Nicaraguan Military Leadership

There was much speculation regarding the potential outcome of the election especially regarding the possible social upheavals that could have resulted in yet another Civil War. The National Vote Counting Center was not announcing results until every electoral ballot had been counted, but quick counts conducted by both sides of the opposition as well as by the representatives of the monitoring international organizations hinted at the possible victory of UNO. As a result the concern had shifted as to how to ensure a smooth transition while preventing any possible social upheavals. Daniel Ortega expressed his concern to Carter in meeting that took place the night the polls were closed: “I wanted to talk to you about what could be an eventual triumph of UNO, and take steps to ensure that if this occurred, it would not produce a bad outcome. There is a section within UNO who would be so encouraged by a UNO victory that they might want to provoke acts of violence against the FSLN…. There could be a civil war. The conduct of the U.S. government would be decisive (Pastor, 261).” Due to the cooperation of the opposition party’s especially in calming and controlling their supporters, the announcement of the UNO victory did not result in any social repercussions and hence helped Nicaragua serve as an exemplary model to the international community proving that peaceful transition is in fact possible. Despite Barrios’s success in the election her tenure

Guatemala in 1960 would begin a civil war that would last for decades and since the Guatemalan civil war is very long only the initial years of the civil war will be discussed. According to John A., Booth, Wade, Christine J., Walker and Thomas W, “Colonel Castillo Armas, head of the National Liberation Movement (Movimiento de Liberación Nacional— MLN), assumed the presidency with the backing of the United States.” In 1954, Colonel Castillo Armas was a leader, that was backed up by the United States was pro-capitalism, and as the MLN dominated Guatemalan politics it had only favored the rich and upper middle class. According to John A., Booth, Wade, Christine J., Walker and Thomas W. “The MLN became a political party during the late 1950s, drawing together coffee plantation owners, municipal politicians and bureaucrats, owners of midsized farms.” Eventually Armas was assassinated, and General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes became president. According to John A., Booth, Wade, Christine J., Walker and Thomas W. “Continued violence and corruption in the Ydígoras government prompted an abortive coup by

a unified league of Central and South American nations. However, resentment of his authoritarian ways along with fighting between states and personality conflicts caused his influence to

This investigation will explore the question: To what extent did Pancho Villa’s relations with the U.S. change his political image? I will be evaluating The Mexican Revolution by Adolfo Gilly as well as The United States and Pancho Villa: A Study in Unconventional Diplomacy by Clarence C. Clendenen. I selected these two sources to compare because the first source is written by Adolfo Gilly, who is a professor in Mexico which means his viewpoint is different compared to Clarence Clendenen’s, who is a professor at Stanford University in the United States.

Díaz, afraid of losing his presidency, rigged the election and had Madero arrested. After his release, he fled to the United States and planned a revolt for November 20th, 1910. While this revolt did fail, it inspired many people who were tired of being dictated to join in a revolution.

Also, the growing presence of the Soviets and Cuba in Nicaragua escalated the cold war and in order to ‘draw the line” the Reagan administration “doubled economic aid for El Salvador to a hundred and forty four million dollars” (pg 40). According to Danner, “the priorities of American Policy in El Salvador had become unmistakable” (pg 41).Second, The American government was “opposed to dispatching American combat forces to Central America” (pg 22) and in order to prevent another Nicaragua, Congress agreed to “reform” the Salvadoran Army by financing, training and arming its troops to fight the FMLN. As Danner notes, “the Americans had stepped forward to fund the war, but were unwilling to fight it”. Third, the Monterrosa led Atlacatl led batallion through American funding descended in El Mozote with “the latest M-16’s, M-60 machines guns, 90 millimeter recoilless rifles, and 60- and 81 millimeter mortars”(pg 39) and with a list of names massacred an entire village because “communism was cancer”(pg 49). The U.S. government was clearly responsible for the Massacre at El Mozote because without the funding, supporting, and training of El Salvador troops the war would have been tilted in the guerillas favor as they had managed to hold the disorganized army in certain areas. In contrast to neighboring departments El Mozote and its inhabitants of born-again Christians did not fit in as guerilla sympathizers. In fact, the training at American hands

Dwight D. Eisenhower said in the Mandate for Change, “The air support enjoyed by Castillo Armas, though meager; was important in relative terms; it gave the regular armed forces an excuse to take action in their own hands to throw out Arbenz” (Document I). Guatemala was clear of its communist President Arbenz due to the help of the United States. Guatemala did not only get rid of communism but Latin America was free (Document I). These marks on history were great failures for communism but great victories for the United

Nicaragua people rebelled. The United States sent aid in ways that would be hidden. The US banned helping them, so Reagan needed private donations.

