Aug 18 2023 | Nº. 80

Editorial

The prospect that former president Jair Bolsonaro could be arrested before the end of the week has never seemed more likely. Indeed, this was arguably the worst week for Bolsonaro since he left the presidency. Bolsonaro, former First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro, and many of their closest aides have been the subjects of an ongoing investigation by the Federal Police (PF) into an alleged scheme by which the president illicitly enriched himself by selling off gifts he received from foreign governments during his time in office. In a bombshell late Thursday, Veja magazine—which for years published fiery, often tendentious stories against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other members of the Workers’ Party (PT)—reported that Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, a trusted Bolsonaro aide at the center of the police investigation, would admit to committing crimes at the behest of the former president. Cid was arrested three months ago and Bolsonaro supporters have long worried that he could seek to avoid a lengthy prison sentence by turning on the president. He now seems prepared to do so, a devastating development for the former president.  

Cid’s role as Bolsonaro’s alleged abettor highlights the extent to which the armed forces allowed itself to become associated with the far-right former president. Cid’s father, a retired general who has known Bolsonaro for years, began to distance himself from his erstwhile colleague as his son’s situation became increasingly intractable. Cid was Bolsonaro’s righthand man not only in the alleged plot of illicit enrichment but also allegedly in forging COVID-19 vaccination data in the Ministry of Health computer system to enable Bolsonaro to travel to the United States. Further complicating the situation for Bolsonaro, the PF on Wednesday seized four cell phones from Bolsonaro’s longtime lawyer Frederick Wassef, one of which was used exclusively for conversations with Bolsonaro. Wassef confirmed that in the United States he repurchased in cash a Rolex watch given to Bolsonaro on an official trip to Saudi Arabia, raising clear suspicions of money laundering. 

While Bolsonaro found himself in increasing legal danger this week, a delegation of progressive Democrats visited Brasília. Led by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the representatives met with Celso Amorim, Marina Silva, Guilherme Boulos, among other activists and elected officials. The overriding goal, the Ocasio-Cortez noted, was “to meet our counterparts, foster the Brazil-US relationship, and indeed highlight a path for cooperation on a wide variety of issues, such as climate, economic development, and more.” The representatives will continue their visit this week in Chile before proceeding to their final destination Colombia. 

Highlights

• HACK ATTACK. Hacker Walter Delgatti said in a statement to the Mixed Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry that Jair Bolsonaro asked him, when he was still president, to hack into an electronic ballot box to raise suspicions about the Brazilian electoral system. According to Delgatti, Bolsonaro also asked him to assume the authorship of a wiretap, that is, a non-consensual recording of a conversation, by the Alexandre de Moraes, who was president of the Superior Electoral Court and is one of the eleven members of the Supreme Court, where he leads inquiries regarding Bolsonaro and the former president's followers. The intention was to disrupt the electoral process and prevent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from being declared the winner.

• MORE REVELATIONS. The hacker Delgatti also told the Federal Police this week that he had received the equivalent of just over US$8,000 to invade the data system of organs of the Judiciary Power in Brazil. The hacker attack was financed, according to him, by the far-right federal deputy Carla Zambelli, one of the strongest names in the political sector that supports former President Jair Bolsonaro. In his testimony, Delgatti also told the police about the meetings he had with Bolsonaro at the time when the then president was running a campaign to expose weaknesses in the electronic voting machine system in Brazil and directed attacks against members of the Federal Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court.

• MISAPPROPRIATED JEWELRY. On Friday, August 11, the Federal Police launched a major operation to investigate the sale of gifts valued in the millions of dollars, such as watches and other jewelry, which were received by Jair Bolsonaro when he was still in office as President of the Republic. These gifts, offered by Saudi leaders to the then Brazilian president, were later found for sale at auctions and jewelry stores in the United States. The case involves a group of high-ranking military personnel who worked as advisors to Bolsonaro, as well as a personal lawyer, the president himself, and his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, the former first lady. Brazilian legislation considers that gifts offered by foreign leaders to the President of the Republic while in office as State gifts. The episode is one of the reasons for the growing erosion of Bolsonaro's image in Brazil.

