In Latin America, the Cold War Never Ends

So many Latin American Cold War-related stories in the past week, it’s hard to keep up. In addition to the indictment of twenty Salvadoran military officials, we have news from Guatemala, Argentina, and Chile.

Stephen Schlesinger, a co-author of Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, published an Op-ed in this weekend's New York Times.

In it, he rightfully criticizes the US government for its orchestration of the 1954 coup that deposed Jacobo Arbenz and put an end to the Guatemala's "ten years of spring." The years spanning the governments' of Juan Jose Arevalo and Jacobo Arbenz were one of the most progressive period's in Guatemala's history.  

Schlesinger is responding to the recent news in Guatemala where the government stated that it intends to recognize Arbenz's legacy. Schlesinger's written a quite entertaining book on the subject of the coup but I guess I don't agree with everything he writes in the Op-ed. 

Washington feared Arbenz because he tried to institute agrarian reforms that would hand over fallow land to dispossessed peasants, thereby creating a middle class in a country where 2 percent of the population owned 72 percent of the land. Unfortunately for him, most of that territory belonged to the largest landowner and most powerful body in the state: the American-owned United Fruit Company. Though Arbenz was willing to compensate United Fruit for its losses, it tried to persuade Washington that Arbenz was a crypto-communist who must be ousted.

Yes, the US feared Arbenz's agrarian reform. However, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to say that the US feared that it might create a middle class. I guess if you believe that US foreign policy towards Guatemala is and/or was designed to keep the people poor so that they would continue to produce goods cheaply in order to benefit US consumers, then it does make sense.

However from my reading of the time, the US feared that a successful land reform would strengthen the communist party and give them a leg up in the upcoming elections. We didn't think that Arbenz was a communist, but members of his government were and the communist party was going to benefit from the reforms. That was the main reason the US government intervened to remove Arbenz - not to prevent the emergence of a middle class.

But there was no evidence that Arbenz himself was anything more than a European-style democratic socialist. And Arbenz’s land reform program was less generous to peasants than a similar venture pushed by the Reagan administration in El Salvador several decades later.

It's true, the United States has promoted land reform in Latin America, including the 1980 reform in El Salvador. However, I have a difficult time comparing US antagonism towards the 1952 agrarian reform in Guatemala carried out while Eisenhower was president and US support for the the 1980 land reform while Carter was president. The Salvadoran reform was designed to stave off revolution by preventing the communists from coming to power and benefiting the moderate right. 

The Carter administration was also the stronger land reform proponent, not the Reagan administration. The Reagan administration's ambivalence (?) towards the reform as well as the ferocious reaction of the right doomed any chance that the reform had. It's no surprise that the US supports land reform when it suits its interests and calls it communist when it does not. The US isn't against land reform in principle.

The coup and its aftermath were obviously a dark period in Guatemala history. Inside Costa Rica posted a story today about the exhumation of four people killed by the army in 1966 during the presidency of Julio Cesar Mendez. The exhumations were carried out in Chiquimula, a department that borders Honduras and El Salvador, and are the first to occur in eastern Guatemala. 

In Argentina, a court charged three former police officers with killing five women (a French-born nun and four women of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) during the country's dirty war. They are accused of  taking part in some 20 "death flights" where victims were thrown in the Atlantic alive. The judge ordered the former officers, along with a former military official and lawyer, assets frozen and taken into custody.Human rights trials have been ongoing in Argentina ever since President Nestor Kirchner overturned an amnesty that was protecting those allegedly involved in dirty war era crimes.

Continuing on in Argentina, an appellate court ruled that 

Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera must submit "blood, saliva, skin, hair or other biological samples ... with or without their consent" for analysis in the National Genetics Databank, which has collected thousands of DNA samples from relatives of people who were killed or "disappeared" during the 1976-83 junta.

Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera are the adopted children of one of Latin America's largest newspaper publishers, Grupo Clarin. The court seeks to determine if they were stolen as babies during the country's dirty war.

The two Noble Herrera adoptees, now in their 30s, have fiercely defended their adoptive mother and say they have no desire to know their birth families.

