Brazil, Bolsonaro hospitalized in the US. In Brasilia 1,500 arrested. Lula: ‘Terrorism, vandalism and putsch’

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to AdventHealth Celebration, a hospital outside Orlando, Florida, with severe abdominal pain. The O Globo portal writes it, recalling that since the surgery he underwent after the 2018 stabbing, Bolsonaro has been hospitalized on other occasions due to abdominal pain. The most recent in November, when he was admitted to the Armed Forces Hospital in Brasilia. The news of the hospitalization was later confirmed by his wife.

The US they have not received any official request from Brazil about a possible extradition of Bolsonaro after the assault of his supporters on parliament. This was reported by US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, specifying that the American authorities are not in direct contact with Bolsonaro. “Of course, if we receive such requests, we will treat them as we always do, we will treat them seriously,” he added.

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Among the demonstrators who participated in the storming of the buildings of power in Brazil, was identified the nephew of Bolsonaro, Leonardo Rodrigues de Jesus – known as “Leo Indio”. Cnn writes it online. Indio posted several videos and photos on his Instagram profile on Sunday showing him standing in the crowd surrounding the Brazilian Congress. In a selfie, Indio appears in a green shirt and black cap, and his eyes are visibly red. In a later edited caption, Indio says his eyes were red from tear gas “fired by the security forces” who “focused their attention on all the demonstrators”. He also denied engaging in “any vandalism” and said those responsible for destroying government buildings “were vandals in disguise and cowards disguised as patriots”.

ABOUT 1,500 ARRESTS, LULA WANTS THE HARD LINE

Wave of arrests in Brazil and hunt for those responsible after the assault on the institutions which for a few hours caused the South American giant’s democracy to falter. The country woke up this morning still in shock for the attack launched on Sunday by thousands of Bolsonaro’s followers on the headquarters of the three symbolic powers of the state: Parliament, the government and the Supreme Court. For a couple of hours, the Bolsonarista people abandoned themselves to all kinds of devastation in the buildings overlooking the Piazza dei Tre Poweri. Recalling what Donald Trump’s followers did on Capitol Hill, the Brazilian rebels broke down doors, smashed windows and shop windows, smashed chairs and tables, looted wardrobes, defaced famous paintings and even performed outrageous gestures.

The Minister of Communications, Paulo Pimenta, assured that there were those who “urinated and defecated in the Palazzo del Planalto”, the seat of government. Solidarity with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came immediately from all over the world, from the USA to Italy, from China to Russia, from the EU to Mexico and Argentina. The media have evoked “the most serious act against Brazilian democracy since the end of the dictatorship”, but the police proved to be totally unprepared and incapable to muster enough forces to stop the attack. Indeed, controversy is raging over the shots of some agents who seemed to fraternize with the rioters.

To try to understand how such a thing could have happened, the Brazilian Senate will constitute a parliamentary commission of inquiry. But it is a fact that both the governor of the federal district of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, and above all his security minister, Anderson Torres, a Bolsonaro man, had assured the “absolutely peaceful” nature of the mobilization. This makes us understand why, at the moment of the assault, Lula was far away, in the state of São Paulo, visiting the flooded areas of Araquara. It is from there that the president signed the decree to ratify the immediate federal intervention of the government of Brasilia and the appointment of Rodrigo Garcia Cappelli as head of the operation.

Before rushing back to Brasilia, Lula condemned the “vandalistic and fascist” attack on public buildings and ensured that “all those responsible will be identified and judged”. From the statements of the head of state – who spoke today about “terrorist acts”, evoking the possibility that “they were financed by businessmen abroad as well” – the government’s retaliation has begun, also supported by the Supreme Court. One of the judges, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered the dismissal of the governor of Brasilia and ordered him clearing out of the camps of Bolsonaro supporters, in Brasilia and in the rest of the country. “We will act – declared the president of the Court, Rosa Weber – so that the terrorists who have participated in these acts are tried and punished in an exemplary way”.

During the day, the police managed, with the support of an army that often showed itself too understanding with the Bolsonarists, to clear the militant base in front of the military headquarters in the capital, with the arrest of about 1,500 people, taken away in 40 buses. Feeling called into question by the United States, where today, among other things, he was hospitalized in an Orlando clinic for “severe abdominal pains”, Bolsonaro tried to distance himself from the acts of violence by defining them as “illegal” and which, however, in his view, would be no different from those committed by left-wing militants in 2013 and 2017. His stay in US territory could become difficult in the future, because some MPs have speculated about his extradition. But US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that for now no requests came from Brazil.