Three weeks ago, thousands of anti-Lula protesters forced their way to the seats of power in Brasília, breaking windows and furniture, destroying priceless works of art, and leaving behind graffiti calling for a military coup. “But the events (of January 8) had the opposite effect of what Bolsonaro intended,” says Mayra Goulart, a professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). “Without a doubt, Lula will come out stronger. These assaults have created a climate of national unity for the defense of democracy,” she predicts.
Many, even among supporters of the defeated former president Jair Bolsonaro, they were surprised with the seizure of the Planalto palace, the Congress and the Supreme Court. Some even supported Lula, for a unanimous condemnation of the facts. Leandro Gabiati, from the Dominium consultancy, agrees that Lula’s image has been “strengthened”, while those found guilty of participating in the riots will face sentences of up to 30 years for “terrorism”.
More of 2,000 rioters were arrested Already, and the authorities are tracking those suspected of having planned and financed the revolt: an investigation has been opened into the possible role of Bolsonaro, whose Justice Minister was arrested last Saturday for possible collusion with the vandals. And while the net was also tightening around the suspected organizers of the uprising, the government announced a reorganization of the police, security forces and public media, who are accused of being silent accomplices in the attack.
Media
The news of the dismissal by decree of the management of all Brazilian public media broke last weekend. glen valenteformer president of the company, and a second line made up of the soldiers Roni Baksys and Márcio Kazuaki, the Director of Operations, Pedro Marcos Boszcovski, and the counselor Sirlei Batista, were displaced as a result of the treatment that the news agency Agencia Brasil, TV Brasil and the Radio Nacional station carried out the seizure of the three public powers in Brasilia on January 8.
Folha de Sao Paulo points out that, while most of the Brazilian media referred to Bolsonaro sympathizers as “coup plotters”, the public media kept the term “protesters”. And it is that the direction of these media was still in the hands of officials appointed by the previous president: the position now falls to the journalist kariane costa as president of the Brazilian Communication Company, which will carry out a reorganization process.
Army
The general Julio Cesar de Arruda, commander of the Army, bet on the arrest of sympathizers who were camping at the gates of one of the barracks in Brasilia, to try to incorporate the military in an attempted coup. And he’s already been displaced. “Here you will not arrest people,” De Arruda would have stopped Justice Minister Flávio Dino, according to two officials present quoted by The Washington Post. The American newspaper recounts that “when senior officials of the Lula administration arrived at the Army headquarters on Sunday night with the aim of guaranteeing the arrest of the insurgents in the camp, they found themselves in front of tanks and three military lines.”
“According to Lula government officials, this act gave hundreds of supporters time to escape arrestand it is one of several indications of a worrying pattern that the authorities are now investigating as evidence of an alleged collusion between the military and the police and the thousands of rioters who invaded the institutions,” adds The Washington Post, which points out that the Government of Da Silva also denounces that the Police ignored the alarms that preceded the attack in Brasilia According to the newspaper, “the inaction and fraternization of the police when they began to enter the buildings, and the presence of a high command of the military police” are indications of a planned attack.
Bolsonaro
The arrest of Anderson Torres, former Minister of Justice of Jair Bolsonaro, closes the circle on the former president, now under investigation for the violent assault on the headquarters of the State powers in Brasilia on January 8. Former commissioner Torres was the designated Secretary of Security of the Brazilian capital, when thousands of people devastated the headquarters of the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court on Sunday, the 8th, a week after the inauguration of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“He was arrested upon disembarking at the Brasilia airport and sent to custody, where he will remain at the disposal of justice,” reported the Federal Police, which carried out a hermetic operation at the Juscelino Kubitscheck International Airport. Lula’s Justice Minister, Flavio Dino, pointed out that Torres, in his capacity as Secretary of Public Security of Brasilia, dismantled the leadership of the Military Police days before the coup barrage, separating from their positions the officers specialized in large public events
And a project for Bolsonaro to declare the “state of Defense”, through which the electoral Justice would intervene and declare the nullity of the elections in which Lula was elected, was found at his residence by the Federal Police. According to Dino, this document is just one “link” in a chain of coup initiatives that target the former president: the judge Alexander de Moraesanalyzes sending an interrogation to Bolsonaro, on vacation in Orlando, Florida, after including him as an investigated in the process on the attacks in Brasilia.
celac
Lula’s return to Celac It is the most important visit to the summit in Buenos Aires chaired by Alberto Fernández, beyond the controversies over the arrival in the country of Nicolá Maduro. The Brazilian generates consensus and has the power to unite the region, setting a new course, perhaps more balanced.
But Lula has no interest in Celac. His priority is South America, to order Mercosur and boost trade. He is not interested in wrestling with the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obradorthat Celac for its own interests: rivaling the United States, and lowering an ideological line, as it did in the Peruvian crisis in defense of Pedro Castillo.
Lula on the sidewalk across the street supported Dina Boluarte in front of those who ask for his resignation, with clear logic after the dismissal marches to Brasilia. The Brazilian is looking for a middle position that allows him to be able to act as a mediator with the Uruguay of Luis Lacalle Pou or the Chile of Gabriel Boric equally.
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