favor. The president also allowed the sale of arms to Iran, with profits redirected to the Contras. The arms sale and movement of funds to the Contras were organized privately through the CIA intelligence network, allegedly with the full support of CIA Director William Casey. Acknowledgment of the Iran-Contra concern in late 1986 exasperated a major congressional investigation. The scandal seriously weakened the influence of the president. The American preoccupation with Nicaragua began to subside in 1987 after President Oscar Arias Sanches of Costa Rica created a regional peace plan. In national elections in 1990, the Nicaraguan opposition beat the Sandinistas, bringing the conclusion to ten bitter years of Sandinista

Death squads and disappearances caused mental anguish to so many citizens of countries plagued with war all over Latin America, just like Lupe and her family. Gabriel Garcia Marquez poses the question, “why could social justice not be a goal for Latin America?” Countries in Latin America like Nicaragua, Guatemala, EL Salvador, Argentina, and Chile were striving for social justice. Some even had democratic elections and were on the right path but the fear of communism that plagued the United States since the beginning of the Cold War halted any of the progress Latin American countries could have even made. Any sort of progress, whether it was farmers and peasants like José forming unions and organizations fighting for human rights, or democratically elected presidents like Arbenz or Allende that fought for agrarian reform and nationalization of resources was completely shut down either directly or indirectly by the United States. Social justice was definitely a goal for Latin America. The region is not filled with savages that can’t grasp democracy; even Marquez “rejected the idea that ‘violence and pain’ was the natural condition of the region.” The United States halted and set aside any progress for social justice in Latin America because it feared losing its powerful influence in the

BBC, 06 May 2004. Web. 13 May 2014). Since the National Guard didn’t have that many people, they started recruiting farmers who were kicked out because of the new farming system that the Sandinistas started using. The second group was lead by a dissatisfied Sandinistas leader, Eden Pastora. He set up two groups in Honduras called the “contras”, or counter revolutionary forces. Reagan wanted to support contras economically and he stated that quite openly; however, a lot of U.S. citizens did not like that. During that time, in 1985, a war between Iran and Iraq took place. Even though the U.S. publicly supported Iraq, the government also secretly assisted Iran. Among those years Iran asked the United States for help with weaponry. It is illegal to sell weapons to the hostages but Regan still thought it would help him and the U.S. One of the reasons why he did it was because he wanted to take control in the problematic Middle East and selling weapons to Iran would improve the relations with Iran and Lebanon. At the same time Reagan wanted to free the seven hostages that were held by Iranian terrorist and even though he strongly supported the rule of not negotiating with terrorists, he broke the rule by supplying Iran with weapons. After receiving money from Iran, Regan sponsored contras using that money. The United States had also supplied the contras with weapons and equipment. After the clandestine deal between the two countries was published in the

Where he was later accused of condoning a radical leader identified as Rios Montt and death units affiliated with the Salvadoran military that was subsidized by the U.S. government. But with those accusations, Reagan put a lot of energy into overthrowing the government in Nicaragua that almost ended Reagan's presidency. Thus resulting in the U.S. Senate cutting Reagan's ties to his surrogate army in Central America. Which this ended with The White House running the war from the basement of The White House and funded the operation by paying for some of it with prohibited arms sales to Iran that triggered the Iran-Contra Affair. These complications ended in Reagan evading prosecution by his affiliates saying he had no knowledge of the affair.

Massive modern Latin American immigration began in the early 1990’s due to rising tensions in Latin America and Mexico. According to Foreign Affairs, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua all had some sort of civil war that was going on in the 1980s and 1990s. These wars crippled each nation 's infrastructure and also allowed drug rings and gangs to form in each country. Many of these issues may have stemmed from the United States’ own wrongdoings. According to BBC News former United States president Ronald Reagan even aided rebels in Nicaragua because he was afraid of the spread of communism. These same rebels turned into some of the drug cartels that plague Central America today, and they were aided by the

It is impossible to separate the history of military dictatorships in Latin America from the history of economic exploitation and of US intervention in the region. The history of slavery and other forced labor in the pursuit of large-scale agriculture and resource extraction in the time of the colonies has created a legacy of economic exploitation. This poverty and inequality has in many cases led to popular uprisings and calls for reform, which provided the reason (or the excuse, depending on your point of view) to use military force to restore discipline. The United States' willingness to support strong regimes capable of securing its interests in the region also has played a decisive role. These

I decided to write this research paper because we were assigned to find an issue or subject within Latin America to write about. One of the most widely known and influential revolutionary figure in the history of Latin America is Ché Guevara. Ché knew how to use his intelligence and judgment in all the circumstances he encountered taking advantage of each moment as if it was a highly intensive chess game he was sincerely