Of the ” freedom fighters is how Steve Bannon describes the pro-Bolsonaro demonstrators who stormed the Brazilian Congress on Sunday 8 January. In the days following the election in Brazil, Steve Bannon and other Trumpist strategists advised Jair Bolsonnaro to apply the same method as Donald Trump in 2020: contest defeat. The same strategy and identical consequences: the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and that of the Brazilian Congress last Sunday.
Even before Lula’s presidential victory, behind the scenes Steve Bannon was already advising those around Jair Bolsonaro to apply the same method as Donald Trump in 2020: contest the defeat at all costs.
According to information from washington post late October, reportsour correspondent in Miami,David Thomson, passing through Mar a Lago, the Florida residence of the former American president, one of the Bolsonaro sons, Eduardo, spoke with Steve Bannon. According to the major American newspaper, the ex-strategist of Trump would then have advised the son of the former Brazilian president to bet on protests aimed at denouncing electoral fraud, as in the United States in the weeks which preceded the attack on the Capitol.
► To read also: Brazil: after the attack on places of power, Lula denounces “terrorist acts”
– Manifestações pacíficas, na forma da lei, fazem parte da democracia. Contudo, depredações e invasions de prédios públicos como ocorridos no dia de hoje, assim como os praticados pela esquerda em 2013 e 2017, fogem à regra.
— Jair M. Bolsonaro 2️⃣2️⃣ (@jairbolsonaro) January 9, 2023
A month later, Eduardo Bolsonaro relayed a video from Steve Bannon’s podcast on Twitter praising the pro-Bolsonaro protests in Brazil. ” Lula stole the election, Brazilians know it, seize the voting machines Banon post the day after the attack on the Brazilian Congress, led according to him by ” freedom fighters “.
Comments posted on the social network Getter, founded by Jason Miller, another close friend of Trump who also advises Eduardo Bolsonaro since their meeting at Mar a Lago.
► To read also: Attack on places of power in Brazil: During this time, Jair Bolsonaro was in Florida
Towards a parliamentary commission of inquiry to shed light on the events?
” In any case, this is what President Lula promised, says Anaïs Fléchet, historian, specialist in Brazil and lecturer at Paris-Saclay University, at the microphone of Mikael Ponge. Will he have his hands free to do so? We can hope so. In this regard, the fairly firm reaction of the President of the Federal Supreme Court, the equivalent of the Supreme Court in Brazil, Alexandre de Moraes, leaves good hopes that a commission will be opened and that the culprits will already be identified and then judged. . »
And the specialist adds: So there are obvious parallels with the assault on the Capitol of course, but there is still a rather different element to highlight which is linked to the position of the armed forces in Brazil, since the armed forces, for the moment , did not express themselves on the events, did not mobilize much either to prevent them, did not alert the authorities. And so, this is one of the great unknowns at the moment: knowing how Lula will be able to deal with this important sector in Brazil as well. »