The anatomy of a failed blow – 01/21/2023 – Elio Gaspari

In his interview with reporter Natuza Nery, Lula showed that, by instinct, he protected his mandate on the afternoon of the 8th, by refusing the proposal to enact the GLO, the Guarantee of Law and Order. If he accepted the proposal, he would mobilize the Armed Forces to restore peace in Brasilia.

After that, who knows what would happen, but that was the path defended also by people who don’t like it.

Years ago, Jair Bolsonaro dreamed of Apocalypses that would call the troops. At 5:10 pm on the 8th, reserve general Hamilton Mourão, former vice president and senator elected by Rio Grande do Sul wrote:

“I repeat that the Government of the Federal District is responsible and, if it does not have the conditions, ask the federal government for a decree guaranteeing law and order”.

When Mourão offered this path, Congress, the Planalto and the Supreme Court had already been invaded. The panel by Di Cavalcanti, stabbed, the clock by d. João 6th thrown to the ground and Minister Alexandre de Moraes’ closet broken into.

At 5:02 pm, Agência Brasil reported that a troop from the Presidential Guard Battalion was arriving at the Planalto and the PM’s Shock had retaken the Supremo.

At 5:55 pm, the speech of Lula kicking the ball in the small area was aired when he decreed federal intervention in public safety in Brasília. It was the exclusion of the GLO alternative that came from its coreligionists.

(This was the second time that Lula’s allies tried to move the wrong piece. On the day of the second round, when the Federal Highway Police stopped voter buses in the Northeast, PT wanted to extend the closing of the vote collection. ball from the small area was Alexandre de Moraes. He realized that the postponement could strengthen a proposal to cancel the election.)

Only investigations will show what was in the pot of the January 8th coup. Words aside, which is no small feat, it’s about joining the dots.

Since December, cars and buses have been set on fire in Brasília, on a night when the headquarters of the Federal Police was attacked. Four power transmission towers were knocked down. Three people have already confessed that they were preparing an attack by blowing up a fuel truck near the airport and detonating a power substation. George Washington de Oliveira Sousa, involved in this project of attack, was clear: they would “start the chaos that would lead to the decree of the state of siege”.

The GLO is the poor cousin of the state of defense proposed in the paper held by former Minister Anderson Torres who, in turn, is the poor cousin of the state of siege.

Lula’s trust

At his breakfast with journalists, Lula addressed the invasion of the Planalto Palace and said the following:

“I just lost confidence. When I regain confidence, I’m back to normal.”

“I pick up a driver from the newspaper [general] Heleno saying he’s going to kill me and that I’m not going to go up the ramp. Another lieutenant says he’s going to shoot me in the head, that I’m not going up the ramp. How am I going to have a person at the door of my office who can shoot me?”

The following day, reserve general Sérgio Etchegoyen, head of the Institutional Security Office during Michel Temer’s government, replied:

“After the sad episode of the 8th, President Lula, supreme commander of the Armed Forces, makes a clear statement to the press that he does not trust the Armed Forces. How do you pacify the country from then on?”

Lula dealt with concrete situations. With the exception of the diatribes of the driver and the sergeant, the world saw the invasion of the presidential palace on the afternoon of the 8th. The building, as well as the Palácio da Alvorada, is protected by the Presidential Guard Battalion, and its inaction was documented.

If a general has his barracks vandalized on a Sunday afternoon, the least he has to do is distrust the guard. The root of this distrust need not be political, it is operational. Lula did not say that he “does not trust the Armed Forces”. He could have been more precise, but the comment involved operational inaction.

In 1977, when President Ernesto Geisel decided to dismiss the Minister of the Army, General Sylvio Frota, he took precautions by setting up three devices, without each of them knowing of the existence of the others.

Furthermore, he chose the first half of October because, in that period, according to a rotation, the palaces were under the protection of the Guard Cavalry Regiment. Rightly so, he did not trust the colonel who commanded the Presidential Guard Battalion. (Two weeks later, without stridency, the new minister replaced him.)

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