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title: To what extent has America played a role in destabilising Latin America in the late 20th century?

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# To what extent has America played a role in destabilising Latin America in the late 20th century?
## Brief research on U.S. intervention in Chile, Nicaragua and Panama

The 20th century is almost certainly the smallest period in which the world has witnessed the most rapid amount of change. The start of the century was marked by the death of Queen Victoria, as well as events like the Russian Revolution, and, of course, the First World War. On the other end, the '90s had been defined by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the invention of the Internet and the death of Princess Diana. Secondly, without a doubt, the Second World War and its aftermath shaped modern society as we know it; economically, culturally and politically. Therefore, it is hugely important to consider the context of the time when debating this topic.

The changes in Latin America were certainly not isolated to the American continent – largely, the United States’ actions are impossible to analyse without considering the impact of the Cold War and the ‘threat’ of communism (which included, to an extent, socialism), which then developed into the “war on drugs”. For the most part, American foreign policy from 1945 onwards was modelled on a vision of unity in the face of communism – American imperialism to ‘protect’ war-torn countries from being influenced by Soviet leaders ranging from Stalin to Gorbachev. At least, this was the motivation for policies such as the Marshall Plan.  The program provided aid to 17 European states – over a period of four years, $13 billion in aid was distributed. 

In Latin America, the end of the Second World War showed the drive for industrialisation, but the gradual regrowth of foreign competition and industries meant that the Latin American economy slowed massively. This was largely attributed to the lack of capital, lack of advanced technology and the general public’s low purchasing power. Subsequently, foreign firms moved from investing in agriculture to manufacturing and their resources and technology allowed them to essentially swallow up national companies.  

Therefore, U.S. and Latin American relations should be viewed in the context of the aftermath of the Second World War and, most importantly, in the midst of the Cold War. That is to say, critics suggest the motivation and incentive behind the U.S.’ actions in Latin America in the late 20th century was to cement its hegemony. This branches out culturally (read: ideologically), economically and politically. Culturally, this was to stop the spread of communism and, under certain U.S. administrations, to promote neoliberal capitalism. Politically and economically, this was to control trade and finance, as well as solidifying the U.S. as the head of global institutions. Simply, tensions and conflict between the U.S. and Latin American states, and also within these states, reflected an extension of the Cold War into the Southern Hemisphere.

From the Latin American perspective, however:

> “The victory of the Cuban Revolution, soon transformed into a socialist revolution, marks a turning point in Latin American history. The swift, thoroughgoing Cuban agrarian reform and nationalisation of foreign enterprises and the revolution’s success in raising living standards offered Latin America a radical alternative to development among capitalist lines.”  

For revolutionaries in Latin America, conflict between them and the United States was less to do with the Cold War and the USSR, but instead it was the growth and development of these countries, both economically and culturally, which presented them with the ability and knowledge to take a socialist and anti-colonial position.

Recognising the wider context, therefore, is imperative to the debate. For the most part, this debate starts with the victory of Fidel Castro and the rebels against Batista on January 1st, 1959 in the Cuban Revolution. This led to both direct and covert action being taken by the U.S. government to intervene in Latin American affairs – this is certain. The argument, though, is based on analysing to what extent did the U.S. “destabilise” Latin America.

In the analysis of the forthcoming events, and judging the role that America played in it, it is necessary to define what constitutes America “destabilising” Latin America, or, essentially, how large of a role did America play in regime changes and political affairs. Therefore, “to destabilise” will be defined as ‘to make a government, area, or political group lose power or control, or to make a political economic situation less strong or safe, by causing changes and problems.’  

Of course, the area of Latin America is made up of over 30 countries (including  the Caribbean, Central America and South America), with thorough American intervention, both overt and covert, in virtually every state. Therefore, this essay will analyse three case studies. These will be on Chile during and after the 1973; CIA-backed terror in Nicaragua under Bush and Reagan; and the invasion of Panama.

## Chile        

To a large extent, America has played a role in destabilising Latin America in the late 20th century. A key case study of this is the Chilean coup d’état of 1973, where the democratically elected, socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown by Chilean police and military forces and replaced by commander-in-chief Augusto Pinochet.

