by Norman Lowe
In fact by 2000, underneath the outward appearance of prosperity, about one-third of Mexico’s population still lived below the poverty line. The PRI seemed to be in a state of stagnation and blocked all moves designed to lessen the gap between rich and poor. In the Congressional elections of 1997 the party lost control of Congress, gaining only 38 per cent of the vote. In the presidential election of 2000 the PRI candidate, Francisco Labastida, was opposed by Vicente Fox, representing the centre-right National Action Party (PAN). Fox won a comfortable victory with 43 per cent of the vote against Labastida’s 36 per cent; single-party rule by the PRI had been brought to an end after 71 years.
(b) Guatemala
Situated on Mexico’s southern border, Guatemala is one of the poorest states of Latin America. Its history during the twentieth century is an excellent illustration of US involvement. A Spanish colony since the mid-sixteenth century, Guatemala gained independence from Spain in 1821, andfor a short time it was part of a Mexican empire and then part of a new federal state known as the United Provinces of Central America. This broke up in 1840 when Guatemala became fully independent. Largely an agricultural state, its economy depended on exports of bananas and coffee. The population, of which about 40 per cent were Mayan Indians who did not speak Spanish, consisted mainly of landless peasants, and the country was dominated by a few wealthy landowners and the army. In the early twentieth century the USA became heavily involved in Guatemala in the form of the powerful United Fruit Company (UFC). Beginning in 1901 the UFC gradually increased its activities and investments in Guatemala until by the Second World War it controlled almost half the country’s best agricultural land and was the majority share-owner in the railways and the electricity system, among other things. This meant that although this foreign involvement brought many positive developments, in the last resort the interests of the UFC came first. The classic example of this was that the UFC was reluctant to finance the building of new roads because this would reduce its profits from the railways.
In October 1944 dissatisfaction with this state of affairs reached a climax: during a general strike the long-serving military dictator, Jorge Ubico (1931–44), was forced to step down by a mixed uprising of anti-government army officers, students and liberal intellectuals. In 1945 democratic elections were held and the Christian Socialist, Juan José Arévalo, was elected president for five years. Much-needed reforms were introduced:
Many foreign-owned estates were confiscated and the land redistributed to peasants.
A minimum wage was introduced.
Extensive building programmes were started, including new houses, hospitals and schools.
Landowners were required to provide adequate housing for their farm labourers.
The formation of political parties was allowed, and so was the formation of trade unions, although their powers were restricted.
The next president, Jacobo Arbenz, was elected in a landslide victory in 1951. He continued Arévalo’s reforms, going much further. There were new social welfare programmes and wage increases for workers. Uncultivated land was taken from large estates, including those of the UFC, to be redistributed among peasants; although compensation was offered, the UFC claimed that it was not enough. Then Arbenz took one step too far: he legalized the Communist Party. This was too much for the USA: all aid to Guatemala was immediately stopped, Arbenz was accused of being a communist, and his opponents were supplied with arms and trained in neighbouring Honduras and Nicaragua by American CIA agents. Early in1954 the USA introduced a resolution in the Organization of American States (OAS) declaring that communist domination of any state in the Western hemisphere posed a threat to the security of all member states. This was passed by 17 votes to one (Guatemala).
In June 1954 American-backed forces led by Colonel Castillo Armas invaded Guatemala from Honduras and Nicaragua, while American planes bombed Guatemala City. Although the official Guatemalan army took no part in the coup, neither did they attempt to defend Arbenz, who was forced to resign. Armas took over and became a military dictator; parliament was disbanded and leading communists were arrested. Armas was assassinated in 1957 and was replaced by another military dictator, Miguel Ydigoras. US aid was resumed and an uprising against Ydigoras was put down in 1960 with American help.
The Americans insisted on calling the overthrow of President Arbenz an ‘anti-communist coup’. But there seems little doubt that the Eisenhower government overestimated the threat from communism in Guatemala. It was prepared to sacrifice the Arbenz reforming government even though it meant violating the principle of non-intervention and souring relations with the rest of Latin America. Anti-American feeling spread, and ‘Yankee go home’ became a common slogan throughout Latin America.
Years of military dictatorship followed the overthrow of President Arbenz, during which the opposition constantly demanded social and economic reform. For over 30 years the country was in a state of virtual civil war: left-wing groups resorted to guerrilla attacks and kidnappings and were opposed by right-wing vigilante groups; the government used death squads against people deemed to be communists. It was calculated that in four months (October 1979–January 1980) during the presidency of General Romero García, 3252 political murders had taken place. After the next election, said to have been won by a García nominee, General Guevara, a group of army officers declared that the result had been fixed, and in March 1982 they put General Ríos Montt in power. After little more than a year, in August 1983, another coup replaced Ríos Montt with yet another General, Óscar Mejía. Montt complained that the USA had put pressure on him to take action against Nicaragua, and that when he refused, they had engineered his removal in favour of somebody who would. Soon afterwards Mejíia did indeed announce that he saw the Sandinista government of Nicaragua as a threat to the whole of Central America (see below). He promised a return to civilian democracy and in 1985 elections were held for a legislative assembly. The Christian Democrats emerged as clear winners with 51 out of the 100 seats, and in December their leader, Cerezo Arévalo, was elected president for five years.
