A Navy soldier can be heard and seen in voice messages and videos sent in a message group encouraging anti-democratic acts in front of the Armed Forces barracks and stating that elected president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) will not take office on January 1st.
In the messages, Ronaldo Ribeiro Travassos also defends the murder of Brazilians who voted for Lula. The military member is currently stationed at the GSI (Institutional Security Office of the Presidency of the Republic), headed by General Augusto Heleno, one of Jair Bolsonaro's (PL) most faithful allies.
Sought out, he said he would not comment on his statements and argued that he did not know if it was himself in the voice messages. Folha then forwarded the conversations to the military, who did not respond. The GSI, by means of a note, said that it is not its competence "to authorize public servants to participate in any type of manifestation" and that "the supposed declarations demanded are the responsibility of the author in personal activity outside working hours".
The GSI is assigned the security of the President. Currently, therefore, he works for Bolsonaro, and starting in January he will be working for Lula. In theory, during the transition, the cabinet could help by protecting the president-elect in some places, in case he was called by the new government, and eventually act in the inauguration. However, this has been rejected by the Federal Police team that provides security for the PT member. There is a climate of distrust in the air.
The Federal police responsible for Lula's security excluded the GSI from the government transition headquarters, at the CCBB ( Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil), in Brasília. They have also avoided the GSI's participation in the inauguration and concentrated on the coordination of the event.
Travassos is a First Sergeant in the Navy and works in the administrative division of Augusto Heleno's office. He has been assigned to Palacio do Planalto since the end of 2016, when Michel Temer (MDB) was president.
Translated by Cassy Dias