The 'Trump' of Latin America

A view shows the damage caused following Brazil's anti-democratic riots, at the Supreme Court building in Brasilia, Brazil, January 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

"They will not succeed in destroying Brazilian democracy. We need to say that fully, with all firmness and conviction."

"We will not accept the path of criminality to carry out political fights in Brazil. A criminal is treated like a criminal."

Justice Minister Flavio Dino, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

"Bolsonarism mimics the same strategies as Trumpism."

"Our January 8 -- an unprecedented manifestation in Brazilian politics -- is clearly copied from January 6 in the Capitol."

"Today's sad episodes represent yet another attempt to destabilize democracy and demonstrate that the authoritarian, populist radicalism of Brazil's extreme right remains active under the command of former president Bolsonaro, the 'Trump of Latin America'."

Paulo Calmon, political-science professor, University of Brasilia

 This past Sunday Brazilians whose political framework refuses to accept the victory vote in the recent general election that brought leftist Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva back to power in Brazil rampaged through the capital in a fury of rejection of the change of government, calling for the return of defeated president Jair Bolsonaro. The populist ex-president still has a passionate following in his country and they deplore the return of Lula de Silva.

 

Protesters on Sunday flowed in numbers into Congress, into the Supreme Court and into the presidential palace grounds, calling for the return of the former president and calling on the Brazilian military to restore Bolsonaro by coup. A pro-Bolsonaro encampment located outside a military building was broken up by police the following day, detaining about 1,200 people.

 

According to Brazil's minister of institutional relations, the buildings that had been stormed on Sunday would be inspected for evidence, including fingerprints and video images to ensure that those who were involved could be tracked down and held to account. There were further fears that the rioters intended to inspire similar such events across the country.

 

Dressed in the green and yellow of the Brazilian flag, rioters took to breaking windows, turning over furniture, tossing computers and printers to the ground outside buildings. A huge canvas of a nationalist painting at the presidential palace was slashed and destroyed, along with other works of art. At the Supreme Court, the U-shaped table that seats justices when they convene, was overturned, a door was ripped off one office, and an iconic statue standing outside the court was vandalized.

 

Governmental buildings and their interiors were left in shambles. On Sunday, 300 people were arrested, caught in the act of destroying public property. According to public prosecutors, local security forces had been negligent; the regional government had been temporarily suspended by a Supreme Court justice, and another justice placed blame on authorities for failing to quickly crack down on emerging neo-fascism in Brazil.

 

Hardcore supporters of ex-president Bolsonaro were convinced the electronic voting system was prone to fraud following the October 30 electoral defeat of the sitting government. Bolsonaro himself is no longer in Brazil. He left for Florida where he was admitted to an Orlando hospital with "abdominal pain", resulting from having been attacked and stabbed in 2018 while he was campaigning for the presidency, causing gut blockages and multiple hospitalizations over the years.

 

This is Brazil; the hard-core right susceptible to violent clashes with authorities in a polarized political arena where deeply left opponents cause their own type of violence in personal attacks meant to be lethal assassinations of those they deplore. Following his lost re-election, Jair Bolsonaro simply left the scene, neither accepting defeat nor congratulating his political opponent.

"I don't agree with what happened in Brasília - it was a nightmare. I don't agree with those who believe that with democracy you can use your power to destroy democracy."

"I want to show to the world and our country that even though there are thousands of people who believe the elections weren't valid, here in Brazil, we have a gigantic number of people who believe we can trust our government, we can trust in our democracy."

Gabriel, pro-Democracy rally, Sao Paulo, Brazil

A pro-democracy march in Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, around 1,200 miles (1931km) from the capital Brasilia, where the riots happened   Reuters

A Pox On Both Their Houses

"Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the U.S. Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,"

"While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, the FBI is supporting our state, local, and federal law enforcement partners with maintaining public safety in the communities we serve."

"Our efforts are focused on identifying, investigating, and disrupting individuals that are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity."

FBI Bulletin

 

"We're keeping a look across the entire country to make sure that we're monitoring, and that our Guards in every state are in close co-ordination with their local law enforcement agencies to provide any support requested."  

Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau

 

"A lot of people were energized by what happened last week, State capitals are a natural place where people might want to show up, especially assuming that they think there might be a huge presence of police and military in D.C. because of what happened last week."

"[The Capitol siege demonstrated the emergence of a new movement of] Trumpist extremists, so caught up in the cult of personality around Trump that they may be willing to break the law or engage in violence purely in support of Trump and whatever he wants."

Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow, Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism

 

"The FBI just can't passively sit in websites and forums and social media platforms, waiting to see who's going to present a direct threat versus just someone who is being highly radicalized."

"There has to be an investigative predicate for the FBI to then start even the lowest form of an investigation."

Javed Ali, former FBI senior intelligence officer

A team of FBI agents gather as demonstrators rally outside of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

"In light of events of the past week and the evolving security landscape leading up to the inauguration [the Secret Service has been instructed to begin security operations on January 13 rather than January 19]."

"[Federal, state, and local agencies] will continue to coordinate their plans and position resources for this important event."

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf

Warning that "armed protests" could arise around events linked to the January 20 presidential inauguration in Washington, the FBI made it clear that all fifty state capitals in the U.S. will be susceptible to the potential for rampaging mobs to make their dissatisfaction with the removal of President Trump from office clear, in a nation bifurcated by toxic left-right disagreement. A totally polarized population has resulted from suspicion, fear and anger, well nourished by both the Democratic and Republican parties' elites.

The National Guard has been authorized to ensure that up to 15,000 troops will be on hand in Washington. Tourists are to be barred from access to the Washington Monument until January 24. The theme of the January 20 ceremony to inaugurate Joe Biden, the president-elect is to be "America United", as absurd and tone-deaf a chosen theme under the current toxic circumstances as any that might be imagined. The Democratic Party is playing nice now that one of their own is moving into the Oval Office.

When the Republican choice for president of the United States was elected four years earlier, the Democrats incited their faithful to demonstrate long and loud against an admittedly flawed personage with no experience, yet the choice of a majority of voters. Donald Trump, like him or loathe him, was duly, democratically elected. Indignant crowds of faithful Democrats came out to express their disgust that the White House would be ruled by a crass and crude man for the next four years, and they wanted him removed.

 

 

The Democratic Party itself did all it possibly could to restrain President Trump, to portray him as inept and disloyal to the country, themselves unwilling to sit as lawmakers under a man whom the world viewed askance and whose volatile and ill-chosen statements struck doubt in the hearts of allies. Yet, the democratic process so allegedly dear to Americans' hearts elected the unelectable fairly and squarely. America is decidedly anything but united. Over 70 million Americans voted for a candidate they held trust in and whom senior Democrats slurred. Wounding their own institutions in the process.

The country remains aghast that the bastion of democracy in the United States was attacked. No less so that the man who is their outgoing president did his best to incite the rioters to their task after having built their belief in a 'stolen' election both prior to and following the election that left him a one-term president. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser is anxious that last week's "unprecedented terrorist attack", not be repeated.

State capitals are preparing for the possibility of virulent protests disturbing the peace of the presidential transition at a remote on and around January 20. To that possibility they have responded by taking proactive, preventive measures of their own. On Monday the Michigan State Capitol Commission unanimously voted on banning the open carry of firearms inside the state capitol building, voting 6-0 for the measure.

 

"Given what's going on across the country, we moved up our meeting to consider the issue. It's now done and will be implemented by Michigan State Police", announced John Truscott, vice-chairman of the commission. No one wants a repeat of an event that sent lawmakers into fearful hiding, a riot, invasion and threat to America's democracy that took the lives of five people. Dozens who were part of the rampaging mob have been charged in the violence they took part in, with many more yet to be arrested.

 

All The News Unfit To Print

"Essentially what we do is we identify claims and posts that we suppose are fake, and then we investigate them, then we go ahead and publish what the truth is."

"There are some handles and some pages on Facebook that are really notorious.One of them puts out a story, the same story is replicated in like three or four other pages, and that's how they just widen their reach."

"She's [Lauretta Onochie, close aide to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari], notorious. It's the same format for all of them: half lies, half-truths. We debunk it, and she just doesn't care and moves onto the next one. She's quite consistent."

