The judge's indictment against Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the retired Army captain who presided over Brazil between 2019 and 2022, is devastating. He document, 135 pages, is based on the confession of a witness with privileged access to the previous president. It includes screenshots of compromising WhatsApp conversations between the suspects, be it the Minister of Defense or a soldier expelled from the Armed Forces. No country uses the encrypted messaging app as intensely as this one. That is why it is not surprising that it was one of the means used to plot the attempted coup d'état of which the Supreme Court and the police accuse former President Bolsonaro, four generals, an admiral and around twenty civilians. The decree was also prepared through Whatsapp with which the riot was neutralized in three hours.
The main ingredient of the police story is the confession (and mobile phone) of the man who probably spent the most time with Bolsonaro while he was president, his personal secretary, Lieutenant Mauro Cid, 44 years old. The military appears as a central node for the exchange of information between the suspects in the coup plot. After four months in prison for falsifying the vaccination card, Lieutenant Cid decided to speak out. That is the valuable ammunition with which the police accuse the former president and the rest of the suspects.
This is the reconstruction, in 11 scenes, of how the failed riot took place.
Coup dynamics at the top of the Government
July 5, 2022. There are three months left until the first round of the elections, a duel between two titans, Bolsonaro, who seeks re-election, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who aspires to complete his political resurrection with a third term.
Bolsonaro holds an official meeting at the Planalto palace with ministers and senior officials in which the police see “a coup dynamic at the top of the Government.” On Friday the judge lifted the secrecy on the video, which immediately hit all the front pages of the press. Whoever wanted it has seen it. The president demanded that his ministers question the security of the electronic ballot boxes like him and suggested that there was a conspiracy to seize power from him: “The guys are preparing everything for Lula to win in the first round, a fraud. I'm going to show you how and why.”
At least one of those present is worried. “Is the meeting being recorded, president?” asks the Minister of the General Comptroller. Bolsonaro tells him that he is only going to record his own speech, but it is evident that the rest of those present were also recorded. The video in question, the hit media report on Friday in Brazil, was found by the police on a computer that Bolsonaro's secretary kept at home.
The fiery speeches are seasoned with expletives—Bolsonaro uses five in 35 seconds—, soccer references and warlike language. “I am on the line of contact with the enemy,” says Defense Minister General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, referring to his interactions with the Superior Electoral Court to ensure that the polls are secure. And one of the minister generals, Augusto Heleno, head of the secret services, warns: “If we have to hit the table, it is before the elections. There is no VAR review here [como en el fútbol]”.
Bolsonaro, always given to drama, proclaims: “I have no doubts about what they are going through. I don't have much proof (…) I'm going to go down the ramp from here [el palacio presidencial] imprisoned for undemocratic acts.”
The meeting that disqualified Bolsonaro
July 18, 2022. In his campaign against electronic ballot boxes, the president receives foreign ambassadors. He conveys his doubts about the voting system to them without presenting evidence. The diplomats attend astonished. Due to this intervention, Bolsonaro was disqualified from running for elections until 2030.
Elections, second round
October 30, 2022. Lula wins the closest elections in Brazilian history. The leftist gets 50.9% compared to 49.1% for the far-right candidate. The next day, tens of thousands of Bolsonaro supporters claim fraud in front of barracks across Brazil. That night they camp right there. They demand military intervention. And there they will remain until the day after the coup attempt, when they are forcibly dismantled.
Draft coup decree
November 19, 2022. Three of the accused legal experts meet at the presidential palace with Bolsonaro. One is the president's special adviser on international affairs; the other, a Catholic priest. They bring him a draft coup decree that contemplates annulling the elections and arresting two judges of the Supreme Court and the president of the Senate. The president reviews the text and requests some modifications. Days later he receives a new version that includes new elections and the arrest of Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court judge who is leading the investigation into the failed riot and bête noire of Bolsonarism.
Bolsonaro proposes a coup against the leadership of the Armed Forces
December 7, 2022. Bolsonaro summons the leadership of the Armed Forces, Generals Marco Antonio Freire Gomes (Army), Carlos Baptista (Aeronautics) and Admiral Ailton Garnier (Navy), and the Minister of Defense to present the decree with which he intends to dress in legality which would be a constitutional break. The Navy chief embraces the idea; but not that of the ground troops (much more numerous than the sailors) nor their counterpart in
the air force.
