This Tuesday, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva drew the best possible smile while taking another photo with his fellow presidents and heads of state at the closing of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. Many of the analysts who observed the image did not hesitate to maintain that, at that moment, Lula’s mind could be elsewhere. The Brazilian police had arrested the former Minister of Defense of President Jair Bolsonaro, General Walter Braga Netto and other uniformed men, three colonels and a police officer, accused of planning the murder of a Lula who had just won the elections in October 2022. They not only wanted to kill the man who had defeated Bolsonaro. Also to his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin y, later Alexandre de Moraes, then president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSF) and member of the Supreme Court (STF). One of the operations of the Federal Police (PF) took place in Rio, the city that hosted the summit of the countries that represent 85% of the world’s GDP.
De Moraes considered that there are “robust and very serious indications“that it was planned to move from words to actions, refuting Senator Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the far-right leader, who not only criticized the arrests: he called them illegal. “As repugnant as it may be,thinking about killing someone is not a crime“. The investigations that led to the discovery of the group black kids (black boys) aim at their father. The former president is prohibited from leaving the country. His passport has been taken away.
The revelations about the criminal plot have a certain cinematic tinge, not because they are fabrications but because of the audacity of the plotters. According to the PF, “for the execution of President Lula and taking into account his health vulnerability and his frequent visits to hospitals.s, (it was analyzed) the possibility is to resort to poisoning or the use of chemicals to cause organic collapse.” The plot was planned in the midst of the far-right camps in front of the Army units and with the demand of Bolsonarism of a intervention that prevented Lula from returning to the Planalto Palace for the third time. On January 8, 2023, an attempt was made to storm the headquarters of the three branches of government and on the eve of the G20 summit, an attempt to blow it up was deactivated. The STF headquarters was blown up. The man who tried to detonate the explosive is a radical supporter of Bolsonaro.
Military responsibility
The new revelation only confirms the line of the investigators who last March obtained the testimonies of the generals who were in charge of the Army and Air Force in 2022, according to whom Bolsonaro tried to recruit them without luck to block the arrival of Lula to the presidency. Instead, the head of the Navy joined the plot.
For Bruno Boghossian, columnist for the São Paulo newspaper ‘Folha’, “the planning of a coup to keep Jair Bolsonaro in office was essentially a military operation.” Members of the Armed ForcesPreparations were made to annul the elections, kidnap authorities and assassinate the future president. They established an emergency regime that would be controlled by the generals who had sponsored the captain’s promotion in 2018.” The recent investigations “are further proof that the involvement of the military in the coup plot was never an isolated event.” The messages obtained by the PF “show that reserve general Mario Fernandes organized a clandestine operation. The action included surveillance of targets, the use of a grenade launcher and even the poisoning of Lula and Alexandre de Moraes. According to investigators, he took the plan to the Alvorada Palace, where Bolsonaro was taking refuge.
Police informant
Federal police officer Wladimir Matos Soares, arrested on Tuesday, was being investigated on suspicion of passing information about Lula’s security. According to the same institution to which he belongs, he sent personal data of another agent who supposedly protected the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) and told Bolsonaro’s allies. “My team and I have all the material prepared to go help defend the president.All that’s left is for the pen to come out! (Bolsonaro authorization)”, wrote Wladimir in one of the messages sent to his crony.
The chief minister of the Secretariat of Social Communication of the Presidency, Paulo Pimenta, said that the PF has obtained “new and very serious elements regarding the participation of people from the power core of the Bolsonaro government in the coup.” For PT senator Humberto Costa “the fence is closing” around the former president.
Vera Magalhães, columnist for the Rio de Janeiro newspaper ‘O Globo’, wondered how it is possible that the former Minister of Defense, Braga Netto, in whose house the plan was discussed, has not yet been arrested. “Why didn’t the Federal Police include the general in the list of people whose arrest was requested in the operation launched on Tuesday?” Sources close to the investigations “attribute the decision to an evaluation of the technical and legal foundations.” Other analysts believe that going for Braga Netto means immediately taking the next step that leads to Bolsonaro, and the political conditions to do so are not in place. The extreme right was the winner of the municipal elections last October and has redoubled its request for amnesty to the participants of 8E.
