After several chaoses, calm has returned to Brasilia. In the aftermath of the assault by supporters of the far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flavio Dino, assures that the presidential palace, the Congress and the Supreme Court have been completely evacuated on Monday, January 9, and that more than 200 people were arrested. Lula, who rushed to the capital, promised: “We will find them all and they will all be punished in a way that no one dares with a national flag on their back. Those who funded these protests will pay for these irresponsible and undemocratic acts.” In office for only a week, he also deplored events “unprecedented in the history of Brazil” and denounced the work of “vandals, fanatical fascists”. Follow our live.
Deteriorated equipment and offices. Footage from Brazilian media, including CNN Brasil, showed the attackers ransacking furniture inside Congress. Offices of parliamentarians were damaged and demonstrators also marched on the seats of the Senate hemicycle. Footage shared on social media also showed protesters entering the grounds of the Federal Supreme Court and the presidential palace, defacing furniture. Priceless paintings were damaged, including mulattoesby the modernist painter Di Cavalcanti, exhibited at the Presidential Palace and pierced with several holes. A protester also sat in the Senate speaker’s seat, a startling mimicry of the pro-Donald Trump rioters who swarmed the Capitol two years ago.
The intervention of the police in question. According to Globo (in Portuguese), the police were in the process of regaining control of the Supreme Court, the presidential palace and then Congress on Sunday at the end of the day (11 p.m. Paris time). The law enforcement response, however, questioned journalists in Brazil. As noted by a journalist from Globo, some members of the military police of the Federal District (Brasilia) were filmed taking photos or chatting with demonstrators, at the very moment when the places of power were invaded. The governor of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, announced that he was dismissing the security secretary of the Federal District, a support of Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro will eventually react. In a series of tweetsJair Bolsonaro, who now lives in the United States, ended up condemning “the depredations and invasions of public buildings”. But he also has “dismissed the charges, without proof” of his successor, according to whom he encouraged the violence.
From Macron to Biden, reactions from around the world. These rampages provoked an avalanche of outraged reactions in the world. French President Emmanuel Macron told Lula he could “count on the unwavering support of France”. His American counterpart Joe Biden judged “scandalous” the violence of the demonstrators. “Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable”, tweeted his Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador denounced “the conservative coup attempt in Brazil”.