Crisis Brazil: what is behind the attempted coup against democracy
Analysis From the Capitol to Brasilia: America, the largest powder keg on the planet
The Plaza of the Three Powers could well change its name this week to the Plaza of All Suspicions.
And there, in the heart of Brasilia, who is most suspicious of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: suspicious of the military, suspicious of the militarized police of the Federal District and its governor;
suspicion of the intelligence services, of former President Jair Bolsonaro, but also of members of his own government.
And he suspects, above all, that if he does not make drastic decisions in the coming weeks
, his four-year term could become very complicated
.
In the most overflowing moment of anger after the attacks by a Bolsonaro horde on the seats of executive, legislative and judicial power in Brazil, Lula launched
very harsh statements
.
"The army knew what was going on and was complacent with the protesters."
"No general has moved to say that this cannot happen."
"No barracks did anything. This was planned. The people were in front of the barracks."
As the hours passed, his Minister of Institutional Relations,
Alexandre Padilha
, qualified the president's phrases and explained that there are suspicions of "Bolsonarist contamination" in some military personnel, but that the Government maintains confidence in the institution.
According to Padilha, in statements to the Roda Viva
television program
, former president
Jair Bolsonaro has "political and intellectual responsibility" in the coup and vandalism acts on Sunday
.
He also accuses him of helping to finance them, a key issue.
For more than two months, once Lula's victory was confirmed in the second round on October 30,
tens of thousands of people camped in front of military barracks in dozens of cities
.
Such a deployment costs money, and justice and the government have dedicated themselves since Sunday to trying to reach the lair of the monster.
A monster with recognizable political affiliation, the Bolsonaro extremism that today considers the former president lukewarm and goes far beyond what the former tenant of the Planalto wants.
A monster, too, that is linked to businessmen linked to agribusiness.
"There are more than a hundred companies suspected of financing the riots,"
Globo News
said on Tuesday. "Precautionary measures are going to be presented to block their assets. They are mainly companies from the states of Matto Grosso and Santa Catarina. They intend to use the money from those companies to finance the reconstruction of what was destroyed".
The investigation is advancing, and a name that is coming back to the fore is that of deputy
Carla Zambelli
, remembered for chasing a man, gun in hand, on the afternoon of the second round in the streets of downtown São Paulo.
Zambelli, more of a Bolsonaro supporter than Bolsonaro, irritated the former president weeks ago by demanding his leadership in the face of the protesters who were demanding the intervention of the Armed Forces to prevent Lula's inauguration.
Bolsonaro refused to issue any advice.
Nothing surprising: the right-wing leader is terrified of potential problems with the law, now that he no longer has privileges after decades of having them.
Petition of a prosecutor
And those problems begin to arrive.
A prosecutor asked the Brazilian Court of Accounts to
block
Bolsonaro's assets, which he considers the inspiration for Sunday's excesses.
Senator
Flavio Bolsonaro
, son of the former president, asked not to believe the "lying narrative" and added that his father is "practically incommunicado" in the United States and "licking his wounds."
While Bolsonaro ponders a possible return to Brazil, Zambelli enters the conspiracy's radar.
She is linked to
Maurício Nogueira
, former Bolsonaro candidate for state deputy in São Paulo and owner of Nogueira Turismo.
The businessman gave up a bus to transport Bolsonaro supporters to the
demonstrations in front of the barracks
.
The buses are the tip of the ball to untangle the coup skein.
Judge
Alexandre de Moraes
, a member of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), ordered on Sunday the seizure and blockade of all the buses that the Federal Police detected transporting "terrorists to the Federal District."
"The owners must be identified and heard within 48 (forty-eight) hours, presenting the list and identification of all the passengers, the transport contractors," added De Moraes.
Intelligence Reform
While waiting for the investigation focused on the buses to better understand the true scope of the conspiracy, Lula wants to
put the scalpel into the secret services
, which he sees as too close to military power.
The Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) reports to the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI), the former Military House.
The transitional government, which for two months was led by Vice President
Geraldo Alckmin
, had proposed ending an organizational structure that is considered a "remnant of the military dictatorship" that ruled Brazil, between 1964 and 1985.
"What I defend is following the international model and having civilian state intelligence,"
Justice Minister
Flavio Dino told
O Globo
.
"The training of many Brazilian soldiers still dates back to the Cold War and the vision of the supposed communist threat. This contaminates the Intelligence service."
Abin alleges that on Sunday it alerted the Secretary of Security of the Federal District of Brasilia that Bolsonaro groups were preparing serious excesses.
The Brasilia Military Police (PM) did little or nothing to prevent this.
This is what De Moraes believes, who this Tuesday ordered the arrest of
Augsuto Vieira
, former commander of the PM.
And not only that: Brazil's star judge also sent
Anderson Torres
, Bolsonaro's former Justice Minister and the man in charge of security in Brasilia, to prison on January 8.
That day he was in Orlando, a few minutes from Bolsonaro's temporary residence.
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