In his recent testimony, leaked to the press today, former Brazilian Air Force (FAB) commander Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior tried to relieve the image of the reactionary army. He said Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, then army commander, threatened to arrest Bolsonaro if his movements were continued for an institutional rupture during a meeting in December 2022, in which both were presented to Bolsonaro's preparations.
Let's do it by steps. Firstly, given the latest events, the brigadeiro must be invited that the nation has no reason to believe absolutely in the word of a high military officer. The credibility of the barracks, given the latest events, is not a highly valued article out there. Who assures us that this is not just a lie, to clean the image of the institution?
Secondly, although it is true, it is still a fun threat. At the moment Freire Gomes said these strong words to Bolsonaro, the country was convulsing with armed actions of various types performed by far-right groups in the Midwest (Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul), North (Rondônia, Pará ) and South (Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul), all with modus operandi similar and with different levels of complexity, including robberies at inspection posts on the highways.
While Freire Gomes was considering taking action to prevent an institutional rupture, all the important installations of the Brazilian Army, in all regions of the country, were being agitated by "green chickens", coordinated throughout the national territory, with modus operandi similar and with a single watchword: “federal intervention”.
When Freire Gomes gave his "terrible ultimatum" to Bolsonaro, the former president's aide-de-camp at the time, Mauro Cid, agreed with active officers of the Army's Special Forces on amounts of money to be passed on by the president to carry out demonstrations and even indications of where to hold them – indicating that everything that appeared as a mass movement for the military coup had an operational hard core that operated from within the reactionary army.
Anyway, while Freire Gomes said, Bolsonaro and his core-hard, with operating strength and political centralization, acted. If Freire Gomes would arrest Bolsonaro if something were done in the course of the rupture: what was missing to arrest him, man pale?! Has it been stupid the former commander, the type who does not see the explicit reality under his eyes? It is obvious that its great warning to Bolsonaro was innocuous: despite it, the entire coup joint occurred under his powerless eyes, and only did not result in a coup d'état because he would not have support from the United States.
It's no use. We all know what Freire Gomes' role is in history: the prevaricating general.