Argentina's Supreme Court ruled in 2009 against the forced extraction of blood from such adoptees, but said DNA evidence can still be obtained against their will by searching their homes for clothing and other personal objects.

In the case of the Noble Herreras, a controversial attempt to obtain DNA from their underwear last year failed to produce usable samples.

Finally, in Chile,  a judge ordered an investigation into the death of Nobel laureate, Pablo Neruda. Neruda died shortly after the CIA coup that killed President Salvador Allende and Chilean democracy. According to his family and official reports, Neruda died of natural causes - advanced prostate cancer. 

However, Neruda was also a Communist and a friend of President Salvador Allende who was very critical of General Pinochet and the military government that came to power. Neruda's former driver claims that state security agents poisoned him. The investigation into Neruda's death follows the recent exhumation of Salvador Allende's remains.

The investigations and human rights trials underway in Guatemala, Argentina and Chile give me hope that one day we shall see the same in El Salvador. That is unless President Funes' recent actions put an end to repealing the amnesty law.

Perez Molina Still in the Lead

Prensa Libre published May poll results last week and there's nothing really new to report. In the most recent poll carried out between May 15 and 22, Otto Perez Molina of the Patriotic Party still leads presidential contenders with 37% support. He is followed by Sandra Torres (UNE-GANA) who comes in at 18%. In the previous Prensa Libre / Prodatos April poll, the General came in at 30% and Torres at 7%.

For the last several months, Eduardo Suger (CREO), Manuel Baldizon (LIDER), and Harold Caballero (VIVA-EG) have been fighting for third place. According to this poll, Suger (6.2%) has separated himself from Baldizon (4.3%) and Caballeros (2.8%).

Previously, polls included Alvaro Arzu as the PU candidate. The Prensa Libre poll now includes his wife Patricia Arzu as the party's official candidate. She picks up were her husband left off with 2.8% of the vote.

The following table lists poll results from the last several months. The polls were taken by Siglo XXI, El Periodico, and Prensa Libre. They asked different questions and some seem to have focused more on Guatemalan City and its environs, not the entire country. What see is that Perez Molina remains solidly in the lead with a twenty point advantage over his nearest competitor, Sandra Torres, no matters who is doing the asking or how.

There's just nothing to indicate that this is going to be much of a race come September.

Salvadorans Now 4th Largest Latino Group in the US

According to 2010 census figures released last week, 1.6 million Salvadorans currently live in the United States and they are now the fourth-largest Latino group in the country following Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans.


Analysts had been expecting Salvadorans to outnumber Cubans after the most recent census but that was not the case even thought they did jump over Dominicans. However, the article also notes that, if anything, the census underreported the number of Salvadorans and Central Americans more generally because many are here illegally and are therefore more difficult to count. Cubans, on the other hand, are nearly all here legally.

The rest of the article sounds plausible but I can't say I know of any empirical evidence to back the claims up.

Those who hope the higher numbers translate into the political and economic influence reached by Mexican-Americans in California and Caribbean Latinos elsewhere say they still have work to do.

"Numbers give you a certain kind of power, but of course, you have to transfer that quantity of numbers into quality," said Ramon Cardona, a Salvadoran immigrant and director of Richmond's Centro Latino Cuzcatlan. "One big advantage that Cubanos have is a lot of them came from the elite powers in Cuba, they knew how to run systems, how to run private enterprise and government institutions. In the case of Salvadorans, that was not the case. We had to forge and educate ourselves here, underground. That takes a couple generations to get the know-how and move into those kind of ranks."

Does anyone know of any studies that measure the the power of the Salvadoran American community in business and politics? And has the Cuban American community benefited from the fact that many were from upper class backgrounds more so than the fact that they were put on a path to citizenship and had access to resources that many other Latino groups do not?


I'll just end it with this happy ending from one woman who fled the war and resettled in California.

Sonia Garcia moved to the Bay Area from El Salvador as an 8-year-old in the 1980s, and she was always one of the few Latina girls at her Dublin schools. Today, she said one can find pupusas -- the quintessential Salvadoran dish of stuffed corn tortillas -- at restaurants from Brentwood to Mountain View. Garcia's family opened their own Livermore restaurant, La Pupusa House, a few years ago.

