Latin America in Crisis

Latin America in Crisis

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John W; Sherman Wright State University

E A Menlber o f rhe Persetrs Rooks Group

All rights resenied. Printecl in die Cnitcci States of ~lunerica.R'o part of this put~fcatioii rnay be reproduced or wansxnitted in any for111or by any rrxeans, electronic or xncchanicai, inctudir~gphotocopy, recording, or any informatio~lstorage and retrieval sgrfcerrr, witl~onr permission in writing from the l)ritt~tisher. Copj~hghrO 2000 by Xresniiew Press, A &Iex~rl>er of the Persetrs Books Croup Publisheel in 2000 in the t'iiitecl States of hnerica by bVesrview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in die United Engdorn by Weswie~vPress, I 2 1lid's Copse Road, Cuxnnvr Efill, Oxford C3X2 9JJ

1 , i b r a ~of Congress Camtogir~g-irz-X"ub1icati011!)am Sllerma~~, Jo1111 L%<,1960Idatin A~nericain crisis / Joim Shert~~aii p, cxn. Lncl-trdcst?ibliograpl-zit=alreferences and index, IsRh' 0-81 33-3540-X fpbk,) I. Latin ,knerica-Politics and gclvernment. 2. Lath ~lunerica-Ecor~oraic coiidirio>ns. 3. Poverty-1,ath America. 4. Elurn~tnrights-Latin ,knerica. I. "fitte.

The papcr used in this publication rneets the requirements of the American National Standard for Perrrxancnce of Paper for Printed tibraly ~Watcrials239.48- t 984.

1 introduction: Why Is Latin h e r i c a Poor?

Part I

Historical Latin America

2 A People of Conquest 3 The Colonial Centuries 4 Progress and Populism

Part II

Revolution and Counterrevolution

5 Nadonalism and the Military Response 6 Revajudun in Central Ar11enca 7 Christianity and Counterinsurgency Part III

Contemporary Latin America

8 The Politics uf Conwol 9 Big Money: Debt and Wealth Extraction 10 Latin America in Perpetual Crisis Epilope: A Strange World

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llustrations

Maps

I. I

hyadonsuf the Third World

2.1.

The territt~riesof three ancient Latin An~ericancirrilizadons

6.1

Centrral ,hler-ica and the Caibbean

26 103

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This book is a concise introduction to comemporary Latin h e t - i c a for the heginning student or 1i-yreadex: It is what X call a skeletal text, intended only to provide a fra~neworkupon which, presurnabl!); the instructor or reader will want to build. Whereas the general practice in college texthooks i s to reach a minimum level of detail that most professors would view as sufficient, I have opted here for a more sweeping albeit concise survey of econ<~mic and political topics, leaving the choice of adding weighder nzaterid, or additimal readings on social and cultt;lral history, to each instructor. The advantage of such an appruaclz is simple: Inst-ead of exarnining all topics in equal depth, the professor can skirt by some lightly and emphasize others (through h i s or her choice of supplemental readings), while still presendng a basic framework. This skeletal text is disrinctive in a second way: It meshes intrt~ductory history with the fundamental economic and politicall realities of Latin Anerica today. It is my goal that having read this book, the reader will be able to pick up a newspaper and, presuming that he or she can find an article of substance about Latin h e r i c a , readily appreciate its meaning and context. The peat challenge in wridng this kind of book is to synthesize exceedingly complex nends, which are taking place in an enormously diverse region, without violating the intcgriy of our understanding of those trends. Sirnply put, it was not an easy book to write. But my frustration with intn~ductorytexts made it a necessary pn~ject.Far too man5 in my estimation, jump from one topic to anot-her (most often, by jumping from one nadon to another), without cogent themes or condnuity. There is also a dearth of books that strike a healthy balance b e ~ e e nhistory and contemporar-).reajities. FinallT;;this is an evocadve text. It has a p i n t of view. After a few Fars of teaching I discovered that the most common student complaint about texthooks is h a t they are boring. Indeed, in the process of spthesizing scholarship and reaching consensus, it seeIns that many authors have eschewed risk-taking and shunned fresh argumentadon. Even with lively pmse, our textbooks have become p~cficable.This makes teaching hard because stu-

dents have little to say when it$ time for discussion. I do not expect everyone who uses this book to agree with all of its argu~nents--on the conaary, I jxesent some novel interpretadons that should spark vigorous debate-hut what I do pro.cide is a thinking text that will churn minds and arouse interest. For, if the truth be told, I too find most textbooks boring. I do not, of course, make this an evocarive book hp challen@ng conventional facts! 0 1 7 the contram T am a classic acaden~ic,wedded to notions of truth. Without pursuing the nuances of postrnodernis~nand lanpage deconstrucdon engulfing much of academe, we can say that there are those among us who believe the message changes in meaning when proclaimed by different xnessengers. Many now question the whole nodon of absolute truth, but I am not one of them. My premise is that truth exisa, and that it is our quest in the university to find it. If p u and I walk dawn the street and see a xnan with a yellow shirt on, we discc~vera raw fact: There is a yellow shirt. If we close our eyes and chant ""the shirt is red, the shirt is red,'khen we open our eyes, it will still be yellow. If another comes along who is color-blind and sees the shirt as gray, it is still in reality no less yellow. If an optomeaist strolls by and explains the dpamics of the lens and retina-f~ow rays of light are screened out and create for us the image of yellow--we mi$t want to debate the nature of light, and ask the intrik~ingquestion of whether the shirt is auly ye1lr,-u: But far all practical g2uq10ss within the hounds of reason, the shirt is still yellow. I aIn a product of the Enlightenment in this regard: I believe that there is a pracdcal world of hard and simple data obtainable through a universal law of reason. Facts, by definition, are unchangeable, certain, solid, and invite no reasonable contention or dispute. The first obligation of the scholar is that every basic point of fact be accurate and correct. the best of m): knowledge, evewhing T have lvritten here holds to t h i s high standard. The second tier of knowledge, as I see it, is contenrion. By accumulating facts, we make an arplrrsent. On seeillg that man wearing the yellow shirt, I might quip, "Ah, he is a clcjwn" (that is, a literal clown hired as such for entertainment). And you, asking why I say so, might hear me build my case with assorted facts: "He has an oversized pink hcnv tie with black polka dots, and a bright green polyrster jacket that looks like it's from the 1960s" (so far, this description is painfully close to the standard dress of aged alumni on Homecoming Day at my undergraduate alms mater), "He has giant rubber ears attached to his head, a foam red nose, xnakeup on his face, and floppy shoes, each three feet long." Therefore, I conclude, he is a cxolvn. By their namre, contendons or arpments are biased in their selection of facts. In building the case that the man with the yellow shlrt is a clown, I of ) mention, in course utilize only the facts suppor.ting my p~sition,I d ~not

the litany of statements, that his hat is a conventional fedora, or that he happens to be carrying a briefcase. M e n one is conswucting an arpment, this type of omission is enrirelp acceptable. What is not acceptable is to omit facts that directly contradict or obfuscate the core of the algument. If I state that he is a clown, in part, because he is holding a giant swirled lollipop, it would be disingenuous of me to fail tc, mention that he is standing heside a conkctioner who sells giant swirled lollipops, I)isir?ge;.2rci.ug.sis defined by Webster's as "lacking in candor." The scholar, in building a r ~ ments, must not employ such sc~phistry.He or she must cite hard facts to support a case; and even in neglecting those facts that 650 not support the case, must never cloak facts that directly contradict the case. Such integrity is especially vital when the author speaks from a privileged position. If p u are standing besicfe me, seeing the same images I see, you might well challenge Iny interpretation of the lollipop. But if I tell you about it from a nearby pay phone, you are at the mercy of my integrity. For most readers of this book, such a parallel is relevant: few will have the background and knowledge of a doctorate in Latin h e r i c a n history. Again, in every way, I have tried to meet this second standard of intellectual konesw But there is another inherent bias in any communicated knowledge, and that is the selection of thematic material. If I stand in a pbone booth, and at a man whom, I contend, is a clown, choose tt, tell you that I am Iooki~~g I have selected that issue as the topic of our conversrl'cjon. A book is a oneway conversation, and every writer has an inevitable bias about subject nzatter. In writing this hook, I made decisions on what themes I would address. But perhaps my presumpdons about what my readers should learn about Latin L h ~ e r i care a all wmng. Perhaps, in the great scheme of things, nohing much matters besides soccer, There may be a host of gods abrwe us, and at the end of our existence they might simply grill us with questions about soccer teams and game scores. Or perhaps ultimate meaning is not t the future values of hun~anit)iitself. M q k e in d e h e d by t h e c r I o ~b~r ~hy three cexzmries what will really obsess people are btchen utensils. Vew Yorksrs might someday convert the Met into the Museum of Forks and Knives, and care little about my book except for i t s fleeting reference to hgentine knife fights. These silly examples aside, the point is that no one can sa): for certain, &at is ultimately significant about human existence. This is a quesdon, perhaps the quesdon, that lies beyond the boundary of human reason. In critical sections of this book, I focus on economic and political patterns that bespeak inequit;iesbetrvveen different groups of people, with special attendon to the related issue of what are commonly ter~nedhuman rights. My interest in inequides sterns from the contendon that they are directly linked to the i n t e r e s ~and activircies of the United States in Latin An~erica

(significant because most readers of this book are likely to be U.S. citizens). I would argue that hu~nanrights, at least in terlns of polidcal processes, are largely tied to questions of inequity. Some of the most important facts hehind this contention are, fc>rwhatever reasons, omiaed from alxnost all academic textbooks on Latin hzlerica. They are not, however, omitted here, and make this an especially provocadve text. But if the topic nzatter or presentation of novel material (especially in the final chapters) suggests any pardcular moral agenda, let me dispel such a notion quickl~r.Who has the authoriy to say what constitutes "right" and "wr~ng''t rSlle presumpdon of ;l;.bitt?i~~por-rr~~t is here, hut the rn~eal[i-r.sfi-rim is not (and I encourage anyone to challenge me on passages they find to the contrary). I do not evoke moral terminology in this book. I avoid words such as good and bglnd (as used in a moral sense, though they map be used to sugges; an econornic or political advantage), or ~aightand ii.m~zg.I do not presume to say that the world should change, or even that I personally dislike i t &laybe I like the way tlrings are, But 1 do believe that it is high time for scholars to really embrace what has been dubbed "valueneutt-al education," and allow ourselves, and our students, to think freelyeven in what a majorit-~r might regard as amoral terns. This book is wrinen primarily for North h e r i c a n university smdents talang introductory courses on Latin Lh~erica. I have opted to use some politically incomect terns for purposes of clarity: I~tdig,z(or Nathpe) refers to the nadve inhahiants of the western hemisphere, and Iqme~~z'~-n~r xzleans of, or related to, the United States, I have deliberatek avoided other terms, especially those with ideological definitions commonly used in pcditical science, such as lfft and right (though so~netimesI use them inside quotation marks). These labels, in my evaluation, are useful because they simpiie-llut that is also their weakness. I have edited out countless adverbs and phrases of conditionality, like general(?/ and fir. the most part, which appeared all over the place in earlier editions of the manuscript. my peers in scholarship: I am only too aware that T have had to generalize, especially with regard to some early historical phenomena, theories, and wends. That is the downside of a skeletal text, and competent teachers will surely want to delve into other topics of interest, in part to show st~dentsjust how horribly co~nplicatedthe world really is. Yet I stand by my overarching conclusions and believe that this hook represents a solid spthesis. The hook is divided into four parts. Chapter I introduces the intellectual problem of Ladn hnerican poverr.y; and discusses some of the mplanations scholars have traditionally used to account for it. It is a short chapter, with a very basic overview of theory, yet some readers might wish to skip it, and some instructors night prefer to explain these paradigins themselves. The narrative proper, beginning in (:hapter 2 , is divided into t h e e subsections of three chapters each. Chapters 2 h o u g h 4 [Part I)

sweep broadly across the contours of histoly, from its early beginnings to the xnid-mentieth century. The purpose of these chapters is not to overview histt~ryfor its own sake but rather to lay the groundwork necessary b r unclerstanding p~sent-dayLadn An~erica,Chapters 5 throrrgh 7 [Part IIJ extend the narradvs into the 1980s, focusing on the political and military dimensions of revolution and counterrevolution in the postwar era. Chapters 8 through 10 [Part Ill] discuss Latin An~ericatoday. Chapter 8 exarnines the rise of what If call medz'scracy, or media-drivtsn "¯acy"; Chapter !,traces the rise of International Financial Institurions; and Chapter 10 explores trends in human rights. This final chapter also pulls the broader the~nesof the book together in its analysis of Ladn hmerica9s new syrnhiotic relationship with the United States. An optional Epilogue, m r e inkrmal than the body of the text, addresses vestions of sources and of ixlallectrual discernment. If the book accomplistles its task, readers will want to learn more about Latin h e r i c a and their relationship to it. Hence, a few suggestions for further readi~lgappear at its conclusion,

Joh~zFit':S l e f ~ ~ a n

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Introduction: Why I s Latin America Poor?

Latin h e r i c a n s on the whole are poor, although the region also is home to some of the wealthiest indi.c.iduals in the world. hlexico, for example, had twent-y-four billionaires in D94, prior to its 1995 economic meltdown-more than Britain, Frmce, and Icaly combined. But comparatively spealang, Latin Anerica is an econo~nicallydisadvantaged land. If you were randomly born into a family in the United States or western Europe, the odds are overwhelming that you would not go 'hungv or lack a solid roof over your head. If you had been born into a Latin hnerican family, howevel; odds are about 50-50 t h a t yctu wt~uldsuffer malnutrition and pour 'health due to insufficient and unsanitary living conditions, Why is t h s so? 'Why is there such inequity arnong the different areas of the globe! Social scientists have long acknowledged the economic disparities betuveen large sections of our world, After all, such difkrences are conspicuous. In the early stages of the Cold War---that is, the arrns race and political rivalry between the East (led by the Soviet Union) and the West (led by the United Smtes)-people labeted regions iaccording t r ~their economic s ~ e n y hand polidcal orientations. The industrialized and wealthy countries of the West were known as the F z m m~*ld, which was joined evenrilally by rehilt, pos~varJapan. The Soviet Union a d its eastern Eurc3pean even though their economic Inussatellites were terrned the Second W~F-U, cle lagged badly behind that of the West. Most of the remainder of the globe was designated the Tbk?l Wop-Id-a term that surived the end of the Cold War in 1991 and is still commonly used today. Such labels have pmven remarkably long-lived, although they are not particularly apt: F& Wwld and TI+t Ww-kd would be far more creadve-and more meaningful---descriptions of these higMp unequal regions. The Third Wcjrld consists of nations that lack econr~micGtalit~.;financial independence, and broadly sllared prospel-iv, When the tern was first

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coined, mangr also demarcated the region by its lack of industv. Today, as we shall see, some pockets of the Third Wc~rldare heavily industrialized, yet still not prosperous. The Third World includes China, parts of southeast Asia, southern Asia, sections of the Middle East @.g*,Jordan and Ilrrkei), all of Mrica, and all of Latin ilirnerica. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, most of the Eastern bloc has joined its ranks. Four-fifths of hum n i y jives in the Third World, which geographically dominates southern portions of the globe, pro~nptingsoIne to speak of a rich Xorth and a poor South- Third World nations also, for the most part, are located m the outskirts of the histtlrical core of Western civilization (Eulwpe), and thus cunsf_inxrewhat some refer to as a periphcfy. By the late 1950s people had h e y n to use another terrn to idendi): the Third World: They called it the developing world. This description is still widely used by the media and even by many academics. In the 1980s and 1 9 9 0 ~a ~number of business interests, including major banks and investmen t firms, supplemented this designation with a new phrase: t.~~wgir?g markets. Both terms, with the adjectives developing and cmergk~zg,implicitly reflect a popular interpretation of why Latin America and other parts of the Third World are pour. That is, many (especially in the First World) believe they are poor simply because they are behind on the road of time. These regions are in the process of rising to First World status: They are just now emerging and developing* Someday they will he wealthy and comfortable like us, But is &at idea, which has endured in various forrns for nearly m o generations, well-grorrnded in fact? Pc>ndefir?gquestions of poverv and calculating future global trends are formidable tasks. Yet such activities are essential to any realistic understanding of our world, since, after all, most of humaniv is still poor. By iltendfyilzg the origins of the notion that the Third World is developing, and bp observing soIne basic econornic evidence, we can draw a few ra~onalconclzrsions. Those conclusions, in turn, \Nil1 set us on our way to discovering whj~Latin An~el-icais pour.

Thinking About Latin America Bepnd. the realm of hard econo~nicdata and fact-based arpmentation lies theory. Theories are bn~admodels, or consuucts, that attempt to explain the macroeconomic and political realities of our wodd. Academics use theories in order to answer the "big questions," such as why there are such enonnous inequities in global resource allocation and consumption. Although they are built upon arplments and facts, dleories are by nature ahsrract, and they are usually engaged at such a level of intellecmal sophistication (and verbalized by means of such unique vocabularies) as to remove them horn the realm of po~3ulardiscussion. They are one xason why-

some night arpe--academics are ~narginalplayers in public policy debates. Yet because Latin h e r i c a has been an imporant case smdy for theorericians, a very rudimentary understanding of some theory, even for the inn-oductov student, is hetphl. It enables one to discern the intellectual orientatrion of prokssors and books, and explains the mollivadon behind much scholarship. Social scientists and just about eveqone else who wrestles with the question of Third Vlrorld poverty can be grossly divided into two camps: So~ne believe that poverty is destined to disappear over time, and others do not. Son~ethink that in the fcrture, Latin h e r i c a n s can live just as well as those of us in the First S17orld; some think they cannot. The first of these two viewpoints is frequently presented in the mainstream media. Polidcal commentators like Irving KristoL, f;,r example, haue long prophesied that hnerican-scy.Ie capitalism will solve all of the worldhmajor problems, This interpretadon had its beginnings, however, in the early pears of the (:old war* Before the ascent of the United States to superpower status following Wc~rldWar 11, Lberieans-even intellectuals-were relatively unconcerned about questions of poverty in the rest of the world. In the 1%5f)s, nodons concerning develop~nentarose in the context of the new U.S. rivalry with Soviet Russia. m&funding from government agencies, acadenzics began t-r? examine the economic and political realities of Latin An~erica. Both the level csf interest and that of financial support rose meteorically in the early 1 9 6 0 ~ when ~ it seemed that the region might succumb to communism and threaten the securiv of the Clnited Statcs, Mthou$ such studies were interdiscipli~~ary in namre--involving a range of political, social, and economic issues-sociologists and political scienrists dominated the nascent fields of theoretical inquiry. These thinkers saw in Latin h e r i c a a plethora of ""bilck\vardwvqwaltides that, they assumed, needed to change. First, the region relied heavily on agriculmr-e and had experienced little in the way of industrialization. Second, the namre of the rural sector bothered them: It: was traditional, sube had relatively sistence-oriented agriculture, based on a peasant c u l ~ r that few hilt-in market incentives. Third, those peasants lived in a hierarchical world, where stams and deference were accorded to the elite owners of large estates-a society almost feudal in its demeanor, with patron-client relations instead of compet.ifive and individualistic egalitarlatlism, This feudal order was reflected also in archaic polidcal instimtions: strong executive branches; little in the way of hznctioning legisladve democracy; and lc3tj7alties that rest& more on pelsonaiism, or political connections and allegiances, than on parties and ideas. These and other social feamres contrasted markedly with conditjons in the United States. One of the presumptions of early dlecrreticians was that Latin h e l - i c a had to undelgo a

transformation in its political mlmre-or values and ideas as they relate to politics-in order to join the modern world. A second, important assumption was that this evolutionary process was unavoidable. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the debate over whether or not the Third World was developing was, in facc, not much of a debate. Nearly everyone agreed that the whole world was moving forward (withthe possible exception of the Soviets) and that the future for all humanity was bright. At the core of this general assessment emerged a schooGa group of scholars united around a central idea. And this school, in turn, articulated modernization theory. Although modernization theory featured various facets and twists of meaning, at its most rudimentary level it simply held that the Third World was already on the road to modernity. Time alone assured the development of tradition-laden, simple societies. The process was unavoidable, argued scholars like Walt Rostow, who compared the process to a train rolling down a track* Modernization theorists linked economic evolution to political change. If economic problems and political instability went hand in hand, then the opposite proposition must be true: Economic growth and well-being would fuel tolerance and a healthy exchange of ideas. In this evolution, John Johnson of Stanford Universiy, among other academics, emphasized the role of what he termed the 'middle sectors." He foresaw that prosperity would fuel the rise of an urban middle class comprised of small businessmen, bankers, professionals, lawyers, and salesmen. Entrepreneurial and profit-oriented, these citizens, in turn,would embrace First World political values, insisting on rights similar to those found in the U.S. Constitution. The long pattern of authoritarian and often arbitrary government in Latin America would end as political institutions matured in harmony with economic and social advances. The element of harmony was also important. Modemizationists drew on long-standing anthropological notions about society, including what is known asfi~iora1;1lim.Adherents of this notion believed that complex social structures, like interlocking gears, moved together in natural unison. Change in one area made change probable-even certain-in others. Thus, not surprisingly, theorists also linked economic and political transformation with culture. Indeed, they believed that much of the backwardness of the Third World was cultural. They held that modem man, in contrast to his intellectual and social predecessor (and Third World counterpart), was individualistic, efficient, resourceful, confident, and achievement-oriented. Traditional man, in contrast, was a slave to superstition, hierarchy, obedience, and fate. Latin Americans were destined to become sophisticated, modern people. These notions of intellectual and social evolution were drawn from earlier, nineteenth-century ideologies, including positivism and social Dar-

winism. Positivism exuded great confidence in the rationality of hu~nankiildand in its ability to scientifically solve social ills. Social Dawinism adopted Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory (survival of the fittest) to humans and civilizations, Both positivism and social Il>al.winisn~ had influenced the works of iMax W b e r , whch in turn inspired the moderxlizationists. Weber had argued, a t the turn of the twentieth century, that Western progress was attribuwhle to a collection of traits ernhedded in the ""Protestant work ethic," L i b e r a d horn irrationalit;v and famlism (such as that supl~osedlyfound in Catholicism and Eastern religions), Western man had obtained the correct mind-set for advancement, Weber-influenced books, such as Edward C. Banfield's The ~Mor-nlBgsis of a B U C ~ ? L .rJ10ciep RF~~ (195S), paved the way to modernization theory. Building on Weber's faith in Western man's rationalirq: An~er-icanscholars anticipated the rise of new cultural values in underdeveluped lands. One m<~dernizationist especially indebted to Weber and Banfield was Uialt Rostc~w,w h published ~ The Stages ofEcotlu.mic Gi*oic;thin 1960. Rostow a r p e d that societies passed through five distinct periods on the road frtjm backwardness to full modernity: After an era of tr-adilion, a critical second stage ti)llowed, in which "pr"conditions"' fix modernity emerged, often taking centuries to coIne to co~npletion.Then, at soIne point in time, a "leading (economic) sector" would grip a land and launch the third stage, a per.iod of ""saket1W"-%vhen a nation rushed h w a r d into modern maturity, and evenmall_r7,snass consumprion, Rostow and the modernizationists were opdmistic. One reason for their confidence about the i n e ~ t a b i l i vof Third Mq,rid development was their faith in previous First World experience. Had not England once been primitive? Had not France and Germany, and even Soviet Russia, modernized? Rostow argued that Englandhtextiles were its ""leading sector;'kcaapuldng it into wealth and power. Railroads, he said, did the sasne for the United States, and military hardware was sparking the Soviet economic engine.. ~Vodernizatimtheoris&, h e n , assumed that the poorer, ""hck\vardwregions of the globe were on a najectory to prosperity and stability. They believed that the world was changing, pmqects were hright, and the filmre favorable for all. If you venture into used bookstores, you can sdll find old atlases and travel guides that echo the refrains of modernization. Titles speak of prclgress and advancement. Photographs sht~wnew kighwaj~sand factories, neatly dressed businesslnen and snodern office towers--images long associated with the First Wc~rldbut used to demonstrate that the Third W ~ ~ rwas l d coming of age, &lodemization theovk assessments and verbiage filtered into the standard high school and college texts of the 1950s and 196Os, as well-such as in the dassic Lnri~zAwn-iris: 7'be Deveiopmelt $lt~-CkpiIizrrtion f1%8), by Welen M. Bailey and Ahraham Nasatk

