Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Wednesday that the country’s intelligence service failed to prevent a coup attempt by supporters of former leader Jair Bolsonaro on January 8.
«The truth is that none of these intelligences — Army, the Institutional Security Office (GSI) — served to warn the president, to say that this could have happened,» he said in an interview with GloboNews.
«We made a mistake, I would say an elementary one: my intelligence did not exist,» Lula reiterated, explaining that the information he had was that no more buses would enter Brasilia.
The Brazilian president affirmed that, «if he had known on Friday that 8,000 people would come», he would not have left Brasilia, since he was in Araraquara, Sao Paulo, when the assault on the institutions occurred, on a visit in solidarity with the victims of the storms.
«I left because everything was calm. Even because we were still living the joy of the inauguration,» Lula assured.
Lula, who assured that as soon as he heard the news he went to the headquarters of the Araraquara City Hall to contact the Ministry of Institutional Security, reiterated that the assailants entered through the main door of the Palace.
«It was not a political illiterate who invaded this place. It was people who prepared this for a long time. They did not have the courage to do anything during the inauguration,» he said.
«I got the impression that it was the beginning of a coup d’état. I even had the impression that people were following the order and the orientation given by Bolsonaro for a long time,» Lula has assured.
He also criticized the former president’s decision to remain silent after losing the presidential elections, as well as his departure from the country to the United States, without participating in the inauguration ceremony.
«As if he was fleeing for fear of something and his silence after the event, gave me the impression that he knew everything that was going on, that he had a lot to do with what was happening,» he has expressed, indicating that «possibly Bolsonaro was hoping to return to Brazil in the glory of a coup d’état.»
He also criticized the arrested former minister Anderson Torres, who was also the Secretary of Security of the Federal District, warning that «all those (military) that we find who have participated in the events will be sanctioned»: «They will answer before the law», he concluded.
In spite of this, Lula stressed the need to avoid politicization of the Army. «I don’t want to get into trouble with the Armed Forces, nor do I want them to get into trouble with me: I want us to return to normality,» he said, recalling that the military has to «do its duty» and «not play politics».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
