Protestors stormed Brazil’s congress, its presidential palace and supreme court in the capital Brasilia on Sunday.
The country’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva blamed his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro for the chaos. He described the protestors as ‘vandals, neo-fascists and fanatics’, and vowed that ‘anyone involved will be punished’.
The 77-year-old Lula was elected in October by 51% of the vote in a highly contested election.
Lula was not at the Planalto Palace when protestors scaled his residence after breaking a window to enter the building. Lula said ‘we are going to find out who are the financiers of these vandals who went to Brasilia and they will all pay with the force of law’.
Photos and videos from the palace show broken tables and chairs, battered computers and printers, and reams of scattered paper. Artwork was damaged and dirty footprints were found throughout the building. As many as 3,000 protestors may have been involved.
Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil’s supreme court judge, said this could only have happened with the acquiescence or even direct involvement of public security and intelligence authorities.
Lula accused the military police, seen as a hotbed of Bolsonaro support, of doing nothing. Ibaneis Rocha, the governor of Brasilia, has been removed for 90 days over security failings.
Bolsonaro, who still describes himself as President of Brazil in his Twitter biography and is currently in Florida, denied any involvement. ‘Peaceful demonstrations, as allowed by law, are part of democracy’, he said. ‘But vandalisation and invasions of public buildings – as occurred today, as well as those practised by the left in 2013 and 2017 – are not part of this rule. Throughout my term, I have always acted within the four pillars of the Constitution: respecting and defending the laws, democracy, transparency and our sacred freedom’.
[Photo: Eraldo Peres/Associated Press]