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7

The dicta of modernization also found expression in popular culture. For exa~nple,in the early 1 9 6 0 ~as~television sets appeared in American and European homes, the Summer Olympic (Games became a major international sporting event, linking all of hrrmaniy in a mpposed community of equal nations. That idea of global co~nmuniywas reflected in 1964, when the Tokyo Games ended with a salute to the spectacle's next host: Mexico City. Yet, since 1968, neirJter the Summer nor the writer Olympics have returned to the so-called developing world; poor countries simply do not have the econon~icresources with which to outbid rich n a ~ o n sthat crlvet the prestigic~usand lucrative games. Of course, television not only covered the Olympics; it also beamed images of h e r i c a n wealth i n a ~the living quarters of Third World residents. m e t h e r they wanhed Legz.8 it to Bmvw in the 1%& or Tlw Sin;zpsom in the I W k , viewers could not help but note that: nearly all knericans seemed to own cars and live in spacious, two-story suburban houses. Televisicm has largdy illstilled in Latin Americans the myth that all North ilrnericans are rich. It has revealed some of the stark realities of dobal economics, if only by default. Shortly after television arrived in the Third World, popular impatience with such irlequities began to grow In the 1950s, Cuba---a Latin h e r i c a n nation plaped by stark rural poverty (and significantly, possessing one of the continentysmost sophisdcated television industries)-explc~ded in revolutrion. By l05 8, rebel h x e s led I y Fidel Castro had toppled the U.S.-supported dictatorship, startling policymakers and modernization heorists alike. i\iXodemization theory resonated with U.S. government officials in the early 1960s, and some of its proponents helped design a response to the Cuban revolution: the dliance for Progress. Many believed that although mdernization was inevitable, it could be accelerated by technical assistance and aid packages. Rostowk proverbial aain was on the rails to prosperity, but the United States could increase its momentum by granting loans and launching nation-building programs through new organizations such as the Peace Corps. The ~notivefor doing so, of course, was to undercut unrest and prevent more revolutions. John F. Kennedy's adminisuadon r but also accompanied it with increased initiated the Nliance t i ~ Progres.ss, ~nilitaryaid. Fearing the expansion of Cuban co~nmunis~n (Casno turned to the Soviet Union for aid within a couple of years after acquiring power), the United Smtes initiated counterinsul-gencytrraining prclgrams and military collaborations with other Latin ilrnerican nations. The hlliance for Progress, established to pacify Latin Ah~erica, had many nzixed and unf'rtreseen results. St-iplations required that most of the loans be spent on goods produced in the United States; heavier debt and soxne infladonary pressures ensued. Increased direct U.S. involvement, through a range of developmental progranls from agriculmre to health care and edu-

carion, disrupkd social relations and aaditiond practices, creating instability. The so-called Green Revolution, for exarnple, begun years earlier in Mexico, accelerated crop yields (through ferdlizers and chemicals), but undercut many small farn~er-s, driving them out of business. Nliddle-class de~nandsfor political reform, sometimes sanctioned or encouraged by the United States, sparked fears among elites, who were ready to use their newly improved milialies ttr suppress any early signs of "communism,'" Despite (in part, because of) U.S, policies, &ere were more revolutrions in Latin &hnericain the 19COs, but none of the kind experienced in Cuba, O n Apfjl 1, 1964, a momentous dag; for koflir Latin her-icans and modernization heoris& alike, the militay in Brazil ousted the elected president from office and took control of the government. For observers the coup was not the only sulprise: The new regime largely enjoyed the support of the emerging middle class! This was the very opposite of what most had predicted. Brazil's generals dubbed their takeover a "revolution," hut there was nothing revolutionar). about it, They strengthened economic policies that favored the rich and suppressed politically active, poorer Brazilians. The United States, which previously bad established close ties to the m i l i t ; ; ~supported ~, the new reginne. But lntrdernization theorists in U.S, universities were puzzled. Ladn hnerica was supposed to be headed toward democracy; Brazil's coup unexpectedly reversed a trend so many had thought they corrld see. In the short term, most acade~nics,though dismrbed, concluded that Brazil was an isolated case--only a temporary setback in modernization's progress. Many predicted that the militav worrld resmre civilian rule by the end of 1964; to their surprise, Brazil's generals stayed in power for a quarter century. Even more shocking was that Brazil's situadon was but a harbinger of similar wen6 elsewhere: In 1%6, hgentina underwent yet anoher in a series of coups. In 1973, Chile, a rzadan with a history of xlative political openness, experienced a violent takeover. By the mid-1970s, alrnost aII of Latin h e r i c a was under nzilitaw rule, and the very middle classes that had been expected to promote U.S.-style democracy were, for the most part, suppordve of the coups. These unexpected developmats spabvneci academic debate, Modemizarcion. theolrists smck to the most obeous lines of intellecmal defense: Despite the militarization of Latin h e r i c a n regimes, they clung to their earlier preciicti ons and dwnplayed midence suggesting fundamental flabvs in their theories. Some even becarne apologists for the new regimes. Textbook authors Bailey and Nasatir advised American college smdents that "ilndemocrasic and high-handed procedures were perhaps not all kade9'1 Yet as military governments muldplied and human rights conditions worsened, inrellecmal evasion became all the more obvious, in the general failure to explail~stark reality,

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Nor was the collapse of democratic openings the only embarrassment for ~nodernizadonists.By the ~nid-1970sit was increasin& clear that the economic prosperity so long forecast was also not forthcoming. Real wages under military gsvemmene declined as infiation took hold and independent labor unions were dismantled by security forces. Living standards, as measured by malnuaidon, child mortality rates, life expectancy, and illiteracy, flattened out and in many eases began tr, slide in the other directicjn, Something was horribly wrong with the proposis for the Third World. Why was it not developing! Politjcal scientists and others began to prclvicie a whole range of new and adjusted theses. Some examined Ladn American society, and argued that resistance to modem capitalism and pluralistic democracy was ingrained due c-t~the nzedie-val Hispanic heritage, Spain, so d ~ arpment e weurt, had xzurtrured a u t h o r i r i s and militay order Ear centuries after the c m quest. Fatalism, violence, and subservience to hierarchy were inbred cultural traits from which the region could never escape, TIlis arpment, mpported by some historians, was exceedingly static-that is, it did not account for change over time. Furrhermc~re,when the maternal country (Spain) itself replaced a conservntive Jicbtorship with modem political insdmtions in the late 1970s, these events did much to undercut the currency of this cxplanation. A second, more plausible answer came in the scholarship of Samuel Huntington. The Mliance for Progress had rested on the pre~nisethat poverty bred political instability; but Huntington, by comparing poor countries, a r p e d &at the premise was not necessarib m e . His influential Politicd Orrlei*b~Chn~rgi~zgSocieties (1968) contended that the poorest of the world's peoples were actually politically docile. Those experiencing change and ensering the political arena for the first time were more prone to generate social conflict. If a ~nodernizingstate lacked adequate civic structures (such as political parties), unchanneled political energy could bubble up into revolution, Under Hunrington"satic1nale, US, policies under the Aliance had raised expecradons and aroused political forces rather than taxning them. Increased insrability, and consequent military intervention, was thus the order of the day.

Griitics Respond: Hotians of Dependen~y Many scholars found Huntington's argument no more convincing than those made under the rubric of mcrdernization theoq-a paradigm increasingly in disrepute, having itself been subjected to critique. Several Ladn h e r i c a n academics posited a counterarpment for why the region was not becoming like the First V\iorZd, They eontencfed that the economic

playing field bemeen disparate regions was not level: Latin Anerica could not develop because of cerain structural disadvantages that created what they called depmdcnq. Dependency theor)r, a critical response to modernizationists, seemed new and exciting when it first appeared in the late 1960s. Its antecedents, however, were many. h hrgentine economist named RaGl Prehisch had long argued that neoclassicafeconomics, with its emphasis on trade as the Ineans of develop~nent,was insufficient for understandi~~g the cotnplexities of g-lobal wealth. As the director of Argentina's Central Bank in the 1930s, he had urged his nadon to industrialize, After World War XI, Prebisch beaded up the United Nartions Ecmomic Co~ntnissiunfor Ladn h e r i c a (ECLA), where he and others again pushed for deeper strucmral change. These men distinguished heween economic growth 2nd "deveic~pn~ent." They held that the latter necessitates technolom and econo~nicdiversity, only then assuring a nation of self-sustaining grc~wth.Like a child that matures physicaily but is mentally impaired, they saw Latin An~ericaas ia rsgion with rising economic output but funda~nentalincongmiruides. Two of Prebisch's !postwar colleapes at E C L k Brazilians Enzo Faletto and Fernando Henriyue Czardoso, later published Depe~rde~cy i r ~ dDeziejlpmclrt in L~tirzA F E C T(1060). ~ C ~ A rebuttal of modernizadon theory, the book offered an explanadon of why developmentalist models were not worklng. It posited +at underdevelopment was not a product of bacbardness but a consequence of cotnmercial capit;llism. M e r all, as Cardoso and Faletto noted, Latin h e r i c a was hardly an isolated region. It had gained independence from colonial rule in the early nineteenth centuw and had traded with advanced nations ever since. But it could never catch up with the First Wc~rldbecause of the unequal nature uf its partnership in finance and trade, Others followed Cardoso and Faletto's lead. Although few dependency thlnkers were historians, almost all attempted to use history to excoriate they a p e d , has not &ken place hemodernization tffeor~7,Developn~ent~ cause the First World enjoys a historically favorable position with regard to induswialization, capital, and commerce. Because Europe and the Clnifrrd Sates indusuialized first, Latin h e r i c a n nations emerged just as they began to produce nearly all the manufactured goods the world needed. Industrial powers shipped their goods (almost always on their own ships) into the colcsnized Third Wcjrld, thus undercutting the process of indusaialization and producing a lopsided balance of trade. Latin h e r i can countries soon found themselves expordng raw materials, such as wool and cottcln, and importing finished products, such as cloth, Not only was there an immediate trade imbalance, but the emerging First World soon accumulated a disproporGonate amotrnt of capital, since importing nations had to pay the difkrence betureen the value of raw ma-

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terials and ~nanufacmredgoods. Ironically, much of the gold and silver that backed various European currencies had originally coIne from the mines of Spanish-exploited Latin America. Mter Independence, in a quest to modand US, ernize, Latin h e r i c a n states borrowed money from E~~ropean banks a t high rates of interest. Many slid into debt and were unable to foster h e i r own diversified economies in order to compete with h e narions that had gotten the jump on them in the a-itical process of industrrialization. By the ~ e n t i e t hcentury, all they could hope for were enclaves of industry and development--m,t vibrant domestic production and markets. Ratl-ter than a "natural'"rocess of modernization, Britain and other First World cottntries had experienced unique histaricai evoiurions that could not be repeated. One of the apparent loopholes in this line of arp~mentationwas the ohvious fact that ~nuchof Latin Anerica was heavily indus~ializedby the early 1970s (due in part to the economic policies of the military regimes). kt dependency theor-istsprovided answers to this problem by pointing out differences between the First and Third Worlds' indusuial growth. h d r 6 Gunder Frank, for example, referred to the "development of underdevelopment"; by exanlining pocketri of i n d u s ~he ? analyzed their ties to the First World via multinational cmpuratims. Unlike those in Europe and the United States, where unions helped unskilled workers organize, Third Wcjrld regimes cooperated with coq~orationsin keeping wages low, Ownership stayed in f o r e i p hands, and profits were re~nittedto stockholders instead of being invested in Latin America. Dependenv theorists not only addressed trade and induswy; they also pointed to critical patterns in agriculmre. They noted with chagrin that many Latin hmerican nations engaged in monoculture--the grt~wingof a single crop for export, on which economic growth heavily depended, m e h e r coffee in EL Salvador or bananas in Honduras, these cmmodities went abroad and tied local econ<>mie?i tc) First Wc~rldmarkets, One of the drawback of such a link has been the fact that any sudden drop in prices spells disaster for the exporting nation. When coffee prices sank precipitously during the 1%30s, for example, El Salvador's economy collapsed and hunger swept the counqside, Dependency certainly made more sense, in attempdng to explain conditions in the 1960s and 1 9 7 0 ~ than ~ did modernizarion theory. But like their intellectual oyponcnts, dependency dlecrrists were all over the place, They were never able to syste~naticallpunite their ideas into a cogent, co~nplete explanadon. In fact, there were prt~fc,unddivisions. Orthodox dependency theorists, such as Frank, questioned the ultimate efficacy of capi talisrn. Other, more unorthodox dependency thinkers, including Cardoso, believed in the fundamental structures of Western-style capitalism but thought develtrpment in the periyhely had heen dismrted. ?"he different

sub-schools were reflected in politics: Frank fled Chile in the wake of its ~nilitarycoup, had difticuly reentering the United States (although he was a citizen), and settled into an academic career in westem Europe. Cardosi,, in 1094, hecame president trf Brazil. Both currents of dependency theory had garnered the allegiance of many Third World scholars by the early 1970s, when dependency theory r entered its heyday, It was not as well received in the U r z i ~ dStates, t i ~ ohvious reasons. At i t s heart was criticis~nof the First MTarld--as partly responsible for Third World troubles, rather than a benign agent of modernizadtrr?seeking to advance hrzn~ankind.A nurnber of U,S. scholars began to vigorously critique dependency theoly, and by the 1080s, a flood of book; had largely discredited it. There was a polidcal dimension to the process: Welt-funcled a n t i - d e e d theory scholars resided in the First World, whereas the tJleoryS die-hard protagoxlists labured abroad. The rqection of dependency theory ct~incidedwith a revived U.S. pauiotism under President Ronald Reagan but also reflected the fundamental repugnance of a theov +ng Third Wc3rlcl. woes to First Miorld policies. On the front lines of the intellectual assault were a number of hist0r;ians who, until the late IWOs, had largely remained on the sidielines of theoretical debate. Even in its most sophislicated expressims, dependenv theory was disappointingly simple. Few of its early prtlponents were historians themselves, and they often made sweeping generalizadons about the breadth of Latin hnerican experience. Cridcs pointed out that contraly to conventional wisdom, some narions had once accumulated great wealth: Argentina, fur example, at the outset of the ttventietll centuly; had a per capitzi income comparable to that of &e tinited S~t.es, A historian of Brazil, Warren Dean, sht~wedthat an export economy based on a single commodity could fuel broad grt3wtl.r and diversification (a rebuttal of dependency theory that was dubbed gaple g-owth theo?)~). Others noted the role of cormpdon in sideeacking advancement: Subject to very little pu,uMic accountabiliq, militav and ncrnmilitaq g(1vernment-salike have often syuandered Latin h e r i c a ' s weal&. In sum, dependency theory was attacked for failing l polirical quesrionseven though it5 to address a wide range of c u l ~ r aand creators were essentially concerned with economics. The tendency to simplify cenmries of co~nplexhistoly continued in an offshoot of the dependency school, called iltor-ld ~ y s ~ ) 'analysis. ~ns U.S. sociologist Immanrrel W2llerstein laullched world systems theory with the publication of his ~nultivolu~ne The Model% m~-ld-,Sy~tem (1974-1976). Arguing that Europe generated a capitalist world economy around the beginn k g of the sixteenth centuv, Waiferstein and sut3sequent authors posited that core nadons smcturally do~ninateperipheral states through economic dynamics. Xoting the pervasiveness of slavery and other f o m s of coercive labor in the pel-iphery, they contended that labor relations and even many

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social conditions stein from an enwenched and systematized global economic order. The idea of an overarching, global economic snucture might have merit in today5 wodd, hut its projection over the distant past is a seric>ushlunder, Historians have had a field day cridquing the world systems approach. Evidence demrlnstrates that labor conditions and social relations in Latin Anrerica have not been determined by the consequences of commercial capital, and instead of cmsistent patterns of coercion we find that hdiaxls and other subservient groups often helped define the parameters of cornmercjal =change and even sometimes enjo)red its knefitr; (attbc~ugh,ad~nittedly~ conditions immediately after the Conquest were harsh). More damning is the fact that much of the historical record refutes the norrion of long-tern economic integration. In the nineteen& cenmrq; for exa~nple,large portions of Ladn Anerica fell into isolation--the exact opposite of what should have happened in an emerging system. Silver mines dosed down, the money mpply shrank, deflation took hold in some areas, and trade declined. With the excepriom of Bradl a n d parts of the Caribbean, which cunrinued to import Mrican slaves, the commercial economy of the entire area was in profc~undregress. For decades, from roughly the 1810s through the 185Os, there was no serious foreign capital investment in the whole of formerly Spanish America. The walls of a supposedly rising global stmcture simply did not exist. Marxists and other theoreticians have attacked the world systexns appmach on the basis of methodolom-how data are collected and analyzed. One of their primary conrplaints is that a hcus on nation-statt;s is oversimple. World systems theorists use nation-states as their uniu; of analysis, classifying states as cop-e, se~~ipwipberirl, or pel-iphef-~zl.This classificafion is inadeyuatc; because it faifs to account for the complexity of factors at work in sociedes. Marxists, in pardcular, dislike it because it neglects the orthodox analytical tool of class. Wc~rldsystems theorists, largely spawned \Nithin the ranks of dependency tlizeorists, were t e n g to gain acceptance for their ideas at the very moment when much of the academic world was starting to move in the other direction. World systems theory came into v o p ~ eanlcrng some sociologists but failed to transcend disciplinav lines.

After Dependency: Hisrory and Theory For all their sklll at debunking other people5 theories, historians have been the economic dispw'ities slcrw to offer alternative construc~t i ~ explairring r in the modern world. is Latin Anerica poor? Exploring that question and concomitant political issues frclrn a historical angle into the present is the primav puq~oseof &is book.

Yet unfortunately, a theoretical fra~neworkfor our econo~nicand political introduction to the region is lacking. The last decade has seen theoretical debates in Third Wcjrld sntdies splinter and disintegrate. Many political scientists now dabble in statistical analysis, fusing their disciplitle with economics, while parting coInpany with sociologists and historians. Anthropology entered the twenty-first cenmry in a state of flux. Scholars in val-ious fields continue to espouse variations of world vstems and dependency theories, while others search fc~rnew alternatives. The past ~ e n t years p have brought a revival of rnodernizadon thought. Nlany acaden~icsreembraced some of its tenets, believing that with the advent of new democratic regimes and Inore transparent free-i nark et economics, Latin L h ~ e r i chad a finally turned the corner. This neomodemizationism was aided by the fact &at many earlier p"-c~onentshad become sexrivr professors with status and influence (there is no penal% in academe, for promoting dumb theories). The inbred optimism of modenlization surged on good news: Aker a dreadhi era of economic and social decay, in the late 1980s and early 1%Os, prospects h r Latin h ~ e r i c adid, briefly, appear to be looking up. Et the weight of statistical evidence continues to belie optimistic predictions a t the outset of the new century. No matter what one thinks of the theoretical paradigms of debate, there is no denying that--for the world's pocjr-conditions have steadily worsened. %day? nearly a quarter of the globe's burgeoning population of 6 billion lives in extrelne poverty: 1.4 billion people struggle to survive on the equivalent of less than US$1 a day (and contrav to myth, a dollar in the Third Wcjrld does not buy much). Half of the world's population suffers at least soxne degree of rnalnourishment. h n d perhaps more significantly, key macroeconomic trends are headed downward: Both in real numbers and in percentiles, malnuwition and related preventable diseases have increased aver the past two decades and now account for an average of 40,000 (mostly child) deaths per day. Real wages in the Third Wcjrld are, alnlost u.ithout excepticjn, in decline. T h e world's literacy rate is numerically stagnant and proportionally shrinking; two-thirds of humanity cannot read a t an adult level. Third World life myectancies havet depending on the region, remained steatJy or modestly declined. Poor natiorls are proporriotlately much poorer now than they were just a generation ago. The fifty poorest states--most of which are in Africa-kavc just over I percent of the world's total income but nearly 20 percent of its population. The richest fifth of the world's populace had thirty times the average income of the poorest fifth in 1960, sixty times h'y E90, and seventy-five times more income by 1998, In comparison with the rest of the Third M'orld, Latin Anerica is relatively welloff. wth a per capita income six times higher than that of LGrica,Latin An~ericahas only about one-half the population Africa has (240 million

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people) who are living in severe indigence, on less than US$Z a day. Per capita Gross Dornestic Product (C;DP) declined horn US$2,850 in 1980 to US$2,700 in 1992, leveled off through the mid-1990~~ and more recently resumed its dedine, T h e entire regirm's GDP is much smaller than the U.S. govern~nent'sbudget. Cholera, a poverty-related disease once largely eradicated, has reappeared in many countries of the Third World, including several in Latin h e r i c a , M1 of this has occurred in the context of r w d industrialization-he panacea of modernizadonists, which was suplx~xdto answer many of the T1-rird Wcjrld's most persistent economic problems, In fact, hfexicu and Brazil are nearly as industrialized now as the United States (combined, they account for 75 percent of the region's manufactures). A large chunk of the First Wc3rlcf"s auto industly, example, is now south of the U.S. horder. Mexico is one of the world's largest producers of 4-cylinder engines, and its car production has soared from 18,000 vehicles in 1W80 to more than 500,000 today, But-as was not supposed to happen-ailmost all of Latin iaxnerica9s industrial products are exported to the First World. Ninety percent of Mexican-made cars end up in America, since the vast nzajorisq. of mex xi cans cannot afhrd them, How can modernization theory remain a viable exflanation in dle face of so much coneadictory evidence? One line of defense is the theory's "escape cIauseVof cultural factors, which persists largely thrclugh the lvrieings of Lawrence E, Harrison. Harrison, who worked for trwexlcy years in the U.S. Agency for Intemadonal Development (USAID, the main organ for disnihulion of U.S. foreign aid), continrxes to a r p e Ghat cultural factors account for poverw and that if Latin h e r i c a n s md others can just be taught modern Western values, then their living conditions will rapidly %Iany of Latin h e r i c a ' s elite are receptive to this message, For imp~c"ve exa~nple,Peruvian novelist-mmed-political aspirant Mario Vargas Llosa anticipates new growth any day now, as the twin features of democradc stahility and market economics kick in 2nd begin to solve iall the problenrs of underdemlopment. Yet if one refuses to rest the basis of one's case on the unknowable hture, modernization no longer prc~videsa viable ialtemative for. undersanding the global realities of our world. The Third World is not developing. Things are not getting better. Why aren't they? In Janualy 1 W h n internal memorandum produced by Chase Manhattan Bank, which has close financial ties to the Alexican governxnent, argued that a group of Indian rebels along the Guatemalan border should be ""eliminateJ,'Wen ~Mexico'sarmy went into the region with U.S,supplied helicopters and w e a p o q the following ~nonth,a Mexican television actress of native descent stood before 150,000 pmtesters in Mexico City and chided Xorth hericans. "Tell hem," Ofelra &%edinasaid, "that

their consuxner lifestyles colr.1e at the expense of Mexican Indian blood." This is a potendally disturbing Inessage to those of us who live the "good life" in the First Wc~rld.Cczuld it be true? rfhecrretical consmca for mylair-ring'I'hird Wc~dctp w e q are necessarily coxnplex, and readers should not be troubled if s~xnenuances slip past them. This ineoductory chapter, too, is reducdonist and simple--intended only to provide a necessaly shell for the remainder of the book, Sugce it to say, there is a long-standing scholarly debate about the nature of Latin America, its pczverty, its polidcal structures, and how and why (or whether) things can change. The debate itself, however, is significant, It directly speaks to what: professors tea& in the dassraorr.1. Theory-influenced ideas filter into the media, politics, diptomac)*,and even religion, h understanding of the lines of debate, men at a ructimentarp Ievel, will help us perceive realitp and think clearly about our world. One of the hndamental pn~blemsfor scholars, which is certainly evident in this o v e ~ e wis; the gap b e ~ e e ndisciplines. Sociologists, pcrlitical scientists, and others have long dabbled in history-based explanations without much help from historians. Similarly, because of the traditional academic diT;isiOns, few boitrlifi have attempsed to breach the gay bemeen the past and the present. But if mudernizatiion and dependexzc~irlzeories have left many of us intellecmally dissadsfied, what--in the context of such a broad sweep-might consfjtute an altematrive reply? H w deep are the historical reasons for Latin h e r i c a k persistent puvertl~?R%at is h i s t o ~ k relationship to today's world, and what are realistic prognoses for the hture? This book addresses these questions,

PART

Historica Latin America

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2

A~eop e of Conquest

h the sleek iVE"IXO train dashes underneath iwexico City, a small hoy walks up to a businessman, h e e l s down, pulls out a rag, and begins to polish the Inan's shoes. The subway in the world's second-largest city draws cidzens from all walks of life, and though both the man and the boy are authentically hfexican, they appear starkly different. The dapper bx~sinessInan, dressed in a fine suit, has skin so light that he looks Caucasian. The boy, in contrast, has the dark skin and physical features of an Indian, and his ragged cltrtks suggest acute pwerw After e2l""ingthe shoes ti>r half a minute, he rises and st-retches out h s hand in hopes of payxnent, just as the train pulls to a stop a t the next stadon. The man gives him only a glance of disdain as he steps onto the station piasform and disal>pearsinto the crowd, Ofelia Medina, a Mexican television star who recently accused Americans of living at the expense of Mexican Indians, is also of Indian descent. But &at is an "Indian'5n the 3ate mentie& cenmr;ti? And what has been the histt~riralexperience of h~diansin Ladn h e r i c a ? In order to understand the region's diversity, we must go back centuries into its past. Although there are not many ohvious continuitjes betvveen the distant past and rapidly changing, present-day Ladn h e r i c a , some seminal features of Ladn society are displayed in the era of dramatic encounter and conquest. The Hew Warld Before?1492

The first humans in what is commonly referred to as the New Wc3rZd Iikely arrived tens of thousands of years ago, during the ice age, from across a land bridge that then linked lUaska to Asia. Waves of migrants slowly wandered south. C;iven the geographical shape of the North h e r . i c a n continent, it is not surprising that their descendants eventually began to concentrate in the areas that make up today's Mexico. Mexico itself is something like a geographical funnel, with the steep mountains of the

