Foto: Roberto Casimiro /Fotoarena/Folhapress

Ao longo da corrida eleitoral de 2022, o então candidato Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva assumiu por diversas vezes o compromisso de desmembrar o atual Ministério da Justiça e da Segurança Pública em dois – alegava ser necessário dar maior prioridade à segurança. Passadas as eleições, em 9 de dezembro, pouco antes da despedida do Brasil da Copa, o petista alterou sua orientação, no que alguns viram como a primeira quebra de promessa de campanha. Lula anunciou a manutenção do desenho adotado por Bolsonaro de um ministério único, a ser chefiado pelo senador Flávio Dino, do PSB maranhense.

Em entrevistas à imprensa, Dino disse que a manutenção do modelo de Bolsonaro foi proposta pela equipe de transição, após ponderar melhor sobre os efeitos do desmembramento. O fundamento, disse o futuro ministro, é a necessidade de integração entre a Justiça e a Segurança Pública como esferas de atuação do estado. Afinal, de pouco adianta a polícia agir numa direção e os tribunais ou o Ministério Público agirem em outra. Uma boa política de segurança requer sinergia entre as diferentes engrenagens do sistema, o que reter os dois temas numa mesma pasta ajudaria a promover.

A fala de Dino soa razoável, mas a verdade é que não existe fórmula exata para se organizar governos, havendo prós e contras em modelos com maior ou menor concentração.

Criar ministérios específicos pode ampliar custos, não só financeiros (o que costuma interessar mais à imprensa), mas de coordenação. Mas também ajuda a dar visibilidade às pautas e permite maior especialização e agilidade na gestão. Dividir foi a solução adotada, por exemplo, na Economia, área em que Lula sinalizou o desmembramento da superpasta ocupada por Paulo Guedes em nada menos que três unidades: Fazenda; Planejamento; e Indústria e Comércio.

Nesse contexto, a opção de Lula por um ministério único para a Justiça e a Segurança parece fundada mais em razões práticas que teóricas. Uma delas, senão a principal, é a ocupação em massa, por policiais e outros agentes do setor, dos cargos e funções comissionadas do atual Ministério da Justiça e da Segurança Pública – uma realidade com a qual a equipe de transição certamente deve ter se defrontado. Essa prática teve início ainda nos governos do PT, mas se consolidou nos governos Michel Temer e Jair Bolsonaro.

O ministério não divulga dados precisos sobre o perfil dos ocupantes de seus cargos e funções, mas quem anda pelos corredores do Palácio da Justiça sabe que hoje o prédio mais se parece com um quartel ou batalhão. A criação de um Ministério da Segurança agravaria o cenário, gerando pressão para que as polícias fossem ali acomodadas, numa divisão de espaços entre “juristas” no Ministério da Justiça e policiais no Ministério da Segurança, que colocaria em risco (se é que não subverteria de vez) a capacidade do terceiro governo Lula de construir um legado próprio no combate à violência.

Policiais podem trazer uma contribuição importante para a formulação e implementação de políticas de segurança, mas elas não podem ser matéria exclusiva da polícia. Pelo contrário, uma boa política de segurança envolve ações públicas e sociais de prevenção; elaboração de planos e pactos integrando União, estados e municípios; e produção de bons diagnósticos sobre a dinâmica da violência nos territórios. Isso tudo demanda a capacidade de diálogo com ativistas de ONGs, universidades, e setores como educação, saúde e assistência social nos três níveis de governo – federal, estadual e municipal. Policiais não têm treinamento para isso.

A tarefa do governo Lula em relação às polícias é subordiná-las à lei e aos governos eleitos.

Além disso, há intensas disputas corporativas entre as diferentes polícias, de maneira que a ocupação de cargos e funções, por exemplo, por policiais civis gera uma demanda de representação por policiais militares com a qual o governo passa a ter que lidar. Com toda uma estrutura nova a ser ocupada, o Ministério da Segurança Pública desmembrado poderia facilmente sucumbir a essa lógica de loteamento.

Por fim, é inegável que as polícias se tornaram muito próximas do bolsonarismo, como ficou evidente pela atuação da Polícia Rodoviária Federal nas eleições e pela (não) reação de diversas polícias aos atos golpistas que se seguiram às eleições. Tomará tempo e energia política desfazer essa associação. Até lá, a tarefa do governo Lula em relação às polícias é subordiná-las à lei e aos governos eleitos – ou, como Dino tem dito, fazer delas uma verdadeira burocracia. A criação de uma pasta que, em maior ou menor grau, acabaria inevitavelmente controlada por policiais poderia comprometer esses esforços – isso se a pasta não se convertesse num instrumento para entrincheirar o bolsonarismo no estado.

