From STRATEGY OF AN EMPIRE IN
DECLINE; COLD WAR II (a 1986 book downloadable free) :
Harry Targ
Reestablishing U.S. Hegemony in the Western Hemisphere: Central
America and the Caribbean
The Reagan administration took the offensive in the Central
American and Caribbean area shortly after assuming office. The first priority
in terms of stopping social change in the region was to thwart the growing mass
movement in El Salvador, a movement so broad-based that even the Salvadoran
church and the hierarchy of the U.S. Catholic Church opposed Reagan policy.El Salvador
El Salvador has experienced repressive military rule for most of
the last fifty years. During this entire period the military represented the
interests of an economic oligarchy made up of what Salvadorans referred to as
the "fourteen families. " While somewhat larger than fourteen
families, the size of the Salvadoran ruling class can be inferred from the fact
that two percent of the population owned sixty percent of the land.
Within the context of massive wealth and power in the hands of the very few and poverty and powerlessness among the majority, Salvadoran political history has been characterized by extreme conflict, violence, and repression. For most of its citizens, the modern period of Salvadoran history began with the mass movement for revolutionary change led by the Marxist Farabundo Marti in the early 1930s. After a failed revolutionary uprising in January, 1932, against dictator General Hernandez Martinez, thirty thousand peasants were slaughtered. General Martinez ruled for thirteen years, serving the interests of the coffee-growing first families.
In 1944 a coup against Martinez led to the seizure of power by more "reformist" army officers, who were interested in promoting industrialization and diversification of the economy. The most reactionary coffee growers opposed any economic policies that would reduce their landholdings and increase their taxes. While policies were created that encouraged foreign investment, the industrializers among the ruling class (and their army representatives), avoided changing patterns of land ownership.
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Under military rule in the 1950s and 1960s, El Salvador increased industrialization and economic integration with other Central American republics. Over one-half of all foreign investments in El Salvador in the twentieth century occurred in the 1960s. El Salvador became the site for investments in food products, textiles, chemicals, petroleum, paper products, and pharmaceuticals, as an array of U.S. multinational corporations established manufacturing in the country.
While the interests of the coffee growers and industrializers were served by state policies, peasants remained landless and workers were underpaid. By the mid-1970s conditions in the cities and countryside had deteriorated. For example, one analyst estimated that a family of six—the average size—needed $704 per year to cover basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing. Eighty percent of the population earned less than this figure. Democracy fared no better. The 1972 election, which led to an electoral victory by Christian Democrat Jose Napoleon Duarte, was overturned by Colonel Armando Molina, who seized power and forced Duarte into exile.
During Molina's regime from 1972 to 1977, more foreign investment was encouraged and cheap labor was guaranteed—workers earned about $4 per day. Roads, ports, and airports were modernized, Laws guaranteed that multinational corporations could take large percentages of their profits out of the country. To help thwart rising militancy among workers, peasants, and students, the Molina government revitalized paramilitary organizations to spy on the mass organizations. These paramilitary groups, often called death squads in Latin America, had the clear sanction of the government. As the 1970s wore on, these groups engaged in more violence and terrorism against the Salvadoran population. Despite the extreme repression of the Molina years, the fourteen families grew dissatisfied with his calls for very modest land reforms to reduce rural discontent. The oligarchy replaced Molina in 1977, as General Humberto Romero gained power in corrupt elections. Romero was closest to the most extreme reactionary sector pf the coffee growers. He set about crushing the growing worker and peasant opposition to the entire system of exploitation and oppression. Laws were passed forbidding open meetings of the regime's critics. Paramilitary squads began killing priests, terrorizing peasant villages, and shooting into demonstrations.