Sierra Madre gradually narrowing upward and encircling a high, central plateau. Here, not far fro~npresent-day Mexico City, soIne of the greatest early conceneations of New Wc>rld.inhabitants coalesced. Around the second century B.c., one such populadon center emerged at Teodhuacain. The naIne of this now fa~nousarchaeologcal site coInes from the Lktecs,who referred to its ruins as a "Place of the Gods." Indeed, in some ways even to the modem eye it almtrst seems that a suyerhun~anrace must have concei-ved and built Ter>tihuac6rs,p ~ u l a r l yh o w n to &$&cans today as igspy~*tl-nmides. At the center of the grand city stood two enormous pyramids, evenmally given the inaccurate hut poetic names of the Sun and the Moon. The larger of the two, the Pyraxnid of the Sun, rises 2 15 feet from a base that is larger than that of its famous Emtian counterpart, the ~ramidfof Cbeoys. In 1908, amateur archaeolcrgists who were intrimed by the possibility of imer chambers blew up a quarter of it with dynaxnite. Others dug a tunnel through the dirt-filled strucmre in the 1030s, only to he disilppointed. Despiff; the damage wrought hy these and other misaifvenmres, the Pyra~nidof the Sun, in recent times illu~ninatedby giant floodlights, has remained a mecca for tourists. Stretching abvay from the pyramids is a sel-ies of plazas that form somet h n g alan to a great boulevard---again dra~naticallybut inaccurately christened the Avenue of the Dead. These plazas, situated on a gradual incline toward the Pyamid of the Moon, form a line that diverges slightly horn due north. Given that other major archaeological sites in central Mexico have the same orientadon, some scholars have hypothesized that various stars and const-ellaGonsdictased the initial outlay of this gridlike meeopoIis. Both the avenue and the two ~ r a m i d were s completed around the dxzle of Christ, and during subsequent centuries Teotihuac;in continued to spread ouward. Palaces and temples in the heart of the city housed a nobility that gu-verned a tiered society of art-isans, craksmen, and farmers. Apartment-like structures sprawled out in nearly all directions. Today, their stone foundations are nearly all that remain, Despite the fact that Teodhuachn is one of the most thoroughly and methodically analyzed archaeological sites in the world, we still know relatively little about its builders and inhabitants. No \vrittenlanpage has survived to tell us the names and exploits of its great kings. If royal to~nbs exist, we have not found them. In its heyday the city was plastered with colorhl mmals, and these drawings have provided many clues abtrut life in Teodhuacain. Other answers have been garnered from the archaeological record. By studying the ruins themselves, as well as factors such as the surrounding timber, food, and water resources, we can safely speculate that when Rome was a t its height, this urban center may well have been the largest city on the face of the earth. Pcjttery shards tell us that the Teodhuacanese traded widely It appeus that their sociegi was governed, at least

for a tirne, by a fairly benign and farsighted leadership that ~naintained peace with distant peoples. But after centuries of glorl~,the city declined. Evidence of a crude eighth-centruv wall suggests fears of invasion, and radiocarbon datillg shows that much of Teotihruacgn was at one dxne sacked and burned. The culpri~,presumably (though some fires may have been initiated by the inhabitants themselves), were waves of wild tribes migrating in from the north. These diverse peoples, collectively ter~nedthe Toltec, ~ningledwith the more civilized inhabitants that they conquered, and apparently absorbed the practices of some sophisticated Indians from the southeast, A Toltec empire eventually emerged, s~nallerand less cenaalized than that of Teotihuaciin, but still vibrant, and in places, urbanized. Tula, a Toltec city , still inthat was home to some 50,000 persons in the eleventh c e n m ~was habited by modest nu~nbersat the dme of the arrival of Europeans in Mexico in 15 19. The 'Ibltlrcs floundered in a fashion similar to that of their predecessors, as new bands of violent invaders swept into their domains. 't%rious nomadic hunting tribes, collectively called the <:hichimec, mingled with sedentary Indians in central Mexico and continued to help populate the cha~nber-likevalleys on the cenaal plateau. Over centuries the human populadcjn rose into the millions, with one unusually ateactive highland valley gro.lving the most crowded, The h i h u a c , as this valley was known, was blessed with a group of lakes, the largest of which was na~nedTexcoco. Lake Texcoco attracted not only people but varied animal life, including fowl. Indians learned to build dams and irrigation canals, and even developed what the Spanish later mistook as floating gardens--beds of mud and seaweed that yielded multiple harvests. On the shores of the lake rclse a prosperous new city-state, also named 'Tkxcoco, led by a repuedly wise king, Nerzahualc6yotl (Hungv Coyote). NetzahualcSyotl's mid-fifteenth-cenmry rule coincided with the ascent of yet another lakesicfe city. TenochtidQnwas the capital of the htecs, a late-co~ningpeople that had a reputation as fierce fighters. For awhile, Texcoco and Tenochdtlin joined in an alliance; but under a powerful lord named &ioctezuma, the h t c c expanded their empire, and s11or.d~before the arrival of the Spaniards, gained control over their rivals in Xxcoco. There are many colorful stories and myths about the htecs, who like people the wodd over; loved to extol the accrampliskmen of their ancestors. They claimed, for example, that the site of their great capital was predestined by a sign from the gt~ds:an eagle devouring a serpent while sirring on a prickly pear cactus (an ill-rage emblazoned today on h1exicra"sag). il. ~nilitarizedsociety, the h t e c s were especially prone to exaggerate their accomplishments and brutality in battle. War was central to h t e c religion; and Huitzilc>pochtli (Hummilzgbird-on-Left), their god of wal; held a

prominent place in a pantheon of deities. Hutnan sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli, which involved inserting an obsidian blade swiftly up and under the rib cage in order to extract a sdll-pulsating heart, was a feamre of Aztec religiotl, though the numbels of victjms appear to have been gready inflated by historians. The often grotesque and sensational tales of the preContact Aztecs, part of an oral tradition recorded by sixteenth-century Spanist~friars, were a means of elevating a culture in the wake of clevastating hulniliation and defeat. In realitl.; most of rfie rZztecs of Tenochtitlin lived lives of w t ~ r kand routine. Large portions of the populace engaged in ardsanal work, commerce, and farming. The large population of the h6huac valley necessitated the irnport"fion of foodstuffs-a process complicated in part by the city's location on an island in Lake Texcoco, linked only by manmade causeways to the shore. The Aztec capital's co~nfortand survival depended heavily on tribute-paying peoples in distant valleys. h t e c armies were ft~rmidable, and they had subdued much of central iwexico by the end of the fikeenth cenmry. But the h t e c empire was not a d&dy defined polidcal entity: h long as non-Aztecs honored Tenochtitlhn with tributary payments, they were often lek alone. Other; sizable tracts of central ~Mexiccrremained co~npletelyfree of h t e c control. For exa~nple,Tlaxcalans, in the mountains to the east, passionately resented the lords of Tenochtitlhn and successfully resisted their domination. Thank to support from a nurniker of independent tribes as well as those who were only too happy to sever their tributary links to Tenochtitlhn, the Spaniards would have no trouble bringing the h t e c capital to its bees. Scholars' escixnates of Mexico's popularcion at cfne time of the Spanish arrival vary wildly. There is nt, doubt that the central highlands were home to millions of human beings by the early sixteenth centrury; but just how Inany ~nillionsremains a Inarter of conjecture. Tenochtitllin and its environs housed well over 100,000 persons, yet only here did h t e c s numerically dominate; they remained a snlall minority of the total population of the higMands--no Inore than 10 percent. Central Mexico's rise to political and commercial prominence is mderstandaMe; the tro1)ical lowlands of the great isthrrlus were not as heavily populated, and peoples nearer the coastlilles were not as advanced as were those in the central highlands and valleys. A major exception to this ruiie, howevel; were the hfaya, an ancient pecrple that dominated the trapical southeastern peninsula h o w n as kircadn. Mayan origins lie primarily in Guatemala and present-day Honduras, where for. cent-uries several grand population centers flourished. AXthc~ugh recent advances in deciphering hieroglyphs are helping us understand the ancient Maya, scholars still smggle to articulate the contours of this civilization in its so-called classic age, prior to 1000 A.D. ?Be great city-states that e~nergedamong the hlaya, including Tikal and Copin, enjoyed cul-

rural, though not political, unity. h o u n d 900 . I D . , Inany of these magnificent sites were gradually abandoned, for a variety of reasons, in favor of migradon northward to the Yucatiin peninsula of present-day Mexin,. athough the postclassical Maya crafted a great culture in the jungles of Yucadn, that: culmre was in decfine by the dxzle of the Sparlish arrival. This New Empire, as it is sometimes called, featured large city-states and cerem n i d sites such as ChichCn Itzh-whose spectacular ruins r e m i n irn~nenselppopular with tourists bused in f r o ~ nCancGn. The site, though well-studied, still intripes scholars for a number of reasons. For example, there is puzzihg architectural and cultural widence of a loltec presence at Chichkn ltz4. Scholars have trbeorized that a smdl number of Tdtecs, perhaps led by the legendary historical figure Quetzalcbatl (Feathered Serpent), helped build the great cir): or that iMayan architectural ideas were used in the cons~ucdonof Tula, having reached central Mexico thr0ug.h intermediaries such as the Nonoalca--a gmup that came from an area in present-day Tabasco, It is also at Chich6n Itzi that we find one of the intriping Mayan ball courts. The rules of the gaIne are still debated, but it is fairly certain that the Maya endowed this competitive event with religious significance. Mayan thought about existence hinged largely around cyclical notions of time. For an agridmral people dependent on the sun, rainy season, and h a m s t times, such a preoccupation is not surprising, iManj7 of the i\i1:aya9s nearly 120 known deities were tied directly to the concept of time. h a o n omy and mathematics also loomed large in their investigations of the world. The hfaya developed an excellent calendal; and studied the patterns of the stars with considerable slall. But the i~nageof the Maya as a wise and peaceful people-intellectud Indians in a jungle paradise-has been dashed as sclzolars have tranflated more of h e i r writings. Md~ough~Maj7an culture was advanced in many ways, it was also ~nilitaristic,ensnared in civil wars, and fragile. (:hichen Itzii itself fc~ughta war with another citycenter, Mayapgn, and lost. After a couple of centories of g l c q ivayapgn in turn succu~nbedto internecine strife and was abandoned in the midfifteenth century. M e n the Spanish arrived a century later, the Maya were dispersed, living in small, Emote villages. T h e Maya, like the Aztecs, are well known. ilncient jungle citiesturned-tourist sites, and myriad television shows, often emphasizing the more "mysterious'%llnd evocative features of ancient life, cater to a general interest in pre-Columbian peoples. The third great- Indian culmre that readily, and righdy, atmcrs our aaenrlon was not based in ~Mexicobut in present-day Peru, This is the culture of the Inca, some ways, given the proxi~nityof the equator and difficulty of life in tropical lowlands, the advent of a great people high in the Lhdesmountains is comprehensible. Yet the accomplishments of the Inca, given the incredible ~nountainterrain, are nothing less than astounding. A precursor

culture in northwestern Per-u, that of the i%ochica, flourished froxn roughly 300 n.c:. to 400 AD., amalgamating various valley peoples and producing beaudful pottery, much of which has been preserved in burial sites, thanks to sandy soils. Still, the Mochica are so dismnt to the Inca that we have relatively little knowledge of what lies in bemeen. As in central Mexico, not until the fifteenth century did a grand consolidation begin to take place in the Pentvim Andes. The ~neteoricrise of this empire, unfolding largely under the a~nbitious rule of a lord named Pachacud, is, like that ofthe h t e c s , only partially understood. Quechua, the predominant tongue of the Inca, was not converted into writing. hlthough a powerful elnperor caIne to dwell in the ceremonial cenrer ctf Crrzco, he rtversaw a realm that was heterogeneous and decentralized. The empirc: was a mosaic of diverse peoples, evenwalk stretching 1,500 miles from present-day Ecuador, into Chile and Bolivia. It was not only vast but also divided, by the steep mountains of the Lhdes. Hence, the famous transportation and communication neturorks of the Inca are particularly impressive. Young runners dashed Inessages along roads from Quito to Cuzco, reputedly crossing the thousand-mile stretch in as little as eight to ten days. Rope br-idges,with cabtes sometimes several inches thick, spanned rollicking rivers in narrow gorges far below. The Inca are known also for many other accomplishments. A religious and pttlpheistic pecr131e, they veneratrd natural landmarks and tied their various cults to ancesaal lineages, exercising p e a t care in preserving and honoring the dead. They were masters of embalming. When the cadaver ~ in the sixteenth of one mummified emperor was unwrapped I I Spaniads cenmry, an observing priest noted that h s body was "as hard as wood." Architecturally, Inca stonework condnues to baffle scholars intent on explaining their techniques, given a jack of mortar and the sheer size of the boulders that were presumably transported from distant quarries. T h e mountaintop ruins of Machu Picchu, discr~veredin 1% 11 and today the m s t famous archaec~lttgicallegaq of the Inca9 a m z e visitors with their grandeur. On countless other mountains the Inca terraced the land so as to conserve the topsoil while farming. The Spaniards were so struck by this that they called the mountains Ande~cs,or platforms-a term that evenwally mutated into cfne name An&$. Those terraced mountainsides were just part of a great a g r i c u l ~ r dnadition. N;ztives in the h d e s developed a diverse diet, izl part because of the vertical variation of the terrain. They gathered aopical nuts, fruits, and berries from the humid coastal plains, and mountain rice, rich in pmtein, from fields in the highlands. The Inca developed some forty varieties of cultivated plants, including various types of squash, pimiento, haricot beans, and their staple, the potato. Transformed over centuries from a wild tuher h a t was bitter and small, the potato helps accorrnt for the upsurge in

population in the h d e s ; much latel; after the Conquest, it worked the same llliracle in Europe. Another reason why the Inca were well fed was the efticiency of their empire. In addition to a road ystenl, imperial authorities established storage cities in an attempt to insulate society from cycles of famine. Provincial elites helped manage the empire and addressed local concerns. Newly incoporated peoples received help and insmction in, for example, utiiizixlg the ila~na,the h d e a n region's timid beast of burden, primarily useful for its wool. All governing officials were sul,ject to strict moral codes, and even the old proverbs of Incarl sages reflect the expectation of clean govemxnent: yudges who secretly receive gifts are lowly thieves." Yet the existence of such pmverbs also suggests that, in fact, plenty of Incan ogcials did accept bribes, h they have the Aztec and &laya, some historians have tended tu idealize the pre-Colurnhian Znca, with early accounts pomaping an advanced, socialistic empire of peace and happiness. Even recent historians have craked overly generous tales; one has wen argued that idyllic gender relations provided~ncanwornen with a modicum of social jusdce until white European males came along. Yet the more discerning students of history naturally question such conclusions. 'She hrecs, Maya, and Inca established p e a t e~npiresbecause they were violent, militarized, and aggressive peoples. And there was no shortage of violence in these large and diverse societies. Had the Spanisll not awived, the h r e c and Inca systelns nonetheless might soon have fallen to internal divisiveness and rebeliian, Bepnd the heavy concentrations of people in she Nlexican highlands and the Peruvian Andes, millions of others occupied or roamed almost every corner of the vast New Wc~rld.C;enerally, populadon concentradon ct~incidedwith advancement. Senliadvanced cultures, such as the ~Vtriscain the heart of what would become Colombia, n u d e r e d perhaps a rnillion or so, with moderately sized urban centers. Many of the sparsely settled areas were home to more primitive peoples, and nc~madictribes wandered huge tracts of land in the ilrgentine pampas and the North hrnerican plains. Because of the gradual nature of European exploration and conquest and the cataclysmic collapse in the Indian population-largc.ly due to disease from contact with Europeans-it is difficult to say bow many people liwd in the New Worid in 1492. Et certainly there were several tens of millions of inhabitants in the Western hemisphere when Colurnbus sailed the ocean blue.

Iberia artd the! First Ertcouttters The Europeans who conquered most of the New World were primarily Iberians-people from the southwestern peninsula that today i s home to

The territories of three ancient Lath Amerjcan civiIIzations Pc~rtugaland Spain. Iberia had a unique pre-1492 histor): the contours of which are helpiul to understanding what transpired after first contact; for Iberia itself was a land transformed by multiple inmsions and the intermingling of conquerors and conquered. Ro~nansexplored and colonized "Hispania" over several centuries before yielding the territory to successive ~ 71 1, waves of L'isigoths that invaded beginning in tlle 6Ftll c e n m -4.td.111 Muslims from northern Africa (also known as Moors) swept through Iberia and even crossed the steep Pyrenees Mountains that separate the peninsula from France. The Moorish invasion was most significant, and it left lasting irnpressions on the lands that would eventually become Spain. Moors were independent conquerors, and remained in Iberia on their own terns, without

answering to a distant metropolis or state. They shared many advances with the less sophisticated, Christian peoples that they subdued. The city of Cbrdoba, at the heart of Islam-sawrated sr~uthernIberia, reached an era of spiendor arorrnd the tenth century as a center of religion and culture, boasting libraries, a vibrant intellecmal comtnunity, and eight hundred mosques. The Moors gave Iberia a disdnctive, airy, and colorful architecture; transmitted several important matlizematicail and scientific concepts to the West; and helped shape a disdncdve culwre--in language, for example, by donadng thousands of words to the sdll-evolving Spanish tongue during the middle cenmries. But popular altherence c-t~C:hristian* persisted, especially in the north, and intennittent war erupted, especially after the tenth century. Christian Ikerians termed this militav smggle the Reconquis;l,r, or Reconquest, Despite the hsion of culwres, religion retnained dis~rzctive,and a belligerent brand of Christianity atuacted a knightly class of warriors who rallied to the faith under the banner of St. james-whose reputed bones were conveniently unearthed on the eve of the fighdng. The Christian prototype was El Cid, the legendary eleventh century knight who helped free ITaXencia from the itrI,uslims,By the dlirteenth centuly, the Reconquest was largely cotnplete, with Moors retaining control only in the southern stretches of the peninsula. Feudal klngdoms emerged in the north, with assemblies of noblcs, and evenmally, a royal theage of kings, These small kingdotns in the north slowly moved into the same orbit. In 1469>Spain was unified thntugh the marriage of eighteen-year-old Isahella of Castile to the sixteen-year-old Prince Ferdinand of Arag6n. 'Itn years later, the two simultaneously inherited and effectively united their respective thrones. So devout that they earned the title ""most Catholic mt~narchs,'Terdinand and Isakfla soon resolved tr, complete the Reconquest, In January 1492, their arrnies triu~npheda t a h a ~ n b r athe , last of the p e a t LMoo;t-iishfortresses in the sr~uthto fall to the forces of christen don^. Centuries of warfare had equiyped Iberians with ideas that in turn influenced their conduct in the New World. l'u Spaniards, war was a holy crusade. It involved devotion to ( j ~ d ntft , solely allegiance to political enrities, Infidels, who resisted the faith, could righdy he punished or ever:, enslmed @ad not the Pope, after all, specified that certain types of cruel weapcjns should be employed only against nonbelievers!). In Iberian culture, concepts of manliness revolved around fighting and wal: In the Spanish psyche, real men did not till fields and plant wheat; they were brave, loyal, and when necessary, violent--in the spirit and @aditionof El Cid. h Spain emerged and finished the Reconquest, the small nearby kingdom of Pormgal, which had remained politically independent, was busily engaging in sea exploration. Under Prince Henry "the Navigator," ships u d e r the Pcjrtupese flag skimd the coast of west Africa. In 1488, just

four years before the fall of uhambra, Bartoloxneu Dias rounded dle Cape of Chad Hope, opening a direct albeit rather difticult route to the spiceladen Far East. It was the East that captured every saik~r'simaginadon, and the quest for a sea route was related to the figbt against the ~Moors.Spices from the East came to Eurupe by way of Lquslim nddlemen, who marked up prices by several hundred percent. Handing their wealth over to infidels great fms&ated Chl-is.trjanEuropeans, tllorrgh the coveted spices, used prixnarily for food preservation and flavoring, seemed worth it. many seamen, including the devt,ut, Italian-born Christopher Columbus, who sailed with the Pc3rtuguese for nine years, dreamed of finding a rorrte that 13passecf the &luslim world. The Portuguese, who lived on the western coast of Iberia, could not help hut notice that the sun sank in the sky over the seas each night and then reappeared in the east on each following day. Conaary to historical myth, most sailcbrs and thinkrs confidendy believed the world was a sphere. But how large was it3 The Ckseks had calculated the earth's circumference accurately, but their fipres were endlessly debated. Coluxnbus reasoned that the Asian landmass was enormous--much larger than it was in reality. He theorized that a direct route wesward, near the eyuatol-,would iand him in the spice islands, soxne three or four thousand miles away Colurnbus's reasoning was unexceptional, but as everyone who sailed knew? it was one tlizing tt, hug the coastline of Africa and another to head out into uncharted, open seas. Still, Columbus's name is etched in Western history largely because of his persistence. For years he sought the support of a major Euv~peancrslwn, hcing rejection afier rejection, until 1492, when in the wake of the triuxnph a t Rlhaxnbra, Ferdinand and Isalsella decided to hack Colurnbus and grant him the title Admiral of the Ocean Sea. From the northern Spanish port of Paltls, C:tsiumkus set sail with three s~nallships and ninety Inen at the beginning of August 1492. W h i n a couple of months, the arduous joumey and fears of never finding land nearly sparked a mutiny; but on October 12 the Adrlsiral and his elated crews thanked Gad as they sighted an island in the Bahamas. ?Bey were peeted by friendly yet frightened Arawak, people whom Columbus wrongly termed ""ltlidians," "inking that he was somewhere near India. He sat down and penned his first impressions in a diary for the King and Queen: The islanders gathered round us. X could see that they were peopfe who W C ) U Ibe~ Itlore easily cofl'c~ertedto ottr I-foly Faith by tove &an by coercion, and wishing them to look 0x1 us with frier-tdship1 gave some of them red bonnets and glass beads which they hung round their neck, and xr-ral-ryother things of small value. . . . L!dj the men I saw were quite yc~ttng,none older than thirty, ali well built, finely bodied and har-tdssr-x~e in the face. Their hair is coarse, ahr-rost like a horse's sail and short, . . . They rnttst be good servants, and intelligent, for I can see that they quicMy repeat eveq~hizzgsaid to them.1

Contl_nced that the spice islands xnust be nearby, Cdutnbus continued southward, coming upon the northern coastline of a ~nuchlarger island that he christened Hispaniola. It was here that he wrecked his largest vessel, the Sgnlla 1W1rz"a,on coral reefs, and opted to leave its 39-man crew on the shore in a hastily constructed fort in late Decexnber. Appropriately naming the site Navidad (Czhristmas), the explorer and his men unwittingly established the first European settlement in the New Wc)rZd, though h e y still assumed themselves to he somewhere in the Far East, Columbus returned to Europe with his remaining two ships, and reported his findings to the pleased monarchs of Spain, As was the custom, Ferdinand and Xsabella asked the hpe-who was, convenientiy, a Spaniard--a, cerrify their ownership of the new lands. When the Pope did so in 1493, an indignant krt-uguese crown threatened war. ?'bus, the following year, Spain s i p e d the Treaty of Xrdesillas with Lisbon, assuring the Portuguese monarch that any lands east of an arbitrary line drawn through the klantic would belong to Portugal. The Spanish had inadvertently given away ~nuchof Brazil, though a t the time no one knew it existed. The Pormpese realized the scope of their holdings only after a 1,501 voyage hy h e r i g o Vespucci, an Italian sailor commissioned by Lisbon, who also ended up giving the entire land mass his naIne in the felninized hrrn of Americg, In fall 1493, CCh1-istopher CoZumbus made a second voyage to the New World, t h s rime with a sxrrall fleet of ships and fifteen hundred colonizers-all males. T h e Spaniards also introduced important animals to the hTewWc~rlct,bringing along hogs, cattle, and horses, the latter of which were being reintroduced to the h e r i c a s after a ten-thousand-year hatus. W l ~ e nthe Spaniards arrived at Navidad, however, they made an awful discovev: The settlement was gone, its inhahitan6 having been massacred by frusaated Indians. The crew of the Snrrtn ~Matl;?had apparently dominated and abused the surn~undinghawak at will, evenmally triggering a bloody revolt. Ellropean-Natrive reiadons were off tc1 an inauspicious start. During subsequent months, the Spaniards pillaged the Arawak yet again, requiring that they bring food and spend long days panning small rivers in search of gold, The demands of these strange newcomers must have perplexed and angered the Indians, who predictably rebelled, were defeated, and soon lived in conditions akin to those of slavery. Ccjlumbus, as governor of the island, presided over an increasingly chaotic colonial experiInent. Bp all reliable accounts he was a poor adxninisaator, and after his return to Spain in 1496 his fame slowly declined until he evenmally died in relative obscur-ir;v; There was little gold to be found on Hispaniola, and as Columbus himself pointed out, the only real weal& was the labor of the native population. Within a few yearsi the instjmtion of e?.lt'@@kirr;~d@ was firmly established. Encoxnienda was a grant of Indians (not of land, which was

p l e n ~ h I to ) a Spanish efrcmenrJet*o,who would see to their Christianization in exchange for their labor and tribute. It was an obviously unequal exchange. On Hispaniola, though not legally chattel slavery, encomienda effectively filnctioned as such, wdespread savagery broke the spirits of the hawak; childbearing all but ended, and soIne even left their living hell by way of suicide. Brutal physical abuse was common. So few Spaniards questioned the moraliv of their practices that when one evenmally did so, his naIne became renowned far and wide. h t o n i o ~Montesinos,a Donlinican friar, delivered one of the most hmr~ussemons in history on Chrismas Sunday, in 15 11, when he compared his Spanish parishoners to Lqours because of their treatment of the hdians. His cry for justice was embraced by a former encomendero, fellow Dominican Uartoktmb de Las C:asas, whose name evcntualb became s p o n p l o u s with the struggle for Illdian rights. Las Casas argued in behalf of the New World's Indian masses for the duration of his life, regretting, on his deathbed, &at he could not have done even more, He lvrote graphic accounts of Spanish cruelty, which were so effective that they gave rise to what today is called the "Black Legendn--the belief, especially am(,ng northern European Protestants, that there was something uniquely fanatical and sadistic about the Spanish psyche. Las Casas9smost fa~nousbook, Thr Dcstructiogz ofrhr indies, was widely circulated in England. But although, ias Charles Gibson-a prominent historian of Spanish-htec relations--contends, the Black Legend was funda~nentallyaccurate in its portrayal of abuse, it was flawed in linking those abuses to the Spanish ckaractec History is replete with tales of m i g k v nations exploiting the weak; rarely do we find humankind collectively exercising reswaint in profiIundly unequal power relations. At a completely different time and place-for example, in nineteenth-centuv Tasmania-British ahuses of natives were comparable to those of the Spaniards on Hispaniola,