Arévalo managed to tread a narrow tightrope, trying to reconcile the guerrillas and vigilantes, while the army was a baleful background presence. To complicate matters further, the economy was in crisis, the treasury was empty, and his fear was that if his reforming policies went too far, he would be removed by US intervention. Arévalo completed his full term and was replaced in 1991 by Jorge Serrano. He had some success in reversing the economic downturn and decreasing inflation, but then in May 1993 he made the mistake of suspending the constitution and dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court. He claimed that this was part of a clampdown to reduce the amount of corruption in public life; he also tried to remove civil liberties and muzzle the press. This caused an outcry from most sections of society, and the army forced him to resign. Congress reconvened and in June 1993 chose Ramiro de León, a popular civil rights leader, to complete the presidential term.
De León was keen to bring formal ending to the civil-war situation that had now dragged on for well over thirty years. The Roman Catholic Church helped the government and Congress to agree on a programme of constitutional reform which came into operation in August 1994. De León worked hard to bring about reconciliation and the United Nations became involved in the search for peace. But it was not until 1996 that the civil war was officially ended. President Álvaro Arzú of the National Advancement Party (PAN), who was elected in January 1996, had the distinction of signing a peace agreement with the main guerrilla group, Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). In February he had personal meetings in Mexico with the rebel leaders and a ceasefire from 20 March was agreed. In December 1996 a formal peace agreement was signed; this legalized the URNG and granted a partial amnesty to the various participants in the violence. The war was over at last, but not before some 200 000 people had been killed during those 36 years, well over half of whom were Mayan Indians, who were especially targeted because of their militancy
. Although the fighting was officially over, there was inevitably a legacy of bitterness and mistrust. The congressional and presidential elections of November and December 1999 were won by the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), and the new president, Alfonso Portillo, faced daunting problems including a high crime rate, continued violence and corruption, and economic challenges.
(c) Nicaragua
Like Guatemala, Nicaragua was a Spanish colony from the mid-sixteenth century until it became independent in 1821; then it was part of the Mexican empire for a short time and after that it became a member of the United Provinces of Central America until 1840, when it achieved full independence. The country had a disturbed history: politically unstable, punctuated by periods of ruthless military dictatorship and plagued by foreign intervention, especially from the USA. For the remainder of the nineteenth century internal politics were dominated by the power struggle between liberals, whose main power base was in León, and the conservatives, based in Granada. The two parties alternated in power – liberals for a short period in the 1850s, conservatives from 1860 until 1993, and liberals from 1993 until 1909.
The president during this last period was José Santos Zelaya, who was responsible for some important changes. There were great improvements in education, transport (new railways were built) and communications; coffee production expanded and exports increased, and the country enjoyed a modest prosperity. He also began the building of a new and neutral capital city – Managua. This helped to reduce the long rivalry and feuding between León and Granada and between liberals and conservatives. Unfortunately Zelaya had several faults: he was violent and corrupt, and developed delusions of further grandeur. He had many of his conservative opponents arrested, tortured and executed, and he and his associates helped themselves shamelessly to the state’s assets – selling privileges and concessions to foreign interests and increasing taxes, but keeping the extra revenue for themselves. And finally he had visions of a united states of Central America, with himself as president! To further this ambition he stirred up unrest in other states. In 1906 for example, his troops invaded Guatemala in an attempt to overthrow the government. When this failed he turned to Honduras and supported a rebellion there; when that failed, his troops invaded Honduras, and with help from the army of El Salvador, defeated the Hondurans and occupied the capital, Tegucigalpa. By 1909 most Nicaraguans had had enough of Zelaya; the conservatives had hated him for years, and even his own liberal supporters had turned against him, disgusted at the corruption and the meddling in the internal affairs of other states. The USA saw him as a destabilizing influence in the region and felt that their own interests were threatened.
It was a liberal, General Juan Estrada, who decided the time had come to remove Zelaya. He organized an uprising and was supported by the USA which sent warships and marines in case the coup failed. Zelaya decided to beat a hasty retreat to Mexico, having thoughtfully emptied the treasury before leaving. However, the power struggle between liberals and conservatives broke out again, and in 1912 US marines were sent in to prop up the conservative government and restore order. They stayed until 1925, but as soon as they left violence broke out again and after only a few months US forces returned. In 1927 the Somoza family came to power with the approval of the USA and the situation gradually stabilized, partly because American troops stayed until 1933.
After that the Somoza family ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist until 1979, supported by the USA. Political opponents were exiled and each of the Somozas amassed a large fortune. On three occasions the USA was able to use Nicaraguan territory and troops for attacks on other Latin American governments that it didn’t approve of – Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1961) and the Dominican Republic (1965). The last of the Somazas, Anastasio, was so blatantly corrupt that he even became an embarrassment to the USA. President Carter urged him to reform and pay more attention to human rights. This had little effect and in 1979 he was driven out by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, named after Augusto Sandinista, who had led an unsuccessful revolution in 1933 and was later murdered on the orders of Somoza. The Sandinistas had widespread support among ordinary people and from a section of the Roman Catholic Church which was highly critical of the excesses of capitalism.