Following the coup d’état, the military then persecuted left-wing Chileans. In a three-year period, 130,000 people were arrested and the military imprisoned 40,000 political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile. The Chilean death squad, the Caravan of Death, killed at least 75 political dissidents. In 2011, Chile recognised that between September 11th, 1973 and 10th March, 1990, 40,018 victims had been held as political prisoners and tortured, and the official number of those killed or forcibly ‘disappeared’ was 3,065. 

The Hinchey Report   (September, 2000) was a report compiled by the Intelligence Community (IC), led by the National Intelligence Council. Essentially, this was a review of mainly CIA records and Congressional reports that detailed U.S. activities in Chile in the 1960s and early 1970s. The report detailed how “as part of a ‘Track II’ strategy, the CIA was directed to seek to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office.” According to the U.S., the CIA did not carry out the military action and attack on President Allende (while official records state that Allende committed suicide, many believe that he was actually murdered), but instead financed and supported his political opponents. 

The CIA stated in the Report that: 
> “We find no information-nor did the Church Committee-that CIA or the Intelligence Community was involved in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende. He is believed to have committed suicide as the coup leaders closed in on him. The major CIA effort against Allende came earlier in 1970 in the failed attempt to block his election and accession to the Presidency. Nonetheless, the US Administration's long-standing hostility to Allende and its past encouragement of a military coup against him were well known among Chilean coup plotters who eventually took action on their own to oust him.” 

This establishes that U.S. intelligence services did hold a presence in Chile. The Report describes how “there were sustained propaganda efforts, including financial support for major news media, against Allende and other Marxists.” To a large extent, America’s activities in Chile has to be viewed in the context of the Cold War. Essentially, America was opposed to an Allende government, because having a successful socialist government would increase support for communism, and, therefore, the Soviet Union. This meant America viewed it as necessary to have socialism ‘fail’. 

For this to happen, U.S. intelligence services had to establish a foundation in different areas such as the media and the economy.
 
Declassified CIA records reported that: 
>“In the years before the coup, American multinational corporations such as the Rockefeller dominated Kennecott Copper conglomerate and ITT did all they could to crush the Chilean people’s movement and bring down the Allende government. With the full cooperation of the CIA and other agencies of the U.S. government, Chile was denied credit by U.S. banks, foreign aid was cut off, long-term loans were refused by the import-Export Bank, and other pressure was brought to bear by American corporations.” 

Keen and Haynes support this in their book, A History of Latin America. In Chapter 20, they explain how the U.S. imposed economic constraints on the Chilean economy, “cutting aid by 90 percent and denying credit.”
>“Amid growing economic difficulties and political turmoil, the Chilean military overthrew Allende in a bloody coup… The United States promptly recognised the military junta and resumed aid and credit.”  

To an extent, critics may suggest that because of the United States’ financial investments in the Chilean economy, through both national industries and private corporations, this was a necessary move. Largely, Allende’s socialist government wanted to shake the grip of the United States:

> “The first act of the Allende government… had been to expropriate the holdings of the American copper companies without compensation… The United States intervened both to protect these investments and to teach a salutary lesson to other Latin American Nations…” 

Two of the leading Chilean copper companies, Anaconda & Kennecott, were both owned by corporations based in the United States.  The prospect of nationalising these companies obviously seriously threatened American investment and shows a different perspective to their involvement in Chile. Arguably, American intervention was less about ‘destabilising’ the economy, but more about retaining their investments in the Chilean copper industry. 

This could be supported by the fact that the United States “resumed aid and credit”, suggesting that the U.S. did not aim to tear down the Chilean economy – to what extent would destabilising the Chilean economy (therefore including U.S. investments) actually benefit the Americans? – but to, instead, maintain economic stability. 

