General Júlio César de Arruda.Ten.
Ferrentini/ Eastern Military Command
The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lulda da Silva, unexpectedly dismissed the Army Commander, General Júlio Cesar de Arruda, in the midst of a crisis of confidence with the military after the assault on the headquarters of the three powers on Saturday. last day 8 in Brasilia.
The military man received the news this same Saturday, reports the
Folha de S. Paulo
newspaper .
The dismissed man met this Friday with Lula together with the heads of the Navy and Aeronautics, as well as the Defense Minister.
Arruda took office on December 30, taking over the Presidency.
As is tradition, the president promoted the most veteran of each weapon.
The person chosen to replace him is General Tomás Miguel Ribeiro Paiva, who is in charge of the southeastern military region, which includes the State of São Paulo.
Paiva has become known this week thanks to a speech that has circulated on social networks in which he ardently defended that the Armed Forces are a State institution, demanded respect for the electoral results, whether they like it or not, and proclaimed that the Army is apolitical and nonpartisan.
The Army, to which the previous president, Jair Bolsonaro, belonged for decades, is the largest group in the Armed Forces and where Bolsonarism has penetrated the deepest in recent years.
The aforementioned newspaper assures that the replacement was decided by the president after General Arruda did not show willingness to take the measures desired by Lula in the meeting on Friday to reduce mistrust towards the uniformed officers.
Thousands of Bolsonaro fanatics stormed the offices of the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court 12 days ago in the most serious attack against democracy since the end of the dictatorship (1964-1985).
After the coup attempt, Lula dismissed more than 80 soldiers from the presidential circle after complaining that the assailants of the palace where his office is located did not even need to break the door because someone opened it from inside.
The dismissal of the military chief has emerged while the president is visiting the Amazonian city of Boa Vista (State of Roraima) to inquire about the serious situation suffered by the Yanomami indigenous people, who live on the border with Venezuela.
Harassed by illegal miners looking for gold on their ancestral lands, this community suffers from truly alarming rates of malnutrition and malaria that have led the Ministry of Health to declare a health emergency.
Subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS America newsletter and receive all the latest news in the region.