The manufactured mayhem that tore through the centres of power in Brasília on Sunday should be seen, at least in part, as another front in the war on nature.
One week earlier, the new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had marked his inauguration by unveiling what is arguably the world’s most ambitious environmental program.
He and his environment minister, Marina Silva, promised zero deforestation in the Amazon, an end to invasions into any of Brazil’s biomes, and greater participation for Indigenous peoples in national decision making. These are changes on a historically epic scale. Since the invasion of the first Europeans 500 years ago, the economy of Brazil, has been built on destruction of the wilderness and subjugation of the original inhabitants.
This threatened an old – mostly white – elite, as well as those who depend on illegal extraction activities, such as land grabbing and gold-mining in nature reserves and Indigenous territories.
The unrest was organised long in advance, supported by serious money, and its very public buildup – in the form of road blocks and social network messaging – was conspicuously ignored by sympathisers of the former president Jair Bolsonaro in the security forces.
In his first comments after the attack, the Brazilian president suggested illegal miners, loggers and “evil agribusiness” may be involved in the destruction. That is yet to be proven, but there is no doubt his plans to protect the rainforest and other biomes have stirred up a hornets nest in the Amazon.
For the past two months, motley crews of Bolsonarista protesters have been camped outside military bases across the country. They have become a familiar sight with their green national flags, yellow football shirts and banners falsely claiming the presidential election was fraudulent and urging the army to intervene. Their numbers dwindled and most people, including soldiers, ignore them. Strangely though, they have remained remarkably well provisioned with food supplies and marquees to shelter from rainy season storms. Sore losers are rarely so well funded.
The wave of chaos in Brasília at the weekend was an escalation of that movement. It has for now at least, been quelled by federal police and the arrest of more than 1,500 people, the break-up of protest camps and the confiscation of buses.
Among the first 70 or so names of the detainees released by police were figures who will go down as criminal cranks, similar to the “Q-Anon Shaman” and others involved in the Capitol riot in Washington DC three years ago.
Their Brazilian counterparts include William Ferreira da Silva, the self-styled “Weatherman”, who ran for political office in the Amazonian state of Rondonia and posted campaign pictures of himself in military khakis; and Adriano Castro, a visual artist and internet influencer for the right-wing BBB “bullets, bible and beef” movement.
Many were active in politics. One was a member of the former ruling clan: Leo Índio, who is a nephew of Jair Bolsonaro.
More than a dozen were involved in local government or had stood as candidates in October’s elections. Another was the wife of the former Paraíba state governor. Several were security guards on municipal payrolls. Apart from that, the mix was diverse, including a mechanic from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, a barber from Brasília, the head of a shopkeepers association from Goiás, and a lawyer from Minas Gerais.
These are the foot soldiers, who will face allegations of illegal entry, destruction of property and possibly insurrection. Now the attention will shift to the powers behind them.
Among the first under scrutiny are the notoriously pro-Bolsonaro military police, who escorted the buses of the protesters and made little effort to prevent their invasion of official buildings. The Bolsonarista governor of the federal district, Ibaneis Rocha, has been removed from office while he is investigated for alleged collusion.
His appointee as security secretary, Anderson Torres, is under the most intense scrutiny because he had only recently jumped from the post of justice minister in Bolsonaro’s government. There have been calls for his arrest, but conveniently, he is “on holiday” in Florida. That same US state is also the refuge of Bolsonaro and his sons, which puts them at least temporarily beyond the reach of Brazilian law and police questions about propagation of uncsubstantiated voter fraud claims and incitement to violence. They are now close to their friend and ally Donald Trump, who faces similar charges over the Capitol assault.
Even before Sunday’s riots, the president of the superior electoral court, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered an investigation into the funding and organisation of the protest camps that sprang up around the country after Lula’s victory. In November, a leaked police report revealed a movement who financed transportation, portable toilets, temporary shelters and food and drink for protesters who were also given free football shirts and flags. The organisers included several Bolsonarist local politicians
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These anti-democracy protests, which drew evangelical groups and far-right extremists, were met with derision from the left. But there was also violence, notably in the Amazonian municipality of Novo Progresso, where protesters fired bullets and threw stones at police. Still more extreme was the attempted bombing of Brasília airport in December by a businessman from the Amazonian state of Pará.
