The Brazilian Navy issued a statement reaffirming its loyalty to the country’s constitution and laws after reports emerged that the force came very close to participating in a coup late last year to keep then-President Jair Bolsonaro in power. . In the text, Navy senior leaders say the positions of some members do not reflect the force as a whole.
On Thursday, an excerpt was released from joint testimony by Jair Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, who testified that then-Navy Chief Admiral Almir Garnier placed his troops at the disposal of the former president for an armed action to prevent the inauguration of Lula da Silva, the winner of the October presidential election, and keep the defeated Bolsonaro in office. According to Sid, at the end of the year, Jair Bolsonaro called the commanders of the Navy, Air Force and Army for an extraordinary meeting, told them that he did not want to leave the government, and asked for support for him in an exceptional action that he and the military would come to power, and that the admiral immediately supported this plan, but it was not implemented because the army, the largest military force, did not agree to participate.
This Friday, in a show of considerable confusion, Defense Minister José Múcio Monteiro admitted that Brazil had almost entered a new dictatorship and declared that Admiral Almir Garnier was in fact “not 100% on the side of the law”, but that he was already in retirement, and the admirals who command these armed forces today have no doubt about respect for the Constitution, democracy and existing laws. In the statement, the Navy maintains the same tone, reaffirming that it is a “national, permanent and regular agency” and not a government agency, and guaranteeing to operate within a framework of “faithful compliance with the law, ethical values and transparency.”