This Friday (29), the Army prohibited public access to the monograph written by the person appointed by, at the conclusion of a course at the Force Command and General Staff School (Eceme).
A Sheet was on site this Friday morning to consult on the work. The monograph “Special Unit Operations Command (COpUEsp): critical analysis”, defended in 2002, was delivered and consulted for around 10 minutes. However, the responsible librarian informed the reporter that the work was confidential. Without clarifying the reason for the access restriction, he removed the book from the table it was on.
Fernandes’ work was on the table of the soldier who answered the Sheet upon arriving at the location. According to the librarian, he had been consulted on Thursday (28) by an “internal person”.
When contacted, the Army did not comment until the publication of this report about the reasons for the secrecy.
Course completion monographs from the most recent years are digitized on the Army Library website. Report from Sheet on Monday (25) described the work of three other officers arrested by the PF who .
The retired general is part of the list of 37 indicted by the PF on suspicion of being involved in the coup plot at the end of the government (PL). The final report of the investigations was sent to the (Attorney General’s Office), which is now responsible for deciding whether to close the case, request further investigations or report the suspects to court.
According to investigations, the officer was one of the biggest supporters of the coup plot, having even written a letter to the then Army commander, urging him to join the movement.
He has been in preventive detention since the 19th. The soldier’s defense, made by lawyer Raul Livino, says that he will only speak out after meeting him in prison, next week, in Rio de Janeiro.
Mario Fernandes’ work deals with a critical analysis of COpUEsp, comparing it with similar structures in other Armies around the world. He also ends the study with a proposal for an organizational chart for the Command that he would lead in 2018 — now called the Special Operations Command.
“In Brazil, despite the embryonic state in which the special units find themselves, the military authorities have already felt the importance of their Special Forces in the social, economic, political and military fields of the country, in order to prioritize their training and equipping” , states the general in the text.
“The Special Units Operations Command, the framework command for these units, however, is not yet a reality, making knowledge and understanding of the ideas that motivated its creation, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of its conception, paramount.”
The work was completed when Mario Fernandes was a major. He dedicates special thanks to General Luiz Eduardo Ramos, Bolsonaro’s former minister who was number two in the General Secretariat of the Presidency, “whose leadership and professional example were sources of inspiration for this work”.
It also mentions General Cesar Augusto Nardi de Souza, member of the Army High Command until 2021 and member of the evaluation panel.
Mario Fernandes was part of the 1st Special Forces Battalion between 1988 and 1993 and commanded it in 2008, a unit of the so-called “”, the troop’s popular designation due to the black hats worn by its members. The specialty is at the center of the criminal organization that operated during the Bolsonaro government, according to the PF.
Created in 1905 as the Escola de Estado Maior, based in the Urca neighborhood, south of Rio de Janeiro, Eceme is the highest and most prestigious school in the Army. It aims to train senior officers for staff, command and other high-ranking duties.
In the past decade, he had academic master’s and doctorate degrees recognized, open to civilians, by Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), which oversees postgraduate education in the country.
