| the reagan legacy in latin america |
| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Tuesday, June 15 2004 |
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| During a state dinner in Brazil in 1982, then-President Ronald Reagan offered a toast to the people of "Bolivia." Realizing he'd gotten the two South American countries mixed up, Reagan said Bolivia was where he was heading next, when he was actually going to Colombia. While his critics accused him of not knowing where he was or where he was going, Reagan knew exactly which direction he wanted Latin America to go: as far away from the threat of communism as possible.
It was precisely his staunch anti-communist stance that guided Reagan's foreign policy in Latin America. He feared that Soviet influence already entrenched in Cuba would expand in the region, and he was willing to use any means to stop it. In 1983, he sent U.S. troops to Grenada to topple a leftist government friendly to Communist Cuba.
Beloved in Miami, Reagan won the hearts -- and financial support -- of hard-line Cuban exiles by using harsh rhetoric against Fidel Castro. So it came as no surprise when, upon Reagan's death, state-run Havana radio proclaimed that the former president "should never have been born."
Nowhere was his aim to halt Marxist expansion more firm than in Nicaragua, where he offered unwavering support to the Contra rebels. So strong was his determination to rid Nicaragua of its leftist Sandinista leaders that when Congress outlawed funding for the Contras, Reagan's administration secretly sold weapons to Iran to fund the insurgency. The so-called Iran-Contra scandal cast a cloud over the final years of his presidency. Nicaragua, now under Democratic rule, is divided on its opinion of Reagan. To some, he is a liberator; to others, a villain.
In Argentina, a dirty war in which up to 30,000 suspected leftists either were killed or disappeared was well into its fifth year when Reagan came into office. One of his first moves was to reverse former President Jimmy Carter's condemnation of the military regime's record on human rights and authorize CIA collaboration with the Argentine intelligence service. Argentines also remember how Reagan's support helped Great Britain win its war for the Falkland Islands in 1982.
Gen. Augusto Pinochet was in power in Chile when Reagan became president. Reagan abstained from criticizing Chile's human-rights abuses during his first term so as not to alienate the right-wing government, but by the mid-'80s, Reagan began to pressure the Chilean dictator into taking steps toward democracy, expressing an opposition to all types of dictatorships.
Guatemala was embroiled in a bloody civil war during the Reagan years. In the early '80s, Reagan not only lifted an embargo imposed by the Carter administration against Guatemala's military government, he also astonished human-rights activists by proclaiming Gen. Efrain Rios Montt -- considered one of the bloodiest dictators of the region -- "a man of personal integrity and commitment."
In a covert operation in El Salvador, the Reagan administration sent dozens of Green Beret trainers to teach the Salvadoran army better techniques for fighting against the Marxist guerrillas. Both sides in the Salvadoran conflict created havoc, but it was the Salvadoran army -- which received a million dollars a day from the United States -- that was accused of most of the atrocities, such as the massacre in the town of El Mozote, where nearly 1,000 men, women and children were murdered in 1981.
The Reagan era was a time of turmoil and transition in Latin America. It was a decade of right-wing military juntas, leftist revolutionaries and civil wars that left tens of thousands dead. While some applaud Reagan for his anti-Communist stance, others say his unconditional support of military dictatorships and CIA-backed secret wars came at too high a cost. Historians will debate those points.
For now, Latin America is not the same one of the turbulent '80s. Although Cuba remains a bastion of communism and at least four countries have left-leaning presidents, for the most part the region is stable and democratic. For better or for worse, Ronald Reagan's legacy lives on in Latin America. |