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On October 15, 1979, a group of young officers overthrew Romero
and pledged reforms in the years ahead, including land reform. The junta
created after the 1979 coup included some more moderate sectors of Salvadoran
society. They were soon forced out of the government, as the ruling class and
their military strongmen reneged on plans for reform and continued to carry out
violence against the people. The ruling junta had been reshuffled 
four times from October, 1979, to
January, 1981. Each change resulted from the withdrawal of support from the
junta by centrist politicians, who no longer could accept rising government and
paramilitary violence against the Salvadoran population. In the spring of 1980
Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador was gunned down in a church while
saying mass. He had recently declared his support for guerrilla groups in the
countryside and had written President Carter pleading with him to stop the flow
of arms to the junta.In 1980 many mass organizations, ranging from guerrilla groups
to trade unions, joined forces to
carry on the struggle against the junta. The political arm of the struggle, the
Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), was headed by Social Democrat Guillermo Ungo,
who had run as Duarte's vice-presidential candidate in 1972. Ungo described the
process of unification of the diverse groups:Early on under the junta, the view that the progressive democratic groups like ours were caught in the crossfire between right and left was true. But as the right gained more military control, we came to see that regardless of what we or the left did or said, the military would go right ahead with its plans to exterminate the guerrillas. These groups are so close to the popular and democratic or
ganizations that the repression
fell on all of us—even the Archbishop... We had to face the fact that we were
being propelled from a battle of resistance into a war of insurrection
(Armstrong and Shenk 24).Independent sources estimated that ten thousand Salvadorans were killed in acts of political violence in 1980, the government bearing responsibility for at least seven thousand of these. In November, 1980, six leaders of the FDR were assassinated by government-supported killers, and in December four U.S. Maryknoll nuns were killed by government forces. President Carter temporarily suspended U.S. military aid to the junta after the nuns had been killed. After Jose Napoleon Duarte, the Christian Democrat, assumed the presidency in January, 1981, the Carter administration claimed that the Soviet Union and Cuba were supporting the guerrillas, The aid was resumed.
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When President Reagan entered office the first major foreign policy he endorsed was to provide over $30 million in military assistance to El Salvador. This was followed by the dispatch of over fifty U.S. military advisors to the junta. To bolster his claim that ssupporting the Junta (then headed by Duarte) was in keeping with the needs of the SSalvadoran people and the security interests of the United States in the hemisphere, the State Department prepared its so-called white paper, which alleged that the guerrillas, tthe Farabundo Marti Forces of National Liberation (FMLN), of which the FDR was the political arm, were receiving large quantities of arms from the Soviet Union through Cuba and Nicaragua. Reagan representatives traveled throughout Europe and Latin America with the documents hoping to convince U.S. allies
that the civil war was the result of Soviet
machinations. The Europeans and the Mexicans especially found the documents
less than convincing, and European Social Democrats began a worldwide campaign
to pressure the Duarte junta to engage in negotiations with the guerrillas for
a cease-fire and fair elections. Reagan opposed all such efforts of compromise
and encouraged the junta to continue the government-supported slaughter in the
countryside.As well as alleging Soviet instigation, the junta and its U.S. supporters praised the land-reform program that had been proclaimed with great fanfare in March of 1980. This program was intended to redistribute the bulk of the land in the countryside, make every peasant a small landowner, and break the back of the
powerful coffee growers. Analysts
of the program found that no significant changes had resulted from the first
two phases of the program, and the final phase, which would have affected the
large landowners, was canceled. Despite the praise by junta and U.S. figures
alike (Roy Prosterman, a U.S. advisor to the junta on land reform, had also
been an advisor on land reform in South Vietnam in the 1970s), no more than
fifteen percent of the poor
est quality land had been
distributed. Several stories surfaced of peasants being slaughtered by
government troops when they appeared to take control of land that was said to
be theirs. 
As a groundswell of public opposition to U.S. intervention in El Salvador increased, congressional critics of U.S. policy secured legislation requiring presidential certification of progress in democratization, human rights, and land reform before additional military and economic aid could be sent. In January of 1982 the administration certified progress, despite the fact that by all accounts (except the State Department's) at least eleven thousand Salvadorans had been killed, mostly by the army and right-wing death squads, in 1981.
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. Finally, as a result of U.S. efforts to sanitize the worldwide image of the junta, elections were held on March 28, 1982. Parties of the left and center could not participate because they would have been exterminated by government forces or death squads. To ensure the high turnout which is traditional in El Salvador, Defense Minister Garcia appeared on television and
radio to remind Salvadoran
citizens that, if they did not vote and get their identification cards stamped,
they would be deemed subversive. The paychecks of government employees were
withheld until proof of voting was presented. In this climate of fear,
Salvadorans voted in large numbers, although studies later showed that the vote
totals had been exaggerated by the authorities.