The collapse of the Arawak populadon in the Caribbean helped drive the Spaniards to fitrther exploration, Shortly after Columbus9ssecond vcJj?age it became obvious that the Sparliards had smrnbled onto a vast new world, and that no easy passage to the East was available by this route. But by the 1510s, a steadily rising white population on Hispaniola and Cuba was struggling to collect adequate provisions from a sharply declining Indian base. Voyages to the south and west led to the establishment of the first setdement on the mainland, in present-day Panama, under Vaseo Niifiez de Baboa. Other exploratorf"ventures sErted the coast of M&co, where Spaniards made first contact with mainland h d i a m and genemted rumors of a great inland kingdom,

The governor in Cuba--which had surpassed Hispaniola as the center of Caribbean colonizadon--authorized an ambitious Indian fighter, Herniin CtzrrGs, to undertake &e conquest of 1Vexico in 1518. C:ortks was a remarkable man. Born into the lesser nokiliy in Spain, he had drr~ppedout of the university, and at age nineteen, decided to seek his fortune in the Uew World after his lover's husband resolved to kill him. He had a knack for getting ensnslred in scandalous romances, and his strong personality; which seexns to have initially attracted people to hixn, sometimes led to even longer-lasdng alienarion. A forced marriage in Cuba gave Cortb little reason to stay there, and by the time of the expedition he was ready to move on, But in early 1519his benefacmr, the govern% appeared puised to reverse h s decision and remove Cofi(.s from the Mexico assignment. h d so on February 10, when he premamrely left the p r t of Havana with eleven ships and several hundred soldiers, Corr:6s did su under cloudy cireum~ances,and dso as a man bent on success, since little of value lay behind him, It was this all-or-noflizing attitrtde, in part, that explains Cortds5 energized and reckless leadership. Once on the shores of Mexico, he ~nadethe strategically unconscionable decision to burn all of his ships save one, lvhich he sent direcdy to the king of Spain with a message. His men, some of whom grurnbled in fear of the difficult campaign to corne, now had no choice hut m follow him and recognize his authority as a Co~quisrlhr:In order to satisf) any legalities, given that he had departed Cuba under questionable circumstances, Cartes fi~undedthe coastal city of kracruz, appointed its town council, and had it in turn grant him authority to undertake the conquest of the interiol; Some trvva hundred miles away, in Itnuchcitlin, couriers delivered the disturbing news of strange men, riding "mountains on the sea," to thenemperor Moctezuma II. Uncertain about what to make of these reports, the h t e c lord opted to send $fu; of gold to the saangers. Instead of inspiring the Spaniards to leave, the gesture had the opp~siteeffect. Speaking through i n t e q ~ ~ t e rincluding s, La Nlalinche, an Indian princess giwn to Cortks by a coastal tribe, the Conqueror assured lliiloctezuma5;s messengers of his good intentions and vowed to march fonvard and meet the emperor himself, Z"hus began an in~iguingprocess of deft Spanish diplomacy and discernment. Moctezuma could not know who, exactly, CortQ was, or what he and his rnen wanted. Though anthropologists have demonstrated the unlikelihood of it10ctezuma9shaving seriously confused Cords with the legendaq. god Quetzalcbatl, there is no doubt that the elnperor and his advisers were perplexed and indecisive. They botched several opportunities to ambush or dissuade the invaders, and Cortks and his army marched into the great h t e c city unopposed. For six months the Spaniards stayed in the heart of Tenochtitlain and acy i r e d wealth while living as p e s t s of ~Vr)ctezuma11, whom they effec-

t i d y ~nadetheir hostage. Yet they were clearly in a precarious position, dwelliizg in the ~riiddjeof a metropolis simated an an island in Lake Texcoco with 100,000 h t e c s increasingly suspicious of the political nature of their situation. In iMay 1520 the Spanish position deteriorated further when news reached Cortks from the coast. A new army of Spaniards, loyal to the Cuban governrlr whom he had offended, were in Lkracruz. The Conqueror took a bold gamble: Leaving half of his men in she Aztec capital, he raced to the coast with the other half and defeated his fellow count r p ~ e nin battle. The derachment that remained in Tenochrirl;n, however, panicked dul-ing Cort6s5 absence, It massacred much of the Aztec nobilic47, and an incensed populace rose up and besieged the Spaniards in tile central palace compound. Cords, mean%vhile,now reinft~scedby m a v soldiers at Veracnrz whom he had defeated @is ability to woo the losers to his side is s~iking),returned to Tenochdtlin and united with his forces in the palace. He sent &loctezuma out OnM the mcrftop, ordering him to deliver a speech to pacify the crowds. But Moctezuma's efforts a t persuasion did not go well. Aztecs threw stones a t their own emperor, refusing to believe that he was a friend of the newcomers and that a31 was fine.. Struck by a stone, Moctezu~naI1 died of head injuries shortly thereafter. Wirh no hope of regaining conrrol in the capital, and with limited supplies remaining within the palace cramporrnd, Cortbs and his m m prepared to Sight their way out of the city. On June 20, 1520, in what Spaniards refer to as the N Q C Eistc ~P (Sad Night), Cortks lost nearly half his army in a bloody, running battle across the causewa)is on his w2j7 out of Tenochtitlhn. Once safely in the ~nountainsto the east, he reputedly sat down a t the base of a tree and wept. During the next year <:ort6s, ever the skillful diplomat, rallied a massive army of non-Aztecs to his side. Many welcomed the oppormniw to rid themselves of the hated, tribute-collecting Aztecs. In May 152 1 the Spaniards, with tens of thousands of Indian allies, sought revenge against the inhabitants of TenochtitlAct. They laid siege to the city, gready aided hy the fact that a smallpox epide~nicsimultaneously ravaged its populace. Cutting off the water supply, they evenmally forced the Lktecsto surrender in h e s t . The ytjung, last emperor of the proud pet~ple,Cuaf~ht6fnoc (Falling Eagle), was subjected to torture and execution. Aztec temples were leveled, and Spaniards began to rebuild the capital as their own, renaming it Nlexico City. Disease played a crucial role in the conquest of the Aztecs. Smallpox and several other infectious diseases came into the New World from Eumpe, and Indians had alxs~ostncl resistance to these new viral swains. The ensuing epidemics not only debilitated nadve societies through death but also left a deep psychological imprint on those who survived: What force could explain why so many Indians pel-ishetl, even while Spaniards (who enjcrycd

relative iminunity) remained healthy? Surely the gods favored Cortks and his men. The Chrisdan God must be vastly superior to Huitzilopochtli and other nadve deities, Disease often advanced in the New Wc~rldmore quickly than the Spaniards themselves. In the mid-l 520s a dreadful smallpox epidemic swept through Central America, decimating Indians in the environs of Spanish-occupied Panami, From there, the virus (or perhaps a mutant of it) spread to the Ii~ca.T h e emperor in Cuzco succumbed to it, and his death triggered a civil war bemeen rival sons that shattered the harmony of the empire. One son, named Atahualya, slowly gained the upper hand in the bloody civil war; he was on his way south to the capital in 1532, when news of a band of strange newcomers reached his ears. The newcomers were a small a m y of Spaniards under the command of Francisco Pizarro, a Panamanian colonist who had reconnoitered along the Peruvian cclast and received the autlzc~rizationof the crown for an expedition inland. They amived a t the perfect time. Decimated by disease and weakened by civil waq the Xnca were winerable. Undoubtedjy mindhl of the details of Cort6syssuccess, Pizarro persuaded the new emperor, kahualpa, to meet him in an abandmed village on November 16, 1532, iZt Cajamarca, he and his men lured the unsuspecting emperor and his lightly armed entourage of hundreds of servants and choristers into the center of an enclosed town square. After giving the signal to attack, Pizarro took Atahualpa hostage, and the Spaniards ~nassacredthe re~nainingIndians. A huge Inca arm): camped nearby, panicked in the wake of the news, as Spanisl cavalry hamied and slaughtered its stragglels. It was like a Giry tale: The capnrred Aahualpa pro~nisedto fill his cell once with gold and twice with silver in exchange for his release. T h e Spaniards readily agreed, and the word went out to all the ert~pirethat its wealth should pour into the hands of Pizarro and his men near Cajamarca. Altbough the Spaniards amassed a great fortune, it technically fell short of the promised amount; A~ahualpa'susehllness having reached its limit, the Spaniards killed k m . h a series of follow-up battles, he!; easily defeated the demoralized Incan armies, aided by divisions within Indian ranks from the recently concluc2ed civil wal: As in nifexico, a remarkably small number of Spaniards had eiumphed over inillions of Indians--by dividing their adversaries, utilizing brilliant diplomatic and military tactics, and deriving the advantage from the devastating effects of epiderr~icdisease, Mter the conquests of L%exicoand Peru, hopes of sirzlilar exploits inspired lnpriad expeditions ina, the remote backlands of the hmericas. Rum r s of golden p o d s , f ~ t l m j r l sof youth, and h a z o n women ixispked Spanish males to march hundreds of miles through thick brush and over flat plains. In retrospect, such wild rumors seem outlandish; but a t the time, w h ~could ) doubt them, given the woncfers of Cuzco and Tenochti-

tlain? One large expedition wandered out of northern Mexico into the present-day ilrnerican southwest. Here Spaniards found no gold and no empires, though they did stumble upon what they called the "divine abyssn-a canyi~nlike nothing known in all of Europe, After t e n g to send his soldiers scaling down its sides, the co~nrnanderdecided such efforts were worthless. His forces tumed back, h o t h e r detachment marched all the way into the vicinity of Kansas bebre deciditlg that the heart of North ilrnerica consisted merely of buffalo, impoverished h~dians,tall grass, and "endless sky."ln South Lherica,an army cut a swath from Peru down into the jungles of the h a z o n , again only to end up on a maddening expedition to nowhere. It seerned by the xnid-sixteenth century that all the irnportant places in the New Wijrld had been disccjvered. In the vicinitp of the h t e c s and Incas, however, there were clearly peripheral and inferior native societies to plunder. In central lliilexrico, Cortks himself marched nr>r&easmard to subdue the low-culn~reEIuastecas, doing so with a mammoth a m y of h t e c s (Xndianswere easily bribed and cajoled into fig.hting each other). h especially cruel conquistador, a lawyer named B e l ~ i nhTufiode C;uzmBn, terrarized much of western 1Me;riir;o.hother march bj7 Cortks, southeast out of ~MexicoCity, revealed only dificult mountainous terrajrl and corlvirsced most Spaniards subsequendy to ignore the area. In Peru, expeditions northward and southward extended Spanish dominion, easily conquering the semiadvanced mountain chiefdoms of the hluisca, among other sociedes. In the late 1520s an army of Spaniards began the conquest of the Maya in the Y u c a ~ nIn , cc~ntrastto the relative sn~tlothnessof consolidadon in cenaal Mexico, the venmre did not go well. In the thickness of the jungle, horses and cannons were of little use. The Maya themselves proved incredihly tenacious. Hiding in thick hmsh, they ambushed cdumns of Spaniards with arrows and ran a w q before the duxnsily armed ixlvaders could pursue them. Most disheartening for the Spaniards, who had marched inland, away from the reasonably prosperous towns on the coast, was the realimdon that the Yucat6rs offered litde of apparent value, and certainly no significant caches of silver or g ~ l dThe . initial invasion force packed its bags and sailed away. Only years later did a second army*detemined tr, dominate and enslave the Maya themselves, reappear, This time, using light cutton annor (like the Indians) and "total war" tactics (e.g., the wholesale huming of villages), E~rropeansg2revaiZed. Most iMaya fled southward or died of malnueition after their crops were destroyed; others were rounded up and put to hard labor, with some being enslaved and sold to colonists in the CI:aribbean. The initial success of the Maya resistance is telling: High cconcenwations of sedentary Indians made for reladvely easy conquest, hut polidcally independent natives living in small GZlages often caused pr&lems ti?r whites.

Even more difficult to subdue were nomadic hunter tribes. Naturally violent, accusto~nedto killing wildlife for food, and freely roaming large tracts of land, these Indians offered stiff resistance, T l ~ ehaucanians on the southern fringes of the Incan domains (what would eventruatly Zrecome Chile) are a case in point: Wild and mobile, they resisted Spanish encn~achmentwith verve. They overran the small Spanish ouqjost at Sandago, forcing a reeeat c-t~the coastline, When a yclung kaucanian named Lautaro was enslaved a t age 15, he escaped and rejailled his people, becoming a warlord. He captured his former master, the conquistador Pedrt, de \%lciivra, and put him tf> dead-t, Though he was killed in battle at age 22, Lautaro became the subject of legends after an ad~niringSpaniard wrote an epic p e n 1 about him. Three cenmries later and thousands of miles to the north, Araucanian stubbornness was matched hy the resistance of the Aljaches. Facing exterminadon by a well-equipped hrnerican arlny, the Indians fought to a hitter end. Ironically, U.S. Arrmy helicopters dubbed Apaches- became critical lveapons in the continued pxscation of natives in souhem 11Jdexico and elsewhere a t the close of the men'cieth cenmry:

Latin Ametica% Indians Taday Roughly five hundred years after the Spanish conquests of the New World, most of Latin An~ericacan claim at least a fraction of the region3 Indian past. Yet lildin~ris not a neatly defined term. Cenmries of ~niscegenation have clouded the physical and c u l ~ r acharacteristics l of native peoples. hlthough an ovewhelming major-iv of Latin h e r i c a n s have a t least some Indian ancesw, me~ti,-os(people of mixed heritage--i.e., Inost Mexicans) are quick to deny that they're the least bit Indian. Many Latin h e r i c a n s of direct native descent have gone to great lengths to adopt non-Indian ways. They speak Spanish, wear jeans and T-shirts, and reject nadve religious and cultural traditions. But of course, blood and race cannot be changed: i"ihclut twenty-five millic~nLatin An~ericaa-tstr~clayare filll-blood Indians, whether or not they embrace the cultural idendfication. And many do. Indian culture has been resilient, especially in the h d e a n domains of the once-powerftll Inca, and an1ong the &$ayan peoples of Guatemala and the Yucatin. Native languages and dialects, distinctive clothing, religious ceremonies, and cultural practices such as the use of herbal medicines cominue to denote Iwdiglz, Concern for Indians among hu~nanrights activists in the First World even generated a modicu~nof media attention to their plight during the 19ROs, when the destruction of the An~azonrainbresfs in Brazil and repression in G a t e r n a b killed tens of thousands of natives, The Nobel. comxni~ee"secision to award the Peace Brize in N W to a iMaya woman, Rigoberta ~MenchG,stunned much ctf the world-and left the iight-skinned elites who rule C;uatemaia agfnast,

MenchG has remained an outspoken advocate of Indian rights, 2lthoug.h interest in her cause has dim~nedconsiderably in recent years. The informal desmctic~nof Indian life cr>n~nues, as television reaches more hc~mes in remote villages and as aZcoholisn7, crime, and outurard nsigratjon of p u t h dismpt LIldiiln cotnmuni~es, Pure-blooded Indians live primarily in the same regions heavily occupied behre the Spanish Czonquest: ~Wexicuand the Andes. In Nlexico, Indians populate a tier of mountainous states south of Mexico City (centuries of racial mixing have left a predominantly mestiu, populate in the central highlands around the capital). Indians constjtute more than 40 percent of the populations of four cotrneies: Boli.dia, C;uatemala, Ecuador, and Peru. Two of the four, Bolivia and Csuatemala, are among the poorest nations in the hemisphere. In several other countries-e.g., Mexico-zareas dominated by the descendants of native peoples are impoverished. In contrast, the three ovenvhelmingly white nations--Argentina, Costa Rica, and Clrueay-enjv some of .the regionahighest levels of wealth. %Zone). and power have foilowed shlt color in Latin h e r i c a for centnxries-one of the region's deeljer hisa,rical continuides.

The Colonia Centuries

In 1970 two Latin h e r i c a n scholars, Barbara and Stanley Stein, published a short book that provided an explanadon of the purported historical dimensions of dependency theory. The Culottkl Hentgge uf'latin Amep-icg, which was widely read in North hrnerican universities, arped that economic and to a lesser exrcnt social and polirical dynamics inherited from the colonial era persisted in the nineteenth and mentietk centrtlries, in the form of "neocolonial structures" that inhibited change. Succinctly put, the Steins bdieved that Latin h e r i c a ' s lack trf developent had deep hismric571 TOO&. The interpretadon offered by the Steins was incorrect. In fact, there is relatively little historical context to the strucmres of power that dominate Latin h e r i c a today. Hence, the folfou;jng c~vemiewof the distant past is necessarily brief. From the era of the conquests until the early nineteenth century, Portugal colonized Brazil, and Spain gc~vernednearly all of the reminder of Latin h e r i c a , These three centuries are historicaily fascit~ating and co~nplex;but for those wanting to understand present-day Latin America, a cursory review of the critical institurions of hirican slaver): the church, and the state will suffice,

The Farced Migration of Africans The racial and cultural co~nplexityof conteInporary Latin h e r i c a is a pmduct not only of the fusion of native and European peoples but of the inmduction of black Africans into the New Wcjrld. Dul-ing the colonial era, rou@p 3.5 ~nillionfiicans were forcibly relocated. Evidence of this great diaspora remains, especially in Brazil and the (:aribbean, to this day. The enslavement of Africans was tied to the production of a unique agricultural crop: sugar. It was during the crusades in the eastern Mediterranean that west Europeans first encountered sugar--for a people whose sole natural sweetener had been honey, a wondertint, discovery; Early in the

twelfdl centuly, Europeans attempted to grow the saange cane for the first time themselves, and within a few decades fairly substantial fields were under cultivation on the large island of <:n>rus--a location safe from Muslim arrxsies, hanks to Western naval superioriv. But Eumpeans were plaped by a perennial problem: Nobody wanted to perform the hard Labor involved in gn~wingand harvesting cane sugar. With the opening of the Bospows in X204 due to she capture of C:onstantinit~ple, the obvious answer was "Slavs." "avlc peoples (from whch we inherit the derimtive word xltzlirat.), Tatars, and Mongols began to be shipped to Cyprus, where they lvorkecl sugar fields under coercion, During the ti~urteenthcentctry, these groups of forced laborers were joined by a lesser number of Africans, as sub-Saharan peoples were rraded into bondage through Em3dan intermediaies. W%en Constantinople fell into Turkisl-t hands in 1453, closing the Bosporus, Mricans became the slaves of choice. Over time, sugar, in the European mind, became nearly synonymous with LGricanslavery. As wonderhl as it tastes, sugar is a a-op pn~ducedhy the sweat of the brow. It is labor intensive, and work is required nearly the year 'round. Cane also saps the soil of its nurrients, and eventually, additional humid, wet, tmpical lands must be acquired t i ~ planting, r tr) maintain robust harvests. When the Portuguese began to advance down the African coast just as Constantinople fell, it was only logical to move sugar wesmard, nearer to this new source of slaves, Production subsequently soared on a number of small eastern Atlantic islands, &ere volcanic soil and freyuent rain made for ideal condidons. The riny Madeiras came to dominate the sugar i n d u s q in the late fifteenth century, and produced more than eight hundred tons of the "white gold" the yrar Colurnbus sailed past on h s way to the New KTc~rld. But although growing conditions were ideal, the Madeiras and other Atlantic islands were small, and producdon there eventually declined due to soil exhausdon. The Pommguese founded new sugar plantarions on a larger island just off h e coast of Africal which they christened St. Thornas. Sugar production here eventually surpassed that of the Madeiras in the early 1500s. The Mrican slave laborers escaped into the interior mountains of Sr. Thornas, however9where they waged war so effectively that the Portuguese evenmally abandoned the island. By the xnid-sixteenth century, sugar was cn~ssingthe Atlantic to a new, spacious home in northeastern Brazil. With sugar, Africans came into the New Rrorld. Lisbon's merchants, anxious to continue in their lucrative slave trading, linked up with mlonial planters who had failed to find an adequate alternative in Indians, given the sparse coastal populations. Capturing and shipping hundreds of thousands of &uricansout of their homelands was a fc~rmidabletask. C o n a a v to what one might expect, whites did not venture deep into Africa in search of

slaves. Instead, they established aading posts along the west coast and bartered rum, tobacco, and light ~nanufacmredgoods for slaves delivered by other Mricans. The arrival of whites sparked an increase in tribal violence in the intcl-ior of Africa, Wan-ing partjes turned their captives over to the Europeans, and individuals used enslave~nentas a Ineans of ridding themselves of despised enemies and rivals. There was no shcjrtage of hum n produce in the trading posts of coastal Africa, For the slaves themselves, the initial branding marked the beginning of a long hell. Crossing the South Atlantic in what was called the "Middle Passage*" they were strrffed helow deck on overcl-owded vessels and depl-ived of sufficient food and water. Often chained in positions allowing for little mobility, their limbs went numb or muscles cramped up, while seasickness and defecation produced a nauseating stench. About trhe slave ship, one eighteenth-centuly African later wnlte: ah! who can describe. . . . QTe were thrust into the hold of the vessel in a state of nudity, tfie rtlates being cra~tlrnedon one side, and tfie females on the other; the hold was so low that we could not stand up, day 2nd night were the game tc.o us, sleep being denied us from the confilled positioz-t czf our l>tzdies,and we became desperate tfirottgh sueering and fatig~e.. . . The only food we had during the voyage was corn soaked and t)oiled. %VCsuffered very xnuck for want of water, but trtias denied afl we needed. A pint a day was all &at was aUowett, and no more; and a great r t l a q sfaves died upon tfie passage." Z t s horrors,

lliiloriTrated by profit, slave traders calculated that it was xnore cost effective to fill their ships with humans and let soIne die than to sacrifice cargo space to sug3plies of food and freshwater. The best evidence indicates tbat about 10 percens of African slaves perished in transit. Those who amived in the New World were badly ~nalnourishedand depleted, prompting Portuguese sugar planters in Brazilian markeq3laces to probe, jab, and thoroughly inspect new arrivals in order to gauge their remaining stl-ength and durability. Plantation life was predictably harsh. Slaves worked in the cane fields from dawn to dusk. Planters routinely failed to supply adeyuatt; food, insisdng instead that Africans grow their own vegetables on small plots of marginal land, which they were permitted to work on Sundays. This practice, which infuriat-ed lnaflfipriests (urho wanted slaves to aaend mass instead of laboring on the Sabbath), rarely yielded sufficient harvests. Malnutridon, coupled with physical abuse, produced a high mortality rate, with an average life expeetanq of about twelve years for newly arrived Africans in Brazil, Death was so hequent, and cl-Iurclz burials so expensive and inconvenient, that many whites disposed of slave bodies by discarding them in nearby forestri or unmarked common graves.