"We're leaders by nature," she said. "We're go-getters. We're businesspeople. We survived a civil war. Coming to America is like a walk in the park."

And in case you were wondering, Guatemalans make up the sixth largest Latino group coming in at one million.

Indictment of Salvadoran High Command for Murder of the Jesuit Martyrs

On Monday, a Spanish court indicted 20 Salvadoran soldiers for their involvement in the murders and subsequent cover-up of six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America in November 1989. Among those indicted are former defense ministers General Humberto Larios and Colonel René Emilio Ponce (recently deceased), General Juan Rafael Bustillo, Colonel Juan Orlando Zepeda, Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano, and Colonel Francisco Elena Fuentes. 

These men were members of the military high command that ordered the massacre in the midst of a FMLN offensive. Judge Eloy Velasco Nunez accused these officials of murder, terrorism and crimes against humanity. While a 1991 trial convicted two military officers, the judge said that their trial was "flawed" and "failed to bring the perpetrators to justice" (CNN). 

Several of those who admitted to having participated in the crime were found not guilty. From what I remember, of the two that were convicted, one was an officer. He was allegedly convicted because lower ranking military would have rebelled had they been the only ones to have taken the heat for the murders. The other soldier was found guilty because he shot and killed both Celina and Elba Ramos. 

According to Judge Velasco, the military wanted to kill Ignacio Ellacuría, the UCA’s rector, in order to put a stop to the negotiation s between the FMLN and the president of El Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani. Ellacuría had been pushing for a negotiated solution to the conflict for nearly ten years. This is interesting for several reasons. 

First, the FMLN supposedly launched its final offensive because it was frustrated with the pace of negotiations. While there had been some progress immediately following Cristiani’s election, negotiations stalled in September and October. Had the military not carried out the murders of the Jesuits, it’s possible that the offensive would have undermined international and domestic support for the FMLN and derailed the peace process indefinitely. Even though the FMLN was unhappy with the negotiations, they persisted. Launching a nationwide offensive in the middle of the negotiations might have given the government and the military an opportunity to put an end to the peace process. The Salvadoran military might have gotten what it wanted had it not killed the Jesuits. 

Second, the military leaders responsible for giving the order to kill Ellacuría and to leave no witnesses were driven primarily by self-interest. They had become politically and financially powerful throughout the war and feared that a negotiated solution would put an end to their privileged position in society especially if any agreement called for a total restructuring of the armed forces. In this sense, the military was not driven by a disagreement with Cristiani as to the wisdom of negotiating with the FMLN. Those communists, terrorists, and subversives could not be trusted. They would never accept democracy. Instead, they feared that negotiations might work and that they would lose control. 

Third, there were several coup rumors in the late 1980s and early 1990s coming from the right. What happened within the Salvadoran high command that they launched an attack against Ellacuría and the UCA as well as other pro-democracy advocates, rather than Cristiani? Did they give equal consideration to removing Cristiani? Did they consider other means of squelching negotiations? Was murdering Ellacuría and the other Jesuits in the midst of chaos brought on by the FMLN offensive an opportunity too good to pass up? 

The reactions to the indictments have been as expected. Abraham Abrego, deputy director of the Foundation for the Application and Study of Law (FESPAD), an independent human-rights organization, says that 

"It is a powerful and symbolic message against impunity and sends a clear message to the military that were involved in human rights abuses and crimes against humanity...It restricts the possibility of these military officers fleeing to other countries, because if they try to escape, other countries that have judicial cooperation with Spain can arrest and send them to a tribunal in Spain.”(LA Times)

 The Director of the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (CDHES) Miguel Montenegro says that 

The judge's decision "gives us encouragement to continue the fight against impunity." (AFP) 

On the other hand, several individuals were not so happy to receive the court’s decision. ARENA member Donato Vaquerano said that 

"We think it is disrespectful to the independence of each country, starting with that. The resolution is disrespecting the General Amnesty Law. That is part of a grand bargain that allowed Salvadorans to take a giant step, of being in an armed conflict to enter into a process of peace and coexistence in a democracy, that we allowed the law.” (Contrapunto)

What happens next? Lawyers involved in the case have three days to file a petition to amend the rulings and five days to begin an appeal. The Spanish indictment calls for the twenty officers to be found and brought before a Spanish court to be tried for the murders. The defendants have ten days to voluntarily appear before that court. After those ten days are up, international arrest warrants can be issued for those who do not voluntarily appear before the court. All states, including El Salvador, are required to act upon such warrants. If Spain asks El Salvador to extradite the accused, it will be up to the Salvadoran Supreme Court to decide.

