Brasilia, March 28 (RHC)-- In Brazil, former presidential candidates Fernando Haddad and Guilherme Boulos say they “completely disavow” President Jair Bolsonaro's decision to allow the Ministry of Defense to celebrate Brazil’s March 31st military coup of President João Goulart in 1964.
According to Haddad, the 2018 candidate for the Workers’ Party (PT), the leftist party that Goulart also once led, and Socialist Party member Boulos, the celebration promotes violence, torture and undemocratic values.
In a joint statement, the leftist politicians say they “completely disavow... Bolsonaro authorizing commemorations of the anniversary of the 1964 military coup.” They added that such an event “encourages violence, torture and all the values that have already been defeated.”
Brazil’s public prosecutor’s office say they are also against Jair’s coup celebrations. According to G1 Globo the national public prosecutor came out with a statement that read: "Celebrating the dictatorship is ... celebrating an unconstitutional regime responsible for serious human rights violations. This initiative deserves social and political repudiation," said the state lawyers.
"In fact, using the public structure to defend and celebrate constitutional and international crimes violates the most basic principles of public administration, which may characterize an act of administrative impropriety," the top prosecutors said.
Haddad and Boulos were in Brasilia this week to meet with other opposition leaders to strengthen a coalition against the current right-wing administration. The two met with the governor of the state of Maranhão, Flavio Dino from the Communist Party and Sonia Guajajara, former vice presidential candidate who ran alongside Boulos in last years elections met in order to strength a legislative bloc against the government, according to O Globo newspaper.
The group will release a public statement on March 31st denouncing the over two decades of torture, murder and disappearance that took place during the United States-back overthrow of Goulart who was allied to the Soviet Union and was implementing agrarian and education reforms.
PT President Haddad said that the current government is "particularly worse" than the previous government of Michel Temer that overthrew democratically-elected president Dilma Rousseff in 2016. “The government has gotten worse quickly. … It’s worse than the government of Temer,” said Haddad. “We have to present an alternative to the Bolsonaro government," Haddad told reporters in Brasilia.
As Bolsonaro voted to oust Rousseff when he was a congressional member in 2016, he infamously honored a known torturer during the dictatorship Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra who once accused Rousseff of being a "terrorist." "For the memory of Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the dread of Dilma Rousseff," said Bolsonaro during the vote that overthrew Rousseff.
