Skyrocketing voltage Brazil dove supporters of former president Jair Bolsonarowho do not accept the victory of the new president Inacio Lula da Silva, have stormed the buildings of the highest state institutions in a raid that recalls the one two years ago on Capitol Hill in Washington by Trump fans.
The Brazilian police also regained control of the Congress building, the Parliament, evacuating pro Bolsonaro protesters, O Globo reports. Police forces had previously evacuated the Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace, according to the Brazilian television channel GloboNews.
Police used tear gas to try to push back thousands of people but managed to break through the security cordons around the parliament in Brasilia at the end of a demonstration in support of the former president. Many have managed to climb the ramp of the building to occupy the roof and from there they have entered the interior.
PROTESTANTS TRY TO STORM THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE IN BRASILIA
Current situation:
NATIONAL CONGRESS: OCCUPIED
SUPREME COURT: OCCUPIED
pic.twitter.com/bUBEb8kKeM— Straight from America (@DiretoDaAmerica) January 8, 2023
The Bolsonarists also attacked the Planalto building, the seat of the Executive and, according to reports from the channel ‘CNN Brazil’, also the building of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). The seat of the Supreme Court was also attacked. The incumbent president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is not in Brasilia at the moment but is in the state of Sao Paulo visiting some flooded areas. And Lula held an emergency meeting with executive ministers after the assault. The meeting was attended by the ministers of defence, justice and institutional relations, local media reported.
Lula da Silva condemned the “vandal and fascist” attack against democratic institutions by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro and decreed the intervention of federal forces. These are the first decisions taken by the president and announced at a press conference. “All those responsible will be identified and judged,” Lula added. “These people must be punished in an exemplary way.” “They will pay with all the force of the law”, warned the leader of the PT, calling them “terrorists”. “We are evaluating the possibility” of deploying “the army to clear out”.
The demonstrators, dressed in yellow and green, according to reports from O Globo, engaged in acts of vandalism. The videos released by people inside the Tribunal, writes the Brazilian newspaper, show people breaking up seats in the plenary.
In Palazzo Planalto, in the square where the presidential residence, the Brazilian Parliament and the Supreme Court are located, “window panes were broken”. In total there would be thousands of Bolsonarists inside the buildings of Brazilian political and administrative power with the police forces, in anti-riot gear, ready to break into the occupied Parliament. Government officials waited to be evacuated by air. Exactly two years after the assault on Capitol Hill, it repeats itself, with practically identical modalities and alignments: the militants of Bolsonaro’s right, like the pro-Trumpians, have decided not to respect the response of the polls which gave victory to the ‘left’ and are passed to the armed assault in a phase in which Bolsonaro risks arrest for the management of the Covid emergency.
Against the former president, at the time the subject of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) on the pandemic, the senators first in opposition and now in government intend to re-submit the complaints: in fact, the leader of the right no longer has the privileged forum, the right of the high offices of the state not to be tried criminally by the common courts. But Bolsonaro, who never congratulated Lula on his election, left Brazil on December 30, two days before the end of his mandate, and went on board the presidential plane of the Air Force to Florida, in the United States. “This absurd attempt to impose the will by force will not prevail. The federal district government says there will be reinforcements. And the forces at our disposal are at work. I am in the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice,” tweeted the Brazilian justice minister Flavio Dino intervened shortly after the assault on the institutional offices The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, repudiated the “acts of terrorism” seen in Brasilia and affirmed that the coup plotters must “immediately undergo all the rigor of the law “. Pacheco also said that he had heard the governor of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, on the phone. “I spoke a little while ago, by telephone, with the governor of the Federal District, Ibaneis Rocha”, who informed him that “he is concentrating the efforts of the entire police apparatus to control the situation”. “The security forces of the Federal District are engaged – Rocha assured – together with the police contingent available one the Parliament”.
ANSA Agency
Security cordons broken, police throw tear gas (ANSA)
Military police fired stun and rubber bullets from helicopters to disperse pro-Bolsonaro protesters who have invaded the institutional buildings of Brasilia, as reported by local media. All the windows on the first floor of the Senate have been smashed and some of the protesters have already entered the second floor. Although the Legislative Police and bomb squad have retaken the access ramp to Congress, the top of the building is still occupied.
PROTESTORS BREACH THE BARRIERS AROUND THE CONGRESS BUILDING IN BRASILIA.
— Straight from America (@DiretoDaAmerica) January 8, 2023
THE SENTENCES
“Absolute condemnation of the assault on the democratic institutions of Brazil. Full support for President Lula Da Silva, democratically elected by millions of Brazilians through fair and free elections”, writes the president of the EU Council in a tweet, Charles Michel.
“We condemn the attacks on Brazil’s Presidency, Congress and Supreme Court. Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable. We join President Lula in urging an immediate end to these actions,” the secretary of Brazil wrote on Twitter. US state, Antony Blinken.
“I am following with concern what is happening in Brazil – said Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani -. Any act of violence against democratic institutions must be condemned with great firmness. The electoral results must always be respected”.
Demand for the arrest of the former security secretary
The body that represents the country before justice, the Advocacia Geral da Uniao (AGU), has presented a request for the immediate arrest of the former secretary of Public Security of the Federal District of Brasilia, Anderson Torres. Following the siege of the palaces of power, the governor Ibaneis Rocha had decided to exonerate Torres.
