During a breakfast with reporters on Thursday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke candidly about his response to the storming and ransacking of government buildings by far-right radicals on January 8. Perhaps a bit too candidly.
Lula said he preferred to place Brasília’s security apparatus under federal intervention rather than calling for an Army-led law-and-order operation — as many would have assumed the government would do. “If I had done that, then I’d have taken the responsibility of abandoning my responsibilities. And then the coup those people wanted would have been carried out,” he said.
At the same breakfast engagement, Lula further exposed the level of his mistrust of the military.
Lula said the Armed Forces “are not the moderating power they see themselves to be” and admitted to having lost confidence in part of the troops.
“I get the papers, and I see [one Navy sergeant] saying he’ll kill me and that I won’t [take office]. Another lieutenant says he’ll shoot me in the head. How can I have someone who may shoot me just outside my office?”
The military and January 8
The president’s relationship and trust in the military seem to have declined even further in the aftermath of the January 8 riots, with the Armed Forces shouldering some of the blame for allowing rioters to storm and vandalize the seats of Brazilian government.
Unlike in other demonstrations, the Army-led security team at the presidential palace did not provide prior protection outside the building, only showing up once the riot had already gotten out of control.
Indeed, footage spread around the world of a small military police deployment escorting the far-right...
Search