Lolade Nwanze, journalist, head, digital operations, Guardian Nigeria newspaper

 

"Fake news kills people. We have seen a lot of things like that. Some of the deadly clashes in Nigeria were sparked off by fake news."

"[It might be a good idea to begin] the naming and shaming of members [of the news media] that peddle fake news [to stem the problem]."

Tolu Ogunlesi, media assistant, President Muhammadu Buhari

 

"If we are not careful, World War III will be started by fake news, and that fake news will probably be generated by a Nigerian."

Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer, Nobel laureate

There are some things that Wole Soyinka laughs off, and others he doesn't think so amusing in the Nigerian/African phenomenon of runaway fake news proliferation. When he reads the many and regular death obituaries dedicated to his unfortunate passing, he thinks they're amusing, and states they're an enjoyable reading pastime. However, when he considers how dangerous a weapon some types of fake news is, contributing to the viral tribal and sectarian hostility rampant in Nigeria, he feels great concern.

The Nigerian public is preparing to vote in Saturday's presidential election in an atmosphere of widespread unhappiness over high unemployment rates, endemic poverty and the insecurity of Islamist terrorism in some parts of the country. This is Africa's largest, most populous country, a country whose natural resources in petroleum resources should mean that the government has ample funds to do credit to an emerging economy with a responsibility to improving the lives of its people.

Yet the country is riven with distrust, in a nation that is about half Christian and half Muslim and wholly impoverished and dysfunctional. Nigerian corruption and money-making schemes are notorious, its practitioners reach worldwide in an effort to relieve the gullible of money they are clearly incapable of holding on to, enriching Nigerian crooks who find their outreaches personally satisfactorily beneficial to their own rising standard of living.

Even while government officials warn of the dangers of promulgating fake news and outdated photographs that depict communal violence, they continue to occur and as they do, trigger retaliatory killings among tribal populations. Photos purporting to depict deaths in the conflict between herdsmen and farmers in central Nigeria have succeeded in spurring vicious revenge killings.

With over 24 percent of the population now online, using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube posting falsehoods non-stop, 16 media outlets have been collaborating on an initiative to fact-check through CrossCheck Nigeria, for the purpose of researching suspect election claims that circulate endlessly online. 

Stories recently discredited include allegations that Nigeria's first lady is actively persuading Nigerians not to vote for her husband; others that U.S. President Donald Trump has endorsed Atiku Abubakar, the opposition candidate, appearing on social media and from there often published as news on news websites. Africa Check, the continent's first fact-checking organization operating since 2012, inspired CrossChek Nigeria.

 

Africa has long had the problem of fake news circulating harmfully to persuade people in a direction clearly inimical to their own long-term well-being, fuelled by illiteracy and in no small part by government secrecy keeping the continent's 1.2 billion people in thrall to news sources that publish only the government line. 

After Kenya's disputed 2017 presidential election where misinformation circulated online raised political tensions in a country whose deadly post-vote violence along ethnic lines represents a timeless tradition, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a cybercrimes bill calling for fines and prison sentences for those convicted of spreading fake news. The devil is always in the details; corruption and fake news helped elect the man.

In Uganda, people posting news viewed as fake by the government where the government is negatively portrayed, are coming under pressure with authorities warning that perpetrators will face charges under a law enacted in 2011 where criminal penalties will be imposed for the misuse of computers. Where once it was possible for governments to keep their populations in the dark, the growing power and ubiquity of social media now delivers news, true and false.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has opposed Kenya's law, concerned it could stifle freedom of the press. The courts in Kenya have resisted upholding the government position, releasing an activist for posting false news accusing the government of plotting murder, by ruling that the mere publication of false news does not represent a crime.

If it was, many of the government hierarchies in Africa who have been accused of spreading misinformation or maligning reports that were true, should be criminally prosecuted. Nigerian authorities claim reports of abuses by the military during campaigns against militants to be false, and disagree when human rights watchdogs, informed by on-the-ground witnesses report higher death tolls than those cited by official government statistics.

Behind a street seller on the outskirts of the capital Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday, a billboard promotes Atiku Abubakar, who is competing with incumbent Muhammadu Buhari for the presidency. Photo: Ben Curtis/Associated Press