Most of the Africans imported into Brazil (75 percent) were young ~nales.But a smaller, fe~naleslave population took hold in the colony's port cities, where many LUricanwomen were put to work as domesdc servants. For quite some time, histrrl.-iansassumed that their lives contrastlrd greatly with the brevity and bmtaliy of those of their Inale counterparts. Newer scholarshp counters this assumpdon. Under the supervision of rich white lvomen, female slaves were subjected to kequent abuse. The plalvl/rtwz'n,a paddle-like device with holes, was applied to all parts of the slave's body, including her breasts. Legal documents reveal that even kjlling female slaves was not uncommon; one enraged and imaginative mistress chained her slave's face to a stove and cooked her alive, Given the severiy of a slave's life, it comes as little surprise that many risked death in an att.empt t i r regain freedom. In nt1rther-n Brazil, colonial planters had an ongoing proble~nwith runaways. Fleeing into nearby jungles, blacks congregated in small villages, or gailombos-an African word for a war canzp-whert; they reinvented African ways of fik and fought tenaciously with slave-rewieving expeditions. Excavadons were undertaken a t the site of the most farnous quilcjmho, Palmares, in the mid-19Ws. At its height, in the seventeenth centctry, Palmares was home to nearly ten thousand inhabitants. It was so powerful that it negotiated treaties with surrc~undingplantadons, in which both parties agreed to foregc, raiding and mumally coexist. Despite their occasionally effeccivr: resistmce, h i c a n s made the Portupese rich. They turned Brazil (more properly, isolated sections of its most of the refined cane, hownorthern coast) into a grand wgar ~01011~~ ever, was sold to foreigners, as the wealth, population, and power of Pmtestant northern Europe rose during the colonial period. Evenmally, some sugar-importing nations entertained ideas of growing the wonder crop thernselves. T h e Dutch, whose enormous xnerchant xnarirte ptied most of the world's oceans during the seventeenth centur): coveted the cane fields of northeastern Brazil 2nd eventually toc~kthem bj7 force. From 1630 to 1654, Holland occupied Pernambuco, with its port of Reeife. Though they were eventually driven out by planters loyal to the Portupese crown, h t c h entrepreneurs ieamed from the experience of occupation, and took their know led^ about sugar planting with them as they m~jvedelsewhere in search of wealth. Where could northwest Europeans grcllv their own crops? A number of Protestant nations eyed the Caribbean in the seventeenth century, where Spanish naval and colonial authoriy had badly deeriorated. Their navies seized small islands in the Lesser h t i l l e s , where sugar planters found near-perfect conditions. But the depopulated islands lacked a worHarce. Insl~iredby the Iberian examl3le and already heavily involved in the slave trade, the Dutch 2nd other nurth Eumpeans continued to sub,iect Mi.jcans

to the whip. Slavery under the French and the north Europeans was as brutal as that under the Portuguese and Spanish. Savage working conditions and an acute lack of sustenance marked the treament of slaves in the as Caribbean, many of whom perished or resisted. Runawq~s,or WE~D-CIOI~~C, they were called (fro~na Spanish word rneaning "people of the hlls"), had few options on the small islands, and they were often recaptured. Many French masers employed three tiers of punishment: The first captrure rssulted in the loss of an ear; the second, in the severing of a foot; and the thrd, in death-by creadve methods such as bur9ng the African up to his neck, covering his head in cane sap, a d alto\ving fire ants to gnaw a t him until I-reexpired, Despite their ruthlessness, French planters lost c o n ~ o of l their largest slave colony, Saint Dominpe, located on the western third of Hispaniola. The s~nallerislands of the Lesser htilles had been great for sugar, but some were too mountainous, and many of those under cultivation suffered from soil depletion within a few decades. Hence, north Europeans sl-rifted their operadons to the Greater hndlles. In 1655, Oliver Cromwell engineered the English capture of Jamaica, and large plantations that met Uritainhugar denzands were eventuaily Jevef tjyed there. l"he French, in coneast, only gradually absorbed western Hispaniola, decades after its pihad explored its inlets and used them as hideoutq. rates, called bucr~z~ec~-s, Dul-ing the eighteend7 centur;ti Saint Dc~mingueblosson~ed.as sugarcane flourished in its central valley. But by 1790, the colony's white populadon was outnumbered eleven to one, and harried by a sizable manlon population hiding in remote mountains. The political instatlilit). of the French Kewlutiurz dit-ided dolrists and compounded their vulnerabiliq~,and in Aupst 1791 the heart of Saint Domingue erupted in race war. One thousand whites, or about 3.2 percent of the bench population, were killed in short order, and others fled frorn the interior to the ports, where many boarded ships for Louisiana or France. Napoleon, the French Emperor, attempted to pacify the Africans with a portion of his Europe-conquering army But the determined former slaves would have none of it; they offered a relentless resistance. French warriors were stupefied. In one early battle, the French field commander men waved a Nag of truce so that he could cross the battle lines and corn~nendhis worthy opponents. Prolonged fighting sapped French morale and turned the insurrection into a bitter contest marked by atrocities; but er;entualiy, it culminated in freedom for the wrl& first black: republic, Haiti, in 180.1. Today, Haiti is the most visible reminder of the ct~lonialinsri~tionof African slavery After hreaking free, it lapsed into poverty and isolation, with sugar production plu~nrnetingby mro-thirds and only no~ninaltrade and contact with the outside world during much of the nineteenth century Europeans shunned it, and southerners in the h i t e d States feared

the ra~nificationsof even recognizing its sovereignty. h e r i c a did appreciate Haiti's strategic importance, however, in the age of stearn and steel. The U.S. Xavy, which dominated the Caribbean at the outset of the twentieth cent-ury, transported an occupation force of ~Var-inesinto Haiti during World War I. Black Haitians and mostly southern-bred, white Marines did not get along well. Insurgents resisted the occupation, and only the fear of swift punishment yuellect the Haitians. C:harlensagne Pkralte, the fore~nostHaitian guerrilla leader, was betrayed into the hands of h e r i c a n s by a corrupt associate and was executed. His body was ded to a door and defaced with a Haitian Bag and a large aucilix. A famtrus painting of his corpse helped turn him into a legendary figure--one that inspired Haitians decades later, when Haiti again posed difficuldes for the United States. Haiti's ruling elite are light-slanned, reflecting a blend of white French and black &frican ethniciv (commonly called m~itrtto). H4lthough in Haiti this pigmentation is rare-less than 3 percent of the population have it-in Brazil, since the colonial era, a large mulatto populadon has emerged. In coastal areas arclund Recife and Salvador live millions of mr~lattoesand hl acks-the descendants of slaves. In fact, roughly half of Brazil's massive population can claim some degree of Mrican heritage. h d although most Africans were shipped primarily into Brazil and the Caribbean, tens of thousands, especially during the sixteenth century, ended up in colonial Spanish ports. Some African communities thoroughly assimilated into the general population over rime, so that in Buenos Aires, for example, there is almost no black presence left today. But others were peq~etuaad-fi)r exarnde, in Venezuela and PanamB, where the descendancs of Aft-ican slaves have contributed unique qualities to the nadonal cultures, in music, dance, and cuisir~e. Their most noticeable contribution is no doubt in religion: Africanbased spiritualism has not only sur.rrlved but has won many new adherents. In norheastern Brazil, Candomhik and t'mbanda are major religions; and almost all Haitians, even though they consider themselves Christians, continue to practice voodoo. These African religions involve a pantheon of gods, or spirit-beings; fernre highly emotional services and ""yussessions'" by spirits; and have a mystical element that often strikes outsiders as bizarre. Honrjr is accorded to ancestors, such as Zumbi-the warlord of Palmares, who is now venerated in the Umbanda faith, Haitians pay homage a t the t o ~ n bof Baron Sa~nedi,a Lord of the Dead who is believed to possess his sdll-living followers. In contrast to caricatures fueled by ima g a in film and on television, voodoo practitioners do not spend their nights sticking pain pins into dolls and chopping off chicken heads. h in Brazilian spiritualism, they prirnarily anend fesdve ceremonies that feamre lt~uddmm beating, distinctive music, and emotionaii excitement. S p i r i ~ a l

possessions, if they come, are not ~nuchmore ~anscendentthan the "slaying by the spirit" experienced by soIne U.S. Pentecostals. hnd a1thoug.h supersddons such as the Haitian belief in zombies (the enslaved dead) persist, they rarely tire] practices more dangert~usthan, for example, the poisonous snake handling pracdced by funda~nentalistChristian sects today in sclrne areas of rural Ag3palachia. The Golortial Church

At the same dme as millions of Haidans and Brazilians en~braceAfrican spirimalis~n,Inost also profess Christianity. This Inay at first seem conwadica~ry;the mixing of diverse traditions, however, is central to Latin h e f i c a n religious experience. For the majority of the populatitsn, the descendan~of whites and Indians, it is a process borne uf the era of conquest. Wlien Colurnbus sailed the Atlan~cin search of the spice islands, he was dr-iven by a desire both to enrich 'himself and to promote his religion, Similarly, a foot soldier in Cartis's army wrote that Spaniards came to "serve God and get rich." Nthtlugh the history of early encounters, especially the harsh abuse of Indians, suggesfs that greed ultjmately predominated in the range of motives, Spaniards of all backgrounds understood and often jusdfied their actions through their faith. Religion was an integral part of the C:onquest. As in the Caribbean, mendicants (vow-taking clerics) followed their countrpien onto the mainland of the h e r i c a s and soon were in~racring directly wish their new Indian charges. VVho were these milllcjns of natives, they pondered, and why had God put them in a world of their own, apart from the saving message [of the Gospel? Questions about the discovery of the New World and its peoyles pel-plexed many thinkers and provided fodder for decades of discussion back in Spain, To &as Casas, the Dominican heir of h t o n i o de ~Mrontesinosand tireless ""defender of the Indians," the anwer was simple: Indians were fully human and capable of saving faith, although in the short term, at least, they warranted veatment as childlike junior brothers in Christ. To others, most notably a lawyer named Juan de SepGlveda, who opposed Las Casas in a series of famous mid-sixtwnthcentury debates, they were namrally reprobate: evil, homosexual, smpid brutes, inherently lazy and best enslaved for their own good. Sep~lveda's position enjoyd considerable popular support; but much of the Church hierarchy favored Las Casas9sview--a view that sanctioned clerical expansion, and in time, helped make the Catholic church a major institudon in colonial societ-)r. In the sixteenth century, after Spaniards conquered Indians with the sword, priests bent on a conquest of their own arrived with the cross. In ~Mexicoa Franciscan friar, Toribit? de Benavente, walked barefoot with

eleven brothers from Veracruz to Mexico City. This open embrace of hardship was telling: a missionary zeal, Spanish priests had resolved to win this vast new world to the Christian faith. Their passion for st.>uls was compounded by a sense of urgency: Surely the discovery of the h e r icas was apocalypdc, portending the imminent remrn of Christ! The rapid sgxead of fatal diseases among the Indians signaled impending judgment, makit~gthe work of salvation vitally importmt. Ft3r manj: Indians, postConquest change also evoked a special spiritual longing. Many lncan peoples, for example, anticipated remming deities and new epochs in a manner that enabled them to accept the idea of universal f r n a l i ~ .Such coInrnon theological threads facilitated the fusion of native and Catholic religious practices. This mixing, or syncretism, greatly aided the church in its spiritual conquest of the New WorZd. (;etring Indians to fully abandon their polytheis~n,however, was difficult. In venerating myriad saints, h d i ans retained a theological mmmonaliry with their ancestors even while accepting basic Czhristian dcjgma, Syncretism was both a calculated and an informal process. In an example of i a most swategized form, the Church hierarchy encouraged devodon to the reputed appearance of Mary; the mother of God, in central Mexico in I53 l. A Christianized Indian na~nedJuan Diego, so the story goes, encountered the Vrgin on a hill north of Mexico City. Knowing that there WCIU~CI be skegticsl she gave him a bunrile of tltnvers, which he carefi~Xty wrapped in his serape (cloak). Upon conferring with the archbishop, 'Juan Diego unfolded the cloth--and discovered inside it an image of the Mrgin with significantly dark skin. Tr-re spcretic cult of the Mrgin of Gadalupe that was founded on &is myth has since flourished, particularly in the seventeenth century, wooing many narives to the <:atholic faith: They could understand she "\"irgin of C;uradalupe in the context of traditrional female goddesses such as Xnantzin, who was believed to protect the people. For many Indians, then, adoption of Chrisrianilty did nrtt translate into a complete break with the past; the C:hurch understood the need for continuity. The shrines and pyra~nidsof natives were often leveled by the conquerors and replaced with churches. To the Spaniards, these buildings symbolized the triumph of Catrjlctlicism over heathen cults. To Indians, they simply honored a still-holy place. So~netimesthe builders shrewdly used the same stones that had once supported altars and pyramids, even with native script facing oumard, so that Cathuiicism's condnuiw with prior beliefs would not be missed, Yet despite the syncretic nature of post-Conquest (:atholicism, some features of native and European xligious e d i t i o n s could not be reconciled. Both the dyna~nicsof the comrsioxl process and the extent of Indian subversion of church doctrine c o n ~ n u eto draw the interest of scholars. O n the first, the evidence cuts both ways; Studies of baptismal records in-

dicate that families were not uniformly converted--and that differences of opinion and volition were hurtored. Conversely, hktorians cmdnue to find coercive diinensions to conversion in Peru and elsewhere. Economic and social henefits enticed Indians to convert, but lapses in faith often resulted in severe pamishtnen~. Even decades after the Conquest, many priests expressed frustration with the stubborn "waywardness"' of their Indian charges. Nlany natives sitnply refused to abandon their gods. Pre-Contact rimals persisted. The Inca, who venerated their mumnlified ancestors (whose remains were stored in caverns) and rejected Christian concep.ts of underground hurial, so~netimesdug up corpses in church ce~neteriesto free their ancesnal souls from the "weight of the earth." Practices starkly different from those of Catholicism, such as blood sacrifices and erotic forms of dancing, condnued in secret, away from the eyes of zealous Catholic priests. The discovery of native rituals among Maya in the Yucatgn in 1562 triggered a smallscale inquisition, during which Franciscan f r i a r s tortured thousands to elicit confessions and "purge the body of Christ" of rekindled paganism. Many Indian revolts during the colonial era were deef3ly ded to religious tensions as well as economic and political ones. The mendicants-&at is, the fianciscms and Boxninicans-dominated the evangelical work in the populated areas of the New World. Differences of opinion and men rivalries between these two arms of the C:hw-ch were not uncommon. Dominicans, with their e~nphasison education, b o r e d baptisrn only after instrucdon, whereas the Franciscans tended to preach and baptize at a faster pace, By the 12132 sixteenth centurlY;bath were joined by thejesuits, who earxled a reputatrion as scholars a d established some of the ixemier institutions of learning in Ladn Ak~erica. As latecomers on the nzission scene, Jesuits ended up doing much of the most dangerous field work among remote and very primitive peoples on the irnperial fringes. They pacified the (Guarani, in present-day Paraguay, and scoured desert lands in northern ~Vexicoin search of souls. In time, mendicants were eclipsed by "seculars," or non-vow-taking clerics ded directly to the (Ihurch hierarchy. Less zealous and more accustomed to comfi)rt, these priests saw to the wolstdlp needs of the Church, xnanaging a slowly accumulating fortune. T h e Church was growing wealthy on donadons from repentant conquerors-some making amends on their deadlbeds-as well as on profits from i t s own prosperous f2nning and missim operations. By the end of the colonial era, the Church was the largest landowner in Ladn America, and despite Biblical invectives against u s u ~behaved ? much like a bank in extendkg credit and lending money Handcrafted gold and silver work decorated the elaborate interiors of countless baroque altars, and the carefully plastered exteriors often rivaled those of the houses of worship in Europe.

Seculars also largely supervised the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which arrived in Inost of the New Wbrld during the late sixteenth cenmry. h often misunderstood ins.citution, it presewed social and moral norlns and was rarely feared or resented hy the majr~ritqrof the population, In Inany ways it functioned as a censorship board, preserving the do~ninant cultural and intellectual assumptions of the societal mainstream. A pkthora of iesser ofknses, mainly blasphemies, filled much t ~ the f Inyuisition's roudne docket. M e n , for exa~nple,one colonial used a big cross in his front yard as a drying rack for chiles, Inquisitors were not amused. A nzedicaf. doctor who repeatedly compared the Pope's pronor1ncement;s to toilet paper also swffered fines and clerical queries. &lost cases of blasphemy were mundane and resulted in mild punishments, such as public recantation or g2enance. Much more serious, however; were those inuolvjng heresy. For this slnall group of cases, the Inquisition is infamous: This institudon persecuted Jews, many of whom had come to Latin America in order to practice their faith quietly, as well as Protestants and w a v a r d intellectnrals. The nu~nberof persons burned a t the stake was minuscule; and in these cases, too, a decided majority of colonials appear to have appreciated the st~cialcontrol prc~videdhy the Holy Office, Autos-da-f6, or public rimals of penance, were in fact occasions for celebradon. One of the most famous wtlmen of ct~lonialSpanish Lh~erica--awoman who oEten flirted with danger .cis-8-vis the Inquisition and Church authorities--was Juana Inks de la Cruz, co~nmonlyknown as Sor Juana (Sister Juana). Juana was a nun who wrote beautiful poetry and ever-so-subtly yestioned socistal assumptions, especially regardin g the place of wonlen, In one fa~nousverse, nicely aanslated into English, she asked:

by the scame lazr;iessfiver: She who Is arnor..ozls[y deceired, or he, the sly deceber=i" 01-which deser~esthe sterner" bittme9 rbor~ghegch wzlj be a sirzner: %She>who bmmes n whorclfkrpgy, of*he, who pr{y.f tu w21"2 kmF

Sor Juana, like many women of wealthy backgrounds, found refuge in the convent, which provided the only Ineans by which she could achieve an intellectual life. <:onvents flourished in colonial Latin Lh~erica. The only viahle choice for light-skinned women other &an marriage, they enjoyed popularity despite steep entry fees and long waidng lists. Nuns acquired a modicum of social responsibility and influence by running charities and administering assistance to the poor,

Convents, as well as the Church itself, fared poorly after Latin Americans achieved independence in the early nineteenth century. Today, although the vast majority of Latin Americans still view themselves as Gatftolics, the influence of the Church ill evevday life is gxatly diminished in co~nparisonwith colonial times; and although Inany still habimally cnlss themselves as they pass by a church, many also rarely go inside. Since the mid-wentieth centuv, Protestant missional-ies, inconceivable in colonial times, have roa~nedLatin h e r i c a with few constraints. Aded by radio and television programs beamed in by h ~ e r i c a nevangelicals, they have won converts by the millions in recent qrears, In 1960, all of Latin Anerica had only 5 million Protestants; by 1990, there were more than 45 million (a period of growth coinciding with the rise of television). Large Protestant movements, often Pentccost;ll in nature, have h e p n to rival the Catholic church in Argentina, parts of Brazil, Qatemala, northern Mexico, and elsewhere. The emotional fervor and rigid morality of many fundamentalist sects have proved suprlsingly appealing to a range of Latin h e r i c a n s , from highly hericanized, middle-class suburbanites to impoverished Maya Iildians still living in remote villages. Religic,us bonds fulfil1 a need for communiv in an increasirlgb insecure age, in which waditional ethnic and fax~~ilial ties have weakened; and cbarisxnadc emotionalism pmvides the poor an escape frt~mtheir difficult daily lives. The Golortiai Smre

The second great colonial instimtion in Spanish Latin h e r i c a was the government, or state, which worked alongside the Church. Just as the Reconquest wedded faith with warfare in the Spanish psyche, so it linked the crtlwn with the a-oss,'2'he practice of royal patronage allowed the king (instead of the Pope) to appoint high church officials in the Xew World, and usually there was little tension between the twin syrnbols of Spanish a u t h o r i ~ the : Palace and the Catf-tedral..The state coltected the mandatory church tax, the diezmo, which linked the two instimtions together financially With the average journey hemeen Spain and the Anlerican mainland taking well over three inonths, Spain's direct governance of its vast colonies was impractical. Realizing this, the crown established assistant kingships, or .cicen>;valties,in the New World, In the mid-sixteenth tent ~ % viceroyal~eswere formed in Peru and Mexico, the two most populous regions. In the mid-eighteenth century, recognizing the rising importance of peril3heral areas, the a - w n designated two additional viceregal d i s ~ i c a in Colo~nbia(New C;ranada) and kgentina (La Plata). T h e arrival of viceroys, or assistant kings appointed by the cmwn, occasioned much pomp and fanfare in these coloniat centers,

Back in Spain, a panel of bureaucrats called the Royal Council of the Indies was formed in 1524. Gven the task of drafting laws and issuing decrees for the Xew World, the Council insg3ired an enorlnous bureaucracy and generated much papem-ork. Yet even early on, some v i c e r o ~realized that many of its instructions were imprudent or irrelevant. Thus was coined the most farnous phrase in the political history of colonial Spanish h e f i c a : Ilbedezco, p v u rpu r~nkplo(I obey9but I do not comply). Vicerclys sent this message back to the Royal Council and king, whch tesdfied to their loyalty at the same time that it signaled that they would refrain from implementing unwise instmctions. When the first viceroys arrived in the New Rbrld, there were tensions between them and the conquerors. T h e men who had subdued Indian kingdoms, mostly frc~xnthe Zcnvetr classes, resented the arrival of ncrbles and layers, who above all else, had come to obtain soxne wealth of their own and to collect taxes. M e n Per& first viceroy tried to enforce crown directives, colonists killed him. From 1544 to 1547, Pem.cian Spaniards were on their own, ceding anew to royal authoritp only with amnesties and prc~misesof less interference. In ~Mexicothe son of conqueror Hemhn Gortbs invclived himself in a similar antiviceregai plot, the discovery of which forced hrn into early political redrement. Spain's governing representatives took control of Xew World realms slcnvlp. By the late sixteentlz centuv, however, the power of the viceroy and crown was firmly established. Gc~vernxnentperrneated to the corners of empire, and equaled the Church in its social and economic significance. A web of offices and lesser bureaucracies emerged helow the viceroys. Panels of judges, called nwdz'encz'c11.~, functioned as a second tier of royal aurhority and oversaw far-flung subregions. Multiple tiers of other posts, including governorships, had Iesser geographic parameters, with the smallest unit cornprising the mzd~zicipio(municipal disaict). CnbildoJ (town councils) managed municipios, and depending on the importance of the town, had only a few or more than a dozen members. C:afiriidos kept public order, replated the marketplace, rnairlmined roads, and semed as civil coura of first instance. The oft-recognized azhiMo abiefto, or open council, was an invitation-on1y k>mmti3r making important decisions, and usualiy involved on1y the town's elite. Gtllollial government favored the rich, and its administrarion of justice was pardsh. Spain did not p r o d e its colonies with clean or efficient governxnent. One reason for this was the overlapping nature of offices and functions. Each tier issued decrees and heard appeals-there was no separation of powers-making for a mess of laws a d v * n gbureaucratic interests. In one sense this worked to the benefit of the crown, which frequently stepped in as the final arbiwator in disputes. It was not, however, a system conducive to smooth administration. Furthermtrre, dul-ing the breadtll of

the colonial era, the q u a l i ~ of ofificeholders deteriorated. The New Rbrld became less ixzlportant and less ateactive to the Spanish m r time, and &c best and brightest preferred to pursue careers at home. Even more darnaging was the crc~\vn'sgpractice of selling colonial offices to the highest bidder as a means of raising money. By the eighteenth century, even viceregal posts were up for sale. Bureaucrats who bought their oftices for high prices did so with the intent of recouping the expense by graft and by doting sut political favors. Over time, predictabl~elites burn and raised in the New Wc~rldhad or colomore t i r gain by holding office than did Spaniards. These c;~-iokIo~~~ nial~born of white-skimed, Spanish-descend& parent.s, caxne to do~ninate offices by the middle of the colonial era. For nearly tuio hundred years, little about the s&ucmre or style of ccrionial government changed (though its quality declined); but in time, the Spanish crown realized that an overhaul of the system could revitalize it. Criollos were very disappointed with this reorganization when it came, under a new Spanish dpast;v, in the eighteenth cenmrJi, The House of Bourbon acquired the Spanish throne at the outqet of the 1700s and determined to initiatc reforms to reinGgorate the empire and replenish royal coffers. Both political connections and aade b e ~ e e nthe mother countr-y and its colonies had slackened, LMindful of new ideas about nzertantilism and enlightened mle, Buudon kings set out to try and restore Spain's wealth and glory. The Bourbon reforms saetched over decades, though the most meaninghl restl-ucturing took place in the 1760s and X 770s. Economically, the Bourbon crown attempted to revive Spain's moribund economy by increasing nade with its colonies. Since the mid-sixteenth cenrur): when pirates frequently raided imperial ships on the open seas, the monarchy had closely controlled shipping by organizing large fleets--more easily protected by naval escort-and routing its merchant marine into specific ports, This tightly managed sptem f'acilitated trade monopolies, and in each ~najorentrepet a powerful group of ~nerchantshad arisen. By the eighteenth century, however, Spain's naval might had withered, and smuggliing was so widespread that the old resu.ictit>tlsno longer made sense. 7 b e Bourbons opened new ports, lowered duties, and shelved monopolistic restrictions. Shipping costs declined, more ships visited ports legally, and tax revenues rose, m e n it came to crade, the Spallisfi Bourbons were especlalfy ixlrerested in importing more silver. A second area of reform thus involved New Wc>ddmines. Once tremendously productive, the silver mining operasions of Peru and Mexico had lapsed illto disrepair over tirne. Bourbon kings sought to reinvigcjrate them. They opened a mining school in Mexico City, sent teams of n~ostlpCkrn~antechnicians to solve drainage problems, and

adjusted the tax code to encourage new exploration and production. Mercury (or "quicksilver"), used during the colonial era to process silver ore, became more readily available and served the crown as a lucrative monopoly, ld1 of these eRcjrts on behalf of silver mining helped account t i ~ pror duction increases, though Ladn America's mines never returned to their sensational mid-sixreenth- and early-seventeenth-century levels that had funded European wars and had made Spain rich. Beyond economic reforms, the Bourbons reorganized colonial government. In addition t-o the two new viceroyalties, they created new uudlencias and consolidated lower bureaucratic offices into powerful refSional posts called Intendances. Intendants received extensive tax-collecting, auditing, and adrninistradve a u t h o r i ~most ; significantly, to the chagrin of criollos who had become accusttlmed tr, purchasing offices, they were ovemlhelmingly peni~zst~ig~-es, or Spaniards (literally, those from the peninsula), appointed by the king. A n d even worse for colonials, the Bourbons increased taxes. Duties on a range of local p r o d u c ~and inlports rose sharply, generadng resentment and even sparking occasional riots and rebellions. A bloody Indian uprising in Peru in 1780 was, in part, inspired by new taxation and mine labor drafts; and new duties on alcoholic beverages triggered riots in New Granada. Cc~lonialmismst of SpainGntentions increased as tfiose tax reventres began to be used to firlance standi~lgamlies in the h e r i c a s , Spain's priInary concern was the expansion of French and Endish holdings in North Arnerica and the Caribbean. The crown recognized that its empire was vcrlnerablc, and it had new fr}rtresses consmcted at major ports and on the fronder of northern Mexico in order to deter encroach~nent.By the 1790s, more than half of Spain's expenditures on behalf of its colonies went for defense. But the presence of troops under the command of peninsulares spawned new suspicions among colonials and heightened criollo distrust of Spaniards. With a mind toward consotidating its rule and raising revenue, the Bourbons also expelled the powerful Jesuit order fi-om the New World in 1767. The Jesuits, who answered directly to the Pope, had been materially successful in the colonies, amassing property, managing lucrative missions, and educating sons of the criollo elite in prestigious schools. The expulsion enriched the crown and weakened a potentially disloyal wing of the Church; but it further annoyed the wealthy crioltos, who appreciated the Jesuits' work. Many of the twelve hundred priests expelled were criollos themselves, and some became outspoken critics of the Bourbons. In a second sense, too, the cro\vn may have lveakened its position with the expulsion: The Jesuits and the Church were bulwarks against new ideas filtering in from northern Europe. Enlightenment notions of limited monarchy, conszritrrti~naIism~ and natural rights, which inspired revolutions in France

and (hyorth) America, also found their way into criollo heads, primarily thou$ books ~nadeInore available thou$ the weakening of the Church. All told, then, the Bourh~nrefc~nnseffecdvely dmve a wedge between lvhites horn in the hTewWorld and those from Spain. After nearly three hundred years of colonialissn, elites in the late eighteenth cenmly had little loyalty to the Spanish king. The arrival of Bourbon bureaucrats made them receptive to new ideas-ideas of governing thert~seilvesand creating their own national idenddes.

