Múcio says that the risk of armed bolsonaristas weighed to postpone intervention in the camp – 01/31/2023 – Politics

The Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, said this Tuesday (31) that the increase of more than 800,000 records of CACs (hunters, shooters and collectors) in the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government brought distrust about the possibility of there being people armed forces in the camp in front of the Army headquarters in Brasilia.

As Folha showed, the risk of armed people and possible confrontation between vandals and the Military Police was the reason given by Army generals to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) for not dismantling the camp on the night of the attack. to the headquarters of the Three Powers, on January 8.

Faced with the suggestion, Lula gave the Army’s approval to carry out the dismantling operation only the next day, in the morning – an action that resulted in the arrest of more than 1,200 people in the Urban Military Sector.

“The Army has 220,000 men, and in the last government almost 800,000 CACs were authorized. So there are 800,000 people in Brazil who were licensed to carry weapons. So you can predict and suspect everything that could happen” said Múcio to Bandnews TV .

The number of firearms in the hands of CACs reached 1 million in July 2022. The number was 350,000 in 2018, before the Bolsonaro government’s arms policy.

The minister also reported that the conversations on the night of the attacks were tense, with “harsh words and everything”.

“Evidently, that exchange of dialogue that everyone became aware of between the Secretary of Security who was appointed that night [interventor Ricardo Cappelli] With those who were in charge of the Army, they were harsh words, that we need to go there at half past midnight, I was accompanied by Minister Flávio Dino and Minister Rui Costa, to negotiate that the people who were there would give testimony”, he completed.

During the interview, Múcio was asked if Lula had given his approval for the dismantling to take place on the morning of January 9th. The minister, however, avoided answering the question.

“The one who gave power so that the camps, that the demonstrations were all dismantled, was Justice, Minister Alexandre de Moraes. President Lula always wanted to dismantle that. I talked a lot with those people [do Exército]I knew the difficulty of dismantling that, because that was something much more solid and organized than a demonstration by civilians,” he said.

Múcio also said that “everything happened at the right time” and repeated that the main mistake was allowing the caravans that arrived on the weekend of the attack to join the camp

“All this will be investigated and the culprits will be punished”, he concluded.

Such as Sheet revealed, Lula had a brief dialogue with the military commander of the Planalto, General Gustavo Henrique Dutra, during the night of January 8. At the moment, there was tension between the military and the interventor Ricardo Cappelli.

Cappelli’s order was for the police to enter the camp in front of the Army HQ and arrest the coup plotters during the night. Dutra, however, vetoed the PM’s entry into the area, deploying three war tanks and a force troop to form an isolation cordon.

According to reports, the general had called the chief minister of the GSI (Institutional Security Office), Gonçalves Dias, to get support from the Planalto so that the dismantling operation would only be carried out in the morning of the following day.

G.Dias, however, passed the phone to Lula, who was at his side. In the conversation, the president reinforced that everyone should be arrested and the camp would have to be dismantled.

Lula, however, was alerted to the risks that the operation at night could cause confrontation and end in deaths, given the lack of planning. According to people with knowledge of the matter, the president accepted the considerations and agreed with the possibility of the operation being carried out the next day.

Defense Minister José Múcio Monteiro also stated in the interview that he is evaluating what to do with March 31 — the date on which the military celebrated, during the Bolsonaro government, the anniversary of the 1964 military coup.

Múcio said that he will “negotiate” with the military about what to do on that date, “so that we reach an agreement on what both sides want”. “If it works out, it’s good for those who won and those who lost. If it goes wrong, it’s bad for those who won and those who lost,” said the minister.

The minister also confirmed that General Dutra will leave the military command of Planalto, as revealed to Folha, in a change of command confirmed before the January 8 crisis and scheduled for March.

Múcio pointed out that the government is not pressuring to remove the general from the post, because the Defense effort is “to depoliticize the Armed Forces. “I prefer to let that [a eventual antecipação] be a decision by the commander of the Army,” he added.