Brazil: linked to assault on Planalto, Lula’s security chief resigns and opposition calls for his arrest

The head of the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI) of the Presidency of Brazil resigned this Wednesday after the disclosure of internal videos of the January 8 attacks in Brasilia, in the first ministerial leave of the third government of Lula da Silva.

Army general Marco Edson Goncalves Dias presented his resignation after the CNN Brazil channel released images from the security cameras of the Planalto Palace during the Bolsonarista invasion, in which Gonçalves Dias appears.

“I have made my position available to the President of the Republic so that the entire investigation can be carried out,” he said in an interview with the GloboNews channel in which he defended his actions.

In the snippets released by CNN, it shows circulating in the corridors of the buildingand in a moment interact with protestersapparently “putting them on display,” according to CNN.

“I entered Palazzo Planalto after it was invaded and he was clearing people from the third and fourth floorsfor them to be detained (…) In the room next to the president’s office, I removed three people and ordered them to get off,” Gonçalves Dias justified in the interview.

The videos also show at least two GSI officials shaking hands and giving bottles of water to the invadersaccording to CNN.

“Image taken out of context”

But Gonçalves Dias, who took office on 1 January, says so his image has been taken out of context.

“They combined my image with that of that soldier who distributes water, (but) it is a specific cut in the production of these videos (…) is an absurd“, he assured.

The GSI, made up mostly of military personnel, advises the head of state on matters of national security and defenseand is responsible for the personal safety of the President, Vice President and their families.

Thousands of radicalized followers of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday, January 8, dissatisfied with Lula’s victoryinvaded and vandalized the headquarters of the three powers, causing millionaire damage and crisis in the first week of government.

At that time in Planalto there were “many teams left over from the previous management, including GSI, which were removed in the following days”, the presidency reported in a statement on Wednesday.

“All military involved in January 8 are identified and investigated“, the government added.

Bolsonaro, who was in the US on the day of the coup, was included in the investigation who tries to determine who the instigators and masterminds were.

The former president denies any participation in the attacks, for which there have been more than 1,800 inmates and a hundred people accused before justice.

Call for the general’s resignation

The Brazilian opposition is calling for the prison of General Marco Goncalves Dias after the release of the video in which he is seen with a passive attitude in front of the activists who invaded the Planalto Palace.

President Lula da Silva sacked the general on Wednesday after an emergency meeting after the military made his resignation available.

Deputy Carla Zambelli, close to former president Jair Bolsonaro, said: “we are about to ask for the prison of General Goncalves Dias, he was the shadow of Lula, he was her bodyguard for four years“.

Zambelli, like other opponents, “asked” for the creation of a joint parliamentary commission of inquiry (CPMI) into the events of January 8.

Meanwhile, the pro-government senator Omar Assis affirmed that “Goncalves Dias is a correct person, who had 800 men under his orders, who did not answer to him, who They responded to the previous government“, which allowed the depredation of the Planalto.

In an interview on Thursday, Assis said: “I think the CPMI will be approved next week, we want to investigate who financed the coup.”

AFP AND ANSA