Never in the history of democracy in Brazil has an army commander lasted so short: Júlio César Arruda was appointed by former President Jair Bolsonaro on December 30, 2022, on the basis of seniority, 48 hours before Lula da Silva’s inauguration. In January, the new head of state fired him after the attacks on the headquarters of the three powers in Brasília on January 8, if you keep to the 63 exchanges registered so far.
On an official visit to Argentina, Lula said that “the armed forces are not there to serve a politician, but to protect the Brazilian people”. “What happened is that Bolsonaro didn’t respect the constitution and he didn’t respect the armed forces, but I’m sure we’ll sort things out,” he said.
“The careers of the state cannot get involved in politics in the exercise of their functions, because these people have stability, these people do not belong to any government, they belong to the Brazilian state, they must learn to cooperate democratically with everyone. life” .
Arruda’s behavior “characterized unacceptable insubordination in the face of threats to democracy and the partisanship of the armed forces,” said Gleisi Hoffmann, chairman of Lula’s party PT.
There are three episodes at stake: the general’s unwillingness to expose the Planalto Military Command, one of the forces accused of failing in the Bolsonaristas invasion on January 8; the inaction of the military police towards the coup supporters who camped in front of the army barracks in Brasília; and especially the refusal to relieve Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid of command of a commando battalion in Goiânia.
Cid, who, as an aide-de-camp at Planalto, was the one who carried Bolsonaro’s briefcase and had access to the former president’s cell phone, is under investigation by the Federal Supreme Court after federal police found suspicious financial transactions in the presidential election. office. The material indicates that the moves were to pay Bolsonaro’s personal bills and people close to the then first lady, Michelle, an activity dubbed on social networks as “palace splitting”, in an allusion to the corruption scheme to cut salaries of advisors to lead to the family for decades.
With the replacement of Arruda by Tomás Paiva, the new army commander who gave a speech in favor of democratic change, the election in electronic ballot boxes and against the interference of the armed forces in politics before taking over the vacancy, Lula intends to see not only Cid fired, but also Dutra de Menezes, the head of the military command of Planalto, seen as lenient with the coup of the 8th, and Lieutenant Colonel Paulo da Hora, head of the presidential guard battalion who was filmed while he quarreled with military police as vandals ravaged the Plateau.
These imminent layoffs will increase the number of military heads to roll since the attacks on democracy on the 8th to 66 – the 63 previous layoffs were mainly aimed at soldiers seconded to work in the administration of official residences, mainly the Alvorada palace, where the president lives. chair.
“Now, for example, I don’t have an aide-de-camp. My aide-de-camps are my companions who have worked with me before. Why don’t I have one? I take the newspaper, there is Augusto Heleno’s driver [ex-ministro de Bolsonaro] saying that he will kill me and that I will not go up the ramp. The other says he’s going to shoot me in the head and I’m not going up the ramp. How do I get someone to my office door to shoot me? So I have appointed the companions who have worked with me since 2010, all military, as my nurses.”
However, according to the newspaper O Globo, more points of tension are on the way: the promotion of generals to the Supreme Command of the Army in February, which causes fear in the Planalto Palace because of the possibility of the ascension of officers linked to Bolsonarianism, and March 31, the date of the 1964 coup that imposed military dictatorship in the country, celebrated in the barracks during Bolsonaro’s rule.
Who, at least for now, is safe from acquiescence is Defense Minister José Múcio. However, criticized by the PT for showing too much leniency in dialogue with the army and with the vandals who threatened a coup on the 8th, the politician was defended by Lula. “The person who posts a minister and fires a minister is the president of the republic. I brought José Múcio here. He will remain my minister, because I trust him. I have the deepest respect for him. If I have to remove a Minister, every hour he makes a mistake will be the largest turnover of labor in Brazil’s history.”
With a tougher speech since the 8th, Múcio assured the press that the president “will not forgive” the coup moves and that the investigation into the hundreds of people involved in the attacks “is coming to an end”.
In the opposition, General Hamilton Mourão, Bolsonaro’s former vice president and newly elected senator, criticized the government’s attitude towards the military. He accused Lula of “fostering the crisis” and classified Arruda’s resignation as army commander as “terrible for the country”.
Social scientist Martins Filho, an armed forces scholar since the 1980s, told the Brazilian edition of the BBC that Lula “must be extremely careful, without bowing his head”. “We must not fall into the trap of thinking that General Paiva, Arruda’s successor, is a dissident of the Army High Command, that he is sympathetic to the government, that he is a Democrat. We find it difficult that he is a of these three things”.
Lula’s views have received more praise than criticism in the press. Journalist Cristina Serra wrote in the Tuesday, January 24 edition of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that “Lula has called for the pacification of the country and is a mediator. But this profile cannot be confused with a lack of authority. That is what the president made clear when he assumed his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and noted the resignation of General Júlio César Arruda from the leadership of the army.”
Source: DN