Because of this fear, the
discredited policies of the Christian Democrats, and the naive hope that
perhaps change would bring peace, right-wing parties won a majority of the
seats in the new Constituent Assembly. This assembly elected as its leader Roberto D'Abuisson, a man former
Ambassador Robert White called a “pathological killer." The Christian
Democrats, who did get forty percent of the vote, lost what little influence
they had had in the junta.
President Reagan then reversed himself on support for the far-right
parties. After the election, policy makers indicated that the United States could
support any government in El Salvador,Roberto D'Abuisson, a man former
Ambassador Robert White called a “pathological killer." The Christian
Democrats, who did get forty percent of the vote, lost what little influence
they had had in the junta.
even one led by a man who called for the use of napalm against
Salvadorans, an invasion of Nicaragua, and the trying of ex-junta leader Duarte
for treason. Despite the propaganda barrage, conditions in El Salvador remained
the same after the elections. The guerrillas were winning the war in the countryside.
The new government still represented the interests of the fourteen families.
With more U.S. aid and incursions by the Honduran army in support of the
Salvadoran army, the systematic slaughter of workers and peasants continued.In 1984 elections were held for a permanent legislative assembly and for president. Again, the opposition could not safely participate. This time the CIA funneled money to the Christian Democrats, who won a majority in the new legislature. Jose Napoleon Duarte was elected president. During the fall of 1984 Duarte initiated dialogue with the opposition by scheduling two historic meetings between the government and the FDR, which had long called for dialogue. The call for negotiations achieved its goals —increased support for Duarte, particularly for the 1985 municipal elections around the country. After the second meeting, the military indicated that it no longer would support dialogue.
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In the six years to 1985, fifty thousand Salvadorans had been killed. Death-squad killings had declined, but massive indiscriminate bombing of the countryside was causing death and destruction. US. advisors and aircraft were leading the bombing campaign. Despite the enormous firepower, the FDR and the FMLN held thirty percent of the country. Institutions of popular power, such as local assemblies, health clinics, and schools were in operation in the zones of popular control. Even with dramatically increased U.S. arms, advisors, and personnel—$400 million in U.S. aid for 1985—the Salvadoran army and oligarchy could not crush the seeds of the new society.
Guatemala
U.S. policy makers became concerned about the civil war in neighboring Guatemala in 1981 as well, The Reagan administration began to talk of the need to provide renewed military assistance to the military junta there, reversing the Carter policy of ending such assistance because of human-rights violations. Repression and exploitation were as severe in Guatemala as in El Salvador. Over twenty-five thousand people had been killed in acts of political violence there over the last fifteen years. Seventy-six top officials of the centrist Christian Democratic party of Guatemala had been killed between July, 1980, and May, 1981.Vinicio Cerezo, head of the Christian Democrats, claimed in 1981 that "the [right-most] people in Guatemala are the rightest right-wing in all of Latin America. They want to remove us because they know that the United States cannot accept another leftist government in Central America after Nicaragua, and that
will leave them as the only
alternative. For this they kill us" (Hoge 8). Cerezo claimed that while
the Christian Democrats endorsed the electoral process, the military junta in
power and its support of right-wing death squads made it impossible for any
reformist parties to participate in the electoral process.
Christian
Democrats were not the only targets of repression by assassins from the right.
University faculty, students, labor leaders, and church people have been among
the thousands that have been tortured and killed in recent years.
Government-supported terrorists slaughtered Indian villagers in an attempt to
frighten the country's Indian population—fifty-five percent of the total
population—from joining guerrilla groups in the countryside.
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Repression and poverty went hand-in-hand in Guatemala, as one-fourth
of the population earned 66.5 percent of the national income and another
quarter earned 6.7 percent. The top 1.5 percent alone accounted for
twenty-three percent of the national income in the mid-1970s. Seventy percent
of the population lived on an average income of $74 per year: These disparities
were even worse in the countryside, where almost half the population worked as
agricultural laborers on large estates.Politically, this gross inequality had been associated with years of assassinations of opponents, rigged elections, and military governments. It had its modern roots in the U.S.-supported military coup against the reformist government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 by Colonel Castillo Armas. Despite the extreme repression, various trade unions and peasant organizations began to struggle for changes in the lives of Guatemalans in the 1960s. A guerrilla movement began operating with some effectiveness in the countryside. This provoked a counterinsurgency movement, "Operation Guatemala," patterned after the Phoenix program in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, slaughter in the Guatemalan countryside was led and logistically supported by the U.S. government. Paramilitary squads became the vehicle for officially sanctioned killings.