The aforementioned admiral is now accused of coup plotting. Garnier wrote to some friends on Thursday to tell them that the police woke him up by knocking on the door at 6:15 in the morning: “Accompanied only by the holy spirit due to a trip by my wife, they took my phone and papers (…). “I ask everyone to pray for Brazil and for me.”
Pressure on the head of the Army
December 9, 2022. Bolsonaro's private secretary sends an audio to the head of the Army. It is a new attempt to convince him to participate in the coup. Cid tells him that “the president has received several pressures to make a tougher decision, but obviously, where is he going to use his forces?” And he announces that the president has reduced the coup decree.
That same day, General Theophilo de Oliveira, who was commander of the Army's ground operations, meets with Bolsonaro and, according to the indictment, agrees to join the riot as long as the president signs a decree endorsing it. The police suspect that he would lead the coup troops, and that members of the special forces—the so-called pretos kids (boys in black)—would be the ones in charge of arresting Judge Moraes.
Campaign against the “screwed up” Army chief
December 15, 2022. There are 16 days left until Bolsonaro's mandate ends.
Walter Braga Netto, a reserve general who lost the elections as Bolsonaro's number two and has been a minister, is going up the wall because the head of the Army refuses to join the coup plan. He takes matters into his own hands, messaging on WhatsApp with a shady soldier expelled from the Army for indiscipline. “Friend, unfortunately I have to tell you that the fault for what is happening and what is going to happen lies with General Freires Gomes. There is no room for omission or indecision in a combatant,” writes Braga Netto. And, when his interlocutor answers: “We are going to offer his head to the lions,” the former minister replies: “He offers his head. He is a shit.”
Immediately afterwards, the Bolsonaro digital militias are activated in a campaign against the head of the Army. They also attack the head of the Forces. Aereas, a “traitor to the country,” in the words of the vice presidential candidate, who orders the shady soldier to deploy a very different campaign (of praise) to the admiral who agreed to participate in the coup.
That same day, Bolsonaro's secretary exchanges some WhatsApp with a special forces colonel whom he asks about the whereabouts of “the professor.” Her interlocutor responds “for now she only returns to Brasilia to take possession of the thief.” [en referencia a Lula]”. Investigators have concluded that the teacher is Judge Moraes. They followed his every step for weeks.
Lula takes office
January 1, 2023. Lula assumes power in a ceremony in Brasilia in which his predecessor, who has gone to Florida so as not to give him the presidential sash, does not participate. The massive event takes place with absolute normality. There is a feeling that the danger of constitutional breakdown has passed. Lula is back at the head of state and Bolsonaro is depressed in the US. A week later the mirage explodes into the air.
Coup attempt
January 8, 2023. Sunday. Brazil is on New Year's holidays and Brasilia is deserted. Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters from the coup camp installed in front of the Army Headquarters, the work of Oscar Niemeyer, descend on the Plaza de los Tres Poderes and assault the heart of Brazilian democracy.
The police knock on Bolsonaro's door
February 8, 2024. Former President Bolsonaro and 28 other people are formally accused of plotting a coup attempt. Four of them, advisors to the previous Government, are detained in the operation Tempus Veritatis (the moment of truth); the rest, subject to various precautionary measures. Bolsonaro, who is in his summer chalet, has his passport seized and is prohibited from traveling abroad.
Valdemar Costa Neto, the president of the Liberal Party, with which Bolsonaro ran for re-election, spends two nights in the police station, although that was not the plan. The reason? The police find in her house a legal weapon in someone else's name – she says it belongs to a relative who forgot it – and a gold nugget of stolen origin.
Bolsonaro proclaims his innocence and that he is the object of political persecution.
Military clubs, fake news
February 9, 2024. The atmosphere is heated in the Bolsonaro universe. The military clubs of the Army, Navy and Aeronautics publish a joint note warning of a false news titled Defense of the Homeland, against the Tyranny of Judicial Powerl whose authorship is attributed to them.
The fake news It is a call issued by a Bolsonaro colonel who worked in the Ministry of the Environment in the previous Government. He has almost 38,000 followers on X and another 68,000 on Instagram. It is the moment of truth for Bolsonaro, the ultra generals and for Brazil.
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