Brazil experienced an episode that recalled the taking of the Capitol American, exactly two years ago, when supporters of donald trump they wanted to avoid the designation of Joe Biden as president. For many, the action carried out on January 8 by thousands of followers of the former president Jair Bolsonarowhich invaded Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace in Brasilia driving a coup to overthrow the brand new president, is a carbon copy of that of January 6, 2021.
In both cases, there had been notices that were ignored. The groups QAnon who took the Capitol They were under the radar fbi for a long time, and the calls to demonstrate in Washington were public, and they even came from Donald Trump himself.
In Brazil, the Bolsonaro government Ibaneis Rocha in the DF, and the federal government of Lula da SilvaThey had also noticed the terrorist actions of various coup cells, and they did not react in time.
Ibaneis and his Secretary of Public Security (now fired) knew that dozens of buses were heading to Brasilia, and that the police he intended to mobilize were insufficient in number. Worse yet, many took selfies with the coup rioters who invaded Congress, the STF and the planalto. Another point in common with the policemen who guarded the Capitol US.
The notable difference is that Biden did not control the country thenas if Lula does, who assigned his defense minister, Jose Mucio, the task of demobilizing the coup camps in front of the barracks. But the minister was weak: “acts are part of democracy,” he had said.
And he almost sympathized with the coup plotters: “I have family and friends there“, he added, promising that the camps would be dismantled on Friday. None of that happened. But the task should never have been handed over to the Defense Minister: the camps were not inside the barracks but on the street, and it was the duty of the police, and not the army, to dissolve them.
Flavio Dino, Minister of Justice, had told Lula about the mistake. However, he was hampered by the presidential decision to give Múcio command. Now he has under his orbit the promotion of the process of the 150 detaineesand promote research on the masterminds of the attempt to coupas happened in the United States.
Here another difference: Bolsonaro is located -conveniently- tens of thousands of kilometers away, in Orlando, while Trump was in the White Housea few steps from the riots: several witnesses pointed out that the strategy of the then US president was to convince parliamentarians to invalidate part of the electoral results. Trump considered that he could reverse the defeat if he managed to get the congressmen to change the numbers in some places (an unfeasible maneuver in the House).
In fact, he pressured his vice, Mike Pence, who led the session, to reject the data sent by different states. But Pence dashed the hopes of his boss before noon on that January 6th. And Trump was openly critical of him, warning that he had lacked “the courage to do what should have been done.”
“Let’s march to the Capitol. And let’s applaud our brave senators, men and women. I know that everyone here will soon march to the Capitol to make their voices heard in a peaceful and patriotic way,” the president then claimed hours before the takeover.
The Washington police were only able to control the situation after the reinforcement of the National Guardaround 5:30 p.m., three hours after the start of the invasion.
Since then, the FBI has arrested more than 950 people (the investigation is considered the largest in the agency’s history) and has filed charges against 940, with more than half of those accused, 482, confessed their guilt (Justice sentenced another 44). A process that will now surely be repeated in Brazil.
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