However, on the other hand, other critics would point at not necessarily the lack of overt military action, or otherwise hard power, but instead at the impact of neo-liberal economic strategies on Latin America. The American-backed dictator, Pinochet’s “economic policies reduced the living standards of the masses to near-starvation levels.” Additionally, the CIA spent $8 million to “destabilise” the Chilean economy: Nixon said to the U.S. ambassador to Chile that he would “smash that son-of-a-bitch Allende.”  

Economically, the U.S. manipulated the Chilean dependency on the U.S. economy and its aid into falling into line. It is clear to see that unless Latin American governments followed the policies and ideas of Washington, their aid would be cut and tariffs raised, at the least.

Secondly, the impact of political institutions cannot be underestimated. Since the end of the Second World War, the U.S. headed the Bretton Woods institutions: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Largely;

> “The greatest triumph of the Reagan-Bush Latin American policy was to impose upon the area, using debt as a powerful weapon of coercion with the IMF and World Bank as “enforcers,” a neoliberal economic system based on free trade and privatization. That system required the Latin American countries to nullify past advances toward economic independence, to sell at bargain prices or exchange for depreciated debt valuable national enterprises, and to enact austerity programs that helped increase the number of people living in poverty by 39 percent in the course of the 1980s… The U.N. Development Program, by contrast, estimated regional poverty in the year 2000 to be 60 percent,”  

Therefore, the perspective to investigate may not be necessarily about the preservation of U.S. industry interests and economic gains, but possibly the moral and ethical impact of the neoliberal economic policies.

In the case of Chile, it becomes increasingly certain to see that the U.S.’ incredibly high provision of military aid to specifically stop the election of Allende, and lack of intervention in the political persecution and massacre of political activists, describe a covert effort to transform Latin America into a pro-capitalist and pro-American state. 

 
## Nicaragua

A second case study of American foreign intervention is in the state of Nicaragua against the Sandinista regime. This was, to a large extent, a much more aggressive campaign on behalf of the Reagan administration than had been seen previously. The overt strategy of Reagan and Bush demonstrated a huge contrast between Chile and Nicaragua.

In Nicaragua, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FLSN) had successfully led the Nicaraguan Revolution against the dictatorship of the Somoza regime. Backed by the Social Democratic parties of Western Europe and governments such as Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Cuba, the Sandinistas were eventually successful in their overthrow in July 1979 when President Somoza resigned and governmental control was given to the revolutionaries.

As a socialist political party that had overthrown a fascist, U.S.-backed government, the Sandinistas, of course, immediately posed a political threat to the Reagan administration. Washington started with “economic sanctions, a campaign of public misinformation, support of rightist counterrevolutionary armies (the contras) and covert terrorist operations aided by the CIA.”

Through its hegemonic control of global political and economic institutions, the U.S. government threatened the Nicaraguan government with the depletion of American aid, therefore stopping “any possibility of the Sandinistas obtaining loans from any of the major international lending agencies, such as the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank.”

The Sandinistas “nationalized the country’s major industries,”   and after resignations of more moderate members of the government’s leadership, the country and the party was pushed to the left, and “became dependent on the support of the Soviet Union and Cuba.”  Nicaragua had made a huge effort to address the issues of land ownership, agriculture and education, to benefit poor peasant families. 

In fact, in the early 1980s, the World Bank said these efforts were “extraordinarily successful in Nicaragua in some sectors, better than anywhere else in the world.” Similarly, the Inter-American Development Bank concluded that “Nicaragua has made noteworthy progress in the social sector, which is laying the basis for long-term socio-economic development.”

The American perspective of the time was total opposition to the Sandinista regime. In 1981, a State Department insider said that America would “turn Nicaragua into the Albania of Central America”: a poor and isolated, failed socialist state. Similarly, George Shultz said of the Sandinistas a “cancer, right here on our land mass.” Surprisingly, too, Senate liberal Alan Cranston said that if the FLSN could not be destroyed, then they would need to be left to “fester in [their] own juices.”  

Differentiating from Chile, the U.S. government did not just fund military aid to opposition groups, but Reagan and the CIA created the contras, in 1979. Alongside the economic pressure of the World Bank and the Inter-American development Bank, the contras “did help… to end any hope of economic development and social reform.”

