https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/08/world/brazil-congress-protests-bolsonaro
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista:
The tactics used by the Insurrectionists in the U.S. on January 6th, 2021 have now been repeated, albeit on a larger scale, by Bolsonaro’s Forces in Brazil. The far-right in Brazil launched attacks against and entered and vandalized the Presidential Palace, the Legislative building, and the Supreme Court building. There have been a couple of months of ongoing road blockades, incendiary bomb attacks on traffic, and other actions to disrupt the day-to-day functioning of Brazilian society, by Bolsonaro’s fascist supporters. There has now been this major outbreak of rioting, and of occupation and vandalism, of a variety of governmental offices in Brasilia. This has taken place with a large amount of cheerleading and so-called analysis by Steve Bannon from his website Steve Bannon's War Room. Where Bannon has made wild, deceptive and intentionally false claims about Lula, including that he is a tool of the Chinese.
The media is full of reporting about the riots in Brazil today. Anybody who is interested should be able to find plenty of reports. It will take a couple of days or more before any good comprehensive left-wing analyses of these events begins to appear. I do not want to pretend that the coverage by the NY Times is flawless or presents the sort of analysis we need, but the basic facts have been reported in these articles.
What we on the left must remember is that the Capitalist Response to the sort of extremely severe, once in a century type Crises of Capitalism is to push aside the protections and niceties of Bourgeois Democracy and to resort to some sort of authoritarian political rule. Fascism offers their easiest path to achieving this. They can harness a large slice of the population in this effort, motivated by a pastiche of resentments and grievances. This sort of political movement is more Globalized than ever before with the modern level of communications technologies. It should not come as a surprise that the reactionaries and fascists in the largest and most powerful country and economy in Latin America would be so closely tied to the far-right forces in the U.S.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/08/world/brazil-congress-protests-bolsonaro
Brazilian Authorities Clear Government Offices of Rioters, Official Says
Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro had stormed into Congress, presidential offices and the Supreme Court in the capital, building barricades and breaking windows. More than 200 people were arrested.
Published Jan. 8, 2023 Updated Jan. 9, 2023, 4:19 a.m. ET
Jack Nicas and André Spigariol
Bolsonaro supporters lay siege to Brazil’s capital.
Video
1:05Bolsonaro Supporters Storm Brazil’s Congress
(Caption: Videos shared on social media showed supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, storming the National Congress in Brasília. The protest comes two months after Mr. Bolsonaro lost his re-election bid.CreditCredit...Evaristo Sa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
Thousands of supporters of Brazil’s ousted former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices on Sunday to protest what they falsely claim was a stolen election, the violent culmination of years of conspiracy theories advanced by Mr. Bolsonaro and his right-wing allies.
In scenes reminiscent of the Jan. 6 storming of the United States Capitol, protesters in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, draped in the yellow and green of Brazil’s flag surged into the seat of power, setting fires, repurposing barricades as weapons, knocking police officers from horseback and filming their crimes as they committed them.
“We always said we would not give up,” one protester declared as he filmed himself among hundreds of protesters pushing into the Capitol building. “Congress is ours. We are in power.”
For months, protesters had been demanding that the military prevent the newly elected president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office on Jan. 1. Many on the right in Brazil have become convinced, despite the lack of evidence, that October’s election was rigged.
For years, Mr. Bolsonaro had asserted, without any proof, that Brazil’s election systems were rife with fraud and that the nation’s elites were conspiring to remove him from power.
Mr. Lula said Sunday that those false claims had fueled the attack on the plaza, known as Three Powers Square because of the presence of the three branches of government. Mr. Bolsonaro “triggered this,” he said in an address to the nation. “He spurred attacks on the three powers whenever he could. This is also his responsibility.”
3 mi.
5 km.
Brazil
Late Sunday, Mr. Bolsonaro criticized the protests, saying on Twitter that peaceful demonstrations are part of democracy, but that “destruction and invasions of public buildings, like what occurred today,” are not. But he also rejected Mr. Lula’s accusations, saying they were “without proof.”
At his inauguration, Mr. Lula said that uniting Brazil, Latin America’s largest country and one of the world’s biggest democracies, would be a central goal of his administration. The invasion of the capital suggests that the nation’s divisions are more profound than many had imagined, and it saddles the new president with a major challenge just one week into his administration.
After Mr. Lula was inaugurated, protesters put out calls online for others to join them for a massive demonstration on Sunday. It quickly turned violent.
Hundreds of protesters ascended a ramp to the roof of the congressional building in Brasília, the capital, while a smaller group invaded the building from a lower level, according to witnesses and videos of the scene posted on social media. Other groups of protesters splintered off and broke into the presidential offices and the Supreme Court, which are in the same plaza.
The scene was chaotic.