• GOVERNMENT PRESSURE. Congressional representatives and senators who are part of the Lula government’s base of support in Congress want to include the case of misappropriated jewelry in the investigations about the frustrated January 8 coup d’état, which is currently being probed by the Mixed Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower chamber of the Congress) and the Senate. They are asking that the government seize Bolsonaro and his wife’s passports. Senator Eliziane Gama, the CPMI rapporteur, said it was "very possible" that there is a recommendation for the ex-president's indictment in the commission she chairs, but the relationship between the January 8 coup attempt and the case of misappropriated jewelry is not clear for her. In the judicial arena, Alexandre de Moraes, minister of the Supreme Court, decided to break the banking secrecy of Bolsonaro and his wife, Michelle. Moares is responsible for the investigation into the so-called “digital militias” – the name given to far-right groups linked to Bolsonaro that have been active on networks for years harassing opponents and members of the judiciary. Over the years, the inquiry led by Moraes at the Supreme Court has centralized almost all of the investigations involving Bolsonaro and members of his circle.

• BOLSONARIST REACTION. The jewelry scandal involves the suspicion of misappropriation of public goods for the personal enrichment of Bolsonaro and members of his circle. This point is important because supporters of the former president are tolerant of Bolsonaro's attacks on democracy, but have been defending the argument that he was an incorruptible leader. The revelation of the cases regarding these jewelry gifts seems to have disoriented distinguished Bolsonaro supporters who usually say they defend the fight against corruption at all costs. So far, his supporters seem to be divided into three groups: those who remain silent, those who consider the story nothing more than a “imbroglio” by Bolsonaro and his advisors; and those who try to place all the blame on the ex-president's assistants.

• MILITARY IN SIGHT. In addition to directly affecting Bolsonaro, the case of misappropriated jewelry has also dragged members of the army into the center of yet another crisis. Among those suspected of participating in the scheme are Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who was the president's assistant, in addition to his father, Retired General Mauro Lourena Cid, and Lieutenant Osmar Crivelatti. Of the three, Mauro Cid is the most implicated not only in this case, but he is also under suspicion for involvement in the coup movement during the Bolsonaro government. The Federal Police received legal permission to have access to Cid’s bank accounts and concluded that over the course of two year more than US$ 1.6 million passed through his accounts. This amount is five times greater than the income that he declared on his income taxes.

• ONCE AGAIN, THE MILITARY. The Federal Police are investigating two generals, nine colonels, a major, and a sergeant from the Brazilian Army on suspicion of involvement in the attacks against the headquarters of the executive, legislative and judiciary powers on January 8th. Some of these members of the military are being scrutinized for suspected inaction while the coup attacks were taking place and other for participation in them. The inclusion of high-ranking military personnel in investigations into attempts to forcibly overthrow the new Lula government puts the army under suspicion in yet another probe. During the Bolsonaro government, the military was brought into central decision-making and administrative positions to a degree that had not been seen in the country since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985. The investigation into their involvement in the January 8 coup attempt and in the case of the misappropriated jewelry is in stark contrasts to the fact that the army personnel were granted a blanket amnesty in 1979 during the controlled transition to democracy during the final years of the military government.

• COMMANDER ARRESTED. On Friday, August 19, the Federal Police arrested Klepter Rosa Gonçalves, the commander of the Military Police of the Federal District (Brasília), and other police officers accused of suspected omission in their duty to respond to the attacks against Praça dos Três Poderes on January 8th.  Prosecutors claim that the police commanded by Klepter were marked by "deep ideological contamination" and full of supporters of extreme rightwing "conspiracy theories."  The indictment also says that the police officers received intelligence information that dealt with the possibility of an attack on the institutions that day, but did not take the appropriate measures to prevent the events.

• BLACKOUT IN BRAZIL. A breakdown in the transmission lines left almost all of Brazil without electricity on the morning of Tuesday, August 15th. The problem affected 25 of the 26 Brazilian states, in addition to the Federal District, where the capital of Brasília is located. The interruption caused problems in computer systems, transport and commerce, as well as hospitals in the country's main cities.

• Brazil Unfiltered. In the new episode of Brazil Unfiltered, James Naylor Green speaks with Natalia de Campos, a performance and theater artists, producer, writer, educator, translator and activist born in São Paulo, Brazil. Based in New York, she founded the multidisciplinary arts collaborative Syncretic Pleasures, to produce performance and arts events with different collaborators. In 2016, she cofounded the Defend Democracy in Brazil committee in New York with a group of Brazilian activists to fight for democracy and social justice. She has taught and lectured at New York University, Columbia University, the Graduate Center of CUNY. Natalia has a bachelor's degree in history  from the University of São Paulo and a masters degree in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from CUNY Brooklyn College. On the show, Campos talks about the contribution of activism and the cultural sector in the battle for democracy.