Como disse Lula na campanha, a segurança pública deve ser uma prioridade do novo governo. Foi o fracasso das gestões do PT no setor que deu combustível a políticos de extrema direita, como Jair Bolsonaro e Sergio Moro, cujas propostas – armamento da população civil e licença a policiais para matar – são tão inócuas quanto atrativas para amplos segmentos da população.

Apesar da queda dos índices de homicídios, o Brasil continua sendo um país violento, e algumas formas de violência aumentaram, como a violência de gênero, o crime organizado na Amazônia e as mortes por armas de fogo em conflitos interpessoais. E a legislação atual – um dos poucos legados positivos do governo Temer – atribui ao governo federal a tarefa de coordenar uma política nessa área, o que torna menos plausível a saída adotada no governo Dilma de dizer que a segurança é matéria de competência dos estados. Tudo isso convidaria a criação de um ministério próprio para a segurança pública.

Mas decisões políticas têm seu contexto e, se na desafiadora transição para um país pós-Bolsonaro, criar esse ministério significaria permitir a colonização da pauta pelas polícias, é melhor trabalhar com o que temos.

The post Lula mantém Justiça e Segurança Pública juntas para evitar criação de ministério-quartel appeared first on The Intercept.

Christine Lambrecht has been accused of “shaming” her country.

President Zelensky is pushing for the first tranche of new 18 billion euro assistance package to be sent this month.

AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson

• Kellyanne Conway says Melania Trump is the one person Donald Trump fears.
• Conway testified to the House panel that she remembers texting the First Lady on January 6, 2021.
• Conway said she asked Melania to “please talk to” Trump about the Capitol riot.

Former President Donald Trump fears one person: his wife, Melania.

That’s according to onetime White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway’s testimony to the House panel investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. A transcript of Conway’s November 28 interview with the select committee’s investigators was released by the panel on January 2.

Conway, a pollster who helped Trump get elected in 2016, said she did not speak to the former president during the Capitol riot, but tried contacting his wife instead.

“I texted Melania Trump that day, though, for sure,” Conway told the panel’s investigators. 

“I texted her, please — something to the effect of, you know, please talk to him, because I know he listens to her,” Conway said. “He reserves — he listens to many of us, but he reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.”

Conway said she did not immediately receive a response because the former First Lady “didn’t have her phone.” 

“She didn’t know what was going on. And I’m offended that nobody ran in there to tell the First Lady of the United States that, I mean, she and her teenage son may be, I don’t know, at risk,” Conway told the January 6 panel.

Conway said she only received a response to her text when the First Lady was done with “cataloging things” and “saw what was going on.” Conway did not specify how long it took for her to receive a response. 

Glamour reported on January 8, 2021, that Melania Trump was doing a photo shoot of rugs and other items in the East Wing when rioters broke into the Capitol. The former first lady corroborated this story in an interview with Fox News Digital published on July 21, 2022.

“On January 6, 2021, I was fulfilling one of my duties as First Lady of the United States of America, and accordingly, I was unaware of what was simultaneously transpiring at the US Capitol Building,” she told Fox News Digital. 

She added that it was her “obligation” to take archival photographs of the White House’s rooms. 

“Several months in advance, I organized a qualified team of photographers, archivists, and designers to work with me in the White House to ensure perfect execution,” she told Fox News Digital. “As required, we scheduled January 6, 2021, to complete the work on behalf of our Nation.”

Melania Trump’s statement in July 2022 came a month after onetime Trump aide Stephanie Grisham shared texts that appeared to show the former first lady refusing to condemn the violence during the Capitol riot. 

“Do you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness & violence?” read a text message shared by Grisham. This was part of a screenshot of a text exchange that appeared to be between Grisham and a person named “MT.” 

“No,” the person replied. 

—Stephanie Grisham (@OMGrisham) June 28, 2022

Grisham told The Washington Examiner that “MT” was Melania Trump.

“I resigned immediately after her response,” Grisham told the outlet. The former Trump press secretary resigned on January 6, 2021, and was the first Trump official to step down after the Capitol riot. 

