Brazil: Violent Attacks After the Second Round of the Electoral Farce
Featured image: Supporters of Bolsonaro attack a car immediately after the second round of the electoral farce. Source: A Nova Democracia.
A Nova Democracia (AND) has reported about a campaign of political violence that supporters of Bolsonaro unleashed after the second round of the electoral farce, which took place on October 25. They targeted indigenous people, supporters of Lula and those they suspected of supporting him. By October 28 the Brazilian State had already recognized 45 acts of political violence linked to this, including 10 murders.
These crimes include the murder of Eliseu Pedrozo dos Santos, 38, in Mangueirinha (PR) who was run over and of Marcelo de Oliveira Rocha, 30, who was beaten to death in Santos (SP). The second one of these was live-streamed by the murderers.
Meanwhile in the countryside, the attacks and threats began already during the electoral campaigns. AND exposed a series of attacks by armed goons in Naviraí (MS). In the same state an employee of the mayor threatened to poison the water supply of the Sassoró village. In Votouro (RS), Álvaro Ferreira, was murdered by a Bolsonaro supporter after a protest against the dismissal of five workers, based on them supporting Lula. As AND denounces, these aggressions came as a part of a long standing campaign of attacks on indigenous people in the area, targeting especially areas they have reclaimed from the big landlords.
The police not only tries to downplay the attacks, like calling the case of the murder of Olivera Rocha a “robbery”, but has been shown to actively participate, such as in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, where videos show a police car deliberately running over a participant in a motorcade celebrating the electoral results, after which they proceeded to pepper-spray and beat him, according to a witness interviewed by AND ‘s correspondent.
Bolsonaro has stated that he would “mobilize the opposition” from comfortable Florida, where he fled to trying to escape the investigations into his corruption. AND highlighted how this plays into the hands of Yankee imperialism:
“ The violence of the far right combines with Yankee economic and diplomatic blackmail to pressure Brazil. Washington seeks to extract from the opportunistic government the concessions it hoped to obtain with Flávio: greater control over minerals and energy sources, distancing from social-imperialist China, and subjugation of defense policy. Luiz Inácio’s promise of conciliation offers a path for these objectives to advance even after the defeat of Trump’s candidate. The dead, wounded, and persecuted workers disprove the idea that the election results imposed a truce on the far right. Their gangs, links to government offices, bosses, and landowners, and positions within the repressive apparatus remain. Confronting them requires independent organization and mobilization of workers, students, and peasants, without subordinating the defense of popular rights to the compromises of the opportunistic government.”
