Was the attempted insurrection in Brazil foreseeable?

First modification: 01/09/2023 – 10:36

What was surprising was the ease with which the protesters approached the official buildings, despite the fact that there were known tensions, that many of Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters were contesting Lula’s victory and seeking confrontation,” explains Martin Bernard , RFI correspondent in Brazil. Protesters broke through a police blockade, apparently without much resistance, and looted everything in their path in the presidency, congress and the Supreme Court. Although the authorities seemed overwhelmed, Bolsonarista activists had been talking for months about actions As soon as Lula won, hundreds of pro-Bolsonaro activists began camping in front of the army headquarters to call for a coup.In late December, the police thwarted an attempted attack.

“The different groups have organized themselves in recent months”

Brasilia, São Paulo, Rio, Belo Horizonte… In all the big cities, the Bolsonaristas continued to camp until Friday, when the police evacuated them. Before they returned the next day. Buses full of Bolsonaro supporters continued to arrive on Sunday as online calls for violence and insurrection grew more violent. The media and pro-Lula politicians were forced to sound the alarm.

For Odilon Caldeira Neto, professor of History at the Federal University of Juiz-de-Fora and coordinator of the Observatory of the Extreme Right, “this was foreseen. The different groups have been organized in recent months, articulated by Bolsonaro and then mobilized by certain military figures such as General Braga, General Augusto Heleno, and have had the financial support of businessmen from strategic financial sectors for Bolsonaro’s side, such as agribusiness, On the other hand, it should be noted that some sectors of the military police , which already showed a certain degree of Bolsonarization in recent years, have shown themselves to be more than lax in the face of anti-democratic riots,” he points out.

What role did the security forces play?

All these elements raise the question of the role of security forces. The pro-Bolsonaro group appears to have benefited from the complicity of the security forces in Brasilia. And on Saturday, the head of security for Brasilia, Anderson Torres, left the country for Florida, where Jair Bolsonaro remains.

President Lula declared federal intervention, with the support of the army, to restore order in Brasilia. Lula described the demonstrators as “fanatical fascists” who “will pay for this anti-democratic act.”

“The images are reminiscent of the assault on the Capitol two years ago in the United States. It is a frontal attack on Brazilian democracy, a week after Lula’s inauguration. But we must also underline the particularities of Brazil”, affirms Odilon Caldeira Neto. “The question of militarization is even more important in the Brazilian case, because it is based on the presence of the military in Brazilian politics, which is a tradition of thought authoritarian and practical, as well as from the Brazilian extreme right. On the other hand, the Brazilian episode is even more traumatic because the Lula government already exists, it has already been inaugurated. So I would say that there is a clear similarity with the United States: Conspiracy myths are evoked in the same way, but the intensity and political impact of events in Brazil are even more serious.”

A show of force

Justice Minister Flavio Dino spoke of “terrorism” and condemned the “coup plotters.” There were no shootings or deaths. From this point of view, it is more a show of force than a coup. But it was unprecedented and will mark the start of Lula’s third term in a very profound way.

The coordinator of the Observatory of the Extreme Right believes that several personalities played a role in these events and in the radicalization of the protesters: “Ernesto Araujo, for example, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, published videos in support of the anti-democratic escalation. There are also Bolsonaro figures in the police. So the problem of Bolsonaro as an articulated expression of the extreme right in Brazil is far from being resolved. This event has a tremendous dimension, but it is part of a broader dynamic of radicalization and articulation of anti-democratic elements.”