For the Rest of Our Lives

Let’s cut to the chase: Oeste magazine refuses to normalize the absurd. For over two years, the unholy alliance of Lula’s government and the Supreme Federal Court (STF), propped up by a compliant media and “socially conscious” millionaires, has peddled a fiction worthy of the madhouse. This fantastical narrative, destined for Brazil’s hall of myths and legends, proclaims that an “armed coup” attempt took place on January 8, 2023. This coup was an utter failure, since its supposed arsenal consisted, according to federal authorities, of slingshots, marbles, and a lipstick bizarrely labeled an “inflammable substance.” The entire charade descends further into delusion each day. You know it. We all know it.

Oeste maintains that declaring a right angle “boils at 90 degrees” simply because the establishment blabbers the claim it does is patently absurd. Angles, of course, do not boil. Therefore, to stand idly by, heads bowed, while the STF and the left perpetrate such monumental stupidity is to become an active accomplice in the most brazen falsehood ever perpetrated by the Brazilian state. From one delusion to another, from an Alexandre-de-Moraes’ charade to the next, the political world bent to the abolition of the rule of law, abiding by the postulate that laws in this country are whatever the justice himself and his allies on the STF decree. The result: a former president facing imprisonment before trial. Oeste refuses to passively normalize this grotesque injustice.

In the two years since the STF and its Gestapo concocted this “coup,” this magazine has published seven in-depth cover stories, meticulously dismantling, with irrefutable evidence, each and every lie manufactured and mechanically disseminated by a complicit media without any checking. We further published four additional cover stories on the ensuing absurdity: the Lula-STF regime’s relentless war on a congressional-approved amnesty that would free hundreds of innocent individuals imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Amnesty, quite simply, represents the only path to extricate Brazil from the human rights morass created by the Supreme Court. It is also the Brazilian left’s top priority. Yet, “No amnesty!” they cry. Such intransigence is unprecedented.

It’s the same old story: one error begets another. The mythical “armed coup” never transpired. There was, at most, a riot in Brasília. There were no weapons. There was no conceivable way anyone could have launched a coup d’état with zero command, zero planning, and zero resources to topple a government—a textbook example of an “impossible crime,” akin to robbing a bank on Mars. The Armed Forces, demonstrably, opposed any such action. How can a military coup be perpetrated against the will of the military? In its zeal, the STF has shredded the fundamental principle of individual culpability for an offense, according to Brazil’s legal order, declaring that mere presence, or even being within five miles of a protest, warrants prosecution.

In the absence of a crime, the absence of evidence logically follows. Justice Moraes and his colleagues doubled down, fabricating evidence to fill the void. The results are two of the most ludicrous documents ever produced by the Brazilian state: the 900-page Federal Police (PF) “investigation” into the alleged coup and the Prosecutor General’s 300-page indictment accusing Bolsonaro and thirty others of “crimes against the homeland,” including the alleged assassination plot against Moraes and the poisoning of President Lula (should he happen to go to the hospital at any point in the plot).

The absurdity snowballed from there. The supposed coup plotters included some “kids pretos” (“black kids”), according to the PF and the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR), despite the absence of any credible evidence against them. The funds to overthrow the government supposedly traveled in a wine bag, yet no one can track any bag, money, or wine. The case built by the PGR hinges almost entirely on Colonel Cid’s plea bargain, a deal utterly devoid of verifiable evidence despite the colonel’s countless depositions. Moreover, his plea bargain is worthless: Moraes, for some reason, thought it was a good idea to publish a video in which he himself publicly threatens to arrest the witness, his wife, his father, and his daughter should he not “cooperate” with the “investigations.” Forget evidence.

The world is slowly waking up to the fact that Justice Moraes and his cronies are relying on a tainted plea deal that would be dismissed in any legal system with a shred of integrity. The informant has repeatedly stated that he was coerced into fabricating testimony, only to have his confession initially annulled, then inexplicably resurrected. He himself was arrested, then released, arrested again, then released again. How can Brazilian state bodies believe anything that has come out of this mess? The PGR also relies on an unsigned, undated “draft”, presenting it as being of a “coup-plotting nature”, despite the absence of a plan or a trace of any order for initiating an armed movement. All in there are ramblings about the possibility of sending a request to Congress for a license to decree a “state of siege” or “state of emergency.” This draft is journalists’ favorite piece of “evidence.”

Here’s the crown jewel commissioned by Moraes, and the inevitable consequence of the ghost train described so far: Brazil, already turned by the Lula-STF consortium into one of the top ten pariahs in the world, will now be exhibited as the legal circus of the “Global South,” in which the nation’s most popular politician is condemned to prison with an absolute absence of evidence—and by justices who are his declared enemies. What’s more, they keep saying, before the trial begins, that Bolsonaro is guilty. This can’t hold up. It’s so typical of some insignificant little country where those in charge weaponize the Justice system to silence political adversaries they cannot defeat at the ballot box. Not even a 10-year-old, if told this story right, would believe a single word of this pish posh that Moraes, the PGR, and the PF are pushing Brazilians into buying at any cost.

