It is said that truth crushed to earth will rise again. The saying has proven all too true in Latin America as a wave of progressive leftist movements and governments have swept into power in a region considered by the United States to be its “backyard.” This is a remarkable feat considering just a generation ago leftist activists and movements in Latin America were hunted down and exterminated by right wing military regimes, backed by the United States, in a hemispheric campaign reminiscent of the Spanish conquistadors extermination of native communities in the Americas.
In the Southern Cone of Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay) during the 70’s and 80’s under “Operation Condor” military regimes hunted down, assassinated and “disappeared” tens of thousands of leftist activists. Using intelligence and technology supplied by the United States, activists “disappeared” into the night never to be seen or heard from again. Their alleged crime? Seeking to build an alternative to the exploitive economic order imposed on their societies by the United States and the military regimes the US propped up to preserve its interests at the expense of the interests of the peoples of the region.
The military regimes of the Southern Cone had a deep admiration for Nazi Germany and many fugitive Nazis settled in these countries after World War 2. Inspired by Hitler’s “Night and Fog” campaign against resistance fighters in Europe, where Hitler ordered his generals to make the resistance fighters and their supporters disappear into the night and fog forever, the secret police of “Operation Condor” sought to instill terror into the population of their own countries by murdering thousands of leftists in secret execution locations and then secretly disposing of their bodies. The terror this imposed on targeted populations cannot be underestimated. Imagine watching your father, sister, brother or loved one wrestled into an unmarked car by plainclothes police or military men and never seeing him or her again. Imagine going to the police station to file a report and never receiving a response as if your loved one never existed.
This was just the pain the families and friends of disappeared activists endured. The experience the activists had to endure was much more brutal. The Argentinean military regime devised a plan to ensure that the disappearance of activists was done efficiently and that the bodies would not be discovered. Their preferred method of execution was to bind dozens of activists together, load them onto a helicopter and fly them over the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and toss them out the helicopter doors. Oftentimes, however, the restless ocean would toss back the evidence of the regime’s crimes and fishermen on the beaches would occasionally come across rows of dead activists bound to one another washed up on the beach’s shores.
The military regime of Chile preferred to conduct mass executions in its main soccer stadium. It also would load dozens of activists into trucks, and then drive the trucks off the cliffs of mountain roads and tell the victim’s families their loved ones died in an automobile accident en route to prison. The military regimes of Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay chose “secret prisons” located under population centers such as department stores, sports stadiums and beach fronts. Activists were tortured and executed in secret prisons literally right beneath the social life of unsuspecting and terrified populations
Chilean victim of state terror
In Central America the campaign against leftist activists and movements took on a more unsophisticated method of lethality. In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras the military regimes used right wing paramilitaries composed of major landowner families, families and supporters of the military and common criminals to murder activists. Oftentimes these activists were kidnapped at night and in the morning their bodies would be discovered in garbage dumps on the city’s outskirts. Most of the victims died of torture and were killed with machetes or gunshot wounds to the head. The right wing paramilitary of Central America distinguished themselves from their Southern Cone Latin American allies by their tactic of public executions and publicly displaying the bodies of their victims, a terror tactic aimed at the civilian population declaring that opposition to the right wing government and United States' interest will not be tolerated and no one will be able to defend you. The public assassination of El Salvador’s Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 by a United States sponsored death squad in El Salvador was designed to hammer his point home to the civilian population. Archbishop Romero aligned himself and his church with the oppressed and poor of El Salvador and began calling for a re-distribution of the land and wealth. The regime’s response was to execute him.
A common theme connects the activist murdered throughout Latin America by right wing military regimes. The majority were ordinary activists not involved in military actions against the regimes. With the exception of Nicaragua, where the Sandinista movement overthrew the U.S.-backed military regime of Somoza in 1979, and El Salvador, where the FMLN movement fought the military regime to a brutal stalemate until 1992, leftist movements in Latin America did not garner major mass support to wage sustained military campaigns. Civilian populations were too intimidated to support the violent overthrow of the repressive military regimes they lived under. Where leftist activists were able to defeat the military regimes was in the battle of ideas. As a result, a majority of the victims were ordinary activists such as college students, union leaders, community activists and organizers, indigenous activists, leftist writers and newspaper editors, journalists, leftist college professors, and/or anyone who could articulate an alternative to the U.S. imposed economic order the military regimes were promoting and building.
These were the “disappeared” and “assassinated.” The college students who published an underground leftist newspaper calling for the end of U.S. interference in their country’s affairs and the overthrow of the military regime were the ones tossed from helicopters 10 000 feet over the frozen waters of the South Atlantic oceans. The writer who published a “leftist” tract and the union leader or community activist who organized people and communities to call for redistribution of the country’s stolen wealth and land were the ones gunned down in stadiums and secret military prisons. To the military regimes there was no such thing as a peaceful protest or a democratic dialogue on the politics of the country; the consequence for involvement in a peaceful protest or call for democratic participation was to be “disappeared” into the night. The campaigns against leftist activists and movements in Latin America by military regimes were so effective that by 1990, with the exception of Cuba, all of Latin America was governed by conservative right wing governments that continued to preserve and promote U.S. interests in the region while maintaining the status quo within their own countries.
