{{Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff promised on Friday to hold a dialogue with members of a protest movement sweeping the country, but also said she would do whatever is necessary to maintain order in the wake of widespread vandalism and looting.}}
“We cannot live with this violence that shames Brazil,” she said in a nationally televised address. “All institutions and public security forces should prevent, within the limits of the law, every form of violence and vandalism.”
Rousseff spoke even as new demonstrations broke out on Friday, including one that for several hours blocked most passengers from entering or leaving the country’s busiest international airport, outside Sao Paulo.
The protests have come out of seemingly nowhere over the past week. More than 1 million people took to the streets on Thursday in the biggest demonstrations in Brazil in 20 years.
The nameless, leaderless movement – composed largely of students and the middle class – has pulled together a wide range of grievances including bad public transport and healthcare, corruption, and the billions of dollars that the government is spending to host next year’s World Cup.
Rousseff, a former guerrilla who herself protested a military rule during the 1960s, praised the peaceful majority of protesters and said she would listen to their demands.
Speaking calmly but firmly, she said Brazil has a “historic opportunity” to harness the energy from the protests and make improvements.
But she warned the movement could be ruined by violence like that seen on Thursday, when protesters smashed buildings, looted stores and set fires in a dozen cities.
Rousseff said it was her “obligation to listen to the voice of the streets, as well as dialogue with all segments” of society peacefully protesting.
The president, who is not known for initiating talks, did not specify what such a process would look like.
After her speech, the hashtag #calabocadilma – “Shut up, Dilma” in Portuguese began trending on Twitter accompanied by withering comments attacking her government.
Friday’s protests were much smaller than those on Thursday. There were signs of a backlash against the movement on Friday, and one prominent leftist group said it would stop organizing marches for now because of discord and violence.
Unlike other recent protest movements such as the Arab Spring, Brazil’s demonstrators are not targeting individual politician and Rousseff remains relatively popular.
{wirestory}
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