Brazil, Jan.10: Brazilian security forces cleared protest camps on Monday and arrested 1,500 people as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemned “acts of terrorism” after a mob stormed government buildings, causing chaos on the capital.
About 3,000 supporters of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro had set up tents, which were used as a base for protesters who ran riot inside the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court for around four hours on Sunday.
Lula, who took office on January 1 after a bitterly divisive election win over Bolsonaro, returned to work in the pillaged presidential palace, where reporters saw the wreckage that remained of the previous day’s havoc: trashed artwork and offices, shattered windows and doors, broken glass strewn across the floor, and furniture dragged into a reflecting pool.
Lula, 77, who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, met with the leaders of both houses of Congress and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and joined them in condemning what many called the South American country’s version of the US Capitol riots in Washington two years ago.
“The three powers of the republic, the defenders of democracy and the constitution, reject the terrorist acts and criminal, coup-mongering vandalism that occurred,” they said in a joint statement.
Bolsonaro, who narrowly lost the October elections, meanwhile said on Twitter that he had been hospitalized in Florida with abdominal pains stemming from a near-fatal knife attack when he was campaigning for the presidency in 2018.
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