Conway and representatives for Donald and Melania Trump did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

Russian nationalists and some lawmakers have demanded punishment for commanders they accused of ignoring dangers as anger grew over the killing of dozens of Russian soldiers in one of the Ukraine war’s deadliest strikes.

In a rare disclosure, Russia’s defence ministry said 63 soldiers were killed on New Year’s Eve in a fiery blast that destroyed a temporary barracks in a vocational college in Makiivka, twin city of the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine and some Russian nationalist bloggers have put the death toll much higher, in the hundreds, though pro-Russian officials say such estimates are exaggerated.

Russian critics said the soldiers were being housed alongside an ammunition dump at the site, which the Russian defence ministry said was hit by four rockets fired from U.S.-made HIMARS launchers.

The strike on Makiivka came as Russia was launching what have become nightly waves of drone attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

Ukrainian officials said Russia had on Monday struck Ukraine-controlled parts of the Donetsk region, hitting the village of Yakovlivka, the city of Kramatorsk and destroying an ice rink in the town of Druzhkivka.

The governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, which along with neighbouring Donetsk forms the industrial Donbas claimed by Moscow, said on Tuesday Ukrainian forces had made steady advances in the direction of Russian-held Svatove and Kreminna.

“(Russian forces) are used to having a complete advantage in both artillery and shells. Now we have reached parity and our artillerymen are shooting better, hitting more ammunition depots and barracks, while firing far fewer shots,” Governor Serhiy Haidai told Ukrainian television.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s military General Staff said a Dec. 31 strike on a Russian-held area of the southern Kherson region had killed or injured some 500 Russian troops.

Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield accounts.

The governor of Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in a Tuesday morning update for his region that Russian forces had attacked Ukrainian positions overnight along the front line, with one person killed in the Ukraine-held city of Bakhmut.

Russian military bloggers said the extent of the destruction at Makiivka was a result of storing ammunition in the same building as a barracks, despite commanders knowing it was within range of Ukrainian rockets.

Igor Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian troops in eastern Ukraine who is now one of the highest-profile Russian nationalist military bloggers, said hundreds had been killed or wounded. Military equipment stored at the site was uncamouflaged, he said.

“What happened in Makiivka is horrible,” wrote Archangel Spetznaz Z, a Russian military blogger with more than 700,000 followers on the Telegram messaging app.

“Who came up with the idea to place personnel in large numbers in one building, where even a fool understands that even if they hit with artillery, there will be many wounded or dead?” he wrote. Commanders “couldn’t care less”, he said.

Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not address the Makiivka strike in his nightly speech on Monday.

However, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported the Makiivka attack as “a strike on Russian manpower and military equipment”. It did not mention casualties.

The fury in Russia extended to lawmakers.

Grigory Karasin, a member of the Russian Senate and former deputy foreign minister, not only demanded vengeance against Ukraine and its NATO supporters but also “an exacting internal analysis”.

Sergei Mironov, a legislator and former chairman of the Senate, Russia’s upper house, demanded criminal liability for the officials who had “allowed the concentration of military personnel in an unprotected building” and “all the higher authorities who did not provide the proper level of security”.

Unverified footage posted online of the aftermath of the blast at the Russian barracks in Makiivka showed a huge building reduced to smoking rubble.

Some of the dead came from the southwestern Russian region of Samara, the region’s governor told Russian media, urging concerned relatives to contact recruitment centres for information.

Having suffered defeats on the battlefield in the second half of 2022, Russia resorted to mass air strikes against Ukrainian cities.

Ukraine said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones Russia had launched in a third night of air strikes on civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities.

Ukrainian officials said their success proved that Russia’s tactic in recent months of raining down missiles and drones to knock out Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was increasingly failing as Kyiv beefs up its air defences.

Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls a “special military operation” against its southern neighbour launched on Feb. 24.

After firing dozens of missiles on Dec. 31, Russia launched more than 80 Iranian-made Shahed drones on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2, all of which had been shot down, Zelenskiy said, adding that Russia was planning a protracted campaign of such attacks to “exhaust” Ukraine.

“It is probably banking on exhaustion. Exhausting our people, our anti-aircraft defences, our energy,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Ukraine, he said, had to “act and do everything so that the terrorists’ fail in their aim, as all their others have failed”.

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