Indepenrdercree and Its Aftermath Ladn America's wars of independence were triggered by events in Europe. After the French Revolrrticjn of -t789?a series of conflicts ensued that weakened links b e ~ e e nthe colonies and the motherland, and den~onsrrated Spain's second-rate military status. In 1796 the British warred against Spain and blockaded its ports, ehctively sllattering the Bourbon sptem of xnercantilist: trade, In 1806, without: authorization, British Adxniral Sir Home Popham seized the viceregal capital of Buenos Ares, again causing chaos and reveaiing the vulnerability of the Spanish empire. Athougb ousted by Spanish colonials, the British had unwittingly helped set in motion forces for independence. fil-encomt7assing chaos ensued in 1807-1808, when Napoleon sent an army into Spain in order to attack Portugal, which had refused to abide by his continental system prohibiting trade with Britain. The French invasion put thdt~rtuguesecrolvn to flight: Boarding British naval ships, the royal house and thousands of subjects sailed to Rio de 'Janeiro and made it their temporary imperial capital. Napoleon, meanwhile, refused to \Nithdraw his troops from Spain itself. He ren~ovedthe new Borrrban king, Ferdisland \ill, and placed his own brother on the throne. CascileS; religious peasantry soon rebelled, bogging French troops down in a protracted and difficult war, Throughout Latin Anerica, Spaniards deterxnined to rule in the nasne of Ferdinand. But the uncertainty of political events in Spain caused peninsular and cr-iol'lo divisions to explode. In aln~ostevev important colonial city, rival cabildos and juntas, or governing bodies, formed. Each claimed authority to rule in the name of the king. Xowhere was this divisiveness more acute than in Buenos Ares, where the cioJlo-dclmix~atedmilitia that had ousted the Bridsh reasse~nbledto usurp Spanish authority. Backed by rich merchant5 who wanted to liberalize aade policies, the militia soon hecame an army of independence, and in 1810 a new ""IJnited Provinces of La Plata" was formed. Buenos Atres sent its arlny inland to clear other areas of Spanish rule (and to exert its own control), Yet although Latin h e r i c a n s could drive

the Spaniards away without ~nuchdifficulty, criollo unity proved elusive. Regional interests predominated, and it was soon apparent that an independent South America would feature many nadons. Inland elites wanted nothing tc1 do with the new leaders in Buentls fires. 337 raised their own army and soon declared Paraguayan independence (1811). Uruguay, too, broke away, and even the area that today is known as Lbgendnawas not fully integrated until the mid-nineteenth centur_v;Bspitt: this, Argentinians played a prominent role in liberadng the southern half of the continent from Spain. Jose de San Martin, a criollo who had studied in Spain and fought the French until 1812, =turned home, organized a tightly disciplined arlny, and Inarched it across the steep h d e s into Chile and Peru. He helped found these new nations with the aid of local insurgents, although elites, especially in Peru, were badly divided and suspicious of his inten~ons, San Martin is recognized as one of two great independence heroes in South An~erica,He met the othel; his nort-hern cuuntevart, in Gtlaj7aquil, Ecuador, in I 822. Sirnon Btjlivar was the criolfo son uf a well-to-do merchant. During much of the 1810s he waged relentless and bloody warfare agGimlst Spaniards in ??e\v Granada (areas that vr.ould become Chlon~hia and Venezuela). At the Battle of Boyacg, in Auwst 181%his forces finally turned the dde, mopping up remaining resistance with the help of foreign mercenaries dur-ing the next couple of Fars. At their 1822 mee.ting, San lliilaruln deferred to Bolivar for the final operation inland----to an area &at: adopted the Lihemtor"r;ame, Bolivia, Although sometimes compared with revolutionaries and other national heroes, such as i\n,erica9s George Washington, neither San Martin nor Bolivar were visionaries or sons of the Enlightenment. Although they were certainly cognizant of Enlightenmem ideas, hoth men hv01"~tl. Inonarchism and re~nainedstaunchly conservative. As criollos, they viewed whites as superior, and Indians and mesrizos as incapable of selfmle. Lldeed, they and others who waged she wars of independence s@uggled for equality a t the top--be~een Spaniards and criollos, not for all citizms. And even though San Martin decreed changes in the status of Indians in Peru and elsewhere (decrees unifr3rmly ignored by local etlltes), he spent the re~nainderof lus life where he felt must comfortable: Europe. Independence movements in South Arnerica brought no meaningful social change. In fact, for most mestizos and Indians, it NFasas though nothing had happened. In Mexico, however, a genuine social revolution briefly exploded. In 1810 a criclillo priest, jealous of peninsular Spmniwds and longing for criollo equaliry, inadvertently launched a race war. Miguel Hidalgo, as every Mexican schoolchild lrows, rang the bells at his church in the small town of Delores on September 16, and rallied his Indian parishioners with

a moving speech. Under the banner of the Virgin of Gadalupe he led an "army" (it was more like a mob) in sacking a nearby city and killing its Spanish inhabitants (including an intendant), who had barricaded themselves in a grrrnary. In October his rebel forces, now sevenq thousand strong, approached Mexico City. illthou$ he could have easily defeated the small Spanish force that stood in his path, Hidalgo inexplicably ordered a retreat at the Battle of ~Msntede las Cruces, and his insurrection disintegrated as quickly as it had coalesced. He was hunted down, tried, and executed by the Inq-Lrisition. Hiddgo5 revolt is e ~ d e n c of e the deep r i b &at defined colonial societl;: m i t e s could not conceiw of darb-shtzned peoples either as ciciaens or as equals. To the educated, wealthy "people of reason," the Indian-blooded nzajoriv was brutish, irrational, and dangerous. It was tr? be feared and conaolled, not liberated. 'When Hidalgo's dark-slanned legions began to kill both peninsulares and criollos, all whites united in order to suplxess the rebellion, Mexico5 long stx-uggle for independence subseyuendy mutated. New, small perrilla forces were mustered under mestizos, and continued to face the opposition of both local and Spanish whites. In 1820, when Spaink government did a volte-face and embraced liberal constitrrtionalism, a criollo arIny officer, Apstin de imrbide, switched sides and marched his troops into Mexico City to establish a new empire. Ittrrbide'f break with Spain, unlike that attempted by Xllidallgo, was antirevolutionary. He issued a pronouncelnent, called the Plan of Iguala, in which he paranteed the legal privileges and status of the rich, his army, and the church. In an elaborate coronation he was named A ~ ~ s t I,i nEmperor of Mexico. Criollos supported him in large part because of his fiscal policies, which favored them. They displaced their peninsular rivals, who a few years later were thrown out of the countrq., Like independence in South hnerica, then, Mexico's independence brought change only at the top, Brazil obwined independence from krtugal in a similarly consernative fashion, and +&out bloodshed. Cbernxnent in the plantation-dominated colony had always been weak, and late-eighteenth-century reforms under the h'faryuis de Pombal were a faint echo of the Borrrban restx-uctrrringin Spanish domains. WiscoveI-ies uf- gold and diamonds in the suutfi-central region of Minas <;erais (General Mines) had shifted the populadon and made Rio Je Janeiro an imporant city*VVhen the Purtupese royal family arrived from Lisbon in 1808, they soon transformed the city. An influx of Pc~rtuyesemigrants and money provided reason and resources for an urban face lift, In 1816, when many in Europe expected King jo2o to return, he opted to re~nainin Brazil and elevate the colony to a starus equal to that of the motherland. Brewing discontent on both sides of the Atlantic forced his hand, however; and the rt~yalcourt departcd for Lisbon in 182 1, tewing

JoHo's son, Pedro, as regent. During the following year, colonial planters persuaded Pedro to have himself crowned as emperor of a fully independent Brazil while British naval might prevented a Portuguese invasion. hTewnationhood early in the nineseenth centuv may have changed Iiwle in terns of how people lived in Latin h e r i c a , but it denoted a sharp break with the institutional past. Suong government disappeared, and the Church also lost a great deal of i t s influence. W ~ e nscholars attributf: mday's formidable executive branch powers to a distant colonial histoly, they are reaching. In the wake of Independence, state authority wilted and Latin h e r i c a lapsed into regionalism. i\ifan~7factors were involved in this process. The central one was h a t the rich took Independence as a reasm to quit paying taxes. In nearly every new nation, after the Spaniards departed, tax revenues plummeted and gc~verrtmentcoffers ran dry In the 1820s Inany Latin ilrnerican nations turned to Eun~peanbanks for loans. wth a lack of revenues and declining exports, however, allnost none of those nations cotrid raise the hard cumncy necessaly to repay the loans. Defaulrs followed, and credit dried up. From the late 1820s until midcentury, there were exceedingly few big financial transacrions b e ~ e e Europe n or the United States and Latin h e r i c a . Thus, theorists who envision a "world system" lasting from the colonial epoch to the present day must also make a grand, ahisrtlrical stretch, In mid-nineteenth-cenmry Latin h e f i c a , political instakility and economic isolation were the order of the day. Despite this stagnation and chaos, criollo elites did well for themselves. Their peninsular rivals either willingly migrated home to Spain or were driven away Powerful merchants continued to dominate the economic life of each region or country, and under various legal rnechanislns many acy i r e d enormous tracts of land. Lart;f~rrdio,or tlte concentration of land in the hands of a few, had already been well established during the colonial period. Huge semifeudal estates, called bucicndns, dominated much of central ~Mexicoand elsewhere. In the wake of fndependence, the rich, lvhether liberals or coosemativcs, mercised political power to advance their own wealth. In hgendna, for example, a legal mechanism of Roman origin, the Law of Emphpeusis (182Q, equipl~edmerchants to huy up much of the paxnpas and d i v e r s i ~their wealth by moving into ranching. Elsewhere in Latin h e r i c a , elites acquired Church properGes-which were a major incentive for their allowing liberalism to triumph. In the g2ost-Independence era, enurmotrs loans were extended by the Church to elites, man);. of which were never repald. Because many wc~ulif-becolonial continuirjes with the present were broken during the Independence period, most pieces of the historical puzzle that help explain contemporary Latin hmerica originated after the midnixleteenth cenmry, Demographically, this should not surpris us. LZt the

time of Independence, &ere were fewer than 25 rnilliorl persuns in all of Latin h e r i c a ; tc~day&ere are 0.5 billion. 'C'be complexirjes of today" ssucieqr and its polidcal and economic smctures are myriad, and differ exceedingly from those that predominated in a simpler and long-ago age. The clearest beginnings of nod ern Latin h e r i c a rest in the late nineteen& and early ~ e n t i e t hcenturies.

4

Progress and

Atl7ough Latin An~el.jcawas independent hy the mid- 1820s, it was only after the mid-nineteenth cenmry that the region began to redevelop close economic ties with the otraide world. Trade increased and investment capital began to enter the region from Europe and to a lesser extent from the United States. The mantra of the age was '"Order and Progress," as the wealthy pursued new econo~nicopportunities, primarily by building railroads and expordng mineral and agricultural goods. Slowly, too, dictatorial regimes established polidcal s&bilit?r;These changes were sfnriking against the backdrop of mideentlury d i s u n i ~and isolation.

Nation-building in the Nineteenth Century Independence brorrght political instabiliry to Latin h e r i c a , Once Spanish authoriy had disappeared, rich criollo elites could not arrive a t a consensus about who should govern, or how. A small number of wealthy, lightskintled men constittlted a political ciass in each nation. Xearly everywhere, they split into two caInps, called liberals (or federalists) and conservatives. The liberals entertained ideas bequeathed them by the Enlightenment: nodons of equalitlr, rights protected by constitutions, separation of powers, and decentralized, or federal-svle, rule. Many looked to the United States for inspirarion. Conservatives clung to the region's Hispanic heritage, g2rofFering strongly cent-ralized author-ity,hierarchy, and order---often by endorsing monarchism. T h e confusion and disruption wrought by the wars of independence weighed heavily on their minds; they feared that wifltout saong leadership their tender nations would flounder into anarcbji, Liberals and conservatives also were divided regarding the role of the Church. "Ilhough no Latin h e r i c a n nation u n h c k e d <:atfrroficism in fa-

vor of religious plurality, liberals sought to weaken the status and role of the Church, Predictably9bishops and pies& rallied to the cause of the conservatives. In time, the Church becanle the hrernost isst~eover which politicized eIites clashed. With deep divisions among the wealthy, bankrupt national treasuries, and large military forces, what transpired in nearly all of former Spanish h e f i c a comes as no surpr-ise, From Mexiccs to Chile, popular presidents (usually acclaimed heroes of Independence) who had held office only a few years were toppled by barracks coups. Competitive groups of liberals and conservatives plotted against each other and regularly werthrew dteir rivals by marching out the troops. Oficeholders, certaiil that their time was limited, despaired of providing clean government and concentrated instead on enriching themselves. Only in Brazil was there anphing akin to stahility, and that was because of the continuation of a Pormguese-bequeathed mtsnarchy. Elite disunity contributed to a process of kagmentation in much tsf Latin hnerica, as the wealthy rehsed to share authorirqr; Clnce-unified Central h ~ e r i c abroke into pieces, and many interior regions of South ~ a new kind of leader h e l . i c a remained isolated. By the 1 8 3 0 ~however, began to emerge: the caudillo. Neither liberals nor conservadves, caudillos were not much concerned with political ideology. They ruled by personalism-that is, by building a ne~vorkof loyalties and rewarding their associates as they acquired power. Historians have long viewed caudillos in a negadve light, regarding them as rank opportunists. But their rule ala, can he interpreted more posiGri.eIy: In rising above the petty rivalries and ongoing ideological debates of localized elites, caudillos expanded state authority and held nadons together. The two most famous caudillcis were at opposite ends of what was once Spain's vast empire: Juan Manuel de Kosas of hgentina, and h t o n i o Lhpez de Santa h n a of Mexico. Rosas dominated Buenos Ares and the surrounding countr.yside from the early 1831)s until 1852, The son of a ~nilitaryofficer and a wealthy gentlewoman, as a young adult he saw firsthand the nearly two decades of intermittent strife that frayed hrgenrine society and dismyted husiness and commerce. Accordingly, like other caudillos, he placed a high premium on order. Rosas was, in many ways, a vintage despot--feariul of the masses and willing t t ~ hold them at bay through state tenwt: Known as the "Restorer of the Laws'? because he made pecrple ohey authority, in reality he was a law unto himself. His often arbitrary punishment of criminals and political enemies was meted out by henchmen meanknown as the mcrzo;m-a term derived h r n the Spanish mds 1;701.~a, ing "more hangings." The preferred net hod of slaying was a slit to the thrc~at(predictable, given the cattle culture of the nearby pampas); and headless copses routinely appeared in the streets of Buenos Ares, \NitEl the

severed heads swaying from poles or city balconies. This controlled violence had its proponenu;: Rosas's regime enjoyed the support of the merchant-ranching elite, and for the most part, of the (:hurch, both of which were t'ed up with the near anarchy and persistent crime. Similarll?; in i%e~ico,h t o n i o Lbpea, de Santa a was fundamentally autht~ritarian,though his eclectic mix of politics defies the tidy category of ""conservatjve." Ruling artrund the same time as Rosas @a. 1829 tr> 1859, he dominated the political life of his counw, serving as its president on eleven separate occasions. He rose to prominence when he rebelled in supplrt of a liberal, only to overthrow the same man-in the name of conservatismtwo years later. In 1836, Santa h n a abolished federalisn~and inmduced a new constiturional order that effecdvely centralized power and established a nzilitaq dictatorship. Shrewd and intelligent, he often played liberals and conservadves against each other to further his personal ambitions. Santa Lhna'sname is generally recognized by smdents of U.S. history; given his failed attempts to hold Texas and his inabiiiv to defeat invading hx~ericanarmies in the war of 1846-1848, he is often por~ayedin U.S. history textbooks as a buffoon. The 1836 rebellion in Texas was nearly inevitable, with h e r i c a n newcomers ournumbering %lexicans there by 7 to 1 (Texas--then a region of Mexico-was being overrun by unwanted American immigrants). Overwhelmingly Southerners and resentful of Nlexican restrictions on slavery, the Angio 'Texans" revolted and confronted Santa h n a with a logistical nightmare--rebellion on a periphery a thousand miles away, with desert in-between, his army ill-trained, and the government nearly kanbupt, fn mall)r ways, it's a wonder that Santa Anna even ~nadeit into the wasteland with a viable force. Mytholoe has badly misted the historical record. Many 7ltxan heroes were, in fact, seedy characters: Sam Houston had mental problems and had attempad suicide; fames Kawie was a farmer slave trrader; and Williarri Travis had abandoned his pregnant, teenage wife without cause in LUabama.Yet there is no denying drat these men could kill; Santa h n a ' s demtrralized army fared badly, incurring enorlnous losses a t the Marno and suffering a humiliating defeat a t the Battle of San Jacinto, where the Mexican dictator himself was captured, Despite the fiasco, ten yrars later it seemed that only the famous caudillo could save Merrico fictm the next threat: an :hlerican invasion, In early 1846, U.S. Presiclent James K. k l k sent an army into dispted territorq: deliberately triggering a border incident that he could use to justify war. Making the dubious claim that "American blood has been shed on h e r i can soiI"((a p t ~ n g congressman, Abraham Lincoln, tried to embarrass the war~nongeringleader with his "show us the spot" resolutions---for which he lost reelection), Polk authorized a three-pmnged attack. Santa L b n a and the Mexicans held their own against one overland invasion, but she de-

ter~ninedadvance of a seaboard army under Zachary Taylor proved overwhelming. In the climactic battle of Chapulrepec, hnericans stor~nedthe walls of ICifexicoYsrj:Llilitar)rAcademy and forced final surrender (a few cadets cast themseXves off the cliffside rather than face cSefe:eat-bfexico5 faInous Nifios Hkroes, or Boy Heroes). A disgusted Santa h n a , watching through his field glasses nearby, reputedly muttered, "God is a Yankee." T h e real goal of the American invasion-territorial expansic~n-was actlieved when Metlico was forced to cede 40 percent uf its territov to the U~litedStates, in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Mexico's defeat was made more bitter by the news, barely a year later; that gold had been discovered in the for~nerMexican territory of Sierra Nevada, California-by a mex xi can. Santa Anna and Rosas relied on their instincts and charisma in attempting to bring their fracmred counaies together, yet neither fully succeeded. Although he exerted considerable influence with caudillos in the pn~vinces, Rosas, who fancied himself the '"upreme Chief of the Argentine (:onfederation,'" uitirnately broke with the inl;erior over trade disputes. A brief civil war in 1851-1 852 led to his ouster. In the wake of humiliating defeat at the h n d s of the Unitcld Smtes, Santa h n a exerted =gal audsoriv over a disenchanted land. llddressed as His Serene Highness, he briefly coxnmined Mexico to renewed militarism, bloating the size of the army and employing pageantv in an effort to rekindle national pride and patriotism, Kusas and Santa h n a , like other caudillos, were evenma1l.y:displaced by rich liberal intellectuals who resented their usurpation of the political arem and abuse of power (in that order). These equally ambitious men embraced nation-building on their own terms, crafting new consdmtions throughout Latin America in midcenmry and consolidating political rule through centralized gc~venlmmt,though they often espoused federalism. In Btrenos Ares, dissident intellecmalls b o w n as the C;eneration of 1837 gained control after Rosas, and under the auspices of an 1853 constimrion, they finllliiy and firmly united all of hgentinla, Their foremost leader was Domingo F. Sarmiento---one of only a few early-nineteenth-cex7.m~Latin h e r i c a n s to acquire inernational acclaim (he had written a book, the tide m d Bilrl;lr~~*I'~rn decwng the of which translates into English as Cli-ziiII'z~rio~ vidence and ignorance of knife-fighting cowboys on the pa~npas).As president (1868-1874), Sarlniento built on his reputation and became renowned frx promodng puMic schools. 111 Mexico, a sirnilar core of so-called liberal purists-stauncMy idealistic, inflexible, and determined to remake their country-wested power from Santa h m . In 1857 they dt-aked a csnstitrrtion under which the status of the arxny and the Church were diminished. Outraged priests and army ofticers inspired a popular revolt, and a bloody civil war ensued. The li herals and their flag hearer, Benitt~Juhrez, emerged triumphant in 1X6 1,

largely by wooing rich landowners into an alliance by selling them Chmch property at cut-rate prices. Perceiving Mexico as vulnerable to exploitation, the French invaded; there followed a strange, interim period of rule by imperial France, Not until 1867, after a decade of warfare, was the idecrlogical sauggle resolved as Juirez restored constimtional law and began the pmcess of forming a cogent national government for Mexico. By the 1870s and 1 8 8 0 ~much ~ of formerly Spanish h e r i c a had found its way back to a rnodicurn of political stability. Even the h d e a n nations, notorious for drafting new constitutions every few years, adopted longlasting documents Peru5 ninth constitution in t 867, and BoliGa9s=nth, in 1878, both endured into the rnid-mrendeth century). But why did the liberal model--as opposed to monarchisrx~,for example-triumph? A large part of &e answer rests in the fact that liberalism, more than kngship9 sanctioned the participation of a srnall political class (rich, light-skinned males) that insisted on playing a role in government. A role no doubt was also played by the fact tllat Latin Americans lived in the shadow of the Uflited Sates, and rnen like Sarmiento and 'Juirez were well aware of the rise of the Lh~erican political example. Separadon of powers, constitutionalism, bills of right;s, and elecmraf politics were irlcreasingly the order of the day Yet while constimrions and speeches promised equality before the law, late-nineteenth-cenmry Latin An~ericanliberalism was a far cry from true republicanisrn. Mass participation in government was neither encouraged nor tolerated. There was a profound gap bemeen liberal rhetoric and practice. Constimtions generally gave adult males the right to vo*; but in elections, only the desires of well-to-do landowners counted. Rich criolk~s, no matter what their ideological orientation, were not about to share power or grant genuine rights to dark-sliir-rnedmesfizos and Indians, The InoInenmrn for e~nbracingliberal ideas on paper in the late nineteen& centtrv was, hc~wevcr,considerable. ;iVIc~narchismin Brazil faltered as a result, although she political d~~namics of the previously Pc~rmpese colony rernained distincdve. M e r establishng his throne with the support of the aristocracy in 1822, Pedro I governed until his abdication in 1831, when he returned home to Portugal, His son, Pedro If, ascended to the crown once of age, in 1840, and held it for nearly fifty years, until Brazil of6cially became a republic in 1889. The monarchy was never swclng. Local sugar (and later, coffee) planers exercised power thnrugh a related parlia~nentarysystern, and regionalism was a hallmark of polidcal life. The weak central government maintained close links with the rich and the amy, which helped it suppress numerous revolts a d keep the enormous countv frorn splintering. Elites and arIny officers, finding little reason to maintain the monarchy (especially after the final demise of its symbiotic institution, slave% in 1888), penned an 1891 constjtution that gave lip ser-

vice to political rights; however, literacy tests, land ownershp, and other barriers to enfrancfiisexnent effectively preserved the political arena as their private domain. The trappings of political modenzi~? as well as nascent centralization and renewed stability, coincided with economic changes that enveloped all of Ladn Lh~erica. As reflected in the shibboleth "Order and Progressn-which is still emhlazoned on Brazilhatitional flag-many elite and inteuecmals anticipated a new era of technological and rational social management that would alleviate povertj: bypass the legacies of "backward" Indian traditionalism, and usher their nations into a new age, Many of the ideas related to these expectations caIne from positivism, the predominant late-nineteenth-cenwry ideology that prophesied human triumph, &rough science, over centul-ies-old social ills. hsitivists believed that the application of presurned sciendfic principles to hu~nanrela~onships would solve societal problems. Had not the human mind, after all, hegun to unlock the mysteries of physics and disease? Why could it nut also deduce the causes of sexual deviance or criminality? The father of positivism, French philosopher Auguste Comte, had taken some of the Enlightenment's ideas concerning human nature and religion and carried them beyond rational frontiers. Glorifying great ~nindsinstead of deities, he evenwally declared himself to be the High Priest of Humaniv. He envisioned a postmortem heaven of Holy m o d s , and a hell containingamong others--his ex-wife. Comtek theories had become popular reading the world over, and Latin h e r i c a " rich soon emkraced the tcl-iumpbant cause of human "pr~gress." At the same dme, economic change was beginning to take place on the ground, largely without structured management. T e c h n o l o ~was revolutionizing the world in the late nineteenth centuv-he age of science and steel. the introducdon of telegaph lines and steaxn-powered vessels, the world seemed a much smaller place. Demographics also played a role in undercutting IdatinAn~ericaneconomic and political reISjc?nalism,as the region's population quicMy grew. Booming populations in the United States and Eun~pealso required more food and more plendful resources. The factories of the second indus&iai revolution created a seemingly incessant demand for a diverse range of raw materials. B e ~ e e n1850 and 1913, Latin American exports rose by roughly 1,000 percent. This was a time of commodities, when nations and regions found niches in the export economy through ~nineralresources or cash crops. Coffee, a well-established export cnlp in Brazil (which had sustained a good volume of foreign trade during the mid-nineteenth cent-ury), also was grown for e q o r r in Colcrrnbia and Central h e r i r a : h e r i c a n s and Europems had come to prefer the bean over tea leaf. Sugar, which had migrated into the Caribbean dut.ing the eighteenth centur;ti9don-tinated the Czuban economy.

