Bolsonaro vetoes law to pay homage to Goulart, overthrown in 1964 coup

Brasilia, October 15 (RHC)-- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has vetoed a tribute to João Goulart, Brazil's head of state deposed by the 1964 military coup.  The coup and the dictatorship that followed has alway been defended and celebrated by Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro on Thursday rejected a bill that was to name a road after former Brazilian president João Goulart, better known as Jango, who was ousted from office by a coup in 1964.  The tribute had been approved in 2020 and indicated a 3500-kilometer stretch of the highway linking Brasília to the northern city of Belém.

In a report published in the Official Gazette of the Union, Bolsonaro states that he made this decision after consulting the ministers Tarcísio de Freitas (Infrastructure) and Ciro Nogueira (Civil House) and justifies that, among the reasons, is the fact that such road would cross eight states, which, in his opinion, would not consider "the specificities and peculiarities of each state."

The president also calls the proposal, approved by parliamentarians, "inopportune" -- claiming that the tribute could represent a mismatch with the aspirations and expectations of the population of each federative unit covered by the highway.

"It is sought that personalities of the country's history can be honored at the national level as long as the tribute is not inspired by practices dissonant with the ambitions of a democratic state," he adds.

The Brazilian Prosecutor's Office condemns Bolsonaro's decision to officially commemorate the 1964 military coup against the constitutional president, Joao Goulart.  By rejecting the bill, Bolsonaro has once again underlined his defensive stance against the coup d'état against Goulart, perpetrated by 3,452 military officers of the country, together with the support of the United States, which took place on March 31, 1964, and led to a military dictatorship of about 20 years, until 1985, and five de facto presidents.

Moreover, the leader of the Brazilian ultra-right, in March 2019, denied the existence of the military dictatorship in the Latin American country and insisted on celebrating the commemoration of the said military coup, despite the rejection of the Prosecutor's Office and the population that consider March 31 as a dark period that limited freedoms and caused hundreds of human rights abuses, disappearances and the murder of political activists.