LA ALBORADA: "The Golden Years of the OAS" (or not so golden)

[magbana]

The Golden Years of the OAS
La Alborada - April 16

Cuba will not be present at the Americas' Summit this weekend. That is because the Summit is an affair of the Organization of American States (OAS), and the OAS suspended Cuba's membership in 1962, based on the following declaration: "That adherence by any member of the Organization of American States to Marxism-Leninism is incompatible with the inter-American system and the alignment of such a government with the communist block breaks the unity and solidarity of the hemisphere."

The resolution did not specify the reasons for incompatibility. Did they involve multi-party elections, human rights, civil rights? Which foreign ministers made the decision? Should we look at their governments to understand the principles that were at issue? Following are capsule summaries of some of the governments of Latin America, and of the US, at the time and in the years following (Canada was not a member; the English-speaking Caribbean was only then beginning to achieve independence from Britain).

Brazil. A coup d'etat in 1964 left a military dictatorship in power until 1985.

Haiti. Occupied by the US from 1915 to 1934, Haiti was ruled from 1957 to 1986 by the dynastic dictatorship of Francois (Doc) Duvalier and his son Baby Doc.

Bolivia. The Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), after its election victory was rejected by the army, led a civilian revolution in 1952 that in some ways was like that of Cuba, especially concerning land reform, education, and the nationalization of its major source of income, the mines. The MNR was overthrown in 1964 by a military junta. From then until 1982 there were 11 military governments. Even after the era of elections began, presidents were never chosen by a majority vote, but rather by deal-making in the Congress, until Evo Morales was elected by a majority in 2005.

Dominican Republic. The US' puppet dictator, General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, ruled from 1930 until 1961, when he was assassinated. The subsequent president, the popular Juan Bosch, was elected in 1963 but overthrown the same year by a wing of the military. When a Constitutionalist opposition within the military, and broad sectors of the people, countered in defense of the Constitution, the US invaded the country and named a junta to govern during its occupation. When he smoke cleared, the new president installed was Joaquín Balaguer, the former right-hand man of Trujillo. The US-friendly Balaguer stayed in office for 12 years of repression and corruption.

Ecuador. José María Velasco Ibarra served as president five times between 1932 and 1972; four times he was overthrown by the army. A junta ruled from 1963 to 1966. The next president was installed by a constitutional assembly. Velasco, re-elected one last time, was deposed in 1972 by the army, which ruled until 1979. The next elected president, a progressive, died two years later in what many people consider to have been a political assassination involving the CIA.

El Salvador. An army coup took power in 1931. From that year until 1980, all governments but one were led by military men. During the civil war of the 80s the army became notorious for its atrocities, human rights violations, and death squads.

Guatemala: Democracy was destroyed in 1954 by a CIA coup, which installed a retrograde and violent military government. General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes provided strategic support for the CIA invasion of Cuba in 1961. He was overthrown in a coup in 1963. For all but one term during the next 23 years military men were in power, making the country notorious for extreme human rights violations. The current president has apologized to Cuba for Guatemala's support of the CIA invasion.

Honduras: In 1963 the military staged a coup and remained in power until 1981. During the Central American Wars, Honduras became a base of military and intelligence operations for the U.S., and the generals maintained their influence even if not in office. This was the period of the death squads and secret military operations against Hondurans.

Nicaragua. The US was deeply involved in Nicaragua in the early 20th Century, and occupied it from 1912 to 1933. When it departed from Nicaragua after a popular insurrection it left in place Anastasio Somoza, who was succeeded by his son Luis and later by another son, Anastasio (Tachito), a West Point graduate. Luis Somoza was president during the CIA invasion of Cuba and provided a staging area for the invasion. Tachito, a corrupt dictator, was overthrown by the Sandinista revolution, which was promptly attacked by the US.

Paraguay. Alfredo Stroessner, the son of German immigrants, became a military officer and subsequently dictator from 1954 to 1989. His long rule was marked by the extreme repression of all opposition and by pervasive corruption. He had the support of the US.


United States. Popular president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Theories about his death range from that of the crazed single shooter to that of a CIA-mafia conspiracy. Lyndon Johnson took over in 1963, the next year ordering the invasion of the Dominican Republic. A year after that, he directed US armed forces to provide all necessary support to the military coup in Brazil. He ramped up US intervention in Vietnam, attempting to avoid what US intelligence saw as an inevitable victory of Ho Chi Mihn if elections were held in a united Vietnam, as called for by the treaties that ended the French colonial occupation of the country. Johnson supported the bloody coup in Indonesia of 1965; the US provided to the coup leaders lists of people to be executed.

The members of the OAS in the 1960s were not uniformly democratic, peace-loving, or respectful of human rights. Yet none of them was suspended from the OAS, not even the most repressive military dictatorships. In the 1970s, new dictatorships came to South America, in Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, all of them supported by or even installed with the help of the US. They were known for tactics such as throwing live prisoners from aircraft into the sea. Chile's truth commission found that 22,000 people had been tortured. None of these governments, either, was suspended by the OAS.

Following Cuba's suspension In 1962, Fidel Castro called the OAS "no more than a ministry of yankee colonies, a military block against the peoples of Latin America."