High-ranking officers of Brazil’s army are heard discussing attempts to urge then-President Jair Bolsonaroto to stage a coup and stay in power in a cache of leaked audio recordings from late 2022.
The Federal Police received the 53 audios, which The Associated Press accessed on Monday. They offer a unique opportunity to hear military personnel voicing their desire to prevent leftist Luiz Incio Lula da Silva from assuming office.
Some of those recordings were cited by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is in charge of the police’s extensive investigation, in his decision last week to order the arrest of five individuals for planning the 2022 assassination of then-President-elect Lula and then trying to remove him from office on January 8, 2023, when Bolsonaro supporters destroyed government buildings in Brasilia.
One former army officer’s audio, which was not mentioned in de Moraes’ order and was not among those he ordered arrested last week, is especially pro-coup.
Former Army Special Forces Subcommander Col. Roberto Raimundo Criscuoli warned retired Brig. Gen. Mario Fernandes, then second in command at the General Secretary of the Presidency, that Lula’s third, non-consecutive term gave the far-right leader a clear choice.
Either a civil war breaks out now or one will break out later. In one of the recordings, Criscuoli stated, “We have a justification for civil war now; people are on the streets, and we have massive support.” Now let’s get this done. Talk to 01.
01 is frequently used to refer to the president of Brazil.
The tapes don’t show the previous president or his ministers speaking. The recordings have nothing to do with Brazil’s police’s official charge on November 21 that Bolsonaro and 36 other people tried to stage a coup.
A request for comment regarding the Federal Police inquiry was not answered by the Brazilian army.
Bolsonaro never gave in and repeatedly questioned the election results without offering any supporting data. Days before Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023, he departed for the United States and remained there for months while maintaining a low profile. In addition to being the subject of multiple investigations for a variety of possible offenses, the top electoral court declared Bolsonaro ineligible to run for president until 2030 for abusing his position.
Other audios don’t state as clearly that a coup is urgently needed. Col. Reginaldo Vieira de Abreu used a phrase that Bolsonaro often used in a voicemail to Gen. Fernandes to argue that the nation’s constitution should be disregarded.
They are winning the fight we are in. They haven’t fired a shot yet, and it’s practically done. He said it’s because we’re incompetent.
An audio recording from December 8 shows Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp, informing Gen. Fernandes that there was not much time left to keep his boss in office.
On the 12th… I take it that it must be before to the 12th? Cid made reference to the day on which Lula’s victory would be confirmed by the electoral court. The president will hear from me. His personality can be problematic at times. He keeps waiting to find out where it’s headed. to find out who is in favor of him. But time is limited sometimes, isn’t it? We have no more time to wait.
Cid’s comment was mentioned in De Moraes’ arrest order from last week, although it omitted his entire statement.
After entering into a plea agreement with police the previous year, Cid was already on house arrest. Authorities have used his testimony to gather evidence in a number of cases against Bolsonaro and several of his top advisers, such as his chief of staff and reelection running partner Walter Braga Netto.
Gen. Fernandes, one of the people de Moraes ordered arrested last week, stated repeatedly in the audios that Brazil’s presidential election had been rigged in favor of Lula and that pressure should be used to the military high command to support Bolsonaro’s cause prior to his leftist competitor taking office.
“You know,” he replied, “no solution will be possible without cracking eggs. We must take action. The public supports us.
To put pressure on military commanders to support the then-president, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters set up camp outside army installations. According to media sources at the time, there wasn’t enough high command support for a coup. Only after the violence on January 8th, at the behest of the recently appointed army commander, did Bolsonaro supporters return home.
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