Captain Wilson Luis Chavez Machado walked freely through the streets of Rio, six months after a bomb exploded in his lap inside a car, in the Riocentro parking lot. In the conference space, 20,000 people watched a Labor Day commemorative performance with MPB artists.
The bomb he and Sergeant Guilherme Pereira do Rosario were carrying exploded prematurely in the event. Matt Sgt. The captain survived.
Janio de Freitas wrote about the case in a historical chronicle published in 1930 Bound in 1981. Ironically, he was called a “hero” from beginning to end.
“It is not in my name, hero,” said the journalist, “that I salute your new and happy freedom.” The captain went into the paid reserve, a “clean retirement” before reaching the rank of general. People will continue to work to support him.
The same people who went to the Rio Center “to listen to songs about freedom and love between people and other things that you know nothing about because they only taught you to wait in parking lots and handle guns and bombs.”
Gagno compared the captain to Mario Pedrosa, the art critic and intellectual who died in the same year. “He only knew the weapons of the police or soldiers who persecuted him. There was no gun salute at his funeral, because in life he was what men of your background abhorred most: an intellectual.”
Read the full text below, part of Section 105 Columns of Great Influence, which recalls the records that made history in Bound. This initiative comes within the framework of the celebrations of the 105th anniversary of the founding of the newspaper in February 2026.
From hero to anti-hero (11/11/1981)
Not in my name, hero, I salute your new and happy freedom. I do it for all those who pass by you these days and see you as nothing more than one of them, also prosaic, also unknown. Sorry, they mean no harm. I’m not saying that among them there isn’t someone or other hopelessly distracted by the anatomical gentleness of a dark-skinned sculpture gliding along the sidewalk – this is, after all, the last optimistic promise available on the market. But the majority of our people, hero, are so concerned and so confused by the government’s successful efforts to make us miserable and sad, as if the misfortune of being born Brazilian without heritage were not enough. Moreover, we do not have the habit of spending time with heroes, even though we need them so much that we invent them, for lack of better and more original heroes, simply by scoring a goal.
Make no mistake, hero, that they do not recognize you in the free walks in the open air that you are taking again, in the enjoyment of this wonderful freedom that you are recovering now, after six months of pain. They don’t recognize you, but they don’t ignore or forget you. Your name is so engraved in our memory, Captain Wilson Luis Chavez Machado, that the mere mention of naive names like Puma or Riocentro comes to mind, not to mention certain institutions that have tried to confuse your history.
They seem to allocate you to paid reserve, in fact, it is paid very well. In other words, a clean retirement planned before you reach the position of general, head of national intelligence or ministry, and who knows, perhaps, through some kind of natural Brazilian system, a higher position. It doesn’t matter: from what we can see of your physical recovery, of which only a small burn on the arm is revealed by the elegant short-sleeved shirt, you can always drive a Puma again, the Riocentro is still there, and people, if they are not there, will always be at your fingertips in the stadiums, in the parades, at the carnival. If he is not there, wait a little, because he will pay for your peaceful pension, just as he paid for the courses in which you learned how to use weapons and bombs, and paid for your treatment and life support for your family.
Walk freely and at ease, Captain Wilson, through this sad little square in Tijuca, go deeper into the suburbs and visit the southern district, and wander freely and at ease until you can see these generous people who will support you, by the sample of Rio. And sometimes, to discipline yourself, you go to places like Riocentro to listen to songs about freedom, love between people, and other things you know nothing about because they only taught you to wait in parking lots, handle guns and bombs, snatch answers or life by fire. He turns a blind eye.
I’m not speaking to you on my behalf, I already told you. But this is not due to bias or hatred, Commander. That’s because these days, even more than ever, I’ve been thinking about the antihero. I was thinking of Mario Pedrosa, who only knew weapons from the police or army who persecuted him. There were no gun salutes at his funeral, because in life he was what men of your background abhorred most: a thinker, busy all his life thinking of ways to make a man happy and free, one day. But it is also true that the only thing he detested – he never complained about cancer – were the oppressors for whom he was a symbol and a hero.
Walk free and at ease, Captain Wilson. Your presence among us changes nothing. But the absence of Mario Pedrosa has changed, a lot has changed.