Brazil: Serious threat as Bolsonaro mob attempt coup

By Mark Johnson

JUST EIGHT days into the term of President Lula, far-right supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro went on a rampage against the "democratic" institutions of Brazil.

In a shocking aping of the infamous ‘January 6th’ events in Washington DC, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building, the Bolsonaro supporters stormed the parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Presidential Palace causing millions in damages.

Funded and supported by powerful and wealthy

The right-wing mob was funded by millionaire backers and supported and aided by sections of the Brazilian state (like in Washington DC, police fraternised and took selfies with the protesters). The plot was well organised with over 100 free busses bringing thousands of Bolsonaro supporters from all across the county. Hotels were paid for, and meals were provided, along with other free supplies such as camping equipment etc.

Bolsonaro and his sons were conveniently in the USA during the attack but even if not directly involved (which they were), they prepared the ground and advocated for such actions, and need to be held accountable. The work- ers’ movement needs to call for the purging of all reactionary elements from the state and full prosecution of all involved.

An attack such as this was widely predicted. In fact, in August 2022 during the election, a WhatsApp group of Brazilian tycoons was exposed for discussing how a coup would be better for them if Bolsonaro lost, and how they would fund and organise it.

Working class must organise to resist the right

Despite Lula’s strong rhetoric and (limited) actions in the wake of the coup attempt, the working class and oppressed of Brazil can have no faith that his government, which includes three far-right evangelicals, will wage an effective struggle, and must mobilise their own forces to defeat the right. Much of the left, including sections in the leadership of PSOL (a significant left party), have unfortunately uncritically fallen behind Lula's government. While it is correct to mobilise and defeat the right, Lula's government is one of coalition with the traditional rightwing forces who will not be able and willing to deliver in the face of the growing social crisis and thus can create more opportunities for the far right, and coup attempts in future.

By Finn McKenna

SOMALIA IS currently experiencing its worst drought in four decades. According to NASA, the Horn of Africa is suffering its worst drought ever. Somalia has a population of 17 million and just under half are suffering food shortages, with 1.5 million children acutely malnourished. Internal displacement is an ever-growing feature of the disaster, affecting over 1 million people.

Climate change effects

In 2011, 260,000 Somalis perished due to a drought. A similar hellscape is facing the Somali people today unless essential products such as medicine and food are acquired from outside of Somalia, where the earth is scorched and with it livestock and crops turn to dust.

The global CO2 output, which the African continent contributes to the least, is resulting in fundamental shifts in wind and rain patterns off the coast of eastern Africa. The people there are paying a devastating price for the actions of the major industrial and imperialist states, and their pursuit of profit. The rain season has failed to come to Somalia for four consecutive years.

Civil war

Civil war in the past three decades has seen the almost complete disintegration of the Somali state. The military junta under Siad Barre, which was USSR-aligned in the 1980s before turning towards US imperialism, was ousted by various clan-based rebel militias in the early 1990s. These militias soon thereafter turned the guns on each other. Ever since, a protracted civil war has ensued.

The contending war-lords (some backed by Western imperialists, others are Islamic extremists), are attempting to dominate and control aid as part of their power struggle.

World must respond

Military intervention by surrounding states or anyone else can bring no solutions to the conflagration experienced by Somalia’s people. Nor can any capitalist forces resolve the crisis.

The workers’ and trade union movement internationally must respond to this catastrophe and find ways to transport essential food and medical supplies to the Horn of Africa. And also, crucially, to support a movement of working-class and poor people that breaks with the rule of capitalism and imperialism as the only way out of this horror.