Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, fired his Chief Minister of Institutional Security on Wednesday after it was revealed that he had a suspicious role in the invasion and destruction of the Planalto Palace on January 8.
Images from security monitors show General Marcos Gonçalves Dias, head of the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI), together with a subordinate who guides the invading hordes and even offers them water. It was the first dismissal of a minister in Lula’s third presidency, which he took office on January 1.
The Brazilian media highlight that General Gonçalves Dias had informed Lula of his presence at the Planalto Palace on January 8, but everything indicates that he did not explain to the president the scope of the actions of his subordinates. Hours before the dismissal -presented as resignation- of the minister, CNN Brazil broadcast unpublished images from the Planalto security camera circuit.
“The government has adopted all the measures that concern it in the investigation,” Planalto said in a statement. “The government’s orientation remains the same: there will be no impunity for those involved in the criminal acts of January 8,” he added.
The departure of Gonçalves Dias from the government is a political and personal blow for Lula. The general was responsible for his security between 2003 and 2009 and was long considered the “shadow” of the president, one of the people closest to the veteran leftist leader.
The images “complicated the already fragile position” of Gonçalves Dias, considered “Folha de São Paulo”.
In recent days, the GSI had claimed that there were no images that showed in such detail what happened during the invasion of the Bolsonaro hordes of the Plaza de los Tres Poderes, to later argue that these images were “secret”. The leak that took them to television destroyed that strategy and put Gonçalves Dias under suspicion.
The dissemination of the images by CNN Brazil forced Lula to summon six of his ministers, the head of the Federal Police and the vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, to a meeting to decide what to do. Then, in a one-on-one meeting with Gonçalves Dias, he led the resignation of his minister until then.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
