Brazilian Government Pays Homage to General Who Led a Massacre in Congo

Featured image: Demonstrators protest in front of the doors of the Monusco headquarters in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. Source: Glody Murhabazi/AFP

The opportunistic government of Luiz Inácio (PT) paid tribute, on May 22nd, to Major General Otávio Rodrigues de Miranda Filho, who died at age 62, A Nova Democracia reported. Luiz Inácio called him an “exemplary military man” and a “great leader”.

The homage highlighted, among Miranda Filho’s “achievements,” his military command of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) in 2023. In this year a protest took place in the country, which was brutally repressed by the UN troops led by Miranda Filho, that resulted in at least 48 murdered and, according to the authorities, another 75 injured and 168 arrested. The demonstration was specifically directed against the MONUSCO, and demanded the abandonment of this operation and the departure of the UN and other forces of East Africa. Days later, the number of murders rose to 100. Fifty-seven people were found dead near a church attacked by State forces, while another 43 were murdered in the church itself, with bodies taken to the morgue of a military barracks near Goma.

Protests against the MONUSCO have been common since 2022.

We reported on this massacre in 2023: