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U.S. soldiers take aim while searching people in Panama City, Panama on Dec. 26, 1989. | Ezequiel Becerra / AP
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accuses the United States of trying to orchestrate a coup against him, and that allegation has resonance among many in a region where Washington has a long history of interventions—military and otherwise.
Ever since the early 19th century, the United States has involved itself in the daily affairs of nations across Latin America, often on behalf of North American capitalist interests or to support right-leaning forces against left-wing and popular democratic leaders.
In recent years, the U.S. has been accused of granting at least tacit backing to coups in Venezuela in 2002 and Honduras in 2009. The Trump administration’s leading role in recognizing Juan Guaidó as the “interim president” of Venezuela returns the U.S. once more to an assertive role in Latin American countries’ internal affairs.
Some of the most notable U.S. interventions in Latin America:
1846: The United States invades Mexico and captures Mexico City in 1847. A forced peace treaty the following year gives the U.S. more than half of Mexico’s territory—what is now most of the western United States.
1903: The U.S. engineers Panamanian independence from Colombia and gains sovereign rights over the zone where the Panama Canal would connect Atlantic and Pacific shipping routes.
1903: After the Spanish-American War, Cuba and the U.S. sign a “treaty” allowing near-total U.S. control of Cuban affairs. U.S. establishes a naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
U.S. Marines repeatedly intervene in Central America and the Caribbean throughout the first quarter of the 20th century, often to protect U.S. business interests.
1914: U.S. troops occupy the Mexican port of Veracruz for seven months in an attempt to sway developments in the Mexican Revolution.
1954: Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz is overthrown in a CIA-backed coup.
1961: The U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion fails to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro but Washington continues to launch attempts to assassinate Castro and dislodge his government for decades.
1964: Leftist President Joao Goulart of Brazil is overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup that installs a military dictatorship lasting until the 1980s.
1965: U.S. forces land in the Dominican Republic to intervene in a civil war.
1973: A U.S.-supported military coup overthrows the democratically-elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. He is replaced by General Augusto Pinochet, who imposes a brutal military regime and embarks on a U.S.-guided program of extreme economic privatization and de-regulation. It is later seen as the laboratory of what became known as neoliberalism.
1970s: Argentina, Chile, and allied South American nations launch a brutal campaign of repression and assassination aimed at perceived leftist threats, known as Operation Condor, often with U.S. support.
1980s: Reagan administration backs anti-Communist Contra forces against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and backs the Salvadoran government against leftist FMLN rebels.
1983: U.S. forces invade the Caribbean island of Grenada after accusing the government of allying itself with Cuba.
1989: U.S. invades Panama to oust strongman (and rogue CIA agent) Manuel Noriega.
1994: A U.S.-led invasion of Haiti is launched to remove the government installed by a 1991 coup that had ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The invasion restores Aristide, who was later overthrown (again) by a U.S.-backed coup in 2004.
2002: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is ousted for two days in a U.S.-backed coup before retaking power following a massive outpouring of popular support.
2009: Honduran President Manuel Zelaya overthrown by the military in a U.S.-supported coup.
This list was compiled by the Associated Press and added to by People’s World.
Tags:
- imperialism
- Latin America
- Venezuela
NOTE TO READERS
“A Short History of the Department of State” has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.
U.S. policy toward Latin American policy involved a significant revision of the Monroe Doctrine. Throughout the 19th century, American diplomats used the Monroe Doctrine to warn the European powers against further colonization in the Western Hemisphere. It did not imply the right of the United States to intervene in the internal affairs of the other American republics.
In 1904, President Theodore Rooseveltchanged the Monroe Doctrine through his “Roosevelt Corollary.” Roosevelt and other prominent Americans were concerned that European creditor nations would use the unpaid debt of the Latin American states to gain political control over them. Roosevelt said that no Latin American nation adhering to “acceptable international standards of behavior” had to fear intervention by the United States. But: “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, require intervention by some civilized nation.”
Moreover, he continued, “in the western hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”
At the same time, the acquisition of the Philippines triggered the development of a new American policy for East Asia. As American businessmen eyed the vast potential of the Chinese market, European incursions in China threatened to cut off American access. In 1899, Secretary of State John Hay proposed that nations interested in China should “enjoy perfect equality of treatment for navigation,” that is, maintain the principle of free trade, or the “open door.” In 1900, Hay extended the open-door policy to include respect for the territorial and administrative integrity of China.
During World War I, the Caribbean (including the Circum Caribbean coasts) was transformed into a contested area. The US government utilized the imperial interests of European powers to justify its own political interests in the region. Since 1823, the so-called Monroe Doctrine served as the basis for US interventions. Any efforts by European nations to colonise territories or interfere with states in the Americas were thus considered an act of aggression. The first victory was the military defeat of Spain: In the Spanish-American War of 1898, US troops intervened in the Spanish Caribbean colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico as well as in some Pacific islands where President William McKinley (1843-1901) established US military governments. In 1902, Cuba became “independent”, but, according to the Platt Amendment of 1901, under US protection. From 1880 onwards, the United States strengthened its economic interests in the Caribbean. US corporations, such as the Standard Fruit Company and the United Fruit Company, could acquire land anywhere in the Caribbean territories and thereby established many new plantation systems.
The Clash of Imperialism in the Caribbean↑
Neither US nor European interventions were something new in the Caribbean, but by the turn of the century new conflicts between the different imperial powers and their allies provoked the outbreak of a major war. Apart from traditional colonial powers like Great Britain and France, the German Empire, which had long been a second-tier colonial power, attempted to become an imperial player on a global level. One of Berlin’s major concerns was to support the construction of the interoceanic canal on the Isthmus of Panama to connect the German protectorates in the Pacific with the German Empire. After Africa and Asia, the Caribbean became more and more important. From 1870 onwards, German investments can be observed in most Caribbean countries and colonies. German agents even encouraged the government in Berlin to occupy a West Indian island, preferably Danish St. Thomas (Virgin Islands), to build a naval and cable station as part of a worldwide trading network. A secure naval station in the West Indies would have been a strong basis near any future Central American canal and would have allowed expanding trade with and investments in Central and South America.
Roosevelt’s Corollary Policy↑
President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), who governed from 1901 to 1909, feared German involvement in America's “backyard”. In October 1902, Roosevelt entered the Colombian civil war to prevent the Germans from further investments and to protect future US interests. He sent two gunboats to help the Panamanian conservative elites in their independence project and occupied the Panama Canal Zone in 1903.
Another political conflict broke out in 1902 between the German Empire and the US because of the so-called Venezuela Crisis that began after Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro (1858-1924), who governed from 1899 to 1908, refused to pay debts to the German Empire, Great Britain and Italy. The consequence was a naval blockade against the main Venezuelan ports. Roosevelt forced the German troops to withdraw and the blockading nations agreed to a compromise on 13 February 1903. Nevertheless, the Germans maintained their blockade until the last day of the negotiations.
The blockade was the reason for Roosevelt’s Corollary proclaimed on 4 December 1904. It asserted the United States’ right to intervene in conflicts between Europe and the Americas, despite legitimate European claims. Until entering World War I on 6 April 1917, the US intervened in the Dominican Republic (1905, 1907, 1916-1924), in Nicaragua (1907, 1909, 1912-1925), in Honduras (1909, 1911-1925), in Mexico (1914, 1915, 1916, 1917) and in Cuba (1906-1909, 1912, 1917-1919). The latter US intervention in Cuba started in August 1917 because of the US fear that the German Empire would support the insurgents from the Cuban liberal party who refused the declaration of war on Berlin in April 1917.
The US entered Haiti as early as 1915 when the country collapsed due to an unredeemable external debt. Most of the debts were controlled by German and French banks. Between 1901 and 1914, the German Empire had sent warships to Haiti to force diplomatic claims several times. With the outbreak of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who governed from 1913 to 1921, became more and more concerned with the German policy in Haiti, as German traders and companies not only controlled about 80 percent of the country’s external trade but also owned and operated utilities and corrupted local governments. Hence the US government started to control Haiti’s customs duties and the National Bank. Eventually this US policy led to an invasion of Haiti to prevent Germany from taking over the country in 1915. After the withdrawal of troops in 1934, US financial sovereignty remained until 1947.
A similar series of events took place in the Dominican Republic where the US appointed a general customs administrator in 1905. This guaranteed the US control of revenue distribution and, at the same time, the Dominican Republic the amortization of debts.
Roosevelt persuaded the US Congress that this “big stick policy” would protect the Caribbean from any European military intervention. In 1907, the Dominican Republic and the US signed a treaty reserving the US the right to intervene in order to protect the customs receivership. Like Cuba, the Dominican Republic was thus converted into a “legal” protectorate. When it became clear that the US wanted far more influence, the Dominican Congress rejected Wilson’s aims in 1915, upon which US Marines landed in Santo Domingo in 1916, where they established a US military government.
The First World War↑
Already in April 1914, US Marines had occupied the Mexican port of Veracruz, practising landing operations that they later adopted during World War I. The so-called secret Zimmermann Telegram of January 1917 was a very important motive behind Washington’s decision to enter the war. The attack of German submarines on Allied merchant vessels and submarines in the Atlantic gave the Americans another reason to enter the war. Due to the fact that German submarines operated as far as in the Caribbean, the US feared a long-planned German invasion of the Danish Virgin Islands. To prevent this, they concluded a treaty with Denmark and purchased the islands for $25,000,000. In the same vein, Washington also tried to buy other Caribbean territories, such as Jamaica and Trinidad, from Great Britain and France.
Christian Cwik, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Section Editor: Frederik Schulze