Last week, General
Antonio Hamilton Martins Mouraõ, the real head of the Southern
Military Command (CMS), was relieved of his charge and assigned to an
administrative position in Brasilia.
The general
got in even deeper trouble in October when he encouraged members of his Command
to attend a ceremony to commemorate Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra who
had just died. The colonel had led the
DOI-CODI, a controversial Army unit responsible for “internal security” during
the military junta days.
This was in
response and punishment for the general having publicly been critical of the
President Rousseff; according to people who attended a conference held last September,
the general would have said that, should the President leave office, it would
not be a destabilizing event but would mean that “incompetence had been cast
aside.”
There is no
question that the general was out of turn and got what he deserved. It is however noteworthy that he was so
upfront in voicing his opinions. Perhaps
he felt that he was saying out loud what many of his peers were thinking.
At this
point, I do not expect Brazil to become so dysfunctional that its armed forces
would feel compelled to intervene.
Nevertheless, there are only two large and well organized social forces
in Brazil: the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) and the Armed Forces. The former is the ruling political party, it
is in trouble and it knows that it is not the only alternative to chaos.
