For two decades until 1985, Brazil's armed forces governed the country, a far lengthier dictatorship than those endured in that era by most of its South American neighbours. Yet so swiftly has Brazil's restored democracy gained in vigour that the generals are now almost invisible in political life, and the former dictators forgotten men, as the muted public reaction to the death over Christmas of the last of them, Joao Figuerei-do, showed. That made it all the odder that the holiday period was also marked by a political row involving the armed forces, which may yet oblige President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to concede some of their demands.
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