NEWS FROM SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MOVEMENTS:

MOTHER BERNADETTE. The quilombola leader Yalorixá and human rights defender Maria Bernadete Pacífico, known as Mãe Bernadete, was brutally murdered inside her home in the district of Pitanga dos Palmares in the municipality of Simões Filho in the state of Bahia. She had been secretary for the Promotion of Racial Equality at the City Hall of Simões Filho, in addition to being a great advocate of valuing quilombola and African communities. Her son Binho do Quilombo, a former candidate for councilor and community leader, was killed with several shots in 2017 while inside his car  The National Coordination of Quilombo Articulation (CONAQ), of which Mãe Bernadete was coordinator, and other organizations working with the Brazilian Committee of Human Rights Defenders are demanding a rigorous investigation into the case by the government of the State of Bahia.

SLAUGHTER IN GUARUJA. A group of major human rights organizations sent a letter to the São Paulo State Public Prosecutor's Office demanding an investigation into the 16 deaths that took place in July in the Baixada Santista on the coast of the state of São Paulo. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Conectas, and the Vladimir Herzog Institute want public prosecutors to carry out an in-depth investigation into the circumstances surrounding the operation that mobilized 15 battalions of special operation forces with more than 3,000 police involved in these deaths.

ARTISTS FIGHT. Coletivo 342 Artes is one of the organizations engaged in the struggle for fair remuneration for Brazilian workers in the artistic music and audiovisual sector. OnThursday, August 17, these organizations published a manifesto in which they regret the intransigence of private companies in not compensating artists for the use and reuse of their works on the internet. The debate revolves around a replacement for Bill No. 2370, of 2019, which is under debate in Congress.

TIMEFRAME. Artigo 19 celebrated the announcement made on Friday, August 11 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about the creation of a Joint Working Group, in which the Brazilian government will be present, to implement the precautionary measures in favor of 11 members from the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley, who work in defense of indigenous peoples and the environment in the same region where the Brazilian indigenist Bruno Araújo Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips were murdered in 2022. The WBO is the filing organization for the injunctive relief under Article 19.

Feature Article

by Vinícius Marques de Carvalho

Transparency for an Upright State

In recent months, the performance of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) in promoting transparency has gained prominence due to a directive from President Lula. On the first day of his government, the CGU was tasked with reviewing the secrecy improperly imposed on public documents. We analyzed thousands of rejected requests for access to information and identified more than 200 cases of the denial of information based on weak arguments.

As a result, the CGU prepared formulations to guide compliance with the Access to Information Law and ordered the review of hundreds of cases. Once completed, from now on, disciplinary proceedings against members of the military serving in the government are open to public access— just as civil servant cases are. Another guideline establishes that the mention of “personal information” cannot be used as a generic justification for denial, since access to information and protection of personal data can be reconciled.

The work carried out highlights the importance of transparency for a democracy. Around the world, distrust of institutions is being exploited for anti-democratic purposes, often through disinformation. Increasing trust in institutions is a relevant measure to combat one of the main tactics for the erosion of democracy.

The positive impact on the quality of public policies is a contribution for transparency in a democracy. It facilitates social control over the efficiency and effectiveness of resource allocation and public service delivery. Well-formulated and executed public policies are an expectation of citizens and condition their confidence in democratic institutions.

The potential of transparency can be even greater with the incorporation of technological innovations that promote the publication of data in an inclusive way. In order to benefit public policies, transparency mechanisms must deliver understandable, relevant, and accessible information to stakeholders. The successful experience of the Transparency Portal can advance in the standardization of proactively published information and in the use of digital tools for the continuous improvement of public services. The resumption of the National Open Data Infrastructure Management Committee and the preparation of a new action plan for an open government are fundamental measures on this front.

Transparency is also key to promoting integrity by preventing and combating corruption. Effective transparency mechanisms, especially in the federal budget and public procurement, are associated with lower levels of corruption. This is because they allow the identification of illicit acts, discouraging them due to the risk of exposure and facilitating investigations. It is essential to expand the active disclosure of spending on social policies to other areas of the federal budget — such as tax waivers.

Thanks to transparency, society can become aware of mistakes in management, undue benefits, and decisions made without legitimate justification. It is transparency, many times, that catalyzes social mobilization for improvements in public policies. For all these reasons, guaranteeing broad access to public information and encouraging transparency must be an unavoidable commitment of a democratic, effective and upright State.

Vinícius Marques de Carvalho, Minister for the Comptroller General of the Union. This article was originally published in the newspaper O Globo, in March 2023.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.