This document provides an overview of United States relations with Central and South America during the Cold War period. It discusses how U.S. policy shifted from cooperation to interventionism due to fears of communist influence in the region. Key events discussed include the overthrow of governments in Guatemala and Chile supported by the U.S., as well as conflicts with Cuba. It also covers economic programs and shifts towards neoliberal policies in Latin America in the late 20th century.
2. Inter-American Relations
A Hemispheric Security System
American Intervention Returns
The Issue of Cuba
The Struggle with Communism
The Struggle for Chile
Human Rights and Economic Development
The Nicaraguan Revolution
Debt Crisis and Neoliberalism
Contemporary Relations in the Americas
The War on Drugs
Economic Backlash and Democracy
America’s Position of Leadership
3. While the Cold War between the United States,
the Soviet Union, and their various allies was
being waged, America looked to the defence of
its proverbial backyard: Central & South
America and the Caribbean. While originally
benign & even progressive, the policies of the
United States towards the 20 fellow republics
of the western hemisphere were eventually
compromised by the Cold War and its
demands for harsh realpolitik.
4. In the first 3 decades on the
twentieth-century the U.S.
achieved a position of
economic, military &
political hegemony over
the western hemisphere
5. However in 1933
F.D.R.'s 'Good
Neighbour Policy'
converted direct
American
intervention into a
more cooperative
approach to working
with local elites.
6. This in tandem with the dangers of the rising Axis
powers led to Pan-American solidarity, with Brazil &
Mexico as the United State's closest wartime allies and
Argentina as the sole holdout until late in the war.
7. After the Allied victory &
the founding of the United
Nations, the nations of the
Americas founded the
Organization of American
States (OAS) in April of
1948 to ensure their
collective security, though
the U.S. also hoped to
utilize it in the struggle
against global communism.
8. Most of the OAS leaders however were more
concerned with instability at home, and hoped
for American financial support to aid in their
development. American military aid was
forthcoming, as many Latin American leaders
dealt with opposition inside their own borders.
9. In 1952 president Arbenz of Guatemala attempted to
enact land reform to alleviate the crushing poverty of
that nation's people.
10. However, when he
attempted to expropriate
vast landholdings from
the American United
Fruit Company, the
company and various
supporters pressured the
U.S. government for
assistance, and fearing
communist infiltration,
supported an army of
Guatemalan exiles in
overthrowing Arbenz in
1954.
11. In the long term this led to decades of civil for Guatemala,
& in the short term many OAS states were worried about
a potential return of American Interventionism.
12. While many OAS governments acquiesced to
the events in Guatemala, public anger in those
countries was directed against the U.S. During
the visit of Vice-President Richard Nixon in
1958 to Latin America, angry crowds
confronted his motorcade.
13. This caused to U.S. to consider possible remedies to the
political instability in the region, the biggest cause of which
was determined to be economic backwardness. While the
hopes for massive infusions of U.S. money were to be
disappointed, the creation of the Inter-American
Development Bank (IADB) saw the first use of American
public money to promote development in Latin America.
14. Upon his assuming
power in 1961, the new
U.S. president John F.
Kennedy proposed an
'Alliance for Progress'
with the other states of
the hemisphere,
working to eliminate
illiteracy, hunger, &
disease as well as to
stimulate economic
growth.
15. This in tandem with Kennedy's insistence on economic
fairness & democratic rule was received with great
enthusiasm by the people of Latin America, but their rulers
were less enthused. Yet this program of aid received the
support of all the republics of Latin America save only one:
Cuba.
16. Since the 1930's Cuba had been ruled by dictator
Fulgencio Batista.
17. In Early 1959 however, the
revolution of a young
guerrilla fighter, Fidel
Castro, succeeded in taking
power in Cuba. While at first
affirming friendship with the
United States, his radical
socio-economic policies
(many of which hurt
American businesses in
Cuba) led to increasingly bad
relations with the U.S.
18. Eventually, the Soviet Union replaced America as Cuba's
main economic partner, with Soviet economic and military
aid reducing the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions, while Cuba
became an enthusiastic supporter of the Soviet Bloc and an
opponent of what it claimed was American imperialism.