Chilean copper xnines were opened, and Bolivian tin production soared. Henequ&n, a fiber used for rope, created an export boom in the Yucathn peninsula of Mexico until it was replaced by spthetic fibers. Mexico also became a leading oil producer, supplgng a quarter of the world5 crude by 1910. In the late 10ZOs, Venezuela's oil fields began to take off. Yet export growth was uneven; and although significant, economic change through trade was by no means ail-encompassing. Some natbns, such as Peru, which had been a rnajor exporter of guano (bird droppings used for ferdlizer), saw their exports decline. Others, such as Paraguay and Honduras, rex-t~ained Xargely isofaad; the latter was still a couple of decades abvay frr,m becoming a "banana republic." The nation most transformed by trade was Lbgentina: Its pampas hecame a granary t i ~ Europe. r 'lbtal acres under culdvation (pl-jmarilpwheat-) rose from 1.5 lllillim in 1872 to more than 10.0 million by 1895, At the turn of the cenmry? ten thousand miles of railroad track fanned out from Ulrenos Ares to nearly e v e v corner. of the fertile plains, h in nearby Uruguay, wool production also flourished, though the proliferation of sheep led to oversupply by the 1880s. Fortunately for both countries, though not fr)r the skeep, refrigefation solved the problem, after which Inutton exports rose. ilrgentina's export econolny made it rich: By 1910, its per capita wealth matched that of the United States and much of western Europe (today, it is still consicterahiy wealthier than the rest of South America). Argentina and (to a lesser extent) Brazil were ala, transformed in the late nixleteenth centuv by what h e y "imported": immigrants. Sout-hern Eurwpeans, especially Italians, poured into both countries in search of new lives and wealth. In Brazil, immigrant labor came to dominate the workforce on coffee phtadons, though exploitation kept most nebvcomers poor. Zmmigrants in ilrgentina generally re~nainedin the port city of Buenos Ares, where they helped turn it into a msmopolitan "Paris of the hericas." The tango, a cdl-amatic dance associated with a genre of song about unrecjuited love, is Brazilhnost famous culmral contrihudon. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 halted the incoming migration, and along with disruptions in trade, cast Argentina into an economic depression. The late nineteenth cenmly not only brought a sharp rise in commodities and exports but also the retum of foreign capital to Latin America. Mueh foreign invesm~entwas direct, meaning that foreigners bought and built physical properdes. Certainly the most sipificant of these were railroads. European capital (primarily British) financed the vast majority of the lines in Brazil and the Southern Cone; and An~ericansundemlrote Inany of the railroads in Mexico and the Caribbean basin. Unlike the gridwork of crisscrossing tracks in Europe and the United States, links in Ladn An~ericareflected the nature of the export economy, and most lines ran

from nines or agricultural areas directly to the coast. Export-related industries, such as glassworks and canning factories, as well as port facilides, were also financed by foreign capital. C;overnments borrowed heavily, too (espeddly Argentina), About a third of the capial that poured into Latin Anerica in the late nineteenth cenmly came by way of bond issues underwritten by European banks and purchased by private invesa~rs.And where their money went, so too did Ellropean and h ~ e r i c a nbusinessmen. The number of foreigners visiti~lgand residiilg in Latin hrnerica rose dra~natically after the 1870s. They spent most of their time in cities, and interacted with rich locals who could speak French and English, and embraced the latest trends and fashions from York or Paris. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States set out to redress one of the world's m s t ohGous vatial anomalies-the lack of a useful link bemreen the globe's two largest bodies of water. Unable to convince Colombia to authorize construction of a U. S.-sponsored canal, Waskingttln intlrrvened on behalf of Panamanian separatists, and signed a treaty with the newly for~nedstate of Pana~nain 1903. The Pana~nacanal, fully funded by the U.S. government, was a Herculean accomplishment ten Fars in the making, In the face of mountains, mud slides, and tropical disease, hnlerican engineers Inanaged a worMorce of African-descended Caribbeans (five thousand of whom died during the project), routing the channel thrc3ugh a natctral lake and up and down slopes through an ingenuous series of giant locks. The Pana~naCanal became the fore~nosts p b o l of h e r i c a n influence in Latin Ah~erica during the twentieth century. Vying with European powers for seafaring domination, the United States also began to intenrene directly in regional politics. In 1904, President Tkcodorc Roosevelt added a corollary to &c ~VonroeDoctrine-the 1823 prclnouncernent against European interference in the \vestern hemisphere--declaring that the United States had a right to police Latin h e r ican counaies when they failed to keep their political houses in order. A lack of sahi1it.y has never been good ti>r business; and altliorrgh order had largely been established in the regon, in some places it did not seem to be hapl~eningfast enough. Various Caribbean and Central American narions close to the United States became the targets of U,S, militalry intewention during the early twentieth century. Indeed, because the presence of U.S. Marines in Haiti, Nicaragua, and elsewhere tended to only temporarily calm political sttlrms, periodic occupadons became the norm, The United States also atte~nptedto Lbster hernispberie cooperiltion, and promote business, through the formation of the Pan h e r i c a n Union in 1907. U.S. concern for a countv, and its willingness to take action there, was of course proportionate to its econoxnic irrteres~.No Latin h e r i c a n narion was of so vital an interest to the United States as ~Mexico,where the advent of trade and foreign invesm~enttriggered a ca&clysmic revolt.

Economic changes in the Iate nineteen& centul.): aggravated tensions in Mexico. In 1876, four years after BenitoJuirez died of a heart attack, another liberal na~nedPorfirio Diaz secured the presidency. Diaz dominated Mexican political life for the next thirty-five years, giving the era his name-the ksorfiriato. Ht: filled his chinet with alexican-~ainedpositivists, called cieirt~%m (Sciendsts), who viewed the dictatorship as an opportunity to establish order and bring progress. It was a kind of progress, however, that produced a large underclass, Vvverty in the countyside worsened even as foreign capital and t e c h n o l o ~aansfor~nedthe cities. The Pc~rfirianelite wooed fcjreign investors to Mexico. Cabinet ministers ovel-hauled replations, dropping tarifftjand standardizing currency. Awarded generous concessions, foreign (mostly U.S.) co~npaniesbegan building railroads during the 1880s, including the 1,200-mile Central Nlexican fine running from the capital t r ~EI Paso, Texas, A concomitant drop in transportation prices made large-scale industrial mining feasible, and huge lead, zinc, and copper pits soon were opened in the Sierra &ladre, In addition to henequCn in the Yucadn, cash crops such as r-ubber; cotton, coffee, and sugar flourished on reinvigorated haciendas. Changes in pmperty laws allowed fc~reignersand rich Mexicans to acquire more and more land, often at the exyense of Indian villages, ?'he national potice force, the Rurales, had a reputation for rurhlessness in suppressing peasant dissent and enforcing vagrancy laws, commt~nlyinstituted throughout Latin hel-ica in the late nineteen+ centuxy to discourage the poor from congegadng in public spaces. Poverty, meanwhile, increased. Per capita pmducdon of corn, the staple c n y for the masses, dropped from 282 kilograms at the beginning of the Porfiriato to 144 kilograms near its end. Malnurridon plaped the burgeoning rural populace. In Pc~rfiriancities, new services impmved the quality of life for a lucky few; a small middle class and a minuscule elite were soon awash in unprecedented comfort. Like Buenos Ares, Mexico City became a world-class metropolis, with a Paris-inspired sweet renovation project creating the Champs-ElysCes of Latin h e r i c a : the Paseo de la Reforma, i t s kroad lanes graced with tree-lined traffic islands, elecaic lighting, and ornate statues. The rich also enjoyed the latest Parisian fashions, being enamored with things kreigtl. Horse racing replaced bullfighting, boxing edged out cockfighdng, and bicycling gained popularity over horseback riding aInong the well-to-do, who scr~medthe ""bclcwarcl" ~tradirionsof the masses. At the plush Jockey Club i x ~downtom Mexicc3 City, the rich sometimes entertained themselves by tossing coins from the balconies to the scrambling poor below. The image of an out-of-touch clique perched atop a volcano is not bappropiate for Purfifian hfexico, When the dicmtor laid plans to si-

~nultaneouslycelebrate the national centennial and hls eighderh birthday in 1910, he Inust have had little illkling of the storm about to enplf the land. Yet cracks had been appearing in the Pc~rfiriansystem at an ever increasing pace since 1WO. A small number of middle-class discontcnts had organized thextlselves into '"Liberal dubs99hatwere concerned primarily with lirnidng the role of the Church and rectifying the government's apparent disregard for the 1857 constitudon's amiclericaf prsvisiocts. Out of this ~nodestmoveInent e~nergeda clique of visionary and a n m young men, led by hcardo Flores Magbn, who pmvided a much broader critique of the regime, disseminated via a small newsletter entitled Rege;gene?-~cib~. After repeated incarceradon and harass~nent,Flores Mag6n and hls cohorts withdrew to the United States, where they mntinued their agitadon with the help of American socix1ist.s and liberal sympathizers, Their calls for political and labor reform in &leiv;icostruck a cord-so much so, that the LMexican government, with the aid of authorities in Washington, moved to suppress the movement by repeatedly imprisoning Flares hfagcin, effi3ctively preventing him from playing a role in subsequent events. In Mexico, financial uncertainties (especially after the Wall Street crash of 1m7) and drc3ught in the northern states heled grou.jng unrest. Xn June 1906, a strike at the Canenea Copper Company mine near the U.S. border triggered bloody reprisals from depurized American ranchers riding with the Arizona Rangers. T h e willingness of the Nlexican government to sanction the ~nurderof its own citizens by property-protecting pingos outraged many. Calls for change proliferated, especially from the growing t frc>ma minoritqr of elites, Biaz made minor policy nziddle classes b r ~ ajsc, adjusments but moved far too slowly to stay ahead of the train. In fact, the aged dictaa~rblundered badly in 1908, when, aware of the signs of trouble, he suggested a willingness to retire and then immediately reversed his decision. After Diaz"ssensadonal ann<>uncernent, which he made in an intercriew to an h e f i c a n news magazine, opposition coalesced around would-be rivals, including Francisco I. Madero. ?Be son of a wealthy northern hnccnddo, Madem, at first glance, seemed something of a joke. Short in stamre and shrill-voiced, he had produced rro oEspring-an embarrassment in a society infused with machis~no.While studying in France, he had embraced the spirimalism of Grdec, and while in the United States, he grew h n d of An~erican-syEeelectoral democracy; He naively believed t h t political reforms could preseme order in &lellico; and when he toured the nation with a message of change, middle-class Me?ricansflocked to hear him speak. Taking no chances, Diaz placed Madero under house arrest in order to facilitate his own victc~ryin the fraud-ridden 1910 elections. Surprisingly, with much to lose, after the elecGons &laden sought justice. He fled tt,

Texas, and like Flores Mag6n before h m , issued a pronouncelnent inciting revolution. By winter 1910-191 1, the first serious arxned insurgents appeared in the mountains of Mexico. Pascual Orozco, a serniskllled hacienda lvorkel; soon made headwq with bands of perrillas in the northern Sierra Madre. Orozco capmred the imaginations of Mexicans as news of his daring raids and ambushes spread. On one occasion, after stripping dead soldiers of their clothing, he taunted the dictator with the message: "here are the wrappers; send Inore tamales." In fact, the limitations of the regime's military components soon became all too apparent. Wl~enthe border entrep6t of Cziudad juQrez felt to the rebels, Diaz realized that his time was up, He left his nation for a co~abrtableretirement in France. lliiladero, the idol of the people, soon arrived to enthusiastic throngs in the capital, and after several m n t h s of a transitional government, assumed the presidenq in the wake of Alexicok I-irst reasonablj~clean lzadonal elections. The subsequent twists and turns of the revolutionary saga read like something out of a soap opera (albeit \Nithout lvomen), The coalition that broug.ht Madero to power soon unraveled. Orozco was miffed at his failure to obtain high administradve office. Other rebels to the south, under the leadership of an Indian fighter named Enliliarlo Zapata, warily accepted lliiladero's hollow promises of land refor~nand handed in their arms. fmnically, nascent rebel forces were disarmed by a sdll-functioning Porfirian army under hfadero-a recipe for betrayal. In F e b n ~ a1%~ 33, with the c o ~ n p l i cof i ~the U.S. ambassador, a general na~nedRctoriano Huerta engineered a military coup that brought him to power and resulted in ~Madero'suntimety death. Huerta's dictatorshp met with imxaediate opposition. Francisco 'Tancho" X b a sidekck of the now-discredited Orozco, raised insvrffentsin the north. \j"jlIa"s life once had been spared by Nladero beft~rea H u e r ~ assembled firing squad, and there was no doubt about his political proclivities. To the south, Zapata, leading Indians intent on regaining their stolen executed Huerta's peace emissaries, The regime aaempt"d land, sun~mal-ily a modicum of political and even economic reform, but its effc~rtsto win popular approval went unrewarded, and Huerta soon turned the country i n u ~a mili tary camp, Ho\vever; even a yuamer million draftees pnwed of little use against the burgeoning numbers of inspired revolutionaries, and by mid-1914 I-Iuerta had to leave Mexico. Irc~nically~ in the end Huerta had heen betn.q~eciby the United States. Wc~odro\vwl~orl, who timk o%ce just as the general assumed power, refused to recognize h s government, and attempted to hasten its demise by an ill-advised invasion of Mexico's port city of Veracmz. When Huerta fell, Washington scrambled to find aitematives--for political order in LWexico was rapidly disintegrating. Pc~lidcalcoalitions emerged in various camps that had opposed Huerta, incltlditrg those of Villa and Zapata. R third faction, largely based in the

northeast, coalesced around a l a v e r and for~nerPorfirian landowner na~nedVenusdano Carranza. Although funda~nentallyconservative, Carranza was a fclrmer Madero supporter who had refused, though with some hesitation, to cooperate with the Huerta regime. He enjoyed the support of Inany ~niddle-classMexicans who were alamed at the chaos enplfing their society and the rise of Indian armies under "At~las"like Zapata. Fortunately ti)r Carranza, who now designated himself the "First Chief of the Kevolukion," buctl Villa and Zapata demons~atedlimited intel-est in establishing nadonal political order, and failed to coordinate their military activities in the face of Camar-tza's grcrowing militaly force under the talented general iUvaro Obreg6n. Using the latest technology-newly tested on the battlefields in Europe-Obregcin engaged and decisively defeated Villa9sa m y in sprlng 1915. Soon his forces began the agonizingly slow process of consolidating the First Chiefs control over the country. The United States, preferring Garranza to the alternatives and confident of his ultimate -victc)r;v;extended diplomadc recognidon to his government. An enraged Xlla struck back, raiding the border town of Columhus, New Mexico, where he engaged a detachment of U.S. cavalry. The confrontation pron~pteda second intervendon by the United States: An expedidonary force under JohnJ. "Blackjack" Pershing scoured northern Mexico in search of Villa, now characterized in the U.S. press as a ""bandit," withorrt success, Carranza and Obreg6n eventually persuaded Villa to lay down his arms. T l ~ echat-iismatic Villa remained a viable threat even in his forced r e ~ r e ment, and he was assassinased a few Fars later with the apparent complicity of Arlexican authorities. In the govrmxnent swccesshlly plotted the ambush and slaying of the idol of the poor, Emiliano Zapata. Films of his corpse were displayed throughout the predominantly Indian south, helping tu quell the revolts and bring order tu the countyside. In 19220, when Obreg6n decided to oust the dictatorial Carranza and assume the presidency himself, Nlexico ert~ecgedfrom a decade of bloodshed that had left one Inillion Mexicans--nearly 6 percent of the population-dead. In the mid-twentieth cenrur): historians regarded Mexico's revolurion as the harbinger of reform. The reality, however, is more nuanced. During the 1920s, Obregbn and his successor Plutarco Calles cenaalized political power and amassed personal fortunes. A new polidcal elite, drawn in part from the nziddle class, internlingled with the brtirian rich 2 n d ensconced government bureaucracy. the~nselvesin the leadershp of a ~nushroo~ning Brofessianal and educated, a majority of these upwardly mobile Mexicans were secularined and favored the ren~ovalof the Catholic CIZhurch from the polidcal arerza. This process, which harked back to the antidel-icalism of the 13rerevoludonary liberal clubs, antagonized much of the devout peasantt.).,The Cristero rebellion of the late 1920s was a bloody affair that saw

Mexico's arIny wage war against guerrilla bands of zealots who fou$t under the banner "Uva Cristo Rey!" (Long Live Christ the King!). Although successful in suppressing the Catholic rebellion, Mexin,'~suponly nomhal popular supposedly "reevolutiona~"government enjt~j~ed port. By the early 1 9 3 0 ~ large ~ segments of society viewed the increasingly inmsive bureaucracy with suspicion. (Ialles's continued harasslnent of the Church men antagonized segments of the middle class, and devout h s i nessmen eventually formed a Catholic-based polidcal organ, the Partido Accibn Xacional, or PAN. The rural poor also were largely alienated by the contir~uedlack of tiemtrcr-aq and the regime's limited eEarts at land reform. Without ~neaningfulballots or scmdny by an independent press, bureaucrats were enriching themselves through shady deals and government contraca. During t-he early 1930s an ambitious road-building program facilitated p a f t not unlike that associated with the construction of railroads under the Porfirian regime. In 1934, PJutarco Calles, who had come to control the gclvernment thou$ a series of presidential puppets (one who failed to do his bidding learned about his own resignadon by reading it in the gc~vernment'snewspaper), promoted LBzaro Cardenas for president, Mexicans disinterestedly falfawed his ascent into the palace, and were surprised to find that this puljllet was different. Idealistic and driven, (Ijrdenas engineered a break with his self--sercing mentot: Recognizing the disappointed aspirations of the older generation of Mexicans who had fought in the revolution, he sought to undertake a series of sweeping refonns. But Calles did not go easily, The rift between the two men and their supporters became public, and only after an arduous political battle was C6rdenas able to force the dictatonal Cafles into exile in the United States. LBzart:, CBrdenas is one of several renowned Latin American leaders who are sometimes referred to as "populists." Like any label, popzalz'sm has severe limitadons. However, two of its feamres are relevant to this discussion. First, populists appedled to the masses-a new phenomenon in Latin Arnerica. Second, they practiced econornic nationalis~n-that is, state cantrol of cridcal indusrries-to curtail the influence of foreign capital and enrich their own people. The W O feamres, predictabl~went hand in hand, Even under the p p u l i s ~many Lncin A~nel-ieansrerriained divorced ti.uxn the political process-especially the isolated, rural poor. Organized labor, in contrast, provided a nanlral urban base or? which to build political allegiance. Unionized workers were receptive to do~nestic-ownedindusaies, which being pn~tectedby tariffs and aided by government subsidies, paid higher wages than thtrse under the tutelage of foreign businessmen. Undergirding the endre populist impulse was nationalism. Latin Americans of varied stripes had caught the worldwide fever of pride and pauiodsm. A few of the very wealtfly e-vm aspired to make their nations great, though

they rarely approved of the populists with their statist economic policies that tended to benefit workers more &an private capiml. Quite obviously, populism posed a threat to U.S. and European interests. Economically independent, developed nations in Latin h e r i c a could colnpete with the United States and Europe through new do~nesdcconsumer markets and increased manufacturing. Economic nationalism also involved taking contml of, or expropriating (with compensation), significant foreign-owned businesses. Given these dangers, how is it that a generadon of nationalistic polidcal leaders rose to the h r e in several large Latin American countries without encountering sdff opposition from the United States? Much of the answer rests in the press of coinciding world events. The heyday of populism, the 1930s and 1040s, found the Filst Wbrld weakened l3y the Great Depression and distracted by war. Divisions among the indusuialized powers created space in which the pc~pulistscould operate. hlso, First Wc~rldpolitical and economic influence in Latin h e r i c a was still marginal-nothix-rg like what the Ullited States would enjoy after World War 11, ~nuchless by the end of the cenmry. For example, although the FBI a t midcentury had an oftice in Nlexico City$along with several hundred agents and irzformants, its level of cooperation with do~nesdcsecurity apparamses was sdll primidve. Nor did American elites intermingle much with their Mexican counterparts before 1945. Hence, populim was a g2n1duct and a reflection of the times. Cardenista reforms were not simple by-products of the 1910 revolution. The gap in time and polirics between the cataclysmic decade of violence and C:Ardenas9s regime was wide, By 19335, when he had consolidated power, many Mexicans had learned to distrust their bureaucratic government; Cgrdenas was never able to mend this breach. His task was complicated by resistance fro173 within the entrenched bureaucracy, &$any local politicians were not particularly interested in reform, much less in a genuine democracy that would invite closer public scrutiny of their acrivides. As a resuit, (:Arctenas left only a faint political legacy, Howwer, in the area of ecc~nomics,this self-avowed socialist did achieve two noteworthy accomplishments: land reform and nadonalization of the oil inclustry. In the mid- 11)30s, ~Mexicobroke up much of its latifundio, distributing more than 40 ~nillionacres to nearly 1 ~nillionpeasants--a delayed response to the Zapatista revolts. In 1938, when oil companies halked at government-mandated wags increases, Cbrdenas seized their propertics and created PE&IEX (PetrGleos Mexicanas), the national oil company of Mexico. A more aggressive U.S. administration might have stood i t s ground against this usurpation; but Franklin D, Roosevelt and his advisers opted to tolerate Mexico's move--especially given that Cirdenas had made overtures to Nazi Germany (a rare instance of the weak dividing and conyuerillg the seong). Me;uico negofiated and paid a reasonable price

for the oil properties; yet the lost oppormniq~costs far h e r i c a since 1938 undoubtedly total tens of billions of ddlars. kITithin a short time, PE&lEX became an avenue fix enriching Mexico's political elite, though it also routed at least some of the nationk lvealth downward, into the hands of its large underclass. Despite land redistribution and oil nationalizadon-the latter of which was jubilantly welcomed by &Xexicans-C%rdenas5 administration failed to overcolne the dismst of Inany citizens, and antagonized ~nillionsof others with its aggressive political program of "socialist education." Devout Catholics remined unreconciled to the regime, although h e y were often willing to accept plots of land; and the rich and middle classes were unifi3rmly hostile. Industrialists in Monterrey and Mexico City could not stomach Chrdenas's moral style of government; despised his alliance with organized labor; and resented his "communistic" tendencies, which threatened the sanctity of private prtlperty. Labor unrest and inflation annoyed nziddle-class urbanites, It is no suq~rjsethat mjllians of Nlexicans rallied for change during the 1940 elecdons. Cirdenas was forced to anoint a very moderate successor; and his personal aspirarions for fair elections, which would have brclught a consewative c~ppositioncandidate into office, were dashed by a bureaucracy bent on keeping power and perpetuadng electoral fraud. Pc~pulismin Mexico was thus limited, fragile, and brief.

