Wednesday, January 18, 2023 | 9:08 p.m.
In his first television interview since the coup attempt on January 8, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accused Jair Bolsonaro of being the instigator of the coup and blamed the different intelligence services of his country for not warning about what in his opinion was “the beginning of a coup d’état.”
“The truth is that none of the intelligence served to notify the president that this could have happened. My intelligence did not exist ”, he affirmed to the GloboNews chain.
In addition, Lula said that he had the impression that the group of assailants of Congress, the presidential palace and the headquarters of the Supreme Court “were following orders and guidelines that (Jair) Bolsonaro gave for a long time,” he emphasized.
In the interview, Lula stated: “I was left with the impression that it was the beginning of a coup. I even had the impression that people were following orders and guidelines that Bolsonaro gave for a long time.”
It is not the first time that Lula accuses Bolsonaro of being the instigator of the coup. The same day of the events, the president accused him of inciting the attacks against the headquarters of the three branches of government. According to him, “there are several speeches” by the former president in which “invasions and barbarism were encouraged.”
Lula also criticized the lack of intelligence reports that would warn about the danger of an assault like the one that Brazilian democracy experienced.
“We have intelligence from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, the Army, the Navy, the Aeronautics. In other words, the truth is that none of this intelligence served to notify the President of the Republic that this could have happened ”, he assured.
In this context, Lula affirmed: “If I had known on Friday (January 6, two days before the assault) that 8,000 people would come here (Planalto Palace, seat of government), I would not have left Brasilia. I went out because everything was calm”.
The president was that day in Araraquara, São Paulo state, where he had attended to express his solidarity with the victims of the floods.
Lula recalled that when he found out about the assault on Congress, he called the head of the institutional security cabinet, Gonçalves Dias.
“I start to hear the news. I went to the mayor’s office (of Araraquara), accompanied by the computer. I called Gonçalves Dias. I called and asked: Where are the soldiers?
“It was not some political illiterate who invaded here. They were people who prepared that for a long time, ”he emphasized.
He also stated that “they did not have the courage to do anything during the act of posing” on January 1. We made a mistake: my intelligence did not exist.”
In this sense, he explained that when he left Brasilia on Friday price “everything was calm. The information said that there were 150 people in the camp” in front of the army headquarters.
According to what he said, the reports indicated that “they would not allow more buses to enter, that they would not allow anyone else to come together. I traveled to San Pablo in the greatest tranquility and what happened happened, ”she maintained.
