History of US military intrusions in Latin America

The US military attack on Venezuela that led to the abduction of its president is the latest in a long history of military interventions in Latin America.

Former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro have accused the US government of backing coup attempts multiple times.

1954: Guatemala — On June 27, 1954, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, president of Guatemala, was ousted from power by mercenaries trained and financed by Americans, 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 CIA’s role in the coup, in the name of fighting communism.

1961: Cuba — On April 15-19, 1961, 1,400 anti-Castro militants trained and financed by the CIA attempted to land at the Bay of Pigs, 250 kilometers from Havana, but failed to overthrow Fidel Castro. The fighting killed more than a hundred on each side.

1965: Dominican Republic — In 1965, citing a “communist threat,” the US sent Marines and paratroopers to Santo Domingo to crush an uprising in support of 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 September 11, 1973 coup against leftist president Salvador Allende.

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

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

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

1983: Grenada — On October 25, 1983, US Marines and Rangers intervened on the island of Grenada after 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 Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Reagan launched Operation “Urgent Fury” with the goal of protecting a thousand US citizens.

The operation, deplored by the UN General Assembly, ended on November 3, with more than a hundred dead.

1989: Panama — In 1989, after a contested election, president George H. W. Bush ordered military intervention in Panama, resulting in the surrender of general Manuel Noriega, former collaborator of US intelligence, who was wanted in the US.

Some 27,000 GIs took part in Operation “Just Cause,” which officially left 500 dead. NGOs put the toll significantly higher.

Noriega spent more than two decades in prison in the United States for drug trafficking before serving additional sentences in France and then Panama. 

— Agence France-Presse