Authorities crack down post-riot and vow to protect democracy

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP):

Brazilian authorities vowed Monday to protect democracy and punish thousands of supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed and trashed the nation’s highest seats of power in chaos with striking similarities to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The protesters swarmed into Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday. Many have said they want the Brazilian army to restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power and oust the newly inaugurated leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Police broke down a pro-Bolsonaro encampment outside a military building Monday and detained some 1,200 people there, the justice ministry’s press office told AP.

Lula and the heads of the Supreme Court, Senate and Lower House also signed a letter Monday denouncing acts of terrorism and vandalism and saying they were taking legal measures.

Justice Minister Flávio Dino told reporters that police have begun tracking those who paid for the buses that transported protesters to the capital. At the news conference late Sunday, Brazil’s minister of institutional relations said that the buildings would be inspected for evidence, including fingerprints and images, and that the rioters apparently intended to spark similar uprest nationwide.

“They will not succeed in destroying Brazilian democracy. We need to say that fully, with all firmness and conviction,” Dino said. “We will not accept the path of criminality to carry out political fights in Brazil.”

Rioters wearing the green-and-yellow of the national flag on Sunday broke windows, toppled furniture, and hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punched holes in a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the presidential palace and destroyed other works of art. They overturned the U-shaped table at which Supreme Court justices convene, ripped a door off one justice’s office and vandalised a statue outside the court. The monumental buildings’ interiors were left in states of ruin.

Monday’s arrests came in addition to the 300 held Sunday while caught in the act.

Police had been noticeably slow to react – even after the arrival of more than 100 buses – leading many to ponder whether authorities had either simply ignored numerous warnings, underestimated the protesters’ strength, or been somehow complicit.

Public prosecutors in the capital said local security forces had, at the very least, been negligent. A supreme court justice temporarily suspended the regional governor. Another justice blamed authorities for not swiftly cracking down on budding neofascism in Brazil.

After his October 30 electoral defeat, Bolsonaro, who has gone to Florida, has been stoking belief among his hardcore supporters that the electronic voting system was prone to fraud — though he never presented any evidence. His lawmaker son Eduardo Bolsonaro held several meetings with former US President Donald Trump, Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon and his senior campaign adviser Jason Miller.

“Canada, Mexico, and the United States condemn the January 8 attacks on Brazil’s democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power,” US President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a joint statement from Mexico City on Monday.

Results from Brazil’s election — the closest in over three decades — were quickly recognised by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of governments. And Bolsonaro surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view. He neither conceded defeat nor emphatically cried fraud, though he and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes that was swiftly dismissed.

Brazilians have used electronic voting since 1996 that security experts consider less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazil’s system is, however, closely scrutinised and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.