The STF has morphed into something resembling the oddities displayed in wax museums or some circus hoax. By the STF’s own non-negotiable demand, any criminal on the street, no matter how vile, can only be arrested with massive evidence—except for Bolsonaro and the “coup plotters” in general. In such case, the STF bends its own rule: the less evidence the police and the PGR produce, the more guilty and dangerous to “democracy” the Supreme Court claims the accused is. The truth is that justices Moraes, Barroso, Flávio Dino, Gilmar Mendes, and Dias Toffoli (the other six, combined, are worth three times zero) look increasingly like those raggedy kings in photos taken by the English to showcase the civilizational progress the British Empire had brought to Africa. You see there an individual in a dark suit, top hat, and spats. But the clothes are torn. He wears only one shoe. He has a bone through his nose. He appears sitting in a second-hand armchair—and holds an open umbrella inside the house. He wants to look like a lord; he is just himself. It’s the portrait of the Brazilian Supreme Court.

One of the most revealing frames of this entire historical hoax highlights the huge depth of the grave in which Moraes and his partners are burying Brazil. The attorney representing one of the so-called “kids pretos,” Jeffrey Chiquini, has become the object of the STF’s wrath for his persistent defense of his client. He has survived, thus far, Justice Moraes’ novel legal theories, including “perpetual flagrante delicto” and indefinite pre-trial detention for an indefinite period, along with a novel theory of evidence that shifts the burden of proof to the defendant. This is just half of it.

Under this new framework, even if the accused can definitively prove their innocence, they remain guilty in the eyes of the court. It’s even worse since that’s when they are caught in Moraes’ radar, who orders yet another padlock on the cell door. Proving one’s innocence becomes, in effect, an admission of guilt—a kind of “I smell a rat” legal doctrine, derived from the principle of universal presumption of guilt developed by the justice. Chiquini proved, within human capabilities, that his client did not do, nor could he have done, what the Moraes-PGR-PF trinity accuses him of doing. It didn’t help. But, if it’s all hopeless, perhaps it is possible to defend the accused by calling the accuser as a witness.

 That’s what the lawyer did: he subpoenaed Moraes himself to testify as a defense witness for the “kid preto” targeted by him. If the rule of law still existed in Brazil, Moraes would be compelled to appear. The defense has the right to call any witnesses deemed necessary, under the penalty of violating the accused’s right to defend himself fully.

In this case, the PF and the PGR said that Moraes is a victim of Chiquini’s client—of attempted murder, no less. So, the defendant has the right to request the testimony of the alleged victim in court. From there, we have two main hypotheses. The first is that, once Moraes declares himself a victim, he must testify in court, where committing lying under oath is a crime. In that case, he would have to recuse himself, as no one can judge their own aggressor. The second is that, once he declares that he will not testify because he is not a victim, the case is dismissed—after all, if he is not a victim, is there even a crime?

Chiquini has also subpoenaed another intriguing figure: General G. Dias. You may remember him. He is that high-ranking official who appeared as Lula’s right-hand man in security and who was recorded on video welcoming the invaders of the Congress building and ensuring their comfort by offering them bottles of water. A lightning bolt struck the general: he was dismissed right away. Yet, the government, Moraes, and the STF have never said a word about him. What was the mistake he made to be dismissed—and, if there was a crime, where’s the punishment? And, if no mistake was made, why was he dismissed? Since then, General G. Dias has become as invisible as the Loch Ness monster. What is indisputable is that the regime did not and does not want him to open his mouth. What would the general say in court?

Darkness deepens further when the STF, Lula, the left, artists, and intellectuals obsess about the fight against amnesty for the accused and convicted of January 8—and, even more fiercely, about campaigning against Bolsonaro and the “coup plotters” denounced by the PGR. The population was called to the streets to ask for amnesty. It will become visible, then, what citizens are concerned about the matter. What won’t be seen is the left calling on the masses to protest amnesty. Lula is against it. Janja is against it. Moraes is against it. The direction and cast of the movie Ainda Estou Aqui (Still Here) are against it. The bank robbers, murderers, and kidnappers amnestied by the military dictatorship are against it. Expert So-and-so is against it, and expert Such-and-such is even more against it. Singer Anitta is against it. If everyone is against it, except the “fascists,” why don’t they summon the people to the public square—would most Brazilians happen to be fascist? In truth, Moraes and the STF seem to have no shame; on the contrary, they exhale contentment with the situation they have created, and from which they benefit every day. To hell with Dr. Chiquini, “kids pretos,” and due process. To hell with evidence. To hell with Congress—whose majority today encompasses the filthiest cockroaches in the history of Brazilian parliament. And the press just loves it (Globo alone, in 2023 and 2024, has already received R$ 300 million to promote Lula III), the (public) University of São Paulo applauds, and the banks amass more billions every quarter. No corrupt is punished. The justices’ wives continue to defend causes to be judged by their husbands. For you, it’s bad. For them, it’s heaven on Earth. For Oeste, it’s an outrage we’ll be talking about for the rest of our lives.