They Don't Want Peace

For the past two years, a tactic has become routine in Brazil: during critical moments for President Lula da Silva and the justices of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), a smokescreen envelops Brasília and floods the mainstream media headlines. Very often, these fabricated scandals hearken back to the disturbance of January 8, 2023, a chapter the ruling consortium refuses to close.

This narrative was crafted through Federal Police operations aimed at arresting those involved in a post-2022 elections coup d’état that never materialized. Whenever these operations can’t manage to bring in individuals in handcuffs, dozens of cell phones and computers are seized and searched with a fine-tooth comb by the police. Subsequently, these individuals were accused of plotting a cinematic scheme involving poisoning, kidnapping, explosions, and public hangings of authorities—which never happened either.

These police actions are exhaustively explored by the mainstream media, who perpetuate the thesis that Brazil remains at risk of a coup or the assassination of the President of the Republic and STF justice Alexandre de Moraes. Furthermore, newsrooms not only disseminate these stories unchallenged, but their commentators are also unsettled by the absence of evidence tying Jair Bolsonaro to a conspiracy to cling to power, and they struggle to accept he hasn’t been arrested so far.

Two deaths, indeed, have occurred since January 8, 2023. Cleriston Pereira da Cunha, known as Clezão, aged 46, died in the Papuda penitentiary courtyard in Brasília because Alexandre de Moraes ignored defense appeals for medical treatment—even with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office’s favorable opinion. Clezão was involved in the disturbance on January 8. The other was locksmith Francisco Wanderley Luiz, also known as Tiu França, 59, who committed suicide after launching fireworks at the stone statue outside the STF. With severe psychological issues, he protested on social media against presidents Lula, Bolsonaro, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, José Sarney, and journalist William Bonner of TV Globo.

The death in the Three Powers Plaza revealed that on that fateful Wednesday the 13th, a secret meeting was simultaneously taking place in Brasília. At the table were Lula, STF justices Alexandre de Moraes, Gilmar Mendes, and Cristiano Zanin, the Prosecutor General of the Republic, Paulo Gonet, and the Federal Police Director, Andrei Rodrigues. None of them reported this meeting in their official schedules. In other words, had the tragedy not taken place, Brazilians would never have known about this gathering.

The NOVO Party has filed requests with the Civil House and is seeking other means for the participants to justify the clandestine meeting. “It is unacceptable in a constitutional state that a conspiracy among institutional leaders is used to persecute political adversaries,” stated Deputy Marcel van Hattem (RS).

While the content discussed there remains a mystery, a development followed: Alexandre de Moraes authorized the Federal Police to arrest four military personnel and a Federal Police officer.

On Thursday, the 21st, the Federal Police indicted Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others for three crimes: attempted coup d’état, violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, and criminal organization. The document, nearly 900 pages long, describes what would have been a national conspiracy that included the assassinations of Lula and Moraes. The operation, allegedly aborted at the last minute, now awaits the Prosecutor General’s decision to present or dismiss a formal complaint to the Supreme Court. This marks the first time since Brazil’s re-democratization that an elected president faces a situation of this kind.

“Justice Alexandre de Moraes is conducting the entire investigation, adjusting testimonies, making arrests without charges, engaging in fishing expeditions, and is assisted by quite a creative advisory team. He does everything the law doesn’t stipulate,” Bolsonaro stated on his X account. “I can’t expect anything from a team that uses creativity to indict me.”

Arrest of Military Personnel

The facts: the latest police operation occurred on Tuesday, the 19^th; the Federal Police claimed the country was on the brink of being attacked by a group of five men, without any support from military headquarters or paramilitary factions. In this narrative, Brazilians discovered that this group—, dubbed the “kids pretos” from Goiânia—was supposedly specialized in complex military operations. They had a messaging group called “Copa 2022” and referred to each other by country codenames: Germany, Ghana, Brazil, Austria, Argentina, and Japan, akin to the famous Netflix series Money Heist.

Once again, the conspiracy evidence consists of dialogues exchanged in WhatsApp groups and other apps, where Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin were referred to as “Jeca and Joca.” The two and Justice Alexandre de Moraes were to be “neutralized.”

What was supposed to follow these serial assassinations within a territory as extensive as 8.5 million square kilometers? Nobody discussed that. The group had no leaders—yet there’s a media effort to suggest that Jair Bolsonaro, at the very least, “knew everything.”

