When thousands of left-wing protesters attacked government buildings in Brazil in 2017

By Fernando Beltrán

Last Sunday, after the assault on the headquarters of the institutions of the three powers in Brasilia by thousands of protesters sympathetic to the former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, he denied his responsibility in the aforementioned episode and repudiated the “accusations without evidence” made by the current president of the country, Lula da Silva.

“Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of law, are part of democracy. However, the depredations and invasions of public buildings such as those that occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, are beyond the rule,” Bolsonaro wrote on his Twitter account that night.

What was the former Brazilian president referring to?

In June 2013, there were massive protests throughout the country against the government of Dilma Rousseff, former president of the country and successor to Lula da Silva, with several episodes of violence.

The other demonstrations that Bolsonaro was referring to, those of 2017, against the Executive of Michel Temer, were more similar to the assault that took place last Sunday.

On that occasion, when they were protesting against the president and demanding elections, the Ministry of Agriculture was set on fire by the protesters.

Other official buildings suffered acts of vandalism of all kinds. There was also significant damage to the Ministry of Culture, where windows and computers were broken and documents were burned.

At least six other ministries suffered damage, as well as the Cathedral and the National Museum of the Republic, El Mundo reported.

According to the local press, the demonstrators used slingshots to throw stones. The violence used was such that Temer was forced to authorize the occupation of Brasilia by the Armed Forces to contain the protests.

After the attack on public government buildings there were no international condemnations, chest beatings, there was no talk of a coup d’état or an assault on democracy, there was no tearing of clothes; if that, there were condemnations of the excessive use of force by the police to put down the protests.

“Today in Brasília, the voice of the people will be heard. Essential political actor and is sometimes ignored by analysts. May everything work in peace,” wrote Flávio Dino, the new Minister of Justice of the Lula da Silva government, on the primary day of the 2017 protests.

Well, how times change. And how different the reactions are depending on who does what.

With information from La Gaceta de la Iberosfera