Brasil on the Precipice
On November 13th a right-wing lunatic with a passionate devotion to Bolsonaro and a matching hatred of all things deemed ‘left’ or progressive, planted three bombs in the Praça dos Três Poderes in Brasilia, the institutional heart of Brasilian democracy, home to the Palacio Planalto, seat of the executive, The National Congress and the Supreme Court. Then this week, as the population was still reeling from the implications of this violent attack, the Federal Police released an 884-page report about a detailed and well-developed plan to overthrow Brasilian democracy. Brasil had been quite literally one telephone call away from the launch of a full-blooded military coup. The revelation that there was a plot has not come as a surprise, after all Bolsonaro had openly courted the return of a military government, but the extent to which advanced plans had been put in place to stop Lula ‘walking up the ramp’ into the Planalto was truly shocking. A report by an investigative journalist in the magazine, Piauí, Um golpe em execução: mais que planos, ações, ‘A coup in the making; more than plans and actions’, offers a more thorough analysis of the Federal Police report. It is disturbing reading. The word execução, execution, in the sense of to put the plan on to a ‘war footing,’ is used 105 times.[1] The deeply unsettling, ‘assinate’ is openly employed. On December the 15th 2022, the head of the navy and the army reserve were ready to mobilise. An elite squad known as the Kids Pretos, the ‘black kids,’ roughly equivalent to the British SAS or the US Delta Force had been deployed with a mission to spy on, kidnap and potentially assassinate Lula, the vice president Alckmin, and the supreme court judge Alexandre Moraes. Impatiently they waited for Bolsonaro’s call, but at the eleventh hour he got cold feet most likely because he knew he faced certain arrest if the coup failed. What is extraordinary about the long report is the complete arrogance and stupidity of those involved. A trail of evidence, text messages, phone calls and even printed documents offer incontestable proof of the elaborate scheme. Through a carefully orchestrated campaign of dis-information, it’s tactical mission over three years was to sow doubt about the electoral system and the independence of the judiciary, to undermine the population’s belief in fair elections, and to rally the armed forces to support the plan to topple the democratically elected government. Far from random isolated events, the relentless attacks on the free press and supreme court, the organisation of civil disruption, and the orchestration of the 8th of January assault, was designed to create uncertainty and the sort of disorder that would justify tanks on the streets. So far, along with Bolsonaro, thirty-six individuals have been indicted including the then minister of defence and General of the army reserve, Walter Braga Netto, the national president of Bolsonaro’s party, Valdemar Costa Neto, the director of the intelligence services Alexandre Ramagem and the chief minister of the Office of Institutional Security, Augusto Heleno. It was only the refusal to support the constitutional rupture by other key figures in the armed forces High Command that saved the country. Those involved, should by rights face long prison sentences. Needless to say, the far right is on the counterattack. The report is a left-wing fantasy with no foundation in truth, a politically motivated witch hunt of the righteous who were only responding to the express wishes of the people to restore law and order. On November 30th, in a thoroughly surreal plot twist, Bolsonaro’s lawyers published their own version of events that borders on the absurd and ridiculous. The then President was unaware of any plot. The scheme to overthrow democracy had been planned in secret by the military who were intent on deposing him. In other words, in a spectacular narrative reversal, Bolsonaro is transformed from chief mastermind to innocent victim, the target of what he has labelled as ‘a coup within a coup.’
[1] Pires, Breno, Um golpe em execução: mais que planos, ações, Piaui; 28 November 2024