Lula speaking yesterday after the Bolsonaro attacks / TV Capture
The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, announced that he had ordered the federal intervention of the security forces in Brasilia after the attacks that hundreds of supporters of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, perpetrated against the headquarters of the three public powers, in the capital, and warned that the “terrorists” who staged them “will pay with all the force of the law.”
“Peaceful demonstrations, within the law, are part of democracy. However, vandalism and invasions of public buildings such as those that occurred today (yesterday), as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, are beyond the rule,” the former president later said on his social networks, to thousands of kilometres.
“I decree the federal intervention in the federal district, which is limited to the area of public security, with the objective of putting an end to the serious compromise of public order,” Lula read in a televised message. The intervention in Brasilia will be until the 31st of this month and its objective is to put an end to acts of violence in public power buildings.
The decree placed the security forces under the authority of a person appointed by Lula and reporting directly to him, Ricardo Garcia Capelli. It may resort to “any organ, civil or military” to guarantee order.
The president remarked that there was a defective security operation. “We believe that there was a lack of security and I want to say that all the people who did this will be found and will be punished,” Lula said in Araraquara, São Paulo state, where she was visiting due to a flood tragedy. “Unfortunately, the one who had to do the security of the federal district was the military police of the federal district and they did not do it; there was incompetence, bad will or bad faith, you saw the images of how they accompanied them” to the protesters, Lula commented.
He assured that these uniformed officers will be “punished in an exemplary manner” and “they are not trustworthy.”
“Those vandals, who we can describe as fanatical Nazis, fanatical Stalinists, or rather fanatical fascists, did what was never done in this country,” he said in relation to the attackers.
He added that they are going to “find out who the financiers of these vandals who went to Brasilia are,” in addition to ensuring that “everyone will pay with the force of the law for this anti-democratic gesture.”
“Democracy guarantees the right to freedom of expression,” but “requires that people respect the institutions,” said Lula, who was sworn in as Brazil’s head of state on January 1.
“GENOCIDAL”
Lula also blamed his predecessor, whom he called “genocidal,” and accused agribusiness and illegal mining mafias of financing these coup movements. “He encouraged the invasion of the three powers whenever he could and that is his responsibility,” Lula said of Bolsonaro. “Agribusiness was probably there too,” he commented.
“They took advantage of the silence on Sunday, when we are still forming a government, to do what they did,” said Lula, who promised to persecute both the direct participants and those who promoted the “anti-democratic gesture.”
The president traveled to Brasilia last night to visit the vandalized buildings.
The leader of the Workers’ Party previously held an emergency meeting with his ministers to discuss the situation in Brasilia.
BOLSONARO, IN ORLANDO
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro remains in Orlando (Florida, USA), he added: “I repudiate the accusations, without evidence, attributed to me by the current head of the Brazilian Executive (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva).” Likewise, Bolsonaro has compared the events that occurred this Sunday, which he has described as “depredations and invasions” with the demonstrations called by the left”, assuring that “the rule escapes”, since “peaceful demonstrations, in the form of law, are part of democracy. Earlier, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL) “vehemently” condemned the “predation” of the National Congress. “May the law be fulfilled by strengthening our democracy,” declared the president of the PL, Valdemar Costa. “What happened has been a shame for everyone,” he added.
