Photo: Adriano Machado/Portal
Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) set fire to cars, scattered gas bottles, attempted to enter Federal Police headquarters and threw a bus over other vehicles on a flyover in Brasília da Silva (PT) on the day of Presidentelect Luiz Inácio Lula’s diplomacy .
No one was arrested except for the indigenous protester, who was arrested after receiving threats and became something of a martyr to the cause, causing chaos.
Seventeen days have passed since then.
As if there weren’t enough images and evidence to understand the danger lurking in camps in the capital and other cities across the country, supporters of the incumbent president continued to incite violence, asking the army: or who would otherwise listen to her, a move to avoid Lula’s inauguration on January 1st.
Perhaps the arsonists of two weeks ago would have remained calm and undisturbed in their trenches if one of the participants in the riot on Saturday (December 24) with the mood revived with impunity had not doubled down his efforts and tried not to set fire to a car, but to one with a bombtipped tanker truck about to detonate at the entrance to Brasilia Airport.
Held in a rented apartment with an arsenal, the terrorist turned in some accomplices and revealed what seemed right from the start: the group was not gathered in Brasília to pray, but for the war.
On the 12th, by order of the Federal Court of Justice, the federal police began executing a number of arrest warrants against suspected sponsors or participants in the riots.
The arrests are the first step in demobilizing the camps that are now threatening the peaceful conduct of the inauguration ceremony.
The explosion at the airport, which would surely kill innocent people, didn’t happen by a hair’s breadth.
The bomb would detonate not only in the bosom of potential victims, but also in the bosom of authorities who watched the crisis simmer with approval or confidence that, eventually, the forces of nature might calm things down.
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In the power vacuum between an elusive president who has just been charged with crimes committed during his tenure, including linking the vaccine against Covid with a nonexistent risk of contracting the HIV virus, the current and future shows Justice ministers publicly denounced the inability to reach consensus on the safety of the inauguration ceremony or, as terror projects have shown, the common man who may be targeted while passing through the airport or under the capital’s viaduct.
It remains to be seen whether the wave of arrests will be able to demobilize the agents of chaos or provoke a wave of protests and revolts to the point where the situation spirals out of control once and for all.
In Bolsonaro’s Brazil, many performances have deteriorated in four years. The most obvious of these is the confusion between the right to freedom of expression and the “right” to threaten violence, burn cars and detonate bombs against anyone who disagrees with their opinion.