Just yesterday, the BBC reported that thousands of protestors who allegedly support Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Congress in Brasilia by overwhelming police guarding the area.
Other protestors
breached the deserted Senate chamber, the presidential palace, the Supreme
Court, and other government buildings.
The Brazilian
media reported that it began as a peaceful protest against
Lula. However, when “nearly 100” buses full of protestors arrived at the
capital, law enforcement was overwhelmed.
The
AP reported that the protestors broke windows, toppled furniture, and
hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punctured paintings and
overturned the tables at which Supreme Court justices convene. They ripped a
door off one justice’s office and vandalized an iconic statue outside the
court.
https://twitter.com/julianaSL7/status/1611915647352537088
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyZ2qE5I4bw
The protesters reportedly chanted slogans such as “Brazil is
ours!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67-vk-EZNhc
In time security forces managed to restore control of the
buildings.
The occurrences
yesterday are being called a culmination of months of protests
following the October presidential election where convicted felon
and Socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva defeated the then-incumbent Bolsonaro following two rounds of
voting. Lula won the run-off by a wafer margin of 50.84%.
The protestors called
Lula’s victory illegitimate for the following reasons.
An audit by the Armed
Forces of Brazil of the 2022 runoff presidential election between
Bolsonaro and Lula as candidates, concluded that there was a probability
of fraud or irregularities due
to their electronic voting system
In 2017, Lula was
convicted on charges of corrupt acts occurring during his first two terms as
president. Brazil's federal
electoral court has ruled that Lula could not run for president
because of his corruption conviction. However, a Supreme Court judge in Brazil
annulled Lula's corruption convictions clearing
his path to run
for the presidency in 2022.
Yet during the
election cycle, many pro-Bolsonaro accounts and groups on social media platforms
were shut down and prevented from mentioning Lula's corruption convictions.
Many Bolsonaro supporters were fined and subjected to police raids.
The global liberal
ecosystem that includes the news media covered the elections as if Brazil hung
on the precipice of destruction unless Lula won reelection. Once again this
amounts to interference in a national election.
When Lula was sworn in as
President on January 1st, he pledged to undo the legacy of his
predecessor's government, which he claimed involved depleting funding for
education, health, and the conservation of the Amazon rainforest.
Days before Lula’s
inauguration, Justice Alexandre De Moraes, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE),
which administers elections, temporarily suspended licenses that
permit hunters, marksmen, and collectors to carry guns, firearms, and
ammunition in the region where the capital city of Brasilia is located.
In 2020, De Moraes
had presided over a “fake news” probe that resulted in
police raids against comedians, Youtube commentators, and journalists for
having publicly supported Bolsonaro.
In 2021, De Moraes
also presided over the arrest and sentencing of
former Congressman Daniel Silveira to eight years in prison for 'insulting' TSE
ministers in a YouTube video; Bolsonaro pardoned Silveira
last year.
De Moraes was also
involved in the annulment of corruption charges against Lula that allowed him
to run for elections.
Bolsonaro left the
country for Florida late last month.
Tweeting on Sunday
evening, Bolsonaro criticized the riots, writing that peaceful demonstrations
are part of democracy, but that "depredations and invasions of public
buildings" are not. Bolsonaro rejected, what he called Lula and his ally’s
"baseless" allegations, that he incited the protests in Brasilia.
There are a few open
questions regarding these riots.
The election results
were out last November, and Lula was sworn in on the 1st of January.
Why did the protestors take so long to react?
Even if we assume
that the protestors took around two months to plan their breach, we must
question the lack of security despite a warning about the possibility of
disruption after a controversial and tightly contested election
Experts
are asking how such a long march got through security and reached the square,
only to then enter government buildings. Footage from local TV stations and
social media showed little to no resistance from security forces as the
protesters went by.
Observers noted that
an army brigade is permanently stationed in the presidential palace. Hence the question
remains how did the rioters manage to invade and vandalize the palace?
It also seems odd that the protest begin peacefully but turned
violent only when busses of protestors arrived.
This leads to questions about the bussed protestors. Who paid for
the bussing? How could the media and the government be certain that all of
these bussed protestors were supporters of Bolsonaro?
But these questions aren’t being asked.
Instead, the news
media in the US and beyond is covering this as a riot that is a sequel to the
Capitol Hill ‘insurrection’ on January 6th, 2021. The rioters
are being characterized as ‘far-right’.
https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/1612190448268840965
https://twitter.com/reporterenato/status/1612169712611491841
There has been condemnation from global leaders that were similar
to the ones following the occurrences on Capitol Hill.
The BBC is already blaming “Trump's
election-denying allies” for stoking the riots. Steve Bannon was blamed for
asking questions about election irregularities in Brazil and promoting the
hashtag #BrazilianSpring. Democrat politicians also blamed President Trump.
Following the
breaches of government buildings, President Lula vowed to punish supporters of
Bolsonaro.
Justice Minister
Flavio Dino told local media that some 200 people had already been
arrested. Dino had already referred to anti-Lula protest groups as “incubators
of terrorism” last month.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41KsigvhX0E
In the coming weeks expect Lula and his allies to use the might of
the government to crack down on political opponents. This creates a climate of
fear that is the equivalent of criminalizing political opposition.
It almost seems like
a template that is being followed.
·
Elevate the liberal candidate as the only
virtuous savior of the nation while his opponent is relentlessly denigrated and
dehumanized as an insensitive, heartless, bigoted, anachronistic monster.
·
Manipulate the discourse leading the
elections using the might of the judiciary and the government also by co-opting
the news media and big tech. Suppress and censor all wrongdoing of the liberal
candidate and allow the vilest of rumors regarding his opponent to be amplified.
·
Exploits all the vulnerabilities of
the voting system to help the liberal candidate which obviously
causes ardent supporters of the 'losing' candidate to be upset.
·
Perhaps use proxies to convince supporters
of the 'losing' candidate to hold a protest in the capital.
·
Reduce security in key areas around
the capital and allow supporters of the 'losing'
candidate to protest.
·
Infiltrate the protests with violent
elements who engage in vandalism and chant slogans that seem like they are
supporters of the 'bitter ‘losing' candidate.
·
Blame the 'losing' candidate and his
supporters for the chaos and violence.
·
Ensure that videos and images of these
occurrences spread across the world via the media.
·
Compel the media to amplify the occurrences,
using ominous-sounding terms such as 'insurrection'.
·
The 'riots' or 'insurrection'
receives global condemnation of the 'losing' candidate and his supporters
·
Use the 'riots' or
'insurrection' to criminalize political opposition and eventually implement a
one-party state.
A Also appears on American Thinker
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