Bolsonaro vs. Maduro: The Next Clash in Latin America?

US clumsily helping Colombia could lead to a clumsy Russian help to Venezuela and the beginning of a mayor proxy war,

"... an inward-looking Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, unwilling to defend human rights and democracy in the region"... Really! Mr. Castañeda needs to review the Westfalia treaties that put an end to the war of 30 years in Europe. It is not healthy to be peeping in our neighbors problems under any excuse, like the ones invented time and time again: "Democracy", "human rights" etc. President Obrador is right to keep a discreet distance of all those rightist gangs in South America, like the Lima Group, that try to squash the government of Venezuela.

I am not a fan of Bolsonaro but as a Venezuelan anybody that precedes ______ vs. Maduro gains my sympathy.

Instead of the inane and absurd attention given to Trump and his tweets, the U.S. should be evaluating and building alliances in the Western Hemisphere. This would be an intelligent strategy for the future. American media don't look now, but China has already established itself in Latin America while you were sidetracked by the "Trump Show".

Any nation who strays far from center will be the sacrificial lamb of Communists and Fascists. What is the difference between Communists and Fascists ? Nothing , They are in fact same exact inhumane regimes. South Americas another golden era is come to pass. Region one more time slowly seized by Military heavily veiled by Politics. I remember the starting time 1990's south American golden era.

The paucity of comments on this piece is itself a sad comment on the apathy felt by Americans towards all the countries south of our border, except when Trump uses the plight of refugees fleeing appalling conditions to fear monger to his base, which is blind to the truth. If the situation in Latin American countries continues to deteriorate, the US will feel the consequences. Unfortunately, it is foolish to expect this administration to do anything competent or effective about the situation.

The USA "clumsily encouraging Colombia and Brazil to overthrow Mr. Maduro by force." Maduro is aware and his friend Putin lent him 2 Tu-160 bombers with the capability of delivering nuclear missiles. Today downtown Caracas is taken by the military and the gangs armed by the Venezuelan government called "colectivos". My family and friends are terrified that this mix may bring fatalities. Another friend calls it genocide. Tomorrow Maduro will take office. Again. The National Assembly will be abolished and its members jailed. We know there will be a trigger that will start to change things and we wonder, with hope, not what but when. Venezuelans are dying every day. It is a humanitarian acute crisis.

Jair Bolsonaro is an extreme right wing clown, and a bad one. This buffoon advocates militarism, suffers nostalgia for the criminal militarist past of Brazil, and wants to return to that bloody past. There seems to be massive myopia in Latin America and other parts of the world, electing governments on the right, which will only oppress the people legally, just like the fascist regime in Germany against the Jews, Roma people, homosexuals and people with disabilities.

An extraordinary analysis of the turn away from democracy in Latin America (although the same is happening around the world). While the US looks elsewhere, Mexico will turn more authoritarian and less market friendly --becoming a more volatile neighbor, while the region will regress in its institutions giving us another Latin American generation frustrated and unsatisfied...

President Bolsonaro (for that is his current job now, sorry, leftists, I know you're all still crying about it) might seem the most Neo-fascist, disrespectful, Human Rights offending person at first look, but 56% of the Brazilian population came to understand that he is not the menace some people portray him to be, many of them who enjoy exaggerating, through manipulation of newspaper news and articles, what he says and does, and that he is our people's last hope to avoid authoritarian, dictatorial governments such as Maduro's, who has ordered (more than once) the national army and his militias to persecute, arrest, torture and kill people. Let's not forget how many journalists were arrested and tortured for speaking against the regimen. Let's not forget how many of them disappeared and were killed. And let's not forget that the real threat to democracy and Human Rights is Mr. Maduro (for he doesn't deserve the title of president anymore) and his leftists friends in Cuba, Nicaragua and so many more Latin American countries. As for the refugees, the people who were starving and dying under that tyrant, don't worry, we'll take care of them, for they do not deserve to pay for their corrupted leader's sins.