The Brazilian Supreme Court has convicted (on 11 September) and sentenced ex-President Bolsonaro for his crimes of coup attempt, plot to assassinate political and judicial leaders and incitement of mobs to destroy the buildings of the Supreme Court, the Presidential palace, and the Congress, after he lost the elections in 2022. The court also sentenced seven other military and political accomplices of Bolsonaro. Earlier, the court had convicted more than 600 far right extremist followers of Bolsonaro who had vandalized the iconic government buildings of Brasila.
The trial and delivery of judgements were telecast live so that the whole country and the world can see and hear the details of the crimes, the evidence, arguments and defense in the case transparently and publicly. The court showed clips of the most dramatic moments of the coup attempt. Bolsonaro and his accomplices had self-incriminated themselves with public statements, interviews and activities in live TV. The audiovisual evidence for their attempts against democratic institutions are in the archives of the TV channels.
Brazilians, who had suffered many coups and military dictatorships in their history, did not want a regression to the ignominious past. Bolsonaro’s conviction is clearly a victory for the democracy of Brazil. It is a warning to future coup plotters. The last dictatorship which ruled from 1964 to 1985 had killed, tortured and disappeared hundreds of activists for democracy. Bolsonaro’s military coup did not succeed because the army and air force commanders refused to participate.
In other Latin American countries, members of military dictatorships who had committed atrocities were brought before justice and convicted. But the Brazilian military torturers and killers got away with their crimes. They got impunity as part of the bargain to transfer power to the civilians in 1985. So, this is the first time in the history of Brazilian democracy that the coup plotters have been tried for their attempt to disrupt democracy.
Bolsonaro has always publicly expressed his pride and admiration for the past military dictatorships and the killings and tortures openly and unapologetically. Ex-President Dilma Rouseff was a victim of imprisonment and torture by the military regime. Bolsonaro had dedicated his vote for impeachment of President Dilma Rouseff to the notorious Colonel Ustra who tortured her when she was caught as a young leftwing guerilla fighter. He called Ustra as a national hero.
Bolsonaro has never hidden his contempt for democracy. During his presidential visit to Chile, he praised Pinochet dictatorship, causing embarrassment to his Chilean hosts. “Elections won’t change anything in this country”, an angry Bolsonaro told an interviewer on the programme Câmara Aberta, broadcast by TV Band in 1999. “It will only change on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn’t do, killing 30,000 people beginning with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the President of Brazil at that time. If we kill some innocent people that’s fine because in every war innocent people die.” Shouting at the interviewer, an intemperate Bolsonaro said that if he became president, he would dissolve Congress on his first day in office.
Bolsonaro had worked systematically and consistently to undermine democratic institutions during his four year presidency as well as before and after his presidential term. He had filled his cabinet with military officers, including serving ones and politicized the armed forces. Anticipating his election loss, Bolsonaro had tried to discredit the electoral system systematically with disinformation and fake news. He held a public meeting even with the foreign ambassadors in Brasilia and explained to them his lack of belief in the electoral system. He had ordered police roadblocks to prevent voting by Lula supporters and monitored opponents using the national intelligence agency.
The Bolsonarist mobs had camped several times in front of the army headquarters in Brasilia and called for the return of military dictatorship and closure of the Congress and Supreme Court while President Bolsonaro smiled and cheered the crowds. In 2018, Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Jair Bolsonaro, was recorded speaking in a classroom, saying that the Supreme Court could be shut down if it went against his father. He said, “One wouldn’t even need a Jeep. Sending a soldier and corporal would be enough to close the Court”
Bolsonaro has ignited a new gun culture in Brazil. His three politician sons have been fierce proponents of expanding gun ownership through policy proposals and social media posts. Eduardo Bolsonaro has spoken admiringly of the Second Amendment in the United States. He has lobbied to make the Brazilian market more attractive to foreign arms manufacturers, which he said would lower prices and provide gun buyers with more choices. Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator, made the promotion of gun manufacturing in Brazil the focus of his first project in the legislature. During his presidency, Bolsonaro had loosened gun control to make more firearms available easily to more of his followers. Gun ownership rocketed by 98% during Bolsonaro’s first year as President. Weapons newly available to the public now included semi-automatic rifles, previously only available to the army. In April 2020, Bolsonaro revoked decrees that existed to facilitate the tracing and identification of weapons and ammunition. One week later, he tripled the quantity of ammunition available for purchase by civilians, saying on record in a ministerial meeting, that he wanted “everyone” to carry guns.. Bolsonaro’s signature favorite pose is gun shooting gesture. Bolsonaro reaffirmed in his inaugural speech, “Good citizens deserve the means to defend themselves through gun ownership”. His supporters in the Congress cheered and applauded him by pointing their fingers in the shape of a gun.
During his 2019 visit to US, he tweeted, “For the first time in a while, a pro-America Brazilian president arrives in DC.” He had made an unusual visit to the CIA headquarters. This was bizarre. No foreign president goes to CIA office. According to diplomatic protocol, it should have been the CIA Director who should have called on him and not the other way. After the visit, Eduardo Bolsonaro described the CIA as “one of the most respected intelligence agencies in the world,” in a tweet.
After losing the elections. Bolsonaro fled to Miami in an official plane without handing over power to his successor. He thought it was safe to incite the mobs from the US in order to claim later that he was not present in Brasilia when his followers ransacked government buildings. His son Eduardo Bolsonaro has been camping in US and has succeeded in convincing Trump to impose sanctions and tariffs on Brazil. He has been proudly claiming credit for these Trump punishments against Brazil.
President Trump had imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil saying that it was stop the prosecution of his friend Bolsonaro. He imposed sanctions against judges and revoked the US visas of some. He had exempted two judges, who were appointed by Bolsonaro, when he was President.