> “In Reagan’s first year in office, he secretly funnelled $40 million to support these counterrevolutionaries. The CIA forged the Nicaraguan Democratic Force in late 1981, unifying, temporarily, the contra factions… In early 1984 the CIA mined Nicaraguan harbors and staged several helicopter attacks inside Nicaragua… Eventually, Congress gave in to White House pressure and approved $27 million in ‘humanitarian’ aid. In June 1986 Congress appropriated $100 million for the contras.”

Here, despite relatively substantial pushback from the Capitol, funding of the contras by government continued massively. The CIA’s orchestration of military attacks and operations, too, show not just action to ‘preserve’ the interests of the U.S. but explicit, offensive action to restrict and put down the socialist government of Nicaragua.

The Reagan administration’s misinformation campaign, too, was damaging. In an interview with Jeane Kirkpatrick, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a Nicaraguan member of Council of Protestant Churches of Nicaragua (CEPAD) said:

> “In recent weeks, the U.S. government has accused Nicaragua, without evidence, of importing Soviet IMGs and thereby posing a threat to U.S. national security. The resulting mobilisation of U.S. naval forces off Nicaragua’s coasts as well as daily surveillance flights over Nicaragua by U.S. aircraft, has greatly increased the tension and fear within the Nicaraguan population… But if the Reagan administration continues to turn the game into one of pure and unbalanced power, untempered by justice and reasoned diplomacy, poor countries like our own have little choice but to balance their power with whatever resources they can acquire… The issue is not that that the U.S. may block or attack our ports to prevent the importation of arms. The issue is that the U.S. is already blocking all our efforts towards peace and reconstruction.”
>   
In response to this, John A. Bernbaum (Vice President of the Christian College Coalition and Director of its American Studies Programme), however, said it was a “myth… that the United States opposed the revolutionary government from the beginning and drove the new government into the waiting arms of Cuba and the Soviet Union. This charge that the United States is responsible for the increased Marxist radicalisation of Nicaragua because of our unwillingness to co-operate simply will not stand the test of history.”  

Here, Bernbaum suggests that it is simply not true that the U.S. government proactively intervened to stop the Sandinistas. He explains that critics say that the fact that Nicaragua turned to aid from explicitly radical communist and socialist countries because of the U.S. is untrue. However, this perspective leaves a lot to be desired. Analysing the decrease in aid, the executive bypassing of the Boland Amendment (this only lasted from December 1982 until December 1983), and the funding of the contras, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that, in fact, the United States was unwilling to cooperate with Nicaragua and the Sandinistas.

By 1985, the Sandinistas has been successful in driving the contras out of the country. Now, their activity had been reduced to hit-and-run attacks outside of the United States military base across the border from Honduras. Two years later, the United States government had invested approximately $200 million in support of the contras and had little to show for it – even after the Sandinista government had been voted out later in 1990, the Sandinistas still remained the “strongest, best-organised political force in the country.”  

By February 25th 1990, the date of the Nicaraguan elections, both the Reagan and Bush administrations had continued to provide “humanitarian” aid.
“The United States gave millions of dollars in aid to the anti-Sandinista coalition (UNO.). Exhausted by almost ten years of U.S.-supported contra war and the U.S. economic blockade, Nicaraguans by a large majority voted in the UNO candidate for president, Violeta Chamorro, and a UNO-dominated congress.”  

To a large extent, there is no doubt that the United States worked purposefully to destabilise the Nicaraguan economy and manipulate the government into pursuing a less radical and more moderate form of government. The fact that they supported the dictatorship of Somoza, funded millions into an anti-government guerrilla organisation and virtually blacklisted them from turning to aid from other global loan institutions meant that Nicaragua could not succeed.

Noam Chomsky’s account of the contra war in Nicaragua sums up the impact of CIA-backed contras well: 

> “US terror ensured that Nicaragua couldn’t demobilise its army and divert its pitifully poor and limited resources to reconstructing the ruins that were left by the US-backed dictators and Reaganite crimes. The contras were even funded by the US selling arms to Iran, in what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.”

