Crisis And Change: Colombia And Brazil

In this NACLA Report we look closely at two nations—Colombia and Brazil—that seem to be on very different trajectories as we head deeper into the 21st century. In Colombia, a four-decade-old civil war is on the verge of becoming bloodier and the country's deep-rooted social problems are further from solution than ever, while in Brazil new president Lula da Silva has raised hopes that he will be able to spark some real social and economic progress. It is not our intent here to draw explicit comparisons, but rather to examine the current state-of-affairs in these two Latin American A countries as a means of glimpsing some of the best and the worst that the region's future may hold.