It is necessary to respond swiftly in the face of the invasion of the National Congress, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the Planalto Palace (the Presidential Palace) by the extreme right-wing Bolsonarists this Sunday.
By: National Directorate of the PSTU Brazil
What happened was a coup act of enormous gravity perpetrated with the collaboration of the security forces, both police and Armed Forces, alongside the government of the Federal District. This wasn’t simply negligence; the rioters had open support of the government of Ibaneis and his Secretary of Security, the former Minister of Justice of Bolsonaro, Anderson Torres.
The attack on the Brazilian Capitol exposes the coup character of Bolsonarism and of extreme right-wing terrorism, which feel more and more at will to act in the face of the conciliatory posture of Lula’s government, of his Minister of Defense, José Múcio, and also of the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino.
The invasion of Brasilia and of the headquarters of the three branches of government that occurred on Sunday, as well as the preparation for the invasion of oil refineries in the early hours the next morning, confronted the institutions of the new government, with the approval of the Army, in whose headquarters they have been camped for months.
The police, which does not hesitate to repress demonstrations of workers, poor people, and the black youth of the periphery, practically escorted the Bolsonaristas to invade the headquarters of the three branches of government.
The result of a policy of conciliation
The invasion of Brasilia is the result of an escalation that grew due to the collaboration of the security forces in the face of the mobilizations of the ultra-right. This was absolutely evident in Bolsonaro’s government, and continues, as we can see in the absurdity of the fact that Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro’s former minister who tried to boycott the elections, occupies the Public Security portfolio of the Federal District (DF).
And this in some way continues in the present government, as is shown by the shameful posture of the Minister of Defense of the Lula government, José Múcio, a name linked to bolsonarismo, and who qualifies the coup actions as “democratic,” refusing to take any measure to contain them. This is what the policy of class conciliation that characterizes the broad front headed by Lula-Alckmin leads to.
That is why the PSTU does not place any confidence in the Lula-Alckmin government which is a broad front with the bourgeoisie. In the same way that such a government is incapable of defeating the evils that afflict the life of the working class, it is also incapable of effectively confronting the coup of the Bolsonarist extreme right.
Class mobilization to defeat the extreme right-wing
The reality is that this Sunday’s action demonstrates categorically that no confidence can be placed in the state institutions and their repressive forces to combat the coup. Therefore, the federal intervention decreed in the Public Security of the Federal District is not enough. It continues to leave the response in the hands of the institutions that currently exist and can’t be trusted. We will not solve or contain the ultra-right in this way.
For that reason, workers cannot trust nor expect from these institutions the containment or defeat of the ultra-right and Bolsonarism. On the contrary, workers must trust in their own forces, in their own organization and mobilization -a fundamental task at this moment-, because the actions of the ultra-right and the coup they want to carry out are precisely against the workers. Their goal is to attack even more the rights of the people and to destroy even more our country.
We must demand from the government and the responsible institutions the investigation and exemplary punishment of all those involved in this coup act, from Bolsonaro and his family to the extreme right-wing parliamentarians, the governor of the Federal District, Ibaneis Rocha, to the big businessmen who financed the camps in Army headquarters and paid for the coup caravan of this Sunday. We must demand nothing less than the arrest and confiscation of the assets of these coup perpetrators.
The PSTU maintains, however, that it is necessary to mobilize the working class, take to the streets and organize self-defense to confront and effectively defeat the extreme right-wing coup plotters.
The leaderships of the working class organizations, of the left parties and of the trade union centers, and all the organizations that composed the “Bolsonaro Out!” (Fora Bolsonaro!) front, have the responsibility to put themselves at the forefront of this struggle, calling for mobilization and organizing self-defense against the extreme right.
We defend the call for a national day of struggle against the extreme right and the coup and in defense of democratic freedoms to be organized by organizations of the working class and the social and popular movements.
Occupy the streets and organize self-defense!
Investigation and exemplary punishment for all those involved in the coup actions!
Article originally published in www.pstu.org.br, 8/1/2023.