 In November 2009, I wrote

 "While I am not convinced that the accused will ever see a Spanish courtroom, I am somewhat hopeful that the Spanish investigation as well as Funes' election will help to restart a movement in El Salvador to deal with the human rights violations committed during the 1970s and 1980s…

 Pressure from the international community and civil society might provide Funes with political cover to backtrack on his campaign promise not to push the Legislative Assembly to revoke the amnesty law.” 

I stand by what I said eighteen months ago. I think that it is unlikely that the nineteen surviving officers will see the inside of a Spanish courtroom. Today, the UCA remains opposed to trying the accused in Spain. They support justice as long as it is brought about by a genuinely Salvadoran process. I agree. However, I do hope that this indictment will continue what has been an excruciatingly slow movement towards revisiting the history of El Salvador’s civil war.  

It’s not enough to say both sides committed human rights violations and that both sides agreed to an amnesty that would allow the country to move forward. Even if members of the FMLN, ARENA, the military and the US prefer to keep the amnesty in place, that not’s what the Salvadoran people deserve.

 [See also Tim and El Faro for additional coverage of the indictment. You can also read the judge’s ruling in Spanish here.]

Mexico's southern border awash in crime and violence

Tim Johnson of McClatchy Newspapers has an article up on Mexico's southern border awash in crime and violence.  He provides a decent description of the porous border between Mexico and Guatemala. However, I don't really care for the introduction.

If the border that separates the United States and Mexico is fairly easy to penetrate, then Mexico's other border - the southern one, abutting Guatemala - is virtually a sieve.

If the US-Mexico border were actually "fairly easy to penetrate", immigrants from Latin America and around the world would not be paying $5,000 or more for people to take them across Mexico and into the United States. Years ago, migrants could cross the border on their own or pay a coyote a small amount to help them.

If the US-Mexico border were actually "fairly easy to penetrate", several hundred people would not be dying each year from a variety of causes including murder and exposure to the elements (heath stroke, dehydration, hypothermia). And the number killed crossing the border does not include the hundreds, most likely thousands, that are killed each year crossing Mexico on their way north.

A lot of people successfully cross the US-Mexico border each day. However, I guess I just don't agree with the description that it's "fairly easy to penetrate."

Sino-Argentine War of 2021?

Matthew Yglesias had a post on Friday asking Why Is China Buying Latin American Land? According to a story by Alexei Barrionuevo in the New York Times, Brazil, Argentina and several other Latin American countries are passing laws so as to restrict land purchases by foreigners. China is buying up huge tracts of land so as to ensure access to agricultural products needed to feed a one billion and growing population. Yglesias then speculates as to what might happen if some future Latin American government nationalizes the land that China owns.

Indeed, if the Chinese government wants my advice it seems to me that large-scale purchases of foreign land are a uniquely unsound investment since it would be so easy for some future Brazilian or Argentine government to expropriate the land. Indeed, maybe the Sino-American War of 2021 will be specifically sparked by Argentina nationalizing Chinese land-holdings on a large scale, prompting the dispatch of the People’s Liberation Army Navy on its first real blue water mission which, in turn, prompts President Jeb Bush to invoke the Monroe Doctrine and come to Argentina’s defense.

Let's see. Do you think that there's any historical event that might provide us with any insights as to what might happen in 2021? Maybe even a war involving Argentina and a non-hemispheric power. 

Twenty-nine years ago, Argentina of course, launched an invasion to recover the Falkland Malvinas Islands. These islands are located off Argentina's eastern coast but had been in British possession for over 150 years.After a failed mediation attempt, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent a British naval task force to recover the islands. Nearly two and one-half months later, the war was over and the Falklands were once again in British hands.