The Federal Police reports mention Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, a former aide to Jair Bolsonaro, and General Walter Braga Netto, who ran for vice president on Bolsonaro’s ticket. Mauro Cid has spent time in custody, has signed a plea deal, and is often summoned to testify. Braga Netto allegedly met with the group.

The central figure for the Federal Police is reserve General Mário Fernandes, arrested this week. Details of the plan—dubbed “Punhal Verde e Amarelo”—were found on his phone. The cost was supposedly R$100,000. Noteworthy: the plan, or coup draft, was printed—now, who would print an assassination plan or draft a coup d’état and then use a printer inside the Planalto Palace as if it were routine office work?

As with nearly all ongoing inquiries in Brazil, Alexandre de Moraes will handle this case. He has taken on the roles of victim, investigator, and judge, a model that exists nowhere else in the Judiciary Branch. A report by Folha de S.Paulo revealed on Wednesday, the 20th, that Moraes cited himself 44 times in the dispatch regarding the Federal Police operation. The newspaper’s headline stated, “Moraes cites Moraes 44 times.”

According to the justice, the plot had characteristics of “terrorism,” with a strong military apparatus and support from military vehicles—although the only vehicular reference was the movement of a Fiat Palio from Brasília to Goiânia on November 15, 2022. The news website Metrópoles reported that one reason for the plan’s failure was one of the militaries “kids pretos” failing to catch a taxi to their destination.

“The phase of contemplating a crime is not punishable under any circumstances, whatever the crime may be,” stated jurist Fabricio Rabelo. “Thus, if someone thinks about killing another person, for example, and does nothing to act on those thoughts, no punishment can be applied. If a suspicion of crime involves homicide, the alleged victim can never function as the judge in the case,” he added.

Comrade Moraes

This entire elaborate operation unfolded in the wake of the greatest diplomatic blunder committed so far. Janja da Silva’s insults against Elon Musk made headlines worldwide. In the same statement, she also referred to Alexandre de Moraes as a “comrade” in political trenches. Article 2 of the Constitution mandates the independence of the Republic’s Branches, but this is treated as a relic of the past by the STF.

There is a consonance between what Lula and Janja say—expletives and vulgarities aside—and the speeches of Moraes, Senior Justice Gilmar Mendes, and the Court’s president, Luís Roberto Barroso, among others. Here are excerpts of recent statements from the justices regarding the man who used fireworks to commit suicide in front of the Supreme Court.

1. “It’s a context that began long ago when the infamous ‘hate cabinet’ started spewing hate speech against institutions, primarily against the STF, against the Judiciary Branch’s autonomy, and against the justices and their families.” (Alexandre de Moraes)
2. “Although extremism and intolerance reached their peak on January 8, 2023, the crude ideology that inspired the attempted coup did not emerge suddenly […] Hate speech, political fanaticism, and the disinformation industry were largely encouraged by the previous government.” (Gilmar Mendes)
3. “Some people moved from indignation to pity, seeking to normalize the absurd. They fail to see that they encourage the same type of behavior to recur. They want to forgive without first condemning.” (Luís Roberto Barroso)
4. “The attack is not on the STF building. The attack is against legality, against the Constitution. Yesterday, a citizen commented: ‘My solidarity, I am right-wing.’ I said: ‘So what? You have a left hand and a left leg; you are more than a partisan.’” (Flávio Dino)

On the same day, Jair Bolsonaro made completely opposing statements, using the word “pacification” after the tragedy. He wrote on X: “Institutions play a fundamental role in building this dialogue and this environment of unity. Therefore, I appeal to all political currents and leaders of national institutions to take the necessary steps towards national pacification at this tragic moment. The winner will not be any one party, leader, or political faction. It will be Brazil.”

There’s no doubt Jair Bolsonaro has always been the ultimate target of the Supreme Court’s inquiries. However, as J.R. Guzzo wrote in an article published this week in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, “Does the incompetence of the investigations reach the point of working on a case for two years without gathering any evidence that holds up? There is nothing, at least that the STF has deemed sufficient so far, to imprison Bolsonaro. Otherwise, it’s obvious he would be in jail.”

The fact is that after years of persecution, arrests, and fines, not even the defense attorneys know how many inquiries remain open, who is still under investigation or since when. Nor is it possible to ascertain what might have been real or pure fantasy in the secret plans reported by the Federal Police as meant to kill authorities—the most plausible, however, is to believe they are nothing other than nonsensical half-baked dialogues. But it’s clear who doesn’t want peace—and who benefits from keeping the country stuck on January 8, 2023.