Brasilia riots | “No forgiveness for those who attack democracy”, maintains Lula a year later

(Brasilia) A year later, Lula on Monday ruled out granting any “pardon” to those who conceived, financed or perpetrated the attacks in Brasilia, which saw thousands of supporters of his far-right rival Jair Bolsonaro attack the headquarters of Brazilian institutions.

“There is no forgiveness for those who attack democracy, their country and their own people,” said left-wing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in the name of refusing “impunity”.

“All those who financed, planned and executed a coup attempt must be punished in an exemplary manner,” he declared during a ceremony in Parliament, entitled “Unshakeable Democracy”, to mark the anniversary in presence of representatives of the institutions.

“We saved democracy,” said Lula, who attacked the “putschist ex-president”, targeting his predecessor at the presidential palace, Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), targeted by an investigation.

On January 8, 2023, a week after Lula’s inauguration for a third term, thousands of demonstrators invaded the Three Powers Square in the heart of Brasilia, the capital founded in 1960 and a modernist city-monument built by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Contesting the defeat of their champion in the October 2022 vote, Bolsonarista supporters attacked the buildings of the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court, demanding military intervention. Furniture, works of art: the damage was considerable.

Among the 2,170 people arrested at the time, around thirty rioters have already been sentenced for various crimes, including attempted coup d’état, to sentences of up to 17 years in prison.

But financiers and instigators of the attacks still largely elude the police. On Monday, she announced the issuance of 46 search warrants and one arrest warrant.

“Left trap”

The leader of the right and the extreme right, who was in the United States on the day of the attacks, is the target of a judicial investigation as a possible instigator of these attacks.

During the months preceding the election, Mr. Bolsonaro had continued to denigrate the electronic voting system without proof, instilling a suspicion of fraud, which earned him eight years of ineligibility in June for disseminating false information. But he denies any responsibility.

The demonstrators went to Brasilia at the call of “social networks which are not ours” for an action that we “condemn from the beginning”, he said on Saturday on CNN Brasil.

“It was a trap launched by the left,” he assured, denouncing manipulation.

“Lies, disinformation and hate speech were the fuel for January 8,” Lula retorted on Monday, calling for “firmness in regulating social networks.”

The attacks, which recalled the 2021 assault on the Capitol in Washington by supporters of Donald Trump, were the culmination of heightened tensions in Brazil.

Since then, a more peaceful climate has established itself in public debate, even if a polarization resembling a “cultural war” persists on major social issues, from the carrying of weapons to abortion.

Restorations

Some 2,000 police officers were deployed to secure places of power in Brasilia on this anniversary. Lula presided over the ceremony in the Salon Noir, a large reception room at Congress that had been ransacked by demonstrators.

In total, only 13 of the country’s 27 governors participated in the ceremony, according to Senate sources. Among those absent is the powerful governor of Sao Paulo, Tarcisio Freitas, Mr. Bolsonaro’s former minister, who announced that he was on vacation in Europe.

Also absent, for family reasons, the president of the Chamber of Deputies Arthur Lira, former ally of Mr. Bolsonaro and now demanding partner of Lula as leader of the center.

The ceremony was loaded with symbolism, with the presentation of works of art that had suffered the rage of protesters and have since been restored.

A tapestry by the Brazilian artist and landscaper Roberto Burle Marx, which had been torn from a wall of the Senate and vandalized, was presented.

Stolen from the headquarters of the Supreme Court, a replica of the 1988 Constitution was also returned, the text that the largest country in Latin America had adopted to turn the page on the military dictatorship (1964-1985).