Thousands of Bolsonaro vandals assault and destroy the headquarters of political and judicial power in Brasilia

JUAN MIGUEL MUNOZ

São Paulo
There were no precedents for such an event in Brazil. A week after the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasilia, the headquarters of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial powers became the scene of vandalism by several thousand supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who invaded the interior of the Chambers, the Supreme Court building, and the Planalto Palace, seat of the presidency of the republic. As happened two years ago at the Capitol in Washington, the ultra-rightists destroyed what they found inside the buildings before being expelled by police who had shown obvious signs of incompetence, if not collusion with the assailants.

President Lula da Silva decreed federal intervention in Brasilia, so that security remains in the hands of the federal government, and not the Executive of the Federal District (DF), until January 31. The Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, spoke of the violence unleashed by the assailants as acts of terrorism and coup, and "an attempt to destroy the democratic State."

The vandals, coming in a hundred buses from all over the country and carrying many Brazilian flags, had gathered after noon in front of the Brazilian Army headquarters and traveled more than six kilometers on foot to the Esplanade of the Ministries, adjacent to the square of the Three Powers. They marched escorted by police vehicles, while some of their officers fraternized with the protesters.

The vast majority of Brazilian political commentators found it incomprehensible that the governor of the DF, Ibaneis Rocha, and the Secretary of Security for the Federal District, the fervent Bolsonaro supporter Anderson Torres – who was dismissed yesterday by Rocha – were not capable of preventing vandalism when In social networks it was possible to foresee for days that something serious was up to the radicals of the extreme right. There was very little police presence in the center of Brazilian political power. Meanwhile, Torres – responsible for security in Mexico City – was in the United States. Rocha, whose party supported Bolsonaro in the second round of the October elections, apologized to President Lula for the riots, which lasted for five hours in the vicinity of the Plaza de los Tres poderes, although the police continued to deal with the riots. far-right radicals and late at night in the immense Esplanade of the Ministries. Lula did not accept the excuses of the DF governor.

The acting president was at a political event in Araraquara, a city in the State of São Paulo. From this town, he went to the country to announce the intervention decree that withdraws competence in security matters from the Government of the Federal District (Brasilia). Some media considered that Lula could even sign a decree to start the process of dismissal of Rocha.

All the authorities that spoke out did so to condemn the vandalism of the Bolsonaristas, including several allies of the former president who fled to the United States two days before the presidential replacement.

It is evident that the Military Police and other police forces in many states of the country are plagued by supporters of Bolsonaro. Right after the elections, in the first days of November, the agents showed enormous leniency with thousands of supporters of the ex-president who blocked hundreds of highways throughout Brazil for several days.

Lula began by talking about the "barbarism" of these "fascist" groups. The president said such unrest at the center of Brazilian political power was unprecedented, warning that the participants in the riots and "their backers will be punished." Lula assured that Bolsonaro, whom he did not mention by name, "fled Brazil" so as not to hand him the presidential sash, as is the tradition, adding that the former president has been "stimulating" these altercations. The president, visibly angry, pointed out that the vandals included garimpeiros (gold prospectors) and illegal loggers, and probably people involved in agribusiness who want to use toxic pesticides. It is these groups that may be most harmed by the policies of the new government, after four years in which they have enjoyed carte blanche by the Bolsonaro Administration.

The plenary room of the Supreme Court, the offices adjacent to the president's on the second floor of the Planalto Palace (Lula's has a shield that could not be overcome) and the Chambers of Congress and the Senate were badly damaged. The invaders also destroyed works of art – at least one painting by the prestigious painter Di Cavalcanti, who died in 1976 – and Chinese vases, among many other objects.

At night, the television networks offered images of dozens of people handcuffed and taken to prison in buses. At least 170 of them arrested in full commission of the crime inside the buildings, but the number increased as the night progressed.
Valdemar Costa Neto, president of the Liberal Party, to which the former president fled to Florida belongs, commented after the riots that these Bolsonaro supporters do not represent the Liberal Party, a party that has always disseminated suspicions of electoral fraud without any evidence. precisely the argument that the followers of the ultra-right allege to justify their calls for a coup d'état before the barracks and the altercations on Sunday, January 8. Hours after the start of the altercations, and at night in Brasilia, Bolsonaro had not said a word.

Just one week after taking office, and with a government that has only just started, Lula is facing a major crisis caused by his most bitter rivals. The outlook is very complicated for the Executive because the parties that supported Bolsonaro enjoy a majority in the Chambers, and it is foreseeable that they will place all possible obstacles to government action. Nor can new violent incidents be ruled out by these groups of far-right fanatics who consider dangerous communists – a stigma in Brazil – to anyone who holds minimally progressive political positions.

Juan Miguel Muñoz is a journalist and lives in Brazil

 

JUAN MIGUEL MUNOZ
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