Brazil riots prompt global outrage
World leaders condemn actions of Bolsonaro supporters, voice support for Lula
BRASILIA — World leaders and international organizations condemned the actions of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters after mobs stormed the presidential palace, the Congress and the Supreme Court in Brazil’s capital city on Jan 8 and wreaked havoc.
Denouncing the rioters, the international community expressed support for Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The attackers in Brasilia were protesting in response to Bolsonaro’s loss of power after his defeat by Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula, in the presidential election in October.
Lula, who was sworn in on Jan 1, has condemned the invasions of the government buildings as “acts of terrorism”, and said the attackers would be punished “with the full force of law”.
Rioters donning the green and yellow of the national flag broke windows, toppled furniture, and hurled computers and printers to the ground in the shocking events in Brasilia on Jan 8.
On Jan 9, Brazilian security forces cleared protest camps and arrested 1,500 people who unleashed chaos on the capital.
World leaders repudiated the protesters’ acts and expressed their support
for the Brazilian government.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an urgent meeting of the Organization of American States, or OAS, to “apply the democratic charter”.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric said: “An unconscionable attack on
the three powers of the Brazilian state by Bolsonarists. The Brazilian government has our full support in the face of this cowardly and vile attack on democracy.”
Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero wrote on Twitter that “we express our solidarity with Lula da
Silva and raise our voices in defense of Brazilian democracy”.
United States President Joe Biden described the scenes in Brasilia as an “assault on democracy”.
In Europe, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, said the bloc condemns in the strongest terms the antidemocratic acts of violence that took place in Brasilia’s government quarter.
Lula, who took office after a bitterly divisive election win over Bolsonaro, on Jan 9 returned to work in the presidential palace, where reporters saw the wreckage that remained of the previous day’s havoc.
Lula, who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, met with the leaders of both houses of Congress and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and joined them in condemning what many called the South American country’s version of the Capitol riots in the United States two years ago.
David Adler, a political economist and coordinator of the left-wing international organization Progressive International, said on Jan 8 that the invasion may have been planned from the US.
Bolsonaro said on Twitter that he had been hospitalized in Florida with abdominal pains stemming from a near-fatal knife attack when he was campaigning for the presidency in 2018.
Bolsonaro, 67, condemned the “pillaging” in Brasilia, but rejected Lula’s claim he incited the attacks.