The most recent phase of institutionalized violence, according to many sources linked to the army, police, and right-wing death squads, began in 1978 with the election of General Lucas Garcia. Despite the cancellation of military assistance and sales by the Carter administration in 1977 for what they called gross human rights violations, the Guatemalan government received adequate supplies from Israel, France, Argentina, and elsewhere. Proposals for renewed U.S. aid were discussed by Reagan policy makers in the spring of 1981. In March, 1982, shortly after Lucas Garcia won a rigged election, General Rios Montt seized power in a military coup. Within a month of the coup, the Reagan Administration was again calling for military assistance for Guatemala. Despite increased slaughter of Indian peasants by the army, the human rights situation was allegedly improving. Rios Montt escalated the war against the peasantry even further. In 1983 he was ousted in another coup led by different army officers. The violence continued, even though elections were promised for 1985. In January, 1984, the government announced it would be purchasing $2 million in helicopter spare parts from the United States. The U.S. State Department denied that this sale violated the congressional ban on military sales to Guatemala.
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The rationale given by the administration for this support of the junta was Cuban support for the guerrillas. No evidence was needed because the white paper on El Salvador had "proven" the claim that nefarious outsiders were the cause of Central America's problems. Of course, the Soviet Union was ultimately behind it all. As Acting Assistant Secretary of State John Bushnell told Congress: 'It is hard for any small country to withstand a major assault with assistance from one superpower and its friends without the help from another superpower" (New York Times 5 May 1981: 14).
The Caribbean: the Bahamas, Jamaica, Grenada
The carrot was being proposed by the Reagan administration for the
region as well. Small Caribbean islands, long ignored by U.S. policy makers,
had gained importance for the crisis-ridden imperial system. Grenada, an island
country in the English-speaking Caribbean, had experienced a revolution in 1979
against a repressive government. The new government, headed by Maurice Bishop,
had begun to construct a socialist society, In the Bahamas a socialist party, the Vanguard party,
was gaining support against the U.S.-dominated government. Michael Manley's
government in Jamaica had tried to build "democratic socialism" in
his country against the combined efforts
of U.S. aluminum companies, the IMF, the U.S. government, and covert action of
the CIA. Manley had been vocal in support of the Third World demands for a New
International Economic Order and hemispheric ties with Cuba.
cialist party, the Vanguard party,
was gaining support against the U.S.-dominated government. Michael Manley's
government in Jamaica had tried to build "democratic socialism" in
his country against the combined efforts
of U.S. aluminum companies, the IMF, the U.S. government, and covert action of
the CIA. Manley had been vocal in support of the Third World demands for a New
International Economic Order and hemispheric ties with Cuba.The Carter administration followed the October, 1980, Jamaican
elections with intense interest.
Because of the long-term effort by outsiders to undermine the Manley government
and the consequent worsening of the economy, right-wing candidate Edward Seaga
was victorious in the national election. Soon after Seaga assumed power he
began to dismantle nationalized industries in Jamaica and declared his full
support for foreign investment in the country. Given the fact that Seaga's
political and economic philosophy was virtually the same as President Reagan's,
it was no coincidence that he was the first foreign head of state to meet with
the Reagan administration in January, 1981. As a result of the Reagan-Seaga
talks, the United States began to call for a Caribbean Marshall Plan. After the
president of Mexico visited the United States, plans were begun to support
private investment in the region. For the United States, at least, the new
Caribbean Basin Project of economic and military assistance and encouragement
of private investment was designed to thwart the social ferment that seemed to
be spreading throughout the Caribbean as well as Central America. In fact, the
scheme had been designed largely to shore up shaky regimes like that in El
Salvador.Nicaragua |  |
A final element of the evolving Reagan policy in the region was to
confront more directly the socialist or socialist-leaning governments in the
area. The president, the secretary of state, and others began a campaign to
isolate, intimidate, and threaten the Cubans. Hemispheric countries were encouraged
to break ties with Cuba, because the Cubans had been defined by U.S. propaganda
as behind every insurrection in the hemisphere. Shortly after a Cuban official
stated his country's willingness to discuss outstanding issues with the United
States in the spring of 1982, Reagan ended all tourism to the island. He also
endorsed a plan 
to beam radio broadcasts to the
island so that Cubans could learn 
the ' 'truth" about their country.The Reagan administration began a sustained campaign against the Nicaraguans as well, claiming that they had materially supported the guerrillas in El Salvador. Reagan canceled the final installment of an economic assistance package that had been granted under the Carter administration. Military support for the Honduran army was also being used to give material aid to former Nicaraguan national-guard supporters of Somoza to carry on a border war against Nicaragua. Reports surfaced in the spring of 1981 that right-wing Nicaraguans were training in the swamps of Florida to invade their former homeland and depose the Sandinista government. Florida had become the site for expatriate Cubans, Salvadorans, and Nicaraguans to plan for counterrevolutions and right-wing coups in their home countries and in the interim to organize sabotage against the popular governments and movements
that they opposed.
