‘They were in ecstasy’: how Bolsonaro mob’s orgy of violence rocked Brasília

Carla Coutinho da Rosa rode her mud-caked bicycle to Brazil's day of chaos, joining thousands of far-right militants as they marched on congress with a clear objective in their minds.

Like millions of devoted Bolsonaristas, Rosa rejects the outcome of that vote and after lunch on Sunday she took to the streets of the capital, Brasilia, joining a mass protest that she said was designed to overturn the result.

"He's a corrupt thief," Rosa fumed of the veteran leftist, claiming marchers had planned a peaceful demonstration as they made the 8km hike from their encampment outside Brasilia's army headquarters to the nerve centre of Brazilian politics.

The result was anything but peaceful.

Journalist George Marques, who reached the area outside Oscar Niemeyer's spectacular congress building at about 3pm on Sunday after disguising himself as a Bolsonaro supporter, said he saw thousands of people storm the complex.

From congress, Marques, 32, followed the demonstrators - many wearing the green and yellow Brazil flag appropriated by Bolsonaro's far-right movement - as they advanced over the road to the Planalto presidential palace, where Lula had been sworn in just seven days earlier.

"The Bolsonaristas were shouting: 'Come on! Come on! The time has come! It's now!'" Marques remembered, describing a carnival-like atmosphere as the elated radicals swarmed towards the building's marble ramp.

Inside the palace, Bolsonaro's followers ran riot. Offices were invaded, historic works of art - including one by the master painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti - smashed. Portraits of Brazil's former presidents were torn from the walls and thrown to the ground. Weapons were reportedly stolen from the Institutional Security Bureau, which is responsible for presidential security.

One of the palace's ransacked offices belonged to one of Lula's closest allies, the former defense and foreign minister Celso Amorim.

"I feel extremely shocked," Amorim told the Guardian on Monday as he flew back to Brazil's modernist capital to assess the damage. "It was unquestionably an attack on Brazilian democracy by deranged people."

"Just as Bolsonaro is a cheap imitation of Trump, this was a cheap imitation of the [US] Capitol [invasion on January 6 2021]," Amorim said, warning of "tense moments" in the days ahead as the government pursued those responsible for the havoc.

From the presidential palace, the demonstrators moved on to the supreme court on the other side of Brasilia's Three Powers Plaza which suffered even more severe damage.

A replica of Brazil's 1988 constitution was ripped from a display case and carried outside. A black robe belonging to one of the court's justices was pillaged and shown off to the hordes of mobile-phone-toting rioters.

The phrase "You lost, you prick" was daubed on to the court's outer windows - a reference to a remark from the supreme court judge Luis Roberto Barroso urging Bolsonaro followers to accept Lula's election win.

As the Bolsonarista mob ran amok, Brazil and the international community looked on in horror, with world leaders including Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, Gabriel Boric and Joe Biden condemning what the US president called an "assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil".

Amorim said such an outpouring of international support was crucial to Lula's week-old government as it confronted the aftermath of what many call the most serious outbreak of political violence since the return of democracy in 1985.

"Even the prime minister of Italy, who is said to be extreme or ultra-right, has spoken out against this brutal act," Amorim said.

But Rosa, the Bolsonarista activist, rejected claims she had been part of a terrorist attack on her country's democratic institutions.

"It was a peaceful protest," she insisted on Monday as she sat with her bicycle beside the pro-Bolsonaro camp outside the army HQ waiting for hundreds of riot police and army troops to clear away the tents. "We pay our taxes. None of us are terrorists - nothing of the sort."

Rosa wept as she described her conviction that October's election had been rigged - a conspiracy theory that Bolsonaro and his allies repeatedly peddled in the lead-up to the vote.

"They want to arrest him - of course he had to go," she said of Bolsonaro, who watched Sunday's turmoil from a mansion in Orlando, Florida.

Another pro-Bolsonaro activist at the camp, 29-year-old William Sartott, blamed Sunday's destruction on leftist agitators who, without evidence, he accused of hijacking a "peaceful" protest in order to discredit the right, with help from the "rotten media".

"What happened yesterday was an outrage," Sartott added as he livestreamed the police operation to remove the pro-Bolsonaro camp.

"It was the second Capitol - this was the Brazilian Capitol version 2.0," he added - although for Sartott the culprits were from the left.

Marques said such conspiracy theories were typical of Bolsonaro's hardcore base. "Some of these people are so utterly furious and there's no talking to them. It's as if they have been bulletproofed against any kind of truth or fact," he said.

As he prepared to board a flight back to Brasilia, Amorim said many questions remained about Sunday's anarchy. "Did they want to create havoc that might spark a military intervention? Or was it just depredation and an act of terrorism designed to intimidate and inspire others to follow them?" he asked. "I don't know."

But Lula's special aide was particularly troubled that the Presidential Guard Battalion had not intervened to stop the sacking of some of Brazil's most beautiful architectural treasures.

"It's as if it was allowed to happen. This is very serious," added Amorim, calling for the punishment of the demonstrators and those who financed and masterminded their historic attack on Brazil's democracy.

"I'm worried," he said. "But we will overcome this."