The Amazon link
It is no coincidence that many of these participants are from the Amazon. The vast rainforest region is a hotbed of support for Bolsonaro, along with the far south and wealthy enclaves inside major coastal cities. Many in the “arc of deforestation” profited from the Bolsonaro years, which saw a 59.5% increase in land clearance and impunity for illegal gold mining and land-grabbing.
This criminal activity is threatened by the new government in multiple ways. In his inauguration speech, Lula promised a return of the state to the Amazon: “We will encourage prosperity in the land, but we cannot make it a lawless land, we will not tolerate deforestation and environmental degradation.”
His most progressive initiative was the creation of a new Indigenous affairs ministry, which gives first peoples more power and a greater platform than at any time in the country’s history. This was anathema to many insurrectionists.
All eyes are now on the security forces. The army’s loyalties would seem to be with Bolsonaro. Generals played a prominent role in the last administration and Bolsonaro was a former army captain and enthusiastic supporter of Brazil’s last military dictatorship from 1964-85. That regime started with a coup and focused considerable energy on opening the Amazon to exploitation by sympathetic business groups.
Quick Guide
Brazil’s dictatorship 1964-1985
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How did it begin?
Brazil’s leftist president, João Goulart, was toppled in a coup in April 1964. General Humberto Castelo Branco became leader, political parties were banned, and the country was plunged into 21 years of military rule.
The repression intensified under Castelo Branco’s hardline successor, Artur da Costa e Silva, who took power in 1967. He was responsible for a notorious decree called AI-5 that gave him wide ranging dictatorial powers and kicked off the so-called “anos de chumbo” (years of lead), a bleak period of tyranny and violence which would last until 1974.
What happened during the dictatorship?
Supporters of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime – including Jair Bolsonaro – credit it with bringing security and stability to the South American country and masterminding a decade-long economic “miracle”.
It also pushed ahead with several pharaonic infrastructure projects including the still unfinished Trans-Amazonian highway and the eight-mile bridge across Rio’s Guanabara bay.
But the regime, while less notoriously violent than those in Argentina and Chile, was also responsible for murdering or killing hundreds of its opponents and imprisoning thousands more. Among those jailed and tortured were Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, then a leftwing rebel.
It was also a period of severe censorship. Some of Brazil’s best-loved musicians – including Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso – went into exile in Europe, writing songs about their enforced departures.
How did it end?
Political exiles began returning to Brazil in 1979 after an amnesty law was passed that began to pave the way for the return of democracy.
But the pro-democracy “Diretas Já” (Direct elections now!) movement only hit its stride in 1984 with a series of vast and historic street rallies in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.
Civilian rule returned the following year and a new constitution was introduced in 1988. The following year Brazil held its first direct presidential election in nearly three decades.
So far, the army – unlike sections of the military police – has ignored the coup-mongers’ entreaties.
That may be because the war on nature is no longer good business.
The climate crisis made Bolsonaro an international villain and Brazil a pariah, which was bad for trade.
Many of the tensions now erupting both in Brazil and previously in the United States are related to stress on the old industrial capitalist model. In both countries, the ancién regime wanted to continue the old way of doing business – whether logging or producing fossil fuels – but the economic gains were negligible and the reputation risks enormous.
Lula, by contrast, represents a coalition of those who are most at risk from the theft and contamination of fertile land, clean water and fresh air; those who want to restore Brazil’s international reputation for the sake of exports, and those aligned with a global science-led movement who realise the only viable future is a new approach to planetary life-support systems such as the Amazon.
So far, the institutions have backed Lula, but this is a time of peril for Brazil’s democracy and its transition to a less destructive model of development. If the markets and the military remain on his side – or at least on the fence – the attempt at a coup will fail in Brazil as it did in the US. That is by no means certain, and even if it proves to be the case, the war is far from over.