What happened to that 150-year old Monroe Doctrine?

The United States initially tried to mediate an end to the conflict. However, when Argentina refused the U.S. peace overtures, U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that the United States would prohibit arms sales to Argentina and provide material support for British operations. Both Houses of the U.S. Congress passed resolutions supporting the U.S. action siding with the United Kingdom. 

The US also supported Britain in the UN in voting for UN resolution 502, a resolution that called for Argentina's retreat from the islands. The US also assisted the the UK with military equipment including submarine detectors and missiles (Wikipedia). So much for that Monroe Doctrine. It's definitely not how Argentina expected us to thank them for helping to train Honduran death squads.

So what would happen one decade from now if Argentina nationalized property owned by the Chinese and the Chinese then sent a military force to recapture that territory? Again the US would probably try to negotiate. We get along with both China and Argentina and would prefer that they settle their differences nonviolently.

Let's say that mediation failed similar to 1982. While some would cry out for the US to invoke the Monroe Doctrine, as long as a Chinese military force was tasked solely with retaking the land that it previously owned, I don't foresee see the US invoking the doctrine. If the US invoked the doctrine, it would have to do something about it or lose credibility. However, getting into a war with the Chinese over Argentina is probably worse than losing credibility.

Argentina? I think that in 1982 Argentina learned that the Monroe Doctrine is not about the United States' absolute commitment to defend the Western Hemisphere against aggression by non-hemispheric powers. It is a doctrine that the US applies selectively to further its own interests. The alliance between the US and UK in 1982 was much stronger than today's US relationship with China. On the other hand, the US and Argentina were probably stronger allies in 1982 than today. The US and Argentina haven't really gotten along for the first two hundred years of Argentina's independence and that probably won't change in the next ten years. If the US wasn't willing to defend our dirty war committing Argentine allies in 1982, we probably wouldn't do it today.

How did other foreign powers react?

France provided political support, voting for UN resolution 502. The French also provided dissimilar aircraft training allowing Harrier pilots to train against French aircraft used by Argentina. French and British intelligence also worked to prevent Argentina from obtaining more Exocets on the international market.

New Zealand sent a frigate to relieve a British ship in the Indian Ocean, thus assisting the Royal Navy to meet its commitments in the South Atlantic.

Chile gave support to Britain in the form of Intelligence about Argentine military and radar early warning.

On the Argentine side, Peru and Venezuela sent aircraft spare parts, Brazil leased two P-95 maritime patrol aircraft and Israeli IAI advisors already in the country continued their work during the conflict. The Soviet Union provided intelligence on British military movements, and facilitated the supply by Libya of strela 2 missiles.

Chile's support for Britain wasn't much of a surprise. Argentina and Chile have had several confrontations over the years and had almost gone to war as recently as 1978 in the Beagle Conflict. However, I would venture to guess that today's Latin America would more rally more strongly behind Argentina than thirty years ago.

In 1982, some Latin American nations sent spare parts and diplomatic support. In ten years, one could envision Latin American naval, air, and land support for Argentina against a more formidable Chinese military. Latin American solidarity and the capabilities to act together against a common external enemy would be one of the most significant in the last thirty-years.

I was surprised to read about Soviet and Libyan support for Argentina given that the US support to that same government was based upon their strict anti-communism and pro-Western and Christian ideology. A recent book by Russian Sergey Brilev makes some interesting claims about Soviet support to Argentina.

Brilev writes that in spite of the risks of a world conflict because of Soviet support in the war involving a NATO member, Moscow handed to the Argentines and their most ‘anti-communist’ leader General Leopolodo Galtieri crucial satellite information which helped with some of the greatest coups of the Argentine forces in sinking Royal navy vessels...

Brilev concludes that in the early eighties the Soviet Union power structure was already under strain. The strategic aid was a decision of the Generals at military command level as a logical support for “the enemy of my enemy”. He then recalls that only two countries did not join the 1979 US sponsored international embargo on the Soviet Union, Argentina and Uruguay and “the military were very thankful for that”. 

