Brazil stepped up a mop-up operation on Thursday after a wave of vandalism of government buildings in the capital, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said rioters were likely to have help inside.
Lula told reporters he had ordered a “thorough review” of the presidential palace staff after Sunday’s violent uprising, in which supporters of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro carried out widespread assaults on the president, Congress and the Supreme Court. .
“I believe the door of the Planalto (presidential) palace was opened for people to enter because none of the doors were broken,” the president said in Brasilia.
“It means that someone facilitated their entry,” said Lula, who also pointed the finger at “collusive agents” of the police and armed forces.
Dealing with the aftermath of the violent reaction by so-called “Bolsonaristas” to his brand new presidency, Lula said that “from now on we will be stricter, more cautious, more prudent.”
He added that any “radical ‘Bolsonarista'” would still be found working for the government, and cited media reports of alleged threats made by employees, a legacy from the previous administration.
“How can I have a person outside my office who can shoot me?” asked the president, who defeated Bolsonaro in October’s vote after an intensely divisive campaign.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch urged the government to “thoroughly investigate all those who incited, financed, or committed acts of violence in an attempt to negate the election results.”
election memorandum received
Pro-Bolsonaro rioters looted government offices on Sunday, destroyed priceless works of art and left graffiti messages calling for a military coup.
Investigations into the security lapses continued and those who masterminded and financed the riots were identified.
The attorney general’s office announced Thursday that it has identified 52 individuals and seven companies suspected of helping pay for the insurgency.
According to national broadcaster TV Globo, the suspects included leaders of the pro-Bolsonaro agri-business sector.
He is believed to have paid for the food and transportation of rioters who arrived in Brasília from several regions of the country in about 100 passenger buses.
In a parallel development, Globo and the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported on Thursday that a memo proposing to overturn the election results was found by authorities in the home of Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro’s former justice minister.
Torres was serving as Brasília’s security chief when the riots occurred, although he – like Bolsonaro – was in the United States at the time.
Federal police, executing a search warrant at Torres’ home, obtained a memo advocating for Bolsonaro to form a “defense” cordon around the Superior Electoral Tribunal’s headquarters to allegedly overturn the results.
Torres, for his part, said that the memo was one of several proposals given to the ministry and that it was in a pile of documents that had to be “cracked up in due course”.
In a Twitter thread, Torres said the leaked document was “helping feed false narratives” about him.
“I respect Brazilian democracy,” he said. “My conscience is clear about my actions as a minister.”
Torres was fired from his security post after the riot. He is expected to return from a US holiday on Friday to face charges of collusion.
Brasilia’s military police chief and the region’s governor also lost their jobs.
In the United States, dozens of Democratic US lawmakers called on President Joe Biden on Thursday to expel Bolsonaro.
“We must not allow Mr. Bolsonaro or any other former Brazilian official to seek asylum in the United States to avoid justice,” the lawmakers said.
bracing for more
Efforts are ongoing to track down more of those involved, with suspected rioters being identified through security cameras or selfies posted by themselves on social media.
Security forces were deployed on a war footing on Wednesday in response to the threat of new protests, to prevent a repeat of Sunday’s mayhem.
But the promise of mass mobilization to “take back the power” from Lula and his leftist government never materialized, leaving riot police twiddling their thumbs with helicopters as they set up a security cordon around Brasilia’s esplanade of ministries. The cordon was maintained.
A poll published Wednesday by the Datafolha institute said 93 percent of Brazilians condemned Sunday’s uprising, although another – by Atlas Intelligence – found one in five supported the rioters.
The arrests of nearly 2,000 and the tight security deployment appeared to act as a deterrent to renewed mobilization.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)