RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday appointed three new commanders of the Armed Forces, following the insecurity generated by the replacement of the Minister of Defense and the dismissal of the military leadership.
In a brief ceremony at the Ministry of Defense, the new head of the portfolio, General Walter Braga Netto, presented General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira (Army), Admiral Almir Garnier (Navy) and Brigadier Carlos Almeida Baptista Jr (Air Force).
According to the Brazilian press, the President respected the new commanders’ choice of seniority criteria, which is valued in the military sector, and sought a consensus solution to reduce his critics who accuse him of wanting to politicize the barracks.
Braga Netto stressed at Wednesday’s ceremony that the three new commanders “remain faithful to their constitutional missions of defending the homeland, guaranteeing constitutional powers and democratic freedoms.”
The new commanders replace General Edson Pujol, Admiral Ilqes Barbosa, and Brigadier Antonio Carlos Bermudes, who left their posts in a joint action on Tuesday in a decision unprecedented in Brazil’s history.
One can only speculate about the true reasons for the concerted resignation, but some link the move to the three now-former commanders’ dissatisfaction with Bolsonaro’s decision to dismiss on Monday the Minister of Defense, Fernando Azevedo e Silva, who had been reluctant to the president’s attempts to meddle in the actions and purposes of the Armed Forces.
Others say that the resignations were instigated by Bolsonaro himself, as he is said to usually know how to thrive in somewhat chaotic situations and talk of housecleaning for things to come.
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When announcing his departure, the former minister said that during his administration, he managed to preserve “the Armed Forces as institutions of the State”. One of those who will be relieved, General Pujol, said in November that the military “do not want to be part of politics” nor that “politics enters the barracks”.
On Wednesday, that decision earned Bolsonaro a new impeachment request, added to the more than sixty against him that are accumulating in Congress.
Bolsonaro, a former Army captain and admirer of the military dictatorship (1964-85), has since his arrival to power in January 2019 placed military officers in key cabinet posts and lower echelons of government.
On Tuesday, in his first act as minister, Braga Netto said that the coup that on March 31st, 1964, installed a military dictatorship should be “celebrated” as a “movement” that allowed “pacifying the country.”
“The greatest heritage of a nation is the guarantee of democracy and freedom of its people. The military was not lacking in the past and will not be lacking whenever the country needs them,” the general pointed out during Wednesday’s ceremony.
Bolsonaro, a former Army captain, tried to refloat the coup celebrations since coming to power in 2019. Last year, then-Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva, replaced on Tuesday by Braga Netto, said that “the 1964 movement is a framework for Brazilian democracy.”
Demonstrations by his supporters often feature banners calling for a military coup under his leadership to settle his conflicts with Congress and the supreme court. Bolsonaro harangued a crowd calling for that alternative on April 19th, 2020, in Brasilia.
However, the current health crisis forced him to ally with traditional conservative parties (the ‘Centrão’ voting bloc), with an eye on his possible reelection in 2022.
Vice President Hamilton Mourão, an Army general, ruled out any risk of institutional rupture. “You can put whoever you want, there is no institutional rupture. The Armed Forces will be with legality, always”, he said in declarations to the portal G1.
Source: Infobae