Opinion: why does Lula fear so much having the January 8 invasions in Brasilia properly investigated?

J.R. Guzzo*

Of all the efforts the Lula government has made during these first months, few have been as fierce as its relentless attack to prevent the installation of a CPI (Parliamentary Investigation Committee) from investigating the acts of violence against the Three Powers buildings (as the storming of Congress) on January 8 in Brasília.

It is as if this is the PT government’s main, or the only, program so far.

It is not the economy’s advance, the creation of jobs, the “fight against hunger”, or any of the mirages promised by Lula during the election campaign.

It is not a project to build something; it is to destroy.

It is, in short, a pitched battle in which anything goes, starting with the open buying of parliamentarians’ votes.

Stand against the CPI!

In exchange, get public money, government positions, and other fat handouts!

I wonder why not.

In an environment where there was a minimum of honesty and sincere determination to find out what really happened, the Lula government should be the first and most radical proponent of the CPI – wasn’t he, after all, the main victim of the “terrorist” attack in Brasília?

Was it not Lula that the perpetrators of the vandalism wanted to bring down?

Why, then, this sudden war against the attempt by Congress to clarify the facts?

In the first days, the PT, the left, and those around them launched into a hysterical scream in favor of the CPI – their fixed idea, at the time, was to repress, punish, arrest, and flay the (right-wing) “coup plotters”.

When he became wildly excited in his role as Lula’s dispatcher in Congress, the Senate President even said that the “first signature” calling for the CPI would be his.

Today he is among its main enemies, as are Lula and the PT.

The initial neurosis, after a few days, was substituted by silence – there was no more talk of hunting “terrorists”, investigating the facts, or doing anything else.

Today, it has been transformed into open hostility to the CPI; whoever favors the investigation is an enemy.

In the case of January 8, the only punishment that counts is the outbreak of mass arrests ordered by the STF and hidden from the public – that is, an unprecedented affront to the right of defense, the criminal process, and the rest of Brazilian legislation.

The government’s excuse is a joke: they say the CPI would “tumult” the political atmosphere and “prejudice the investigations”.

Tumult? What tumult? The tumult already happened in January; what matters is that it is really investigated.

Furthermore, since when have Lula and the PT ever worried about avoiding tumult?

Their history is to do precisely the opposite – the last turmoil they promoted was the crazy “Covid CPI” when they spent six months using the legal apparatus and the Congress funds to make a crude political campaign against their opponent in the 2022 presidential elections.

They have found absolutely nothing; this whole “Covid CPI” farce has not resulted, so far, in a single criminal case.

Lula and his system, in fact, don’t want the January 8 CPI because there is no way they want anything more to be known about the crimes committed in the attack on the headquarters of the Three Branches of Power.

Only one investigation is valid – that of the STF, which punishes even those not present at the scene of the attacks.

Furthermore, it is strictly forbidden for the Lula government to ask questions about what happened.

Again, why is this?

The only possible conclusion is that the government wants to hide something very damaging (about Brasilia’s events).

They know something that the public does not know.

They want to protect people who could get into trouble with the CPI.

If they have nothing to fear, why are they doing this?

*published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo on March 15, 2023)