Protesters streamed into the government buildings, which were largely empty on a Sunday, breaking windows, overturning furniture and looting items inside, according to videos they posted online.
A shattered window in the president’s office on Sunday. Credit...Eraldo Peres/Associated Press
The crowds shouted that they were taking their country back, and that they would not be stopped. Outnumbered, the police fired what appeared to be rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear-gas canisters, including from two helicopters overhead.
“Police are cowardly trying to expel the people from Congress, but there is no way, because even more are arriving,” said one protester in a video filmed from inside Congress and showing hundreds of protesters on multiple floors. “No one is taking our country, damn it.”
Eventually Brazilian Army soldiers helped retake control of some buildings.
Mr. Lula, who was not in Brasília during the invasion, issued an emergency decree until Jan. 31 that allows the federal government to take “any measures necessary” to restore order in the capital. “There is no precedent for what these people have done, and for that, these people must be punished,” he said.
The president, who arrived in the capital late in the day to inspect the damage, said that his government would also investigate anyone who may have financed the protests.
Protesters inside the Planalto Palace, where Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was inaugurated a week ago. Credit...Eraldo Peres/Associated Press
Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to be in Florida. He flew to Orlando in the final days of his presidency, in hopes that his absence from the country would help cool off investigations into his activity as president, according to a friend of the president’s who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. He planned to stay in Florida for one to three months, this person said.
Mr. Bolsonaro has never unequivocally conceded defeat in the election, leaving it to his aides to handle the transition of power and skipping the inauguration, where he was supposed to pass the presidential sash to Mr. Lula, an important symbol of the transition of power for a country that lived under a 21-year military dictatorship until 1985.
After the election, he said he supported peaceful protests inspired by “feelings of injustice in the electoral process.”
But before departing for Florida, Mr. Bolsonaro suggested to his supporters that they move on. “We live in a democracy or we don’t,” he said in a recorded statement. “No one wants an adventure.”
His calls were ignored.
The next day, thousands of his supporters remained camped outside the Army headquarters in Brasília, with many convinced that the military and Mr. Bolsonaro were about to execute a secret plan to prevent Mr. Lula’s inauguration.
“The army will step in,” Magno Rodrigues, 60, a former mechanic and janitor, said in an interview on Dec. 31, the day before Mr. Lula took office. He had been camped outside the army’s headquarters for nine weeks and said he was prepared to stay “for the rest of my life if I have to.”
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One Bolsonaro supporter, Magno Rodrigues, camped out in front of army headquarters before Mr. Lula’s inauguration.Credit...Dado Galdieri for The New York Times
One of Mr. Lula’s central challenges as president will be to unify the nation after a bitter election in which some of his supporters framed Mr. Bolsonaro as genocidal and cannibalistic, while Mr. Bolsonaro repeatedly called Mr. Lula a criminal. (Mr. Lula served 19 months in prison on corruption charges that were later thrown out.)
Surveys have shown that a sizable chunk of the population say they believe Mr. Lula stole the election, fueled by false claims that have spread across the internet and a shift among many right-wing voters away from traditional sources of news — problems that have also plagued American politics in recent years.
President Biden, who was visiting the southern U.S. border, called the protests “outrageous,” and Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser, said the United States “condemns any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil.”
“Our support for Brazil’s democratic institutions is unwavering,” Mr. Sullivan wrote on Twitter. “Brazil’s democracy will not be shaken by violence.”
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A protester kicking away a tear-gas canister on Sunday. Credit...Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Some far-right provocateurs in the United States however, cheered on the attacks, posting videos of the riots and calling the protesters “patriots” who were trying to uphold the Brazilian Constitution. Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald J. Trump, called the protesters “Brazilian Freedom Fighters” in a social-media post. Mr. Bannon has had close ties with one of Mr. Bolsonaro’s sons.
At first, the rioters had a relatively easy time breaching the buildings. State police officers tried to hold them back, but they were far outnumbered. The demonstrations had been advertised widely on social media for days.
“It was scary, it was insanity,” said Adriana Reis, 30, a cleaner at Congress who witnessed the scene. “They tried hard, with pepper spray, to drive them off, but I don’t think the police could handle them all.” After protesters streamed in, “we ran away to hide,” she said.
Videos from inside Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential offices quickly filled social-media feeds and group chats, showing protesters wearing their national flag and trudging through the halls of power, not exactly sure what to do next.
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Offices inside the presidential palace were vandalized on Sunday.Credit...Adriano Machado/Reuters
They sat in the padded chairs of the Chamber of Deputies, rifled through paperwork in the presidential offices and posed with a golden coat of arms that appeared to be ripped from the wall of the Supreme Court’s chambers. Federal officials later distributed images and videos from the presidential offices that showed destroyed computers, art ripped from frames and firearm cases that had been emptied of their guns.
