The fact that an officer of the Brazilian Air Force, on June 25th,  was found with 39 kgs of cocaine, is not, in reality, anything very strange. It is not the first time and it will not be the last one that drugs will be found and transported in aircrafts linked to the Armed Forces. This case, occurred in a plane that would give support to the presidential aircraft, suggests that it was a customary practice of using and abusing of this procedure. It also indicates the existence of a net under the coverage of the hierarchy of the leadership and not just a simple misfortune, as it has explained the talkative general Augusto Heleno. 

The relationship between militaries (especially officers) of the Armed Forces with the traffic dealers is not new. On April, 2019, for instance, an Air Force major was condemned by the Civil Justice to 16 years of prison for international drug trafficking and criminal association. He was found with 32,9kg of cocaine in a Brazilian Air Force (FAB) plane, a very similar situation to the recent one.

In 2015 and 2011, two colonels, also from FAB, were condemned for international drug trafficking. In 2013 another military was also condemned, this time a lieutenant of the Army, for the same reason.

In 2018 were recorded 228 cases involving the traffic, possession and use of drugs by militaries, on a evident and shameful demonstration that those are not exceptions neither punctual cases. The verification was accomplished by the media monopoly, Veja magazine, one of the supporters of the regime of exploitation and oppression, the Armed Forces being their guardians.

Being the drug trafficking a profitable business financed by a sector of the tycoons of the financing capital of the great local bourgeoisie and landownership, and the Armed Forces being the custodian of those classes, such a promiscuous relationship is unavoidable.

Crisis in the government and in the Armed Forces

The statement of the Chief of the International Security Cabinet (GSI), general Augusto Heleno, that the flagrant about the smuggler in uniform was occasional, it has irritated even Bolsonaro’s son, Carlos, who is considered “the best prepared” in the family and “responsible” for his father’s victory. The fascist son has blamed the general for not carrying out a searching of the aircraft crew.

According to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, Carlos Bolsonaro commented: “Why do you think I do not have a security guard? Principally  those at my disposal by GST? Most of them may be well-intentioned men and I reckon they are, but they are subject to something I do not believe in. I have shouted in vain for months and unfortunately I have been ignored.”

It is not the first time Carlos mistrusts the generals. There have been some inquiries from Bolsonaro’s group on the investigation on the attack against the president and it was argued that the action was of responsibility of the high Generalate, as we have previously analysed.

Carlos Bolsonaro and Olavo de Carvalho, responsible for generating crisis after crisis in the highly placed officials of Bolsonaro’s government (as they are the spokespersons of the far-right wing that, for the moment, cannot be pronounced by the President himself), have defeated some of the generals in the fight between Bolsonaro’s group and the secret military government of the High Command of the Armed Forces (ACFA).

Everything is an indication of one more crisis, a reflex of the contradictions between the right-wing (led by ACFA) and the far-right wing ( led by Bolsonaro, Carlos, Olavo et caterva). Bolsonaro’s presence in close to 16 military activities indicates that the president is searching to reinforce his support among the troops, pressing ACFA to gain a parcel of them for his fascist project and to impose a military regime that he advocates.

The result of the fight for the leadership of the counter-revolutionary offensive in dispute between Bolsonaro’s group and ACFA cannot be foreseen. The struggle between them will go on growing and may have a violent outcome albeit this is not the principal trend.

As a president, Bolsonaro has been limited to his coup-oriented speeches and he uses all opportunities to attack and wear out the already demoralised Congress, while his cronies outside the government strike the Federal Supreme Court. The project that only a military regime can keep the “order” in the country and set the motherland, the family, the moral and the good customs free of  the communism threat has been carried out all the time. With its demagogic propositions, that group tries to create a public opinion amidst the middle sectors of the population and cultivate the masses handled by the evangelical churches to serve as an object of manipulation to support his plan. Likewise, Bolsonaro searches in the Armed Forces, principally exploiting and bullying them, through his henchmen, the contradictions of the troops with the privileges of the high officership.

For the present, ACFA tries to avoid the open and public confrontation. The generals put their trust that in the long run a larger attrition will be produced between Bolsonaro and his civil fascist basis and the troops; so they go on ruling de facto, thanks to the tutelage exercised by the Haiti Group, although with stumblings and setbacks. The project of the ACFA hegemonic right-wing is to gather forces to get rid of Bolsonaro whenever possible, neutralise the far-right wing within the troops ( especially among the militaries with no graduation, sergeants and sub-officials) and get on with, within the constitutional framework, the military coup unleashed with the “Lava Jato Operation”. In accordance with the project, the coup d’État would reform the present judicial system – the most possible under a constitutional and “legal” cover – in a way to centralise the power in the Executive, maintaining the appearance of “functionning of the institutions” when actually they would only be advisory services.

It remains to the people’s masses, through the combative fighting in defence of their trampled rights, the road to rebellion.