For many of the participants in the attack on the heart of Brazilian democracy, Sunday in Brasilia began with a nine-kilometer walk separating the army headquarters and the Three Powers Square, where the beautiful headquarters of the Congress, the Presidency, is located and the Supreme Court. Together they form an equilateral triangle designed by Óscar Niemeyer, whose work was a collateral casualty of Bolsonaro’s heavy attack.
This is a chronology of the invasion that shook the very foundations of the Republic of Brazil, based on that prepared by the newspaper O Globo:
Saturday. The new justice minister, former judge Flávio Dino, notifies Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha, a Bolsonaro ally, that a new group of Bolsonaristas are arriving on chartered buses from other cities. The secret service ABIN (for its Portuguese acronym) warns various security organizations of the danger of attacks on public buildings in the next few hours.
Sunday, 1 p.m. in Brasilia: Radical Bolsonarians who have camped outside barracks across the country for two months and have called on the military to stage a coup against Lula da Silva are leaving the booths where they eat, sleep and pray to quietly head to Three Powers Square . The military police are escorting them as if nothing had happened, which is all the more striking given that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power a week ago and most ultra-Bolsonarists continue to proclaim fraud.
The federal district’s acting secretary of public safety has just told the governor in an audio message revealed by Folha de S. Paulo that the protesters they have been negotiating with are peacefully advancing. And he adds a “for now” that’s noticeable in hindsight. He also tells him that about 150 buses with Bolsonaristas have arrived in the city to join the mobilization. After the horrifying images that circulated around the world the day before, the Supreme Court this Monday temporarily removed Governor Rocha from the attackers because of his collusion and omissions.
Sunday, 2:50 p.m: Hundreds of people, dressed in yellow T-shirts and waving Brazilian flags, advance en masse, effortlessly breaching the barrier of agents protecting Congress. Not enough for what they have in front of them. The Bolsonaristas are climbing the ramps to the roof, as has been done on a few other occasions in recent years, but they’re going further. They use violence. They kick at the glass facades and burst into the elegant halls strolled by their lordships, who are on Christmas break until the end of the month.
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The attack begins.
Some film themselves joking in plenary and broadcast the videos.
Vandals stone a police patrol.
Sunday 3:10 p.m: The extremists go to the building a little to the left, the Presidential Palace of Planalto, the same one where Lula received the presidential sash from a garbage recycler a week earlier. Once inside, they destroy artwork and furniture, steal weapons from the Presidential Security Service, and attack the office of Lula’s wife, Rosangela Silva, known as Janja. You can’t get into the President’s office.
Sunday 3:40 p.m: The radicals cross the square and enter the Supreme Court headquarters, where they reach the plenary session.
Sunday 5:55 p.m.: Lula, caught in the attack inside São Paulo, visits rain victims and improvises an intervention that will be televised live. He condemns the attack, directly accuses his predecessor Bolsonaro of instigating it and reveals that he ordered the federal government to assume security powers for the federal district. He quickly returns to Brasília, where he inspects the damage at night.
Sunday 6:30 p.m.: The security forces make a huge deployment that includes the cavalry, and little by little they take back control. Hundreds of extremists are arrested right there.
In about three hours, the headquarters of the Three Powers will be under the control of the authorities again.
Monday 9 a.m: Lula receives the heads of the three powers in his office in Planalto. During the day he also meets with the Secretary of Defense and the Chiefs of Armed Forces, as well as all governors.
At the same time, security forces broke up the coup plot in Brasilia by arresting some 1,200 people, while camps in Rio, Manaus and other capitals are also being cleared.
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