider that there was undue tolerance from the Army leadership in relation to the camp in front of the corporation’s headquarters, in Brasília, the place where the January 8 coup plotters left and returned to.

“They shouldn’t have existed. It doesn’t make sense, in any way, for people to settle in front of barracks. This brings responsibility to everyone who admitted it”, says Gilmar.

For Moraes, the maintenance of the camps “It was a very big mistake.” In an interview with Sheetthe minister said that he stated “several times” to authorities from the previous government that the camps did not represent “freedom of expression”, as the then commanders of the Armed Forces defended in a note issued in November last year, after Lula’s victory (PT ) about Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

“This is not allowed anywhere in the world. There is also, as was said at the time, no impunity or inviolability in these places because they are military sites. Obviously not. The administration is military, but the crimes committed there can and must be combated by the police”, said Moraes, remembering that camps of this type were dismantled in places where the Public Ministry or city hall requested such a measure from the courts.

“Demonstration in front of a barracks calling for a military coup, calling for the return of the AI-5, calling for the breakdown of the democratic regime, calling for the closure of Powers, is a crime. The Supreme Court has already pacified this. Now the process will analyze the authorship of each person” , added the minister, who is the rapporteur of the STF investigations into the attacks.

Deputy Attorney General Carlos Frederico Santos, responsible at the Federal Public Ministry for the first accusations on January 8 —with the recent change in command of the PGR (Attorney General’s Office), he handed over his position—, says that the investigation in relation to the alleged omission of military personnel from the Armed Forces is “more complex”. He also criticized the conduct of the Federal Police’s initial actions with the STF, despite the MPF.

“We did not participate directly in the first measures taken in relation to the Armed Forces soldiers. The Public Ministry was only notified when everything was ready”, he stated in relation to the simultaneous testimony of 80 uniforms in April. “There was no prior discussion about an investigation strategy regarding this topic. And there should have been.”

“They all heard it together, simultaneously. This brings harm to the investigation. We don’t have enough people to follow all the statements. It would have made it easier for the investigation to have been fragmented – first listening to the base officers, then listening to senior officers and then listening to the enlisted men”, commented.

The only annoyance to the Armed Forces so far came from the CPI’s final report on January 8th in the National Congress, which called for the indictment of 22 military personnel, including nine general officers, two of whom were former commanders (Freire Gomes, from the Army, and Almir Garnier, from the Navy).

The commission, however, did not have the political strength to take the testimony of four-star generals linked to Bolsonaro, and in Brasília there is distrust of the practical effects of the report.

So much so that the approval of the CPI’s final report represented a relief for the Army leadership, after ten months under tension. The barracks is now experiencing its most peaceful moment, with no investigations pointing to high-ranking military officers being held responsible for the events that culminated in the attacks.

Although Senator Eliziane Gama (PSD-MA) included senior military personnel on the list of indictees, the assessment is that the majority of them had a direct connection with former president Bolsonaro and the suspicions were related to their actions with the former president.

The current expectations at Army headquarters, according to generals interviewed by Sheetis that, with the adverse scenario reversed, the Force will be able to free itself from the legal consequences of the processes surrounding January 8th.

The Army commander, Tomás Paiva, acted directly to guarantee stability in the barracks.

He scheduled a series of meetings with minister Alexandre de Moraes, from the STF, with the general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues, with the president of the CPI of January 8, deputy Arthur Maia (União Brasil-BA), and other politicians . In all his efforts, he had the support of the Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, who helped him with some contacts.

The Army’s offensive occurred after the barracks saw news accumulate about the discoveries of suspicions involving Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, and his family.

The military was upset that the revelations were accompanied by PF operations against military personnel on an Army celebration day, when there were celebrations of the Force’s festive dates or an important announcement for the barracks.

Tomás’s action had an effect. The PF, for example, postponed an operation targeting General Braga Netto so as not to coincide with the Independence Day festivities, on September 7, following appeals made by the military to Andrei and Moraes.

Investigators still decided not to carry out a search and seizure against a general from the Army High Command, even in the face of suspicions about the military’s participation in coup plots, according to reports made to Sheet.

The operation was considered certain by the PF, with a scheduled date for it to take place, but the planning ended up being canceled and the searches suspended.

An articulation considered essential by the Army to guarantee institutional stability for the corporation was that of Tomás and Múcio together with Moraes. The magistrate was one of the recipients of complaints from the barracks regarding PF operations against military personnel on festive days.

The closeness between the two comes from the times when Moraes was Minister of Justice in the Temer government and had to deal closely with the Army in the security and intelligence of the Rio Olympics. Tomás was chief of staff to the then Army commander, Eduardo Villas Bôas.

“I have had a relationship with the Armed Forces for some time now, a respectful relationship. I believe in the seriousness of the Armed Forces, which, as an institution, have not failed the Republic”, says Moraes.

The minister rejects criticism that such proximity would save the military from possible punishments for January 8th. “No way. I also have a great relationship with the Federal Police, I have a wonderful relationship, perhaps even closer, with the Military Police, and this has not stopped me, nor will it stop the investigations in relation to the Military Police. As a good institutional relationship is not preventing and will not prevent a serious and correct investigation in relation to the Armed Forces.”

“Also because, just like the Military Police and the Federal Police, the Armed Forces are also interested in removing from their ranks those who do not defend democracy, those who are coup plotters”, added Moraes

Military Court sentences colonel to 1 month and 18 days via video

If in the ordinary courts, the forum designated by the STF for possible prosecutions of military personnel involved in the 8th of January, no uniformed person has yet been held responsible, in the military courts only one officer was convicted, and to a mild sentence. Reserve colonel Adriano Camargo Testoni was sentenced to one month and 18 days in detention for publishing a video offensive to his hierarchical superiors.

Two other cases were sent by the STM (Superior Military Court) to the Supreme Court. One of them investigates retired colonel José Placídio Matias dos Santos, who published on social media that Brasília was “agitated by the action of the patriots” and that it would be an “excellent opportunity for the FA [Forças Armadas] come into play, this time on the right side.”

He also made threats to the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino.

In February, the Military Public Prosecutor’s Office asked not to try the colonel, arguing that these were not crimes under the responsibility of the Military Justice. The request was initially denied, but the STM decided to send the case to the Supreme Court.

Likewise, the Supreme Court was responsible for an investigation into a lieutenant colonel who headed the Presidential Guard Battalion and became suspected of hindering the arrest of coup plotters inside the Planalto Palace.