Lula reduces military influence over intelligence agency

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday moved Brazil’s intelligence agency from under the military-run Institutional Security Office (GSI) to the purview of the Office of the Chief of Staff, in another effort to demilitarize strategic areas of the government.

The Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) was created in 1999, and remained under the GSI’s umbrella until 2015. That year, during President Dilma Rousseff’s second term, the agency was briefly moved to the Government Secretariat before President Michel Temer returned it to the GSI’s control in 2016.

Removing the agency from the purview of the military-led GSI has been a longstanding demand among Abin’s staff. Back in 2005, during the beginning of the Mensalão cash-for-votes scandal, Abin agents openly accused General Jorge Armando Félix, then head of the GSI, of withholding information from President Lula that they had obtained about corruption in state-owned postal company Correios.

After the January 8 riots, Lula replaced hundreds of military service members and officers from positions related to the security of presidential facilities and of the president himself.

Under the new decree, the director of the intelligence agency will report to the chief of staff, rather than the head of the GSI.

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