The new Sandinista government immediately introduced a programme of long overdue reform: a redistribution of 5 million acres of land, including some confiscated Somoza property, to about 100,000 families, a literacy drive and health improvements which eliminated polio and reduced other diseases. There were other social and economic reforms, and in 1985 Oxfam reported that the efforts of the government and their commitment to improving the conditions of their people were exceptional. Although the Sandinistas allowed a mixed economy of state and privately owned business, the US Reagan administration which took office in 1981 saw them as dangerous communists, especially when they formed close links with Cuba. The USA did everything it could to undermine them and bring them down. All aid was stopped; the US began, and encouraged other states to join, a trade blockade and a credit squeeze against Nicaragua; and they financed the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), known as the Contras. The Contras waged a damaging guerrilla campaign, blowing up bridges, schools and health clinics and burning crops. After they had mined three harbours, the International Court of Justice condemned the American CIA’s backing of the Contras and ordered them to pay compensation for damages caused; the USA rejected the ruling and refused to pay compensation.
US policy was not popular with most of Nicaragua’s neighbours. A meeting of the Latin American parliament (which had been founded in 1968) was held in Guatemala City in April 1986, when 16 out of 18 members voted in favour of a motion condemning the US attitude (Honduras and El Salvador were the exceptions). The policy was controversial in the USA itself, and in March 1987, following the Irangate Scandal (see Section 23.5(b)), Congress voted that aid to the Contras should be stopped.
This provided a ray of hope for embattled Nicaragua and her president, Daniel Ortega, who had been elected in 1984 for six years. In 1987 President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica persuaded all the Central American presidents to support his peace plan for the region, an achievement that won him the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the plan proved difficult to carry out, mainly because the Reagan administration was still doing its utmost to destabilize Nicaragua. Under US pressure, both Honduras and El Salvador declined to cooperate with the peace plan. Ortega’s co-operation with Castro’s Cuba outraged the Americans, and during the 1990 election campaign, the Bush administration threatened that violence would continue if the Sandinistas won the election. Even so, it was a surprise when the National Opposition Union candidate, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, became the first female president to be elected in Latin America. Ortega and the Sandinistas accepted the result and she was able to serve her six-year term. Her main achievement was to disarm some of the guerrilla groups that had been terrorising the country for years, and most of the fighting ceased. Things became more stable and some of the Sandinista social reforms were allowed to stay. But the economy was in total ruins and government debts were astronomical. Nevertheless, Ortega was again defeated in the 1996 election, this time by Arnoldo Alemán, and in the 2001 election by the National Liberal Party candidate (PLC), Enrique Bolanos.
At the turn of the century the country was still in dire straits. In 1998 there was a devastating hurricane which killed 9000 people, left around 2 million homeless and caused damage amounting to $10 billion. In 2002 former president Alemán was charged with corruption and embezzlement and later sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. The situation was so bad that in 2004 the World Bank and the IMFI waived $4.5 billion of Nicaragua’s debts. In the elections of November 2006 Daniel Ortega made a comeback: he won the presidency with 62 per cent of the vote, and the Sandinistas had a comfortable majority in parliament. But as they took office in January 2007, they faced a challenging prospect – Nicaragua had the distinction of being the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. When he stoo
d for election for a third term in November 2011, Ortega won a landslide victory.
26.4 THE CHALLENGE TO US DOMINATION
Towards the end of the twentieth century, some Latin American states began to resist US control. As genuine democracy spread, leftish political groups organized campaigns in favour of social and economic reform. People were prepared to vote for them because their programmes were attractive: the neo-liberal-style policies favoured by the USA should be abandoned; foreign companies should be required to hand over more of their profits to the state to help tackle the poverty and inequality which were still rife throughout Latin America. Since the Cold War was over and the USSR had ceased to exist, the USA could no longer get rid of left-leaning governments on the grounds that they were aiming to form alliances with the communist bloc. The first major challenge to US influence came in 1998 when Hugo Chávez won the Venezuelan presidential election with 56 per cent of the vote on a programme of increased social spending and an attack on poverty.
Similar trends followed in some other important states: in 2002 the left-wing Luiz Inácio da Silva (popularly known as ‘Lula’) won the Brazilian presidential election with a programme similar to that of Hugo Chávez. The following year Argentina followed suit with the election of Nestor Kirschner, and in Chile in January 2005 the centre-left Michele Bachelet was elected – Chile’s first woman president. Like-minded presidents were elected in Bolivia and Ecuador in 2006, and in the same year Daniel Ortega staged a comeback when he became president of Nicaragua for the second time after a gap of 16 years. Meanwhile in Mexico the trend seemed to be in the opposite direction: after 71 years of rule by nominally left-wing governments, voters turned to a moderately conservative party for their next president – Vicente Fox. A brief look at each of these countries should reveal how much, or how little progress has been made towards modernization.
