The general’s right-hand man and the target of search and seizure warrants in the operation that arrested the former minister, the retired colonel is pointed out by members of the current Army leadership as responsible for spreading disinformation among the Bolsonarist militancy so that they rejected joining coup attempts. to prevent the president from taking office.
Privately, officers from the Army Headquarters claim that Peregrino was one of the Bolsonarista commentator and influencer’s informants in the attacks against members of the High Command of the land force.
Grandson of the last dictator of the military regime (1918-1999), Paulo Figueiredo Filho. During the interval between the victory and Lula’s inauguration, it helped to spread among Bolsonarists the version that “” – green on the outside, due to the color of the Army uniform, and red on the inside, that is, progressives – ignored the calls for a military intervention to keep Bolsonaro in power despite his electoral defeat.
Figueiredo Filho was part of the Federal Police in the investigation into the coup plot to block Lula’s inauguration. He read a coup manifesto from active officers on Jovem Pan and used the radio to attack the “watermelon generals”.
The commentator’s most constant targets were generals Tomás Paiva (current commander of the Army), Richard Nunes (Chief of Staff of the Army), Valério Stumpf, Fernando Soares and Marco Antonio Freire Gomes. The last three have now been retired, but at the time they were part of the Army High Command – Freire Gomes was the corporation commander.
Although the thesis that they resisted a coup is positive for them, everyone rejects the version spread by Figueiredo that there was a split in the High Command as well as the idea that they have leftist sympathies: they claim that the entire collegiate was united in respect for the Constitution.
According to the statement from Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, at least one member of the High Command had shown himself willing to join an institutional rupture, the general – who denies the accusation.
An aspect not voiced by the four-star generals, but highlighted as a natural obstacle to a coup adventure, is the lack of external support (especially from the USA). The dissatisfaction of members of the Army High Command with the conduct of the electoral process (many in the collegiate considered the Electoral Court biased against Bolsonaro) and with the results of the polls was not enough to turn the tables.
When contacted, Colonel Flávio Peregrino did not want to speak out. He denied the accusation to interlocutors, commenting that he never had contact with Paulo Figueiredo Filho. In yet another part of the “pushing game” between the military personnel investigated for the coup plot, the version that Peregrino has spread about this is that Figueiredo’s link in the last government was lieutenant colonel Mauro Cid.
Despite being the target of search and seizure, Peregrino was not indicted or officially named among those investigated in the investigation into the coup plots.