The protesters were ransacking buildings that have been hailed as gems of Modernist architecture. Designed by the celebrated Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in the 1950s, the Supreme Court, for instance, features columns of concrete clad in white marble that echo the fluttering of a sheet in the wind. And Congress is known for being capped with both a dome, under which the Senate is located, and a sort of bowl, under which the House is located.
Outside the presidential offices, they raised the flag of the Brazilian Empire, a period in the 19th century before Brazil became a democracy, and they sang Brazil’s national anthem. Videos of the rampage showed many protesters with phones aloft, filming the scene.
“There is no way to stop the people,” one protester declared as he live-streamed hundreds of protesters charging onto the roof of Congress. “Subscribe to my channel, guys.”
Several news outlets said their journalists were attacked and robbed during the rioting. And Ricardo Stuckert, Mr. Lula’s official photographer, had his passport and more than $95,000 worth of equipment stolen from a room in the presidential offices, according to his wife, Cristina Lino.
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Members of the Brazilian military face off against protesters inside the presidential offices on Sunday. Credit...Eraldo Peres/Associated Press
By late afternoon, military trucks had arrived.
Armed soldiers entered the presidential offices through a back door to ambush rioters inside. Shortly after, protesters began to stream out of the building, including some escorted by law enforcement officers.
By 9 p.m., more than seven hours after the invasions began, Brazil’s justice minister, Flávio Dino, said the buildings had been cleared. He said officials had arrested at least 200 people. The governor of Brasília said the number of arrests had exceeded 400.
Valdemar Costa Neto, the head of Mr. Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party, criticized the protesters.
“Today is a sad day for the Brazilian nation,” he said in a statement. “All orderly demonstrations are legitimate. Disorder has never been part of our nation’s principles.”
The Brazilian flag draped around many of the rioters on Sunday includes three words: “Order and progress.”
Reporting was contributed by Ana Ionova, Yan Boechat, Leonardo Coelho, Laís Martins and Gustavo Freitas.
Jan. 8, 2023, 9:24 p.m. ET Simon Romero
Brasília is no stranger to protests. This time it is shaken to its core.
Protesters in Brasília in June 2013.Credit...Evaristo Sa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Protesters scaling the roof of Congress. A rock-throwing mob shattering the windows of federal buildings. Fires threatening to engulf Brasília’s architectural treasures.
Such scenes left many Brazilians shocked on Sunday. But Brasília is no stranger to huge, sometimes destructive protests; similar displays of outrage marked the last time antigovernment demonstrators swept en masse into the capital a decade ago, in 2013.
This episode is on another scale, however, after supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president, invaded and ransacked the iconic buildings housing the country’s three branches of government. The devastation left behind on Sunday made it clear that this event dwarfed other political demonstrations in Brazil’s recent history.
The Bolsonaro supporters damaged various works of art, including a canvas by the modernist painter Emiliano di Cavalcanti, a stained-glass installation by the French-Brazilian artist Marianne Peretti and a bust of Ruy Barbosa, an abolitionist statesman, according to Brazilian media reports. Demonstrators smashed windows and then tossed furniture and electronic equipment out of the presidential palace. Videos on social media appeared to show a protester about to defecate inside a room at the Supreme Court.
In 2013, authorities scrambled to understand what was happening. I covered those events at time, examining how small demonstrations over a proposed bus fare increase sparked a much larger, if diffuse, movement pulling together people from across the ideological spectrum to voice outrage over corruption and appalling public services.
This time around the protesters were far more directed in their fury, taking aim squarely at Brazil’s democratic institutions. Many of them called explicitly for the armed forces to seize control of the government and reinstall Mr. Bolsonaro, who lost the presidential election more than two months ago but has refused to concede to his opponent, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Harrowing accounts by witnesses point to scenes of mayhem. A photographer for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, who was beaten on Sunday by the mob and had his equipment stolen, said that some rioters dislodged the stones used to assemble the sidewalk in front of the government buildings to use as weapons.
The photographer, Pedro Lareira, described the chaos in comments for his own newspaper. “While they assaulted me,” he said, “they said they were there to take Brazil.”
Where Rioters Have Stormed Government Buildings
Jan. 8, 2023, 8:46 p.m. ETJan. 8, 2023
Jan. 8, 2023
Yan Boechat
At least eight journalists were attacked or robbed by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday, according to the Union of Professional Journalists of the Federal District, where the Brasília is located. Photojournalists from Brazilian newspapers and international agencies were the main victims. At least five had their equipment broken or stolen. A New Yorker magazine reporter was assaulted while covering the riot. Pedro Ladeira, a photographer for Folha de São Paulo, Brazil’s largest newspaper, was also attacked. “They destroyed my equipment; they beat me, but I’m fine,” he said.
