Late in the afternoon of January 8, police officers entered the presidential palace in Brasília to arrest throngs of Jair Bolsonaro supporters, who moments prior had stormed and desecrated federal buildings, smashing windows, defacing walls, trashing furniture, stealing and destroying priceless works of art — and, in some cases, urinating and defecating on public property.
Videos shared on social media show that an Army colonel tried to stop the officers.
“Hold on! The guys are coming down.” He meant the vandals were leaving the palace on their own. A police officer talks back: “Hold on, my ass! They are all under arrest. Nobody’s coming down, colonel.”
Neither the Defense Ministry nor the Army replied to questions sent by The Brazilian Report about the identity of the colonel in the video, but he looks similar to Colonel Paulo Jorge Fernandes da Hora, head of the presidential guard. The Army’s press office only said that the video is “out of context” and that local police were not blocked from entering the presidential palace.
The episode helps to illustrate the role of Brazil’s military in facilitating and enabling the putschist riots.
Every year on March 31, Brazilian servicemembers gather in barracks nationwide to listen to their commanding officer reading a particular type of order of the day: a celebration of the 1964 military coup which overthrew President João Goulart and started a dictatorship that lasted for 21 years.
In one of his last actions as Defense Minister, retired General Walter Braga Netto last year published an “order of the day” statement praising the 1964 coup as a “milestone of political evolution” for Brazil, which “resulted in the re-establishment of peace in the country and the strengthening of democracy.”
Upon taking office as president in 2019, Mr. Bolsonaro told military units to celebrate the coup in official events. He even went to the courts for the right to do so. But even before that, the generals were never ashamed of the dictatorship years.
For example, at Agulhas Negras Military Academy (Brazil’s equivalent to West Point) the main auditorium is named after President Emílio Garrastazu Médici, whose authoritarian rule (1969-1974) marked the apex of the military regime. In a museum at the Copacabana Fort, a room is dedicated to military presidents (many who ruled through force), praising them for never failing “the call of the people.”
Before Mr. Bolsonaro was elected, the tradition of celebrating the coup every March was carried out by the Military Club in Rio de Janeiro, led by retired officers.
In 2021, his third year in office, the former president met with the then-president of the club, General Eduardo José Barbosa. At the time,...
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