The US’ history of intervening in Latin America

PARIS – The United States, which on Jan 3

attacked Venezuela and is said to have abducted its President

, has a long history of military interventions and support for dictatorships in Latin America.

On multiple occasions, the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro – who Mr Donald Trump says is now in US hands – accused Washington of backing coup attempts.

Here are the main US interventions in Latin America since the Cold War.

1954: Guatemala

On June 27, 1954, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, then President of Guatemala, was driven from power by mercenaries trained and financed by Washington, after a land reform that threatened the interests of the powerful US company United Fruit Corporation (later Chiquita Brands).

In 2003, the US officially acknowledged the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) role in this coup, in the name of fighting communism.

1961: Cuba

From April 15 to 19, 1961, some 1,400 anti-Castro militants trained and financed by the CIA attempted to land at the Bay of Pigs, 250km from Havana, but failed to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s communist regime.

The fighting killed more than 100 on each side.

1965: Dominican Republic

In 1965, citing a “communist threat”, the US sent marines and paratroopers to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, to crush an uprising in support of Mr Juan Bosch, a leftist president ousted by generals in 1963.

1970s: Support for dictatorships

Washington backed several military dictatorships, seen as a bulwark against left-wing armed movements in a world divided by Cold War rivalries.

It actively assisted Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet during the Sept 11, 1973, coup against then leftist President Salvador Allende.

Then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supported the Argentine junta in 1976, encouraging it to quickly end its “dirty war”, according to US documents declassified in 2003.

At least 10,000 Argentine dissidents disappeared.

In the 1970s and 1980s, six dictatorships (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil) joined forces to eliminate left-wing opponents under Operation Condor, with tacit US support.

1980s: Wars in Central America

In 1979, the rebellion of Nicaraguan group Sandinista overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. Then US President Ronald Reagan, concerned about Managua’s alignment with Cuba and the USSR, secretly authorised the CIA to provide US$20 million in aid to the Contras (the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries), partly funded by the illegal sale of arms to Iran.

The Nicaraguan civil war, which ended in April 1990, claimed 50,000 lives.

Mr Reagan also sent military advisers to El Salvador to crush the rebellion of the far-left Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in a civil war (1980 to 1992) that resulted in 72,000 deaths.

1983: Grenada

On Oct 25, 1983, US Marines and Rangers intervened on the island of Grenada after then Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was assassinated by a far-left junta and as Cubans were expanding the airport, presumably to accommodate military aircraft.

At the request of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, Mr Reagan launched Operation Urgent Fury with the stated goal of protecting a thousand US citizens.

The operation, widely deplored by the UN General Assembly, ended on Nov 3 that year, with more than a hundred dead.

1989: Panama

In 1989, then US President George Bush ordered a military intervention in Panama after a contested election, resulting in the surrender of General Manuel Noriega, a former collaborator of US intelligence, who was wanted by US justice.

Some 27,000 members of the US Armed Forces took part in Operation Just Cause, which officially left 500 dead.

Non-governmental organisations put the toll significantly higher, in the thousands.

Noriega would spend more than two decades in prison in the US for drug trafficking, before serving additional sentences in France and then Panama. AFP