Jan. 8, 2023, 8:40 p.m. ETJan. 8, 2023
Jan. 8, 2023
André Spigariol
Reporting from Brasília
President Lula arrived at the crime scene around 10 p.m. local time, accompanied by some of his top ministers. The president was seen inspecting the main entrance hall of the presidential offices, alongside federal police officials. Army soldiers remained stationed outside and around the building. Authorities escorted reporters away from the ground floor, where chairs were scattered all over.
Supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro outside Brazil’s National Congress in Brasília on January 8, 2023.Credit...Adriano Machado/Reuters
A defeated president claims, falsely, that an election was rigged. After months of baseless claims of fraud, an angry mob of his supporters storms Congress. They overwhelm police and vandalize the seat of national government, threatening the country’s democratic institutions.
Similarities between Sunday’s mob violence in Brazil and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are self-evident: Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing former president of Brazil, had for months sought to undermine the results of an election that he lost, in much the same manner that Donald J. Trump did after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Trump allies who had helped spread falsehoods about the 2020 election have turned to sowing doubt in the results of Brazil’s presidential election in October.
Those efforts by Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies have now culminated in an attempt — however implausible — to overturn the results of Brazil’s election and restore the former president to power. In much the same manner as Jan. 6, the mob that descended on the Brazilian capital overpowered police at the perimeter of the building that houses Congress and swept into the halls of power — breaking windows, taking valuable items and posing for photos in abandoned legislative chambers.
A Trump supporter inside the office of Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House, on Jan. 6, 2021.Credit...Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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Supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro rifle through papers on a desk in the Planalto Palace in Brasília on Sunday.Credit...Eraldo Peres/Associated Press
The two attacks do not align completely. The Jan. 6 mob was trying to stop the official certification of the results of the 2020 election, a final, ceremonial step taken before the new president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., was inaugurated on Jan. 20.
But Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the new president of Brazil, was sworn into office more than a week ago. The results of the presidential election have been certified by the country’s electoral court, not its legislature. There was no official proceeding to disrupt on Sunday, and the Brazilian Congress was not in session.
The mob violence on Jan. 6, 2021, “went right to the heart of the changing government,” and the attack in Brazil is not “as heavily weighted with that kind of symbolism,” said Carl Tobias, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Richmond.
Pro-Trump protesters storming the Capitol in 2021.Credit...Will Oliver/EPA, via Shutterstock
Pro-Bolsonaro protesters storming the Planalto Presidential Palace in Brasília in 2023.Credit...Sergio Lima/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
And Mr. Bolsonaro, who has had strong ties with Mr. Trump throughout their years in office, was nowhere near the capital, having taken up residence in Orlando, Fla., about 150 miles from Mr. Trump’s estate at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.
Nevertheless, the riot in Brasília drew widespread condemnation, including from U.S. lawmakers, with many Democrats drawing comparisons between it and the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
“Democracies of the world must act fast to make clear there will be no support for right-wing insurrectionists storming the Brazilian Congress,” Representative Jamie Raskin wrote on Twitter. “These fascists modeling themselves after Trump’s Jan. 6 rioters must end up in the same place: prison.”
The Capitol Rotunda after a pro-Trump mob stormed the building on Jan. 6.Credit...Win Mcnamee/Getty Images
The National Congress building in Brasília after pro-Bolsonaro protesters stormed the building on Sunday.Credit...Eraldo Peres/Associated Press
Representative George Santos, a Republican from New York under criminal investigation by Brazilian authorities, appeared to be one of the first elected officials from his party to condemn the mob violence in a post on Twitter on Sunday, but he did not draw a connection to Jan. 6.
Many of the lawmakers who condemned the violence had lived through the attack on the Capitol that occurred just over two years ago. Mr. Raskin was the lead impeachment manager in Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial over his role in inciting the mob.
In a final echo of the Jan. 6 attack on Sunday, hours after the riot in Brazil began, Mr. Bolsonaro posted a message on social media calling for peace, much the way Mr. Trump did. Authorities had already announced they had the situation under control.
Jan. 8, 2023, 7:39 p.m. ETJan. 8, 2023
Jan. 8, 2023
Jack Nicas
Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, criticized the protests, saying on Twitter that peaceful demonstrations were part of democracy, but “destruction and invasions of public buildings, like what occurred today,” were not. He also repudiated President Lula’s comments that Mr. Bolsonaro bore some responsibility for the riots, saying those accusations were “without proof.”
Supporters of U.S. President Donald J. Trump gathered outside the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.Credit...Leah Millis/Reuters
Credit...Eraldo Peres/Associated Press
Jan. 8, 2023, 8:26 p.m. ETJan. 8, 2023
Jan. 8, 2023
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