19. In April of 1961 the newly inaugurated president
Kennedy authorized a CIA plan to land an army of U.S.
trained Cuban exiles on the south of that island, at the so
called 'Bay of Pigs'.
20. It was hoped that this
small force would be
sufficient (much like in
Guatemala) to overthrow
Castro, with defections
from the Cuban
population and military
rallying to them. In fact
the Cuban people and
army stayed loyal, and
the invasion was quickly
defeated.
21. The U.S. continued with
plans to overthrow
Castro by a number of
means, while in the
meantime Castro turned
to his Soviet patrons for
help in repelling the
enormously more
powerful United States.
22. In April of 1962 the Soviets approved Cuba's request for
military aid, which besides conventional forces included
a number of nuclear equipped missiles.
23. Soviets hoped that placing
these weapons in Cuba, so
close to the United States,
would make up for their
considerable inferiority in
long range delivery systems
and smaller arsenal of
nuclear warheads. Likewise,
they hoped to use Cuba as a
bargaining chip in disputes
with the U.S. across the
globe.
24. The Americans however
refused to accept this, and
ultimately began a
blockade of Cuba to
prevent Soviet weapons
from arriving. After days
of intense discussions
within and between both
countries, the Soviets
agreed to withdraw their
nuclear weapons from
Cuba in exchange for an
American promise not to
invade the island.
25. The nations of the OAS
had backed the United
States during the Cuban
missile crisis, but with
the U.S. promise not to
invade Cuba, they now
had to figure out what
relations they would
have with this
communist state.
26. In July 1964, when it became clear that Cuba was
supporting revolutionary movements in their nations,
the OAS (with the exception of Mexico) voted to break
off relations with Cuba as well as all trade and contact.
27. While Cuba did
attempt to support
revolutions on the
continent, Castro's
model of revolution
was unsuccessful,
with various attempts
being crushed by U.S.
backed Latin
American security
forces.
28. As for the Alliance for
Progress, while the U.S.
had contributed the money
it had promised (around
$20 billion), corruption &
mismanagement meant
that it was largely
ineffective in alleviating
the terrible conditions of
most Latin Americans.
29. Moreover, the new
administration of U.S.
President Lyndon Johnson
was even more concerned
with stopping the spread of
communism than
Kennedy's had been, and
thus was willing to work
with non-democratic
governments while aid was
transferred from economic
to military uses.
30. Accepting the overthrow of democratic
governments, and even intervening militarily
in the Dominican Republic (in contravention of
the 'Good Neighbour Policy' and the OAS
charter) showed that the U.S. was determined
to prevent the emergence of Castro-style
revolutions and the consequent spread of
Communism in the Americas.
31. With the fall of Cuba to communism, the
United States and its allies took increasingly
strident measures to secure the hemisphere
against further infiltration by the Soviet led
eastern bloc. In various ways the United States
sought to prevent the rise of additional
communist regimes in the Americas, while the
various Latin American nations achieved
increasing economic growth & prosperity in
the following decades.
32. In the mid 1960's Chile, a nation long known for its
stability & democratic political culture, elected a
moderate reformer, Eduardo Frei.
33. Frei attempted to assuage the
circumstances of the poor in
Chile by a program of land
redistribution & national
control (but not
nationalisation) of natural
resource companies. However,
in 1970 Frei lost power to the
radical reformer Salvador
Allende, who began a
program of uncompensated
nationalisation
34. To this situation the U.S. responded by undermining the
Chilean economy. Finally in 1973, amid the political and
economic chaos of the last several years, officers in the
Chilean military launched a coup.
35. Allende was killed &
a new military junta
headed by General
Augusto Pinochet
took power.
36. The persecution of leftist groups left three
thousand Chileans dead & thousands more in
prison or exile, while Pinochet ruled until
finally losing power in 1988.
37. During this period democracy suffered in the Americas,
as major nations such as Brazil & Argentina entered into
periods of military dictatorship.
38. One of the few upsides to this era was considerable
economic growth, caused in part by a turn away from
commodities and towards industrial production.
