"Brazil has today the greatest opportunity to promote a broad military reform," says Breno Altman.

247 - In an interview with TV 247, journalist Breno Altman outlined the recent history of the relationship between the federal government and the military, arguing that, in the last almost 40 years, there has never been such a concrete opportunity to conduct a structural reform in the Armed Forces.

According to him, since the return to democracy, the Presidential Palace has been trying to obtain reparations for the dictatorship, but these initiatives have never addressed the core of the fundamental problem: the punishment of the military officers who committed the atrocities of the military regime. 

"The conditions allow President Lula to move forward with a broad-spectrum military reform," emphasized Breno Altman, who was then asked if the current crisis, following allegations of military involvement in recent events, was a factor. coup attempts and terrorist actsThis should be used by progressive forces to move forward on the military issue.

"This is the best opportunity since 1985. Perhaps not even in 1985, during the transition from dictatorship to democracy, was there this chance. In 1985, the Army was very demoralized. The Armed Forces were demoralized by the entire crisis at the end of the dictatorship, the combination of a terrible economic and social crisis and the emergence of stories of disrespect for human rights. There was a possibility of breaking the military tutelage. However, those who directed that process were not the left, but the so-called liberal bourgeois opposition to the dictatorship. The left had a small participation, and the entire left had been captured by the liberal bourgeois opposition to the dictatorship. Even the Brazilian Communist Party, the Communist Party of Brazil, and other organizations that existed then had placed themselves under the leadership of the liberal bourgeois opposition at that moment, which had Tancredo Neves, essentially, as its main figure. But others participated. At that time, Fernando Henrique was already in that opposition, and others. What was the position of these people in the liberal opposition to the dictatorship? To make a transition agreement from within." From the electoral college, allowing the Armed Forces to retreat in an organized manner to their barracks, not interfering with the Amnesty Law, which dated from 1979, doing things from above and in a controlled manner. Nothing about a democratic rupture, as, in a way, began to happen in Argentina. The left, which at that time was the only left-wing party, a still weak party, the PT (Workers' Party), only the PT remained outside this pact. Brizola's PDT (Democratic Labour Party) oscillated, remaining in an intermediate position, but at that time, the rest of the left, the Brazilian Communist Party (PCdoB) being the main left-wing party, was part of the transition pact. The PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil) was part of the transition pact. It ended up saving the day, allowing the Armed Forces this organized retreat, without interfering with anything. It's not just that no one responsible for the crimes of the dictatorship was punished; not a single comma was changed in the Armed Forces' curriculum or in the Armed Forces' promotion system. The only change that would occur in those 40 years was when Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in 1999, instituted the Ministry of... "Defense, a step forward in placing the Armed Forces under civilian control, but it's a change that, without other accompanying measures, is superficial and superstructural. It has its importance, but it's superstructural," said the journalist. 

Asked whether the National Truth Commission had been a step towards a broad reform of the Armed Forces, Breno Altman assessed that there had been no effective change. 

"The change regarding the activity of the Armed Forces was the creation of the Ministry of Defense, but if the Ministry of Defense doesn't act to change the Armed Forces, it becomes a kind of link between the Armed Forces and the government, and simply loses its effectiveness. During the PT (Workers' Party) governments, there were no structural changes regarding the Armed Forces. There was, however, a process that had begun to be developed during Lula's government, but it was during President Dilma's government that the Truth Commission was established, which was decisive. It was the first time that something important would be done to investigate the crimes ordered by the military commanders during the dictatorial period. Until then, there had been, during Fernando Henrique's government and even continuing during Lula's government, a series of initiatives for reparation and compensation in relation to those who suffered at the hands of the dictatorship—imprisoned, tortured, killed, disappeared, exiled, banished. This had been happening since Fernando Henrique's government, and the Lula government would continue, even expand, this process, especially the activity of the Commission on the Dead and..." The Disappearances Commission, which had been established in 1995, was a prime example. However, no measures had been taken to investigate the crimes committed by the dictatorship, leading to the creation of the Truth Commission. The National Truth Commission had a specific characteristic: it was intended to bring to light the crimes committed by the dictatorship and identify those responsible, but it lacked punitive powers. It could not punish anyone; its purpose was merely to provide information about what happened during the dictatorial period. This was a very important initiative, but it did not structurally alter the Armed Forces. Not only did it not structurally alter the Armed Forces, but it also created tension. The Armed Forces, although left unpunished, were deeply irritated by the National Truth Commission. The National Truth Commission further led the military command to see President Dilma Rousseff once again as an enemy. This had already been the case when she was 19 years old and was arrested and tortured by the military regime. Almost 40 years after her imprisonment, she again became an enemy of the Armed Forces. "Armed Forces. The National Truth Commission was very important, but the structure of the Armed Forces was not altered, and this meant that the Armed Forces had the conditions, in that scenario of various factors of dispute and crisis in the country, for the coup-mongering they had in 2016, still in a low profile, and then assuming an increasingly leading role, which would lead to General Villas Bôas' tweet and then to full activity during Jair Bolsonaro's government, then already as a leading force," he said. 

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