To the outside observer and advocates of right wing rule within Latin America, the free market neoliberal economic order the U.S. imposed on the region appeared firmly entrenched for generations to come. But then something happened. In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, removing the U.S. global competitor for supremacy and ending the Cold War. The U.S. pulled back much of its military support and economic aid to right wing Latin American governments as the threat of a communist takeover of Latin America disappeared. Eager to seize the vacuum left by the Soviet Union’s collapse, the U.S. turned its attention to Europe and the Middle East, in a dash to consolidate its hold on these region’s markets and resources. These strategic regions took priority over Latin America. Convinced that the battle of ideas had been won, the left crushed and the people converted to capitalism the U.S. encouraged free elections and democracy. The generals were advised to remain in their barracks and outside the political process. NAFTA was soon signed and there was talk of turning the entire continent into a “free trade” zone so its natural resources and people could be exploited more easily. A new era was at hand for Latin America in the 90’s or so the “rightist” advocates believed.
Some folks on the continent had different ideas and on January 1, 1994 an indigenous movement rose up in Chiapas, Mexico. Calling themselves Zapatistas, in honor of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, they emerged from the mountains and took over several towns in their region. They staged their uprising to coincide with the signing of the NAFTA agreement between the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico which sought to better open the markets of Latin America for exploitation. Their uprising was a message that resistance had not been crushed.
Zapatistas waving rifles in training
The Mexican military attempted to crush their uprising but the Zapatistas resistance and international outcry over the Mexican military’s brutal campaign prevented the military from winning and an uneasy truce was established that continues to this day. The Zapatistas have not abandoned their fight or laid down their arms.
More cracks appeared in the U.S.’s grip on Latin America. In 1998 Hugo Chavez, a leftist army colonel, was elected president of Venezuela in a landslide victory demonstrating that leftists could win an election in Latin America. With popular support firmly entrenched amongst Venezuela’s poor Chavez has been able to withstand U.S. efforts to overthrow his government, as demonstrated when following a U.S. backed military coup against Chavez in 2002, hundreds of thousands of Venezuela’s poor marched on the presidential palace and demanded Chavez’ return to power. With the U.S. unable to intervene militarily on the side of the military (in fact, many soldiers took the side of the people) the generals had no choice but to release Chavez and return him to the presidency. Chavez’ return to power through the actions of Venezuela’s people strengthened the resolve of Latin America’s people and demonstrated the era of militaries seizing power without consequence in the region was over.
The absence of military repression and most importantly the collapse of the economies of Latin America in the late 90’s and early 2000’s modeled on the “free market” principles imposed by the U.S. opened the door for the return of widespread leftist activism in Latin America. The people of the region had watched free market economies of their countries transfer the wealth of the region out of Latin America, leaving much of the population impoverished while a small elite became super rich. The people were open to the alternative vision articulated by martyred activists in the 70’s and 80’s. The people wanted to control their own economies, destiny and communities. They organize amongst themselves and discovered they were the majority.
Leftist political parties used decentralized mobilizations, with massive popular support, started winning election after election in Latin America. Leftist parties won power in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The socialist president of Chile, Michele Bachelet’s parents had been tortured in the 70’s under Chile’s right wing military regime presided over by the U.S. puppet General Augusto Pinochet. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla commander of the Sandinistas who overthrew the right wing military regime of Somoza in 1979, was elected back into power at the head of a coalition of left wing movements. Evo Morales, a leftist president of indigenous descent presides over Bolivia has nationalized the countries vast natural gas fields, proclaiming an end to foreign exploitation of the country’s national resources. In 2009 a leftist movement won elections in El Salvador; the president is an admirer of the assassinated Archbishop Romero and vowed to finish what Romero started. The United States, preoccupied with (2) wars it is in danger of losing in Iraq and Afghanistan, could only stand helpless and watch as the people of Latin America reasserted themselves and their independence.
In April of 2009, newly elected U.S. president Barack Obama attended the Summit of Americas conference in Latin America. He gave a speech seeking to bury bad relations that have developed between Latin America and the United States under the Bush administration. While he was well received by the Latin American leaders his speech was met with lukewarm applause and reception. Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega in his speech boldly stated that Obama may be a good man, but is powerless to change U.S. policy toward Latin America. Ortega may be right, as Obama has not lifted the punitive sanctions and trade embargo on Cuba or closed the Guantanamo Naval Base that occupies the eastern tip of Cuba. There is no reason for Obama to continue punishing the Cuban people for the revolution that liberated their country from U.S. domination.
An even more ominous development activists and movements in Latin America & the US should be aware of is the aggressive posture the US military has taken towards the rise of left activism and governance in Latin America. In 2008 the U.S. military’s Southern Command coined the phrase “radical populism” to describe the leftist movements and governments that have gained prominence and been democratically elected in Latin America! The message to those who would like to repeat the atrocities of the past in Latin America should, must be a firm Never Again! We should not expect the U.S. government to sit on its hands and continue helplessly watching leftist parties and movements threaten their interests in Latin America. It is the responsibility of leftist activists in the U.S. to offer full support to our allies in Latin America.
Most importantly we must not forget the sacrifices of the activists who were murdered, disappeared and tortured by right wing military regimes in the 70’s and 80’s. If history has taught us anything by the reemergence of leftist activism and victories in Latin America it is that in the absence of military repression and fear, right wing politics cannot flourish nor compete with the community based politics of the left. That rings true in Latin America as well as the U.S. We should remember the sacrifices of those fallen activists whenever we question whether the article we are writing is making a difference or if the protest we are organizing or attending is going to accomplish anything, or if the project we are developing is “revolutionary.” Think of the young Chilean activist who was gunned down in a soccer stadium for organizing a protest or the Argentinean activist who was tossed out a helicopter door into the ocean for publishing an underground newsletter, or the El Salvadorian activist kidnapped and murdered for organizing the poor in shanty towns. The soil of Latin America is stained by their blood and because of their sacrifices. Flowers of resistance and liberty are sprouting across Latin America.
Robert Saleem Holbrook #BL-5140
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
