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thumbnail of Brasília theater.jpg
Brasília theater jpg
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Brasília theater... jpg
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thumbnail of Darcy Ribeiro seated to the right.jpg
thumbnail of Darcy Ribeiro seated to the right.jpg
Darcy Ribeiro seated... jpg
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Goulart landed in Brasília at 15:00 or 16:30. I'll address that theater from morning on the 1st of April. It's notable for:
-The immense scale involved, from Cuiabá to Brasília there are 1,700 km of roads of which only 200 km were paved
-The ways in which those distances were covered
-The meager forces involved
-An attempted employment of urban and psychological warfare
-The historical obscurity of such events

The Planalto Military Command/11th Military Region had two caçadores battalions in Goiás and, in the capital, the Presidential Guard Battalion (BGP), 1st Independent Mechanized Recon Squadron and an AA battery.
At 05:00 the following tactical group left the BGP:
-4th Company of Fusiliers
-Section/battery of AA (more than one piece)
-Section/platoon tanks (2 or 3)
There's one mention that the two battalions would also be employed. They headed for the São Marcos river at the border with Minas Gerais, near Paracatu, to defend against the rebels. 
As it crossed the streets Col Raimundo, the BGP's legalist commander, interrupted the column and imprisoned Lt Col Serra, an anticommunist, replacing him at the group's leadership Maj Henning, an incognita. Cap Pinheiro, company commander, said the men didn't want to go, to which Raimundo replied that would be met with imprisonment for cowardice. As there were no cowards the company departed.

The garrison had no mood for fighting. At 10-11:00 Raimundo inquired his officers on their stance and most were "revolutionary". As they owed him friendship and respect he headed to General Fico and told him the BGP was in revolt. Raimundo gave no further tactical orders. Likewise in the AA battery only the commander was legalist.

Since previous days there was the idea of moving Congress elsewhere, as the oppositionists were now cornered. The couldn't fly or drive in or out of the city nor get past legalist censorship. The building was unprotected from the popular "militia" gathering on the National Theater, save for 3 machine guns, 6 SMGs and 12 rifles. Those were provided by the governor of Goiás, who together with that of Mato Grosso had joined the rebellion. Thus he betrayed Darcy Ribeiro, main legalist leader in the city. Darcy had organized the volunteers and in another moment even gathered two communists and gave them weapons and a hitlist of politicians, they called that terrorism.