The US began its tradition of intervention in Latin America as early as the beginning of the 19th century. In 1822, Cuba was invaded and the following year the Monroe Doctrine was formulated. At the beginning of the 20th century, the doctrine was revised to justify US political and military interventions in Latin America. Today, Donald Trump has also made his own interpretation to justify his own imperialist agenda.
For 200 years, the United States has intervened in various ways throughout Latin America. There is not a single country that has escaped its influence, either directly through military or economic means, or indirectly through support for military coups, dictators and counter-revolutionary groups.
When the United States invaded Cuba in 1822, it was a Spanish colony. When the Monroe Doctrine was introduced in 1823, its initial purpose was to counter European colonisation of the American continents and European countries’ attempts to interfere in the politics of the American countries. At the same time however, existing European colonies were approved, and the United States promised not to interfere in conflicts between different European states.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt modified the Monroe Doctrine with an addition, the Roosevelt Corollary, which stated that the United States had the right to intervene as an international police force in Central America and the Caribbean if a country behaved in an ‘uncivilised’ manner.
This hubris, whereby a country and its presidents see themselves as a kind of world police force and grant themselves the right to decide what other countries, their inhabitants and presidents may and may not do, has defined the entire 20th century and continues to do so today, all over the world. The most recent case is, of course, when the United States kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in early January. Donald Trump has called his foreign policy and interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine the ‘Donroe Doctrine’.
Throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, the United States has acted in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt’s interpretation, which has justified their many interventions throughout Latin America.
After the Second World War and then the Cuban Revolution, the focus shifted to specifically combating the spread of communism in Latin America. One of the most serious actions the US has taken against a Latin American country is the trade embargo against Cuba, which has been in place since 1962 to this day.
Banana Wars and the United Fruit Company
Between 1898 and 1934, the US carried out a number of military interventions and occupations in Central America and the Caribbean, known as the Banana Wars. It intervened in several countries that were considered to be pursuing policies that were not favourable to the United States. Also involved was the large corporation United Fruit Company (now Chiquita), which owned large plantations in Latin America and sold fruit in the United States and Europe.
The company had considerable political and economic influence in a number of countries, and important shareholders in the company included US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, his brother, CIA director Allen Dulles, Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico and the US-appointed military dictator of Honduras, Manuel Bonilla.
The success of the United Fruit Company (UFC) was important both for the personal finances of high-ranking officials and for the US political agenda throughout the region. The UFC was used to gain political influence and economic assets, and with the help of the company, political leaders who opposed US interests were deposed.
In 1928, a strike broke out among the company’s workers in Santa Marta, Colombia, where up to 30,000 workers went on strike for higher wages. The company refused to negotiate with the unions, and after three weeks of striking, the Colombian military was deployed against the striking workers and opened fire when they held a strike meeting. The death toll is unclear, but up to 2,000 workers were killed. The United States, through the UFC, was behind this military intervention.
The United States’ 19th-century idea of protecting Latin America from European colonialism was essentially about wanting a monopoly over the entire continent. After the Banana Wars, the US continued to intervene in various ways to protect its own interests.
In 1954, the company and the US government were involved in the overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz, because he had introduced land reforms that nationalised land owned by the UFC. Coup leader Carlos Castillo Armas took power and became the first in a series of brutal US-backed dictators who ruled Guatemala for 30 years.
20th century coups
During the 20th century, the US supported at least 41 coups in Latin America, often to remove left-wing leaders and replace them with US-friendly dictators.
In 1964 the US set up Operation Brother Sam, to give logistical support and a possible direct intervention in favour of the military coup against the government of João Goulart In Brazil.
One of the most famous examples of US involvement is the 1973 coup in Chile, when General Augusto Pinochet took power with US support, and began nearly 17 years of brutal dictatorship. During the coup, in which the democratically elected left-wing president Salvador Allende died, 3,216 people were murdered, 1,093 of whom have still never been found.
Earlier that year, a coup d’état was carried out in Uruguay, under the pretext of fighting the Marxist urban guerrilla group Tupamaros. The United States supported the coup by, among other things, financing and training the police and military. Here, too, the military used the method of ensuring that their victims disappeared without a trace, which even today causes great suffering among relatives who do not know what happened and who have not been able to bury their loved ones.
In Argentina, there were several coups d’état during the 20th century, but the most significant one took place in 1976 when President Isabel Perón was deposed. During the ensuing regime of terror, more than 30,000 people disappeared and gross violations of human rights were committed.
After an initiative by Pinochet in 1975, Operation Condor was set up to coordinate repression against the opposition to military dictatorships in South America, which included Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru and Ecuador. The US played a central role in planning, coordination, technical support and the training of agents, including in torture techniques. This lasted through four American Presidents and only ended with the fall of the Argentinian dictatorship in 1983.
In Nicaragua, a revolution took place in 1979 against the US-friendly dictator Anastasio Somoza. The revolution deposed Somoza and the Sandinistas took power in the country. Shortly thereafter, various counter-revolutionary, anti-communist guerrilla movements were formed, which came to be known as the Contras. They worked against the new left-wing government in the country by starting a counter-revolution in the form of guerilla raids and terrorist attacks, and received significant support from the United States in the form of funding and military training. Many of these groups murdered civilians and used torture. US President Ronald Reagan went so far as to secretly sell weapons to Iran (which was subject to an arms embargo) to finance the Contras in the so-called Iran-Contra affair in 1986.
In Panama, the US-backed Manuel Noriega was in power and provided a base for the Contras’ activities in Nicaragua. But when Noriega became a problem for the US due to his collaboration with Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, the US attacked Panama in 1989 with 26,000 soldiers, including large forces already present in US’s military bases in the country, and captured Noriega. They took him to the US, where he was charged with drug smuggling, among other things.
The situation is very reminiscent of the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, with the difference that drug smuggling in that case is merely an excuse for the US to gain access to Venezuela’s natural resources.
There are numerous other examples of US interventions in Latin America, and no country has been completely spared. Hundreds of thousands of people in Latin America have been tortured, murdered and disappeared as a direct or indirect result of the US’s need to eliminate all potential threats and gain access to resources that do not belong to them. Since 1776, when the US was founded as a state, the country has carried out 400 interventions worldwide, half of which have taken place since 1950.
US imperialism must be defeated, and this must be done through organised workers’ struggle, both within and outside the borders of the United States. The working class everywhere suffers from war, oppression and invasions, whether they live in the United States, Venezuela, Greenland or Iran. It is also the working class that has the power to stop oppression.