 
## Panama

The election of George Bush as president in 1988 as President of the United States cemented the ideas and values of neoliberalism in the Western World. Having gone from Vice President to President, he largely continued the foreign policy that was orchestrated under Reagan, including the contras in Nicaragua.

At this point in time, it would only be one year until the Berlin Wall would come down, and three years before the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. For the USSR they took a new non-interventionist path as they oversaw the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan as well as the collapse of similar regimes in Eastern and central Europe. Keen and Haynes write that this:

> “…Was interpreted by Washington to mean that its freedom of action was no longer hampered by the possibility of a Soviet Response. Most Latin American countries, mired in the greatest depression in the continent’s history and heavily indebted to U.S. banks, were unlikely to make more than token protests against U.S. interventionist actions.”
 
> “If the end of the cold war deprived American imperialism of its stock in trade, the bogeyman of “international communism.” A new villain, the Latin American narcotraficante, the drug trafficker, provided a convenient pretext for an armed intervention that could also distract attention from the failure of the United States to cope with its drug problem at home.”

Therefore, the incoming collapse of the Soviet Union meant that the United States no longer had a ‘scapegoat’ for their operations of foreign intervention, especially in Latin America. Under the ‘war on drugs’, however, the Bush administration were able to use this excuse to carry on in their pursuit of total hegemony and dominance on the continent. If Washington were to intervene in another country to stop the flow of lethal narcotics, who could argue against it?

Politico reported that Bush cited four reasons for the invasion: “safeguarding the lives of approximately 35,000 U.S. citizens living in Panama; defending democracy and human rights, combating drug trafficking in a country that had become a center for drug money laundering and a transit point for drug trafficking to the U.S. and Europe; and protecting the integrity of the treaties that President Jimmy Carter had signed with Panamanian authorities, which called for the Panama Canal to be turned over to them in 2000.”

Dubbed “Operation Just Cause”, few believed that this was a legitimate use of military action in a sovereign state, with many accusing the Bush administration of violating the U.N. Charter as well as other treaties. 

Once “our man in Panama,” the de facto ruler Noriega had only recently been seen as a true ally to the United States government, receiving thanks from Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for him and his government’s support of the DEA, as well as the cooperation of the Panamanian army. Importantly recognising that President Bush had once been the head of the CIA, the idea that Bush did not know of this is hard to believe. This didn’t seem to change until Noriega began to show inconvenient nationalist independence.

Intense bombardment during the invasion had soon broken the army and Noriega was on the run with the U.S. government placing a $1 million bounty on his head, before eventually surrendering. The impact of the invasion was devastating, however, and is the bigger focus of this case study.

While Washington reported a death toll of 516, the Independent Commission of Inquiry increased this figure to be between 3,000 and 4,00 with the majority being civilians.

> “The areas hardest hit by the invasion were the poorest neighbourhoods of Panama City… Thousands were made homeless and resettled in refugee camps that often-lacked medical care, sanitary facilities and food. IT was estimated that the invasion had cost $2 billion in damages and reduced the country’s economic life, already moribund as a result of U.S. economic sanctions, to paralysis.”

After this, the new Panamanian government started to fall apart with massive layoffs and, essentially, an economic crisis, largely all under the guise of arresting Noriega on obviously false drug charges. Therefore, it is clear to see that as well as the invasion being illegitimate, to a large extent, the U.S. had destabilised Panama. 


## Conclusion

In conclusion, to a large extent it can be seen that America has played a role in destabilising Latin America. While in the case of Chile, it could be argued that the American intervention was to preserve the economic and financial interests of international corporations, as well as the American copper industry, it is hard to see how in the cases of Panama and Nicaragua how it could be truly justified.

The creation of the CIA-backed contras with millions invested as well as widely-regarded illegitimate invasion of a sovereign state paint a picture of forced American imperialism and neo-liberal capitalism upon Latin America. Forced into cooperation with the financial institutions, America had free reign to manipulate and therefore destabilise as they saw fit.


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