Inside the Brazilian Congress looted by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro. In Brasilia, January 9, 2023. ADRIANO MACHADO/ Portal
It’s a dazed Brasilia that woke up on Monday January 9th. Its beating heart, the Place des Trois-Pouvoirs, still bears the scars of the previous day’s clashes, in which thousands of far-right activists searched the Republic’s institutions, the Presidential Palace, Congress and the Supreme Court. Shattered windows, smashed armchairs, scratched walls, piles of wood and wet papers… Under the overcast sky there is an unsettling silence, barely broken by the comings and goings of cleaning crews. Armed with brooms, the latter are hardworking. Garbage is thrown into large bins. Office chairs are being fished out of the convention pools. Ana Carina, 52, a black housekeeper who works at the Planalto presidential palace, smiles but is exhausted: “I’m so sad I have trouble speaking. I cried a lot. But we couldn’t put our heads down, we rolled up our sleeves and we’re going to clean everything up,” she says.
On site, it gives an impression of desolation. Everything must be rebuilt, starting with democracy: this Sunday, four decades of republic were thrown out of the windows of the palaces designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer. Striking image: At the entrance to the Planalto, the portraits of Brazil’s thirty-nine presidents lie torn and broken on the floor – with the exception of just one, that of Jair Bolsonaro, who was probably carried away as a souvenir by a rioter.
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But after the astonishment, repression quickly followed. On Sunday night, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, a member of the Federal Court of Justice and the Bolsonarists’ pet peeve, ordered “the total dissolution” within twenty-four hours of the far-right camps being set up in the capital. The magistrate also asked hotels in Brasilia to provide the names of their customers and asked the police to use surveillance cameras and social media to track down the coup plotters.
“A Brazilian Capital”
Long passive, the generals had little choice but to comply. From 7 a.m. on Monday, soldiers and policemen surrounded the camp opposite the army headquarters. Awakened by the megaphone, Bolsonaro’s “soldiers” quickly surrendered. Most had cautiously fled the capital the day before, sometimes by bus, hiding their “Seleçao” shirts, the national football team, a symbol they appropriated. The soldiers were able to dismantle the tents secretly. “Tomorrow this camp will no longer exist,” an army spokesman told the journalists present.
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