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BRASÍLIA—As rioters calling for the ousting of Brazil’s newly elected leftist president ransacked the capital Sunday, many Brazilians wondered whether the country’s right-leaning military would step in and stop the violence.
By Sunday evening, they had their answer: Following the orders of President
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
the army and military police had restored order in the city, despite having many vocal supporters of the right-wing former president,
Jair Bolsonaro,
in their ranks.
It was a victorious moment for Brazilian democracy, say former military officers and analysts who track the armed forces, especially given the influential role of the military in public policy and Brazil’s not-so-distant history with dictatorship, the last ending 38 years ago.
“Brazil is past the phase of authoritarianism, and the military is well aware of that,” said retired Army Gen. Paulo Chagas, 73 years old. Brazil is far different now than it was in the 1960s, when many lawmakers backed military intervention amid fears over Communism at the height of the Cold War, he said. “Congress now would be against it, and the state governors too.” On Sunday at 2 p.m., thousands of people dressed in the yellow and green jerseys of Brazil’s national soccer team swarmed the so-called Three Powers Square. An hour later, they were ransacking the heart of government, breaking the windows of Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace.
Military police, charged with security in the center of the capital, were light in numbers. And so for more than three hours, rioters overturned furniture and damaged artwork. Some chanted support for Mr. Bolsonaro.
Others in Brasília and elsewhere, including Bolsonaro supporters who had for weeks camped out in front of military bases, called for the army to oust Mr. da Silva, who’d taken office Jan. 1 after winning a close vote over Mr. Bolsonaro.
“We want the military to bring down all three branches of government,” said Leni da Silva, a nanny in São Paulo. “We want the military to take control.” The army didn’t move against the government, and its generals didn’t make a public statement. Two days later, life is returning to normal here in the capital. Most camps set up by Bolsonaro supporters outside army bases have also been shut down.
As authorities take testimony from more than 1,500 people detained after the rioting, they say a major question remains: How did protesters even get that close to the country’s government in the first place?
Government and local authorities in Brasília were well aware protests had been organized for Sunday, Justice Minister Flávio Dino told reporters Monday. In the three days leading up to Sunday, his staff held meetings with Brasília’s local government officials, Mr. Dino said in a televised interview. At 12:45 p.m. Sunday, local authorities assured him that everything was under control, he said.
But soon after, thousands of protesters stormed the federal buildings as a handful of military police officers stood at the entrance, television images showed.
“The police of the Federal District had shown exemplary behavior a week earlier,” Mr. Dino said in the interview, referring to crowd control during the swearing-in of Mr. da Silva. “What changed in a week? That’s the million-dollar question.”
The military police didn’t respond to requests for comment but directed inquiries to the Brasília agency that oversees security, which didn’t immediately respond. The army didn’t reply to a request for comment.
Mr. Dino said investigators are looking into why last-minute security changes were made, allowing protesters to get closer to the government buildings than originally agreed.
After the fall of Brazil’s 21-year military regime, under which Mr. Bolsonaro served as an army captain, the country’s armed forces improved their training and focused on protecting the vast Amazon rainforest. The armed forces promoted a new motto: “Strong arm, friendly hand,” which signals the military operates a robust institution ready to extend a hand to those in need.
The country’s civilian leaders still relied heavily on the military to carry out public policies, from providing healthcare in the Amazon to distributing water in the poor northeast to providing security in Rio de Janeiro. And some in the military had a tense relationship with Mr. da Silva’s Workers’ Party, which in 2011 set up a Truth Commission to probe human-rights crimes by the army during the military dictatorship.
“From the civilian side, there has been a sort of dependence on the military for the execution of public policies,” said Vinicius de Carvalho, a former lieutenant in the Brazilian army and expert on the country’s armed forces at King’s College London. “That is never good in the context of civilian-military relations, because [citizens] attribute too much power to the military.”
Mr. Bolsonaro appointed scores of military figures to his cabinet, many of whom trained with him as young soldiers at the same base, and he chose an army general as his vice president. In the lead-up to October’s election, he called in the army to check voting machines as he repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that the vote would be stolen from him.
When he lost a vote certified by international elections monitors and recognized by the U.S., Mr. Bolsonaro failed to concede, telling supporters in December, “Nothing is lost. The only real end is death.”
While Brazil’s institutions ultimately held up against Sunday’s siege, Mr. da Silva signaled there could be ongoing challenges for his government.
“The police in Brasília were negligent, Brasília’s intelligence services were negligent,” he said in a televised speech Monday, accusing the capital’s military police of “explicitly supporting the protesters.”
Brazil’s Supreme Court removed the governor of Brasília’s federal district, a Bolsonaro ally, from his post on Monday, ruling that Sunday’s turmoil could have only happened with the “consent, and even active participation,” of local authorities.
Mr. da Silva also expressed concern that high-ranking officials in the military didn’t offer a public rebuke of the violence in the capital. “No general went out his way to say: ‘No this can’t happen.’” said Mr. da Silva.
The fact that the generals didn’t comment publicly during the crisis—common in advanced democracies—was seen by some observers who closely track the military as positive for Brazil. “There was no really clear declaration from their side, and that is a good sign,” said Mr. de Carvalho, of King’s College.
The armed forces’ inaction was a source of bitter disappointment to those on the other side of the political divide. A survey by the Atlas polling group found that some 40% of Brazilians still think Mr. Bolsonaro got more votes than President da Silva in October’s election, though there is no evidence to back that up. Thirty-seven percent would support a move by the military to unseat him, according to Atlas.
“I am losing trust in the military,” said William Amorim, 46, an electrician who had come to the capital from another state and said he had wanted to see the army overthrow the government. “They should be defending the people.”
—Ryan Dube and Jeffrey T. Lewis contributed to this article.
Write to Luciana Magalhaes at luciana.magalhaes@wsj.com, Samantha Pearson at samantha.pearson@wsj.com and Patricia Kowsmann at patricia.kowsmann@wsj.com
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