Bolsonaro and the Long Shadow of Brazil’s Dictatorial Past

Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering Xi’s positioning of China within the global order and Caribbean nations’ balancing act between drilling fossil fuels and adapting to climate change.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

Many analysts, particularly those here in the United States, are viewing the conviction of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on coup-plotting charges yesterday in light of the contrast it presents with President Donald Trump.

Both men were defeated in elections held two years apart. Both men leveled false allegations of fraud against their opponents. Both men spent years undermining public confidence in their respective countries’ electoral systems. And both men inspired their supporters to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power by attacking federal government facilities.

Only one has faced accountability: Bolsonaro, whom Brazil’s top court sentenced to 27 years in prison. Trump, meanwhile, was indicted in 2023 on charges related to obstructing the 2020 election but the case was dropped after he won the 2024 presidential election.

As the political scientists Filipe Campante and Steven Levitsky put it, “the Brazilian Supreme Court did what the U.S. Senate and federal courts tragically failed to do: Bring a former president who assaulted democracy to justice.”

It’s an important observation, yet to refract Brazil’s response to authoritarian populism through a Trumpian lens is to miss part of the story. Brazil, after all, is different from the United States in having dealt with two decades of brutal military rule that only ended in 1985, which Bolsonaro—himself a former army officer—has famously romanticized. Indeed, part of the charges against Bolsonaro hinged on his unsuccessful attempts to persuade the military to back his challenge to the 2022 election results.

Brazil is certainly not the only Latin American country with a modern history of military rule. But unlike neighboring Argentina, which established a truth commission the same year its military regime fell from power, Brazil’s transitional justice initiatives have been criticized as too little, too late.

In 2019, Sophie Foggin wrote an in-depth article for WPR on the unhealed wounds of Brazil’s military dictatorship. She spoke with Rogerio Sottili, executive director of the Vladimir Herzog Institute, an NGO named after a journalist who was among the hundreds of people murdered by the military regime.

“At no point has Brazil carried out the transitional justice or reparations necessary for the dictatorship to no longer be an issue,” Sottili said at the time. “We have always found a way to avoid blaming those responsible for the violence perpetrated during this period.”

That history helps explain why Brazil’s Supreme Court has been so aggressive in pursuing justice for Bolsonaro. Yet the court has also arrogated an extraordinary degree of power during its campaign to prevent the country from backsliding into authoritarian rule. Some Brazilians now worry that that could present a shadow threat to democracy.

In the meantime, Bolsonaro’s movement remains very much alive and active. Ahead of the country’s upcoming presidential election in 2026, the prospective right-wing frontrunner, Sao Paulo Gov. Tarcisio de Freitas, has already said he would pardon Bolsonaro if he were president.

It is an important lesson for young democracies: The challenge posed by a resurgence in support for authoritarian rule is rarely resolved with a single court decision.

China marked the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II in Asia last week with a parade that displayed its emerging military strength and growing diplomatic clout. A number of commentators framed the event as an expression of Beijing’s intentions to position itself not just as a major power, but as the new leader of the global order. But what does China, and more specifically Xi, actually want when it comes to the future of the international order and China’s role in it? Paul Poast digs into this question in his weekly column.

Caribbean nations are at the intersection of two simultaneous energy transitions. On one hand, oil-rich countries like Guyana and Suriname are rapidly expanding their offshore oil and gas activities. On the other, island nations such as Barbados and Dominica are positioning themselves as renewable energy pioneers. This may seem paradoxical, but as Shemuel London writes, Caribbean nations are increasingly viewing hydrocarbons as a pragmatic funding source for climate resilience and green infrastructure, if a reputationally costly one.

Four people have been arrested in Costa Rica for the killing in June of a Nicaraguan exile who had been a critic of the country’s strongman president, Daniel Ortega. Roberto Samcam, a retired Nicaraguan army officer who had fled to Costa Rica in 2018 during the Ortega regime’s crackdown against opposition protestors, was shot eight times at point-blank range outside San Jose in June.

As WPR’s James Bosworth wrote shortly after Samcam’s murder, an assassination on foreign soil is not without precedent in Latin America, but what makes this case different is that the current Nicaraguan regime has been engaged in “a multiyear pattern of attacks against political opponents in exile, many of whom live in Costa Rica.” Other countries in the region should find and shut down Ortega-linked criminal cells that threaten people outside of Nicaragua, Bosworth wrote, because without a stronger regional response, the campaign of transnational assassinations will continue and could be destabilizing for the region.

Satellite images of an airport in Sudan that is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces indicate that the RSF possesses long-range kamikaze drones that could alter the course of the conflict in the country. The images, analyzed by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab and confirmed by Reuters, show Chinese drones capable of attacking targets within a range of 1,200 miles, or anywhere in Sudan.

Drones have begun to transform warfare across Africa, as several recent incidents demonstrate. Government forces across the continent often lack the counter-drone technology needed to protect themselves and civilians, so the fact that non-state armed groups are beginning to acquire combat drones has dire implications, Zikora Ibeh wrote in April.

Gangs massacred more than 40 people in a fishing village in Haiti, including at least one child, in apparent retaliation for the killing of a local gang leader. As James Bosworth wrote in April, Haiti is now experiencing a degree of state failure and gang control that is worse than seen previously and could lead the country to total collapse.

German authorities searched the home and offices of a far-right lawmaker who is under suspicion of corruption and spying for China. The case is one of a wave of such recent cases that indicate Chinese spying activities in Europe have gone into overdrive, Frida Ghitis wrote last year.

More from WPR

• Tangi Bihan on the meaning of a recent military purge in Mali.

• Frida Ghitis on the re-resurgence of Europe’s far right.

• Howard Shen and Frank Alley on China’s role in Honduras’ upcoming election.

• Nathalie Tocci on Europe’s lack of preparedness for Putin’s hybrid war.