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Central American History: U.S. Intervention & Repression

By Evan Douthit

Central America has been an active place in the last 7 years, as the people of Central America have struggled to end their social, political and economic oppression. The fundamental problem is that the U.S. (and to a lesser extent, West European countries and Japan) has kept them ensnared in a web of economic and political dependency that has made it impossible for these countries to make decisions that would be of benefit to their own people. Instead, decisions are made to benefit banks and corporations abroad. This is not new: the U.S. began its interventions in Central America before the U.S. Civil War when so called "filibusters" invaded and briefly held parts of Nicaragua. The U.S. intervention was increased by the building of the Panama Canal, as the powerful U.S. fleet backed up by U.S. money (dollar diplomacy) gained control or powerful influence among the governments of the region.

The most well known of the U.S. interventions of this period resulted in the invasion by the U.S. Marines of Nicaragua where the U.S. fought a 7-year war with General Augusto Sandino. The U.S. was finally forced to withdraw its troops in 1933, but got its revenge when the U.S. armed and trained National Guard, commanded by General Anastasio Somoza murdered Sandino in 1934. The resulting Somoza dictatorship lasted through 2 generations of Somoza's and 45 years.

The dictatorship ended in 1979 when after 45 years of no elections, democracy, freedom of speech and frequent murders by Somoza-hired assassins, the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (The FSLN) overthrew Somoza. Interestingly enough this was the first time a party of the Socialist International (the international political association that includes the ruling parties of Spain, Greece, Sweden, Peru and the main opposition parties of Great Britain, France and Germany) had come to power by armed revolution. This choice was necessitated by the total refusal of the Somozas—backed by the U.S government—to hold anything even resembling the Philippine—style free elections.

Along with the fall of the Somoza dictatorship, there was a massive upsurge of Salvadoreans against their regime in the late '70's. El Salvador has been ruled by an oligarchy that has systematically frozen out of participation in the nation's political life all other forces in that society, including workers, peasants, intellectuals, small businessmen. As these other sectors of society increasingly refused to be denied participation, and as the deepening Central American economic crisis forced people into motion to survive, the response of the oligarchy and its military became increasingly savage. Death squads, set up by the CIA, and soldiers systematically began to kidnap and execute opponents or those defending the poor and weak. Their victims included Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated at mass, 4 U.S religious women who were raped and murdered, the 6 top leaders of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition of the Christian Social Movement (a Christian Democratic organization) and the Democratic Revolutionary Movement (A Social Democratic party). These last were kidnapped by soldiers and tortured and executed. And in the early '80's these death squads murdered by some estimates 30,000 Salvadorans. But this slaughter only strengthened the insurgent movement which took control of one third of the country and which now controls some 15% of the population.

In Guatemala, there has been almost continual and naked military rule since 1954 when the U.S. armed and trained a mercenary army to overthrow the elected government of Arbeaz (this government's great sin was to expropriate the property of the United Fruit Company). In the last 30 years some 100,000 Guatemalans have been killed or disappeared. As in El Salvador, and increasingly effective insurgency was developing.

The U.S. response has been to pour in huge amounts of aid, as it pumped up the armies of El Salvador and Guatemala the insurgents were temporarily put on the defensive by the Army tactic of killing everyone they could find in contested areas (this description of their tactics is from a BBC analysis). In Honduras the U.S. created a mercenary army of 15,000 "Contras" and tremendously expanded its own military presence in that strategically placed country, to give it a base from which to go into Nicaragua, Guatemala of El Salvador as the situation seems to require.

In no way is this a haphazard an aimless escalation of U.S. intervention in the region. Faced with the failure of President Carter's policies to save U.S. interests in the area, the chief Central America experts of the incoming Reagan Administration met in New Orleans in 1980 to map out a new plan of action. Ignoring the terrible conditions facing the people of Central American, these "experts" blamed the crisis totally on Cuban-Soviet intervention, and set out a timetable for the resolution of the Central American crisis. First the insurgents in Guatemala would be brought under control. Then the even more dangerous and advanced rebellion in El Salvador was to be liquidated. Third the Sandinista government would be destabilized. And finally, the U.S. would put an end to Fidel Castro's Cuba once and for all. All of this was to be finished by the end of 1982!

But the problems of Central American are too serious to be resolved anymore by slaughter and massive U.S. military and economic aid. As the region's economy nosedives, those resisting the U.S.?supported regimes have been continuously reinforced by increasingly desperate and sophisticated supporters among the general population. Today, the U.S. supported regimes and mercenaries continue to lose ground. The Salvadoran Army increasingly refuses to fight, and the insurgents have taken the battle to the entire country. The Guatemalan insurgency is resurging, while faced with an economic catastrophe the Army there has been forced to hand over the presidency to an elected civilian and tremendous mass movements are being unleashed. The Contras have been strategically defeated and are only an annoyance to the Sandinista government.

Thus the Reagan Administration is faced with the choice of either learning to live with the fall of their dependent regimes and the creation of independent ones or with sending in U.S. troops. But this latter would lead to massive international condemnation and protest at home, and would only accomplish its objectives at tremendous political and economic cost, if at all.

Evan Douhit
Editor, Central American News Update