If the newly deprived (PL) prison projects a future tormented to the former president, the first time he was arrested, almost 40 years ago, he marked the beginning of his rise as leadership among military, causing a mobilization in the lower army strata that would culminate with his entry into politics.
The fuse was an article that the then captain published in September 1986 in Veja magazine, in whose title he complained: “The salary is low.” Under a photo of Bolsonaro with the Grená Brigade beret, a highlight complemented: “Displeased and without prospects, cadets are abandoning the Academy of the Black Needles.”
The last sentence of the article was the motto of the Nativist sparks anti -communist group, emerged between skydivers like him, who decades later would be known as the slogan of his presidential campaigns: “Brazil above all”.
The transgression was punished with 15 days in prison, in a barracks in the Military Village of Rio, a neighborhood where Bolsonaro served and lived. Instead of framing the undisciplined, the penalty burned down the barracks, as they demonstrate reports of the time and reports of the army itself.
In a medical record of Bolsonaro at the CIE (Army Information Center), it was recorded that, days after the publication of the article, “23 Officers’ wives (…) gathered in Gen Tiburcio Square (URCA/RJ), repeating procedure brought days earlier in the Military Village/RJ. They aimed at the remittance of a letter to mr. [Leônidas Pires Gonçalves]in solidarity with the epigigrated [Bolsonaro] and claiming improvement of salaries for the military. “
On September 3, 1986, the column, in the note “Military Hunting”, which the punishment of Bolsonaro “established among his uniformed colleagues a chain of solidarity that concerns the people of”.
“Yesterday, for example,” the note continued, “it took a lot of ability to prevent a manifesto signed by 300 Army captains in Rio. It was not easy to demo the women of subordinate officers from promoting a minipasseate inside the military village, to the sound of shot.”
A CIE report of September 19, 1986 reported that “as a predictable unfolding of the epigraph statements, (…) some manifestations of solidarity by military, civilians and even politicians interested in disturbing the Castrense environment have emerged.” As an example, he listed the names of officers serving in CPOR do Pará who “informed the commander (…) who sent a letter of solidarity to the epigraph.”
Bolsonaro did school. In October, the month following his arrest, another captain, Sadon Pereira Filho, was also arrested for claiming better salaries. A year later, Captain Luiz Fernando Walther de Almeida had the same punishment for invading the Apucarana City Hall (PR) and read a manifesto charging better welds.
The newspaper O Globo reported in October that a week after being arrested Bolsonaro “would receive about 150 solidarity telegrams fired from all regions of the country”, including “one of General Newton Cruz, former chief of SNI, and another by Colonel Sebastião Curió [responsável pela execução e tortura de guerrilheiros no Araguaia]”.
In a sign that even those who determined the arrest agreed in part with Bolsonaro’s complaints, General Acrísio Figueira, commander of the Parachute Brigade: “Although Bolsonaro wounded the regulations, his article seemed thoughtful and without criticism of his superiors. In fact, he seems to have taken the defense of the Black Needle Military Academy as an institution.”
Even a report from CIE, from 25 September, highlighted a positive aspect to the Army of Bolsonaro’s article: “He collaborated, in a way, to undo with the external public an old idea that the military is well paid and enjoy stewardships. As for the consequences of the act practiced by the epigraph, everyone already expected the punishment imposed on him, once he injured the two basic career support: discipline and hierarchy “.
That is, the army punished Bolsonaro because he had committed a clear transgression to his regulations and principles. But until then, there was no institutional disposition to increase punishment – with the expulsion of the corporation, for example. The situation changed when Veja revealed that the captain had told the magazine about a plan to blow up the river bombs in Rio military units if the government did not increase salaries.
According to Bolsonaro told reporter Cássia Maria, they would be “just a few sports”, “only small explosions, to scare the minister [Leônidas]just enough for President José Sarney to understand that Leonidas has no control over his troop. “
Leonidas at first gave Bolsonaro credit and distrusted the magazine, until Veja showed sketches in which the Captain had drafted the bombs plan. The minister then came to act to expel Bolsonaro from the army. He had a partial success, when a council of justification (a kind of military court) condemned the captain, for lying “throughout the process,” and reveals “athical behavior and incompatible with the military Pundonor and the decorum of the class, by passing information on his institution.”
In an evidence that he already enjoyed prestige among some military big liabilities, Bolsonaro was (Superior Military Court). On July 30, 1988, shortly after his acquittal and less than two years after the arrest, Jornal do Brasil stamped the news: “Captain of the bombs will now compete.”
Days later, in the same newspaper, Bolsonaro explained why he was a candidate for councilor: “After realizing that everything in this country depends on a political decision, I decided to abdicate the military career. […] The military class was the last to wake up. Do you see metallurgists strike? They are doing politics. “
According to a CIE report, the captain’s potential electorate was “the internal public unhappy with the salaries.” In November 1988, at the age of 33, Bolsonaro was elected Rio councilor by the PDC (Christian Democratic Party) and went automatically to the paid reserve.
The clash with Leonidas left sequelae, and for years Bolsonaro would be banned by the army command from entering units, one.