39. At the height of this
progress in the late 1970's,
U.S. president Jimmy
Carter began to apply more
stringent standards
regarding human rights
with regards to the various
Latin American states,
cutting back military aid to
several right wing
dictatorships.
40. The first nation to benefit from this was Panama, which
had long had its sovereignty compromised by American
control of the Panama Canal and the 5 mile wide zone
surrounding it.
41. After long negotiations, The U.S. Senate approved a new
treaty that would eventually see the Canal returned to
Panamanian control, reflecting U.S. willingness at this
stage to increasingly deal with the Latin American
nations.
43. That country had been essentially ruled by the Somoza
family since the mid 1930's, and in 1979 that regime was
overthrown by the a broad coalition of anti-Somoza
forces, the Sandinistas.
44. They declared a non-aligned foreign policy,
and for a time it seemed they would succeed in
maintaining good relations with both the
neighbouring U.S. and Cuba.
45. However, evidence came to light that the Sandinistas
were providing aid to the leftist rebels in nearby El
Salvador (pictured below), while there was an increase
in Marxist rhetoric in their government.
46. This led the new U.S.
President Ronald Reagan
to denounce Nicaragua
as a Marxist threat to
security in the Americas,
and he blamed Carter's
obsession with human
rights for allowing this to
occur.
47. Reagan then restored military aid to various
right wing governments, and ordered the CIA
to support a force attempting to overthrow the
Sandinistas, known as the Contras.
48. Money and aid poured into Central America in
support of various anti-leftist factions, and the
U.S. even resorted to invading tiny Grenada
when that nation saw a communist revolution
succeeded in taking power, with the intent of
warning Nicaragua that the same fate may
await it should their aid to Salvadorian rebels
not cease.
49. In the early 1980's all of Latin America was
struck by a financial crisis that ultimately
increased its dependence on the United States.
Over their period of economic growth, the
nations of Latin America had become heavily
indebted, and the world wide recession of the
late 1970's made it impossible for them to pay
the interest on their foreign debts.
50. In 1982 first Argentina, then Mexico defaulted on their
foreign debts, and the shockwaves from this threatened
not just Latin American interests, but also the
international banking system itself.
51. As country after country succumbed to excessive
indebtedness, the administration of U.S. President
George H.W. Bush unveiled a government backed
rescue operation (known as the Brady Plan) in the
spring of 1989.
52. By the early 1990's several Latin American
nations had entered into debt reduction
agreements based on the Brady Plan, which
relieved them from the threat of default and
allowed them to focus on getting their financial
affairs in order.
53. Hoping to break out of
the cycle of
unemployment and debt,
the leaders of most Latin
American nations turned
to the polices of market
oriented growth so
successfully pursued by
nations like South Korea
& Taiwan.
54. By the mid 1990's these policies had seen
considerable success as privatization and free
trade swept the planet in the post-Cold War
world. This new commitment to free trade and
markets were known interchangeably as
Neoliberalism and the Washington
Consensus.
55. The United States hoped to parlay this new commitment into
a hemisphere wide free trade zone, but ultimately pared it
back to the tripartite NAFTA agreement. Other regional
trade blocks also formed, most notably MERCOSUR, but
also including the Andean Pact, Caricom, and the Central
American Common Market.
56. The increasing importance of
Latin America economically
led President Clinton to dust
off the old idea of a
hemispheric free trade zone,
the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA). Optimists
believed that this enormous
powerhouse would lift the
region out of poverty and end
the dependence of many Latin
American states on precarious
commodities based exports.
57. As the Cold War came to a close, United States
priorities in Latin America shifted away from
preventing communist infiltration towards
more broad goals of stability & development,
before their priorities shifted elsewhere
entirely. The United States relationship with
Latin America changed after the end of the
Soviet threat, and events in the wider world
continue to shape relations between the two.
58. One item produced in Latin America was never subject
to commodity fluctuations: cocaine.
59. Coca leaves produced in the Andes and shipped to
Columbia were transformed into cocaine, and then
shipped north to the United States.
60. Once it arrived in the United States, the street price was
literally thousands of times what the poor Andean
farmers had been paid to produce the original leaves.