The Soviet military acted on its own to support Argentina. They must have kept supporting Argentina because thirteen years later some guys that I was playing ball with in Buenos Aires were all wearing CCCP baseball uniforms. The Israelis? Another US ally during the Cold War who, like Argentina, had no problem selling arms and helping to train murderous regimes (i.e., Guatemala) when the US congress got squeamish some backbone and suspended US assistance.

Here's hoping that a Sino-Argentine war is not on the horizon. If it does come about, however, there's no reason for Argentina to expect the US enforce the Monroe Doctrine. 

 "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

A Non-aligned foreign policy in Nicaragua?

During the Cold War, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas stated that they intended to follow a non-aligned foreign policy. For some, a non-aligned foreign policy meant a policy of "equidistance" from both the Soviet and American empires. For others, a non-aligned foreign policy (consistent with the natural alliance tendency) viewed the world 

more along the lines of class analysis, in which the world is divided into imperialist, colonial and reactionary countries on one side and neo colonial, colonized and progressive countries on the other. From this perspective a natural alliance is seen between positions of the countries of the Non Aligned Movement and those of the socialist countries. This natural alliance is precisely that natural and therefore arises spontaneously and requires no formal structure. It sees the imperialism of the U.S. and its major allies such as Great Britain as the greatest threat to the development of the Third World. (Envio 1983)

While theoretically separate, the two visions were blurred in early revolutionary Nicaragua. The Sandinistas of 1979 and the early 1980s pursued both policies simultaneously. They requested and received aid from countries across the world (US, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and a variety of Latin American and European allies). The Sanindistas did not want to cut off relations with the United States. If anything they wanted more aid from the US to make up for being an "enemy of humanity." They increased trade with both democratic and non-democratic nations. They were neither in the Soviet nor the American camp.

At the same time, the Sandinistas were clearly more comfortable in the Soviet camp, improving the country's relations with Cuba, the Soviet Union and East bloc nations, Vietnam and revolutionary and anti-imperialist movements around the world. They criticize the imperialism of the United States, but not that of the Soviet Union. Inevitably, the non-aligned policy of equidistance from the US and Soviets gave way (if it ever really existed) to a non-aligned policy more consistent with the natural tendency.

In many ways, today, we see the same approach to Sandinista, or more accurately Ortega, foreign policy. Ortega's Nicaragua is a member of DR-CAFTA, a free trade agreement with the Dominican Republic, other Central American states, and the United States. Nicaragua is also a member of the Venezuelan and Cuban-led Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (click here for an Americas Quarterly report on ALBA). While the stakes are not nearly as high as the Cold War, Ortega is again playing both sides.

There are a few potential scenarios which might affect Nicaragua's simultaneous participation in DR-CAFTA and ALBA. First, their might be a new occupant in the White House following the US presidential election in 2012. If the next US president takes a more hard-line approach to its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere (one that does not look kindly on Nicaragua's support for Chavez, Castro, Gadhafi, or Ahmadinejad), Ortega might be forced to choose. A second scenario might come from a deterioration in the relationship between the US and Venezuela. Recently, the US levied sanctions against Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA. While the sanctions are relatively weak, it's not hard to imagine events spiraling out of control.

Finally, another scenario that could force Ortega to choose comes from his likely victory in next year's presidential election. A recent Nicaraguan poll, this one by New Century, has Daniel Ortega comfortably in the lead with 50% of the respondents in favor of reelecting Ortega. Ortega's support is up slightly from April's survey. While things could always change, there's a very good chance that Ortega will win another five-year term even though that constitution sure seems to have barred him from running.

Should Ortega need to manipulate the vote like he has been accused of in the past or have to send out his enforcers to break up anti-Ortega protests movements, one can see the US government take a stronger stance towards the Nicaraguan government. And like the Cold War, Nicaraguan will no longer be able to pursue a foreign policy that seeks to take advantage of what both the United States and Venezuela have to offer. And Nicaragua and Ortega will, in all likelihood, look south and choose a policy more consistent with the natural tendency vision of a non-aligned foreign policy.