RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourão said Monday that General Eduardo Pazuello, former Health Minister, may be “punished” by the Army for attending a political rally promoted by President Jair Bolsonaro.
“It is an internal matter of the Army,” but “he will likely be punished” as the internal regulations of the Armed Forces vetoes the participation of military personnel in explicitly political acts, said Vice President Mourão, who is a reserve general.
Pazuello, Minister of Health between May 2020 and last March and whose management of the coronavirus pandemic is investigated by the courts for suspicions of irregularities, participated this Sunday in Rio de Janeiro in a caravan of hundreds of motorcycles led by Bolsonaro.
At the end of the ride, the president addressed his followers from an improvised stage where Pazuello was also present, who even went so far as to harangue those attending a demonstration that breached all the social distancing measures in force in Rio de Janeiro due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Both Bolsonaro and Pazuello, like most of those present, did not wear masks, something usual for the president and supporters of the right-wing denialist party he leads, who minimize the seriousness of a pandemic that has already killed nearly 450,000 Brazilians.
In the case of Pazuello, besides having violated the rules of the Armed Forces, which prohibit the participation of its members in political acts, his attitude was also reproached by senators of a parliamentary investigative committee (CPI) into alleged omissions of the Government in the fight against the coronavirus.
The general testified before that committee last week, as a witness, and said under oath that he was “always” a “promoter of social distancing and the use of masks”, something that in reality did not occur during his administration – and certainly not this Sunday.
“I do not doubt that he should be summoned again by the committee because it is proven that he lied and lied a lot,” declared this Monday Senator Omar Aziz, president of the so-called “Covid CPI”.
According to Aziz, Pazuello’s “lies” to the commission have been “proven” with his participation in a political demonstration that, in his opinion, was “a ride of bikers of the apocalypse” who “seemed to celebrate the 450,000 dead” by Covid-19.