61. The United States invested billions of dollars in
anti-drug operations, but even after some
successes against Coca production and the
Cartels, as well as linking the War on Drugs to the
war on Terror, 'victory' in this area was not
forthcoming.
62. In the end, as long as
American are willing to
pay high prices for
recreational drugs, the
poor of Latin America
will have incentive to
produce them.
63. In the first decade on the new millennium,
there was popular discontent with the market
oriented policies of Neoliberalism.
64. Unrestricted competition had devastated many
local industries and increased unemployment,
and populist leaders took advantage of
people's distress with the situation.
65. In Venezuela Hugo Chavez came to power, dispensing his
country's petro-dollars to create lavish social programs &
dispense aid to sympathetic governments & groups in the
region.
66. In a similar vein, Evo Morales came to power in Bolivia
and pursued many left wing policies.
67. While not as extreme in their views, the election of Luiz
da Silva (popularly known as Lula) in Brazil saw that
country react against Neoliberalism.
68. Nestor Kirchner of Argentina denounced the
'Washington Consensus' and accused some developed
nations of reneging on their own Neoliberal principles.
69. Both these latter two presidents came to see
MERCOSUR as a possible alternate to the
American proposed FTAA. Overall, many
Latin American nations were beginning to
doubt the effectiveness of the free market ideas
supported by the U.S. and its allies.
70. Along with neoliberal economic policies,
democracy made a comeback in much of Latin
America, especially with the end of the Cold
War. The end of the Soviet Union not only
stripped many leftist governments and factions
of support, but ended the incentive for the
United States to support repressive regimes
because of their anticommunist credentials.
71. One of the most notable examples of democratization
was Mexico, long a one party state in all but name,
which in the year 2000 saw an opposition candidate,
Vicente Fox, elected president for the first time in over
70 years.
72. However, democracy proved no cure for the
socioeconomic problems of the continent, and in place of
military strongmen, left wing populists took power in
some countries, the most egregious example being
Alberto Fujimori of Peru.
73. He essentially shut down
parliament and ruled by
decree, but received strong
support from the people
for reviving the Peruvian
economy & defeating the
'Shining Path' insurgency.
Eventually however,
Fujimori's corruption
generated opposition and
led to his fleeing the
country, which saw a
return to democracy.
74. The greatest success of the 1990's was the end of two
civil wars that had raged over the last decade.
75. In Nicaragua a peace plan
put forth by other Latin
American leaders eventually
resulted in free elections,
where president Daniel
Ortega lost power in the
1990 vote. To the Sandinistas
credit, they turned over
power peacefully, and later
as part of the leftward shift
in Latin American politics in
the new millennium, Ortega
was re-elected president in
2006.
76. Likewise in El Salvador both the government
and rebels came under pressure to negotiate. In
1992 a cease fire ended the civil war, and in
1997 elections saw both the former government
and rebels winning seats, and continuing their
struggle by democratic, political means. With
this Latin America entered a, relatively, stable
and peaceful time after the ideological battles
of the past.
77. The end of the Cold War saw American
interests shift from anticommunism to a variety
of issues, from the War on Drugs to democracy
& development. This led to two U.S. military
interventions during a time when many
thought the U.S. would be disengaging from
Latin America.
78. The first of these was in Panama, where its president
Manuel Antonio Noriega had been indicted for
smuggling drugs into the U.S. and had repudiated
democratic elections.
79. An invasion by U.S. troops in 1989 succeeded in
capturing Noriega and extradited him to Florida,
causing severe economic problems for Panama in the
process.
80. The second intervention saw U.S. troops in 1994 occupy
Haiti to restore its democratically elected president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and staunch the flow of Haitian
refugees into the U.S.
81. These proved to be the last interventions by the
U.S. amongst its neighbours, as in the twenty-
first century American attention has been
focused on a number of new potential threats
to its interests: the growing power of China, the
potential of a nuclear equipped North Korea &
Iran, as well as international Islamic terrorism
(personified by al-Qaeda).
82. While Latin America's leftward shift would
have generated great American anxiety in
previous decades, the end of the Cold War and
the presence of new concerns in the world has
allowed these nations to develop of their own
accord.