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During the second half of Reagan's first term, the war against the Nicaraguan government escalated. An army of fifteen thousand, led by former Somoza national guardsmen, called contras (short for counterrevolutionaries), was created by the CIA in Honduras with U.S. public and private funds. A smaller contra force in Costa Rica also was formed to attack the Nicaraguan government. The U.S. government thoroughly militarized Honduras with air bases, military support facilities, training schools for Honduran and Salvadoran soldiers, staging areas for U.S. overflights of El Salvador and Nicaragua, and constant military maneuvers with thousands of U.S. troops. The CIA mined Nicaraguan harbors and aided contras in their bloody raids inside Nicaragua. By 1985 the United States had provided $80 million in aid to the contras, leading to the deaths of some seven thousand Nicaraguans. Peasant villagers, teachers, doctors, and farm workers were special targets of the U.S.-supported slaughter.
While the effort to destroy the new government proceeded, Venezuela, Columbia, Mexico, and Panama—the Contadora countries— sought to begin a peace process in Central America. The Nicaraguans endorsed it, but the United States sought to scuttle it at every turn. When the Nicaraguans held elections in November, 1984, which established a multiparty parliament (Sandinistas won two-thirds of the seats), the Reagan administration dismissed them as "Soviet-style sham elections. ' It was quite clear by 1984 that the goal of the Reagan administration was the ouster of the Sandinista government, a government that had effectively redistributed land, provided free health care, cheaper food, and a literacy campaign for its people. Even U.S. government officials had to admit that the Sandinista regime was overwhelmingly popular. The Reagan lies did not fully convince the U.S. public either. Polls showed consistent opposition to U.S. military activities in Central America. In 1984 and 1985 Congress voted to halt military aid to the contras.
The most overt act of U.S. aggression in the region occurred in October, 1983, when U.S. forces, with a token contingent from. neighboring Caribbean islands, invaded Grenada. The popular leader, Maurice Bishop, had been ousted in an internal dispute with several adventurist members of his New Jewel party. The internal struggle in this island nation of 110,000 people provided the pretext for a U.S. military assault. It was alleged that six hundred U.S. medical students on the island were endangered. Most evidence suggested this was nonsense. The United States was using the bad judgment of Grenadian ultra-left adventurists as an excuse to crush a budding socialist state that had begun the long arduous processes of economic development, job creation, education, and political participation, sorely needed by its people. In the months following the invasion, the United States expunged every vestige of progressive institutions and policies installed by Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement.
History Matters
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Consequently, during the Reagan administration major steps had
been taken by the United States to reestablish U.S. control in Central America
and the Caribbean. No single country in the area was vital to U.S. capitalism,
although there were rumors of major supplies of untapped oil in Guatemala.
Cuban socialism, however, had been a continual symbol of people's power and
social justice in the hemisphere, with obvious appeal to workers, peasants, and
students. Further, the region seemed in the throes of large-scale ferment, with
guerrilla movements and socialist political parties gaining more and more support.
Reagan's concern for El Salvador and Guatemala, therefore, was of a regional
character and involved the long-term implications of more Cubas or Nicaraguas
on the historical agenda. Because of the historical forces that were moving
these countries away from the U.S. empire, the Reagan administration developed
a coordinated policy to support military aggression, violence, political
repression, and poverty in the region and to forestall the inevitable coming
social changes.
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