PepuEEsm iin Brazil amd Argentina

The large, industrializing nations of Latin America were susceptible to populis~nbecause of their more co~nplexurban political dyna~nics.In Brazil during the mid-twentieth century a second example of nationalistic populism emerged, again tied to the rise and fall of a single man: C;etr;ilio Vargas. Brazil entered midcentury with only the limited national political idendty that had evolved under Pc,rtup;uese colonialism, which resulted in a diff'usion of power: Elites in the large cities of Rio de Janeiro and SZo Paulo continued to do~ninatea weak execurive, whereas ~nuchmeaningful governance unfolded at the regional or local level. Divisions amse among elites over the degree to which Brazil should cenaaliae, and were furher aggravated by the worldwide economic downturn that began in 1930. In October of that year, with the help of sympathetic military officers, Vargas gained the pro.;iisional presidency. H e remained in the executive post until 1945. Vargas was a shrewd politician. H e came to power in the context of an economic crisis that arclused new political passions, especially among city dwellers. Diverse political forces emerged: a fascist movement of integralists (known more commonly as
(AXyL).Vargas, in the middle, first crushed the communists and their allies in 1935, then emasculated the right. In 1937, he declared a dictatorship in the form of the Estado NGvo, or New State. Launchi~lghis authoritarian mle with a Aour-ish, he he1J a ceremony in which he burned all of Brazil's state flags-vividly symbolizing a new nationalism and the rise of the central government. Vargas was a classic poplist* He coursed and placaad organized labor and built a political base in the urban industrial class. He also pacticed economic nationalism, dividing First Wcjrld powers with acumen. Brazil's close trade relations with Nazi Germany in the late 1%0s alarmed the United States, as a result of which Washington extended a nurnber of favors to Brazil, including military assistance and industrial aid. For example, US..funds largely firlanced an enormous national steel mill, the IGita Redonda, near S%oPaulo. Vargas bided his time in choosing sides during World War If, but cast in his lot with the Allies and declared war on Ckrm~ in 1942, &us assuring Brazil a place on the winning side, Like other populists, Vargas longed to convert h s nation into an econt~micpowerhouse. We used the state to promote indusrrializationthough the process was alreatJy undewaq: especially in SHo Paulo-and, in time, drew many rich Bradians into his poli~calfcjid. Since the &eat Depression and World War I1 had dilninished raw material and agricultural exports (especially coffee), he gmr-sued policies that favored import suhstimrcian industries, or businesses that catered to domestic consusner needs by making light, nondurable goods. Household products, soaps, petrochemicals, and mj~riadother items now canle from Brazilian factories instead of &c~moverseas. These enterprises were conceived of and funded by the gclvemment and the private sector, working hand in hand. Import controls and currency policies gave the edge to don~esticproducers, though when the United States remrned its economy to peacedme producdon in 1945, compeddon tightened. Vargas9scontroversial brand of populism divided Brazil's military 0%cials along political lines. So~neofficers liked indusuializadon, appreciating its nationalist and rnardal potential. Others feared Vargas's opening of the polifical ystem to segmen6 of the working class, He had released political prisoners in the mid- 1940s, including comxnunisu;, and had eased restrictions on political organizing. A coup in 1945 ousted Vargas from powel; hough he was able to make a remarkable comeback in 19550, when he won a national election. Serving as president in the early 195Os, Vargas walked a tightrope between forces within his own coalition and the conservative, mosdy rural elites who opposed him, He again pursued 3 mixed econolny, creadng Peaobnis, an oil refining and distribution snonopolp, and restricdng foreign investment through legislation such as pn~fitremittance taws @hich stipulated how much money coporations could remcwe

from Brazil). His wavering bemreen continued econo~nicnationalism and culnpromise satisfied no one, and the poli.ciea1 center evaporated in Brazil even as T;iargas stood in the middle ctf it. 111 1954, old and alone, he shot himself in the heart at the Presidential Palace, lea.ving ia suicicfe note that be~noanedthe rise of conservative capitalists and foreign iinperialis~. Although C;e~lioVargas's flare for the dramadc made him something of his legacy pales in compal.ison a political icon in Brazil and Latin h~et-ica, to that of a thrd populist, Juan PerSn ofhgendna. PerCln, who in turn was largely upstaged by his charismatic wife Eva (affectionately known as ""Evita"), gc~vemeda smaller nation than \%rps's, but one with a powerful ~nidcenmlyeconolny. In Inany ways Peronism (the polidcal Inovement led by the Perbns), though disdnctive, is the hest example of the populist state. Its colorful history is fUIi of the contradictions bemeen nationalist aspirations and rising global capitalism. Like Brazil, Lbgentinasuffered economically during the Depression, and shifted toward imp"" suhstin;ttion during Wc>rldWar XI, Argentina3 g m ernment also became increasingly aurhoritarian due to its fears of the increasingly disgruntled masses and of its own military officers, many of whom were attracted to the trappirlgs of European-syle fascism. Juan Per611 was a colonel who had served on a aaining ~nissionto Benito LMussolini's Italy and had been impressed by what he saw. He was unusual among ofticers in that he was the son of a prwincial farmer; most of his peers came from well-heeled families. PerCln never forgot his roots: He remained cognizant of the lanyishing counqside, and empathized with the indigerlt conscripted soldiers, m e n Perlin was elevated to the post of LVinister of Lnbor in 19443, be began to cultivate a following among urban workers by listening to their concerns and addressing their needs. The rise of an industrial underclass, numbering nearly a quarter million by 1943, provided the a~nbidousPer611 with a popular base. Settling strikes by decree, he often favored labor and adjusted wages ul~ward,fostering goodwill fix hirlzself in the ranks of the boo~ningConfederacibn C;eneral de Trabajadores (General Workers' Confederation). Perth eventually rode the crest of his surging popularity in the capital tr) the posts of minister of War and of Vice President, the same skill and personal dj~namismthat had made him popular with workers, Per& began to woo the officers' mrps of the army. h anti-Peronist faction, r-ighdy detecting his interest in becoming president, had him arrested in fall 1045, inadvertently setting the stage for his triumph. Massive demonstradons by workers rocked Buenos Aires, forcing h s release and the elections in 1946 that brought him t-r? pwer, Juan Per6n had used his influence during the war years to further the career of a struggling actress, Eva Duarte. Of illegitimate birth and modest means, a p u n g Eva had left her small homec-t)\vn for the lure of the big

city. The two fell in love (mutual ambidon seeIns to have played a role in their mutual at~action)and married shortly before Per6n gained the presidency. Evita, with her beauty and poised charm, won the hearts of Argentinians and soon capmred headlines. She was not properly hred in the eyes of socialites, however, and rich w01~lensnubbed her. They rehsed to actlnit her into their clubs, or to accept her help for their charity organization, the Sociedad de Beneficencia (Socieg. of Beneficence), In retaliadon, Evita took over their chariv and rechristened it the Eva Periin Foundation. Juan and Evita were fortunate to have come to power just as the war ended, when an accumulation of hard foreign currency reserves allowed t h e ~ nto take hrgentina on a spending spree. The Eva Perbn Foundation became far more significant than the charity from which it originated. It setlied as the centerpiece of a new weIFare state that featured hospitals, rural clinics, im~nunizationprograIns, retire~nentho~nes,and schools. Evita's compassion was well publicized, though even when the cameras were not arorrnd she worked ltmg hot~rs.These social programs earned public support for Peronis~nand adoration for Evita. Having attained fa~ne in life, in death Eva Perbn reached for sainthood. At the height of her influence, shordy after a sensational tour of Europe, she was diagnosed with cancer of the uterus. Media around the world charted her slow physical decline; when she succumbed to the disease in July 1952, a massive outpouring of grief enplfed Argentinians, Juan Per& proved adept at using his wife's demise to buttress his waning popularity. He decreed Loyalty Day, first celebrated in (Ictoher 1952, when he made Evita's will public (""Iant the shirtless ones to h o w how ~ n u c hI love Perbn," it conveniently read). Em's body was preserved through state-of-the-art embalming, but plans to erect a fifty-story statue of her on the waterfront in Uuenos h r e s were never realized. Despite the deep sympathy her death evoked, Per6nS regime was in uouble. Increasingly plagued by capital flight, inflation, and declining real wages, the economy slowed. The quiet abolition of profit remittance laws hiled to woo much new foreign invest~nent(though Italian automaker Fiat did make an entry). Strikes and unrest festered, as stalwart opponents from lvithin the ranks of the armed forces, elite, and the Czhurch criticized the government ever Inore boldly. A naval air squadron that tried to bomb the leader during a Peronist celebration in June 1955 failed; but the attempt was a harbinger of the cvup that would come in September, toppling the government. Periin fled into exile. Predictably, populism in Latin L h ~ e r i cwas a viewed with suspicion by n z a v foreign interests. The U.S. State Department, for examge, switched its attitude toward Peronism several times, regarding it variously as an expression of fascism, democracy, or communism. In fact, Peronism, like populism elsewhere in Latin An~erica,had featrures that trranscer-td simplis-

tic notions of political idealow.
PART II

Revolution and volution

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5

Nationa ism and the itary Response

&lid-mrendetrlt-centur~i poplism was a muldfaceted phenomenon, and dte single word populz'sm is illadequate to describe all of its various and co~nplex permutations. Nonetheless, the various kinds of populism had certain features in common, such as economic naltionalism. As large Latin h e r i e a n nations like Bra;l;iland RIexico condnued to diversi+ their economies and industrialize, nationalist desires to control economic processes posed a threat to First WcjrIcf (particularly het-ican) interests. If Brazilians, for example---including the rich--wished to make their nation "great," their attainment of this gc~alcould only come a t the expense of the United States and other competitors. A fully ind-ustfiglizet and indepmdent Brazil could vie with Anerica in developing and ~narkedngconsumer goods. National contrt~lof mines and agricultural resources not only would have cut A h ~ e r ican compm"ies out of the production loop and eliminate their pr0f-i~but in time would have generated enough capital to give Brazil financial independence. 'fhe nationalism fiourishing in Latin h e f i c a dul-ing the postuiar qrears posed a profound political and economic threat to the United States. American policymakers understood this, though they seem to have conflated nationalism with communisn~in their assessments of the danger, One reason for this confusion is the waning nationalis~nof Latin American elites after Wcjrld War 11: For the most part, nadonalist aspirations were heing expressed by the lower social classes, These nadonalists not only wanted to ~naketheir nadons p e a t but also usually intended to redisaibute wealth to benefit the poor. Washington thus found natural allies against , this sense, this brand of nationalism amcrng wealti~ierLatin h ~ e r i c a n sIn the fight against subversion of the political and econo~nicorder in Latin America since 1945 bgs been a srmggle against communism. However, if commi~~i~"m is understood to imply allegiance to the Soviet-dominated

Eastem bloc, then h e r e were and are very few coxnmunis~in Lncin h e r ica. This is borne out by the fact that the saugde against subversion has outlasted the Soviet Union, conrinuing to the present day. Surprisingly, it was not in the complex sociey of a large, populist state that grassroots nationalism first caused hrnerica serious problems after World War 11. Rew~lutionarynadonalism exploded right under Washington's nose, in Czuba-he most An~ericanizedof all IdatinAmerican nations, and one with close hismrital ties to the Pirzited States. Surely modernization analysts reasoned, if Cuba could turn "red," then the entire region nzight easily be lost,

Cuba was the last of Spain's New World colonies, but by the 189Os, even though it was politically linked to Europe, its economy largely depended on an h e i c a n appet-ite for sugar, Even many wealthy crioiilos, after the abolishment of Ahican slavery in 1880, saw tittie reason to maintain ties to the motherland that consaicted trade and kept political power in Spanish hands. A protracted guemilla war in the 1870s failed tt, free Cuba; but the seeds of independence had been planted and soon matnxred. In the early 1890s those seeds were ferrilized by the blood ofJos6 ;lilaru', an ardent natiorlalist who had been exiled for his political heliefs. Marti's lvritiags made him a Cuban hero, and his early death in the renewed ~nilitarystrugde elevated him to the starus of martyr. The island again erupted in revolt. Spanish militav commanders attempted to pacifjr Czuba by estdislling relocation camps for much of the rural peasantly. The disease-infested camps further politicized the poor against their colonial masters and did little to alle.ciate the grc~winginsurgency in the mountains. h ~ e l - i c a journ nalists, meanwhile, had a heyday In the best of the Black Legend tradidon, they penned graphic tales of sadistic Spaniards carrying out atrocities. Nlany Americans, including rich investors who owned almost all of the Cuban sugar industry, entertained ideas of annexing Cuba. As part of a show of force and as a means of protecting its interests, the Ullited States dispatched the U.S.S. iwirirte, a smt-e-of-the-art battleship, to Havana to oversee even&. Unfortunately, the MaNzc blew up. The U.S. government and newspapers were quick to blame Spanish authorities, although the more logical culprits were Cubans--for the last thing Spain wanted was a war with a rising power like the United States. An invesdgation into the circumstances of the 1W11ke'suntimely explosim in the 1070s, conducted by Admiral Hyxnan Rckenbacker, concluded on the basis of an undewater exaxninal-ion. of the vessel's hull that the explosion was the result of mechanical failure. But a t the time, few wanted to attribute the deatrhs of h ~ e r i c a nsailors to a

breakdown in U.S.-rnade technolow. 11was better to simply "Remember the iWahe? The U,$.-Spanish Lh~erican War was necessarily brief. The aged and slew fleets of the once great European pewer were no match for herica's new war cruisers (unless, of course, they blew up). Sitting in harbors in Cuba and the Philippines, Spain5 ships--at least one of which could not even safely mcwe forward and stay afloat-wel-cl easib desmo1~7ed.Enthusiasm for war raised battalions of young American recruits among a generation that had not known the horrors of the Civil War, and they routed an aheady demoralized Spanish Arn.ty in Cuba, In the process, however, the United States did not consult with Cuban leaders, and contacts bemreen the two camps were kept to a minimum. Thus, when Madrid sued far peace in late 1898, Cullarls were not even party to the agreement, and to nu one's surprise, the U.S. army remained on the island. Unable to colonize Cuba in the manner for which it had castigated Spain, dle United States optcd to gradually withdraw its troops and grant Cubans partial independence. U. S.-sponsored elections in 1000, although closely monitored and conducted only among wealtby whites (about -5 percent of the g2oplation), still produced victories for nationalist candidates. The final U.S. wirhdrawal in May 1902 began a period of conditional independence; however, the Platt Amendment, attached to the Cuban constitution, gave the United States important veto powers over foreign pcdicqr, banking, and financial management (Cuba's banlang system was managed by the Adanta branch of the Federal Reserve). The Ur~itedStates also retained the right t c intemene ~ militarily>if necessav, in the island3 domeszric affairs. In 1906, the ;Marines returned to Cuba for a few years because of political divisions and the threat of instability. Partial independence temporarily assuaged natjonalist parnings, and Inany better-off Cubans even found reason to favor an ilrnerican economic presence. Capital flowed in and modernized agibusinesses that catered to booming U.S. markets. Ed-ucaed Cuhans found jobs with V.S, firms, and a healthy middle class began to exnerge in Havana. By 1905, knericans owned nearly 60 percent ofthe island's culdvated land, 90 percent of its tohacco production operations, and nearly all of the rrdlities, trading houses, and banks. Within the next two decades, U.S. irrvestrnen~soared to well over $1 billion. U.S. economic dominance of Cuba was so all-encompassing that a 1x28 book hy journalist Leland Hanks was entitled I l z C~ ~ b n ~ z Color!y. The modernization of certain areas of Cuba improved the quality of life for nearly all. On the whole, the nation's economic grow& oupaced that of the rest of Latin h e r i c a , especially prior t c the ~ G e a t Depression, JVhen hard dxnes did coxne to Cuba, however, latent nadonalisrn revived. A nationalist regime under Rarn6n Grau San Martin gained power in 1933 and ruled bsiefly? unilaterally abrogating d.te Platt h ~ e n d m e t l tand

antagonizing the United States. A subsequent coup, led by a noncommissioned officer na~nedFulgencio Batista, restored polidcal tranquilli~.Yet for the remainder of the decade and beyond, the grc~wthof Cuba's sugarhased economy sltxved. Natiorlalist aspirations festered, and a restrictive political establishment failed to answer popular calls for change. By the 105Os, Batista was governing with an increasing-ly firm hand. Cuban socieq after Wc3rld War 11was increasingly divided. Foreign investment had produced enclaves of prosperity in greater Havana, where a consumer-oriented middle class enjoyed elecaicity, appliances, telephones, and television. Cuba had the higllest ntxmber of cars per capita in Latin h e r i c a , and many of them were Cadillacs. But although a literate and comfortable middle class remained ensconced-and largely depoliticized-in the capital, a potentially restless, suffering underclass burgeoned in the countlyside. hlade up of undere~nployed,poorly educated, xnostly darker-shnned peoples, this seglnent of society was a potential base for nationalist unrest, Yet the Cuban revolutic~nwas born in the city>where disenchanted university youth thought about the possibiliries of remaking their country whiXe reading the lvritings of JosC iMaru". A few of them, including Fidel Castro, recMessly attacked an army base in an attempt to spark a revolt on July 26, 1953, in honor of the hlmdredh amiversary of ~Mard"sirtch, Easily captured, these sons of the middle class were amnestied by Batista two years later. Casao, a gifted athlete who night have xnade Inoney playing baseball, ended up in Mexico, where he recruited buddies for a return to his homeland. h o n g his new friends was Ernesto "'Che" Guevara, an idealistic ex-medical sntdent from Argentina. With Guevara and eighty others, Castro returned to invade Cuba by boat. Only a few of the men survived the ir~itiallanding and made it into the mountains away from the coast, Castrt~iathleticism, charisma, and knack for srrategy helped this very small band of guerrillas stave off the remarhbly inept secur-ityforces of the Batista dictatorship. The Cuban authorities in Havana had seemingly litde to fear in 1956, though they openly promulgated the lie that <:asnt, was dead, M e n the New Erk Tiwtes fc3und him in the mountains and published an intenriew, it spawned renewed interest in his cause. Slowly, too, Casuo was winning over the rural masses. Once again, he was greatly (albeit unintentionally) aided in this by Batista and his generals, who initiated a bombing campaign that targeted villages--a strategy that ourraged the vast xnajority of Cubans. 'I;vo significant processes began to unfold in the revolution in early 1958: First, the xniddle class, which had generally supported the dictatorship, began to waiver; second, the United States, seeking to preserve order, distanced itselr from the apparently ill-fated regime. h arms embargc~in

&larch undermined Batistapsposiz;ion, and on New Year5 Day 1955'1)he fled to Miarni, T'he quick pace of subsequent events, u n f n t l for U.S. policymakers, eliminated altemadve scenarios that would have minimized the power of the revoluGonaries. Cas@o"str-iun~phantenwy into Havana xneant that he was in control-and even the U.S. ambassador advised Washington that it would need to work with the widely popular nationalists, offering the consoling observation that at least C:astro was not a crammunist (the small Cuban Cornxnunist Party had vposed the revolt), In the UDited States, sympathetic media coverage had made Casat, something of a hero: His @:testappearance on the Ed SuIIiv~~a &Yhowbegan with the host inaoducing hirn as the "George Washington of Cuba." But Casrro was to America what George Washington had been to England: His deep-seated revolutionav nasionalism made confrontation ine.vitable, Once in power the new government attempted to hold together diverse elements of society, ranging from impc~verishedrural sectors to the urban nziddle class, The bmaliv of the Batista reginze's rural bombing can~paign pro~nptedcriminal trials of captured military officers. Castro ~nadethe televised trials a public circus when he had the defense attorneys themselves arrested. W ~ t hthis first salvo, the yt~unggc~vemmentbegan to make several moves that alienated the xniddle class. Its naticioraalistic econoznic policies, such as mandatory reductions in public utility rates and salary increases in US,-o\vned sugar mills, sigtlaled a fi~ftdantentallack of commitInent to the sancdty of private property and market econo~nics.Rent controls in Havana may have delighted the poor, hut they offended many a landlord. Restrictions on luxury impor& from the United Smtes, aimed at conaolling foreign capital exchange, also annoyed wealthy consurners. The Castro government desegregated Cuban society, which had long resembled the southern United States-\vith different serices for whites and blacks, mostly of uneven quality. All public venues, including hotels, nightclubs, restaurants, and beaches, were pmhibited from discriminating on the basis of race, though the right t r ~do so was retained by certain private organizations, including counay clubs. Such policies outraged the well-to-do in Havana, who were almost exclusively white. They afso annoyed ma11S; An~ericansoutherners monitr~ringevents from a distance, as they faced their own saugde to preserve racial privileges in the face of a growing civil right5 movement. But far more dangerous to h e r i c a were Caslrt-o'r;economic policies in the counqside, which included an agrarian refor~nact in spring 1959 that divided many large, U.S.-owned estates and distributed the p r o p e q to the mral poor, This was a direct blow to h e r i c a n interesfs on the i s l a d , even thou$ soIne co~npanies,such as the rurn xnanufacturer Bacardi, were to receive government bonds in cornpensadon (a scheme shrewdly modeled on U,S, policy in postwar Japan, so that Washington could not cry 'cfiluf"

without see~ninghypocritical). Soon, both the United States and the wealthy in Cuba had had enough of the economic nationalis~nof Castro and his cohorts. Wealthy Cubans began to leave for Miami, and the United Smtes began to distance itself from the reginre, eventually breaking off all diploxnatic contact. U'ashingtc~n'ssouring on Cuba resonated in the U.S. media, which had heen generally supportive of the revolution until mid- 195%A May I l broadcast on CBS entitled i s C u h Goi~zgRed? ~ i g g e r e da flurry of ~nedia references to communism. The loaded tenn, in the wake ofiMcCarthyism and Red I~ysteriaearlier in the decade, spawned fear a d excitement in the general public. The Soviet Pre~niera t the dme, Nikita Khrushchev, later acknowledged that the Kremlin was watching events unfold in Cuba without a clue as to which way they would go. C:astro ?~'gfga communist, however, in the sense h a t he did not appreciate &erica's economic i n t e r e s ~ in Cuba and did not commit himself to preserving the ect~nomicstatus y o . In fairiy short order, faced with U.S. aggression, he l3ecame a communist also by the Eastern bloc definition. The! Uni~ed SmZes and NatiSonalist Cuba In March 1060 the D~rightEisenhower administrratrior? committed itself to Castro's overthrow, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began training Cuban exiles for an invasion. Meanwhile, as the pace of revolutionary economic reforms in favor of the poor accelerated, more and more xniddle-class Cubans left for Miaxni. T h e exodus, in turn, shifted the regime's political fc~undadononto radical rural sectors. This cycle repeated itself until the modera* polirrical centcr was completek lost, h it prepared to lameh a comtemevolutiort, the xnairl problem for the CIA was that the exiles in Miami were really lousy at keeping their rnouths shut, It was soon no secret at all that an exile a m y was assembled and in training. h1 fact, when the John F. Kennedy adminiswation i~nple~nented the invasion plan in April 1961, intelligence leaks were so had that much of Castrobeteran army abvaited the C:IA flotilla at its landing point: the Bay of Pigs. Although the invasion was a dismal failure and a pul3lic emharrasslnent to the United States, the infant Cuban government was womied, It tightened its bonds with the Sovie& and welcomed the help of Eastern-bloc military advisers. In August 1961, "Che" Guevara-now Castm's righthand man-approached a senior m i t e Mouse official during a diplomatic xneedng in Paraguay. C;uevara told the National Security Council's John Goodwin that Cuba was willing to break off its ties with the Soviets, if in exchange the United States would stop Wng to topple the regime. &ud-

win rebuffed &emraps overture. Stung by its economic losses in Cuba and mindful of the danger the revolution posed to its interests throug.hout the hemisphere, Washington was in no mood to entertain such suggestions for peace. New attempts to desuoy Castro and his government failed. Focusing on Fidel's charisma, the C W supposed that his death might undo the revolution. It soon hatched a number of creative assassination schemes. In one operadon the intelligence agency, aware of Casao's fondness for chocolate milkshakes, placed an agent with poison in the ice cream parlor of a Havana hotel. Unfortunately, just as he was ahout to sour the 1eader"sce cream weat, he discovered that- the cylinder of poison had complet-ely stuck. to the side of the freezer. His vain efforts to retrieve it aroused the suspicion of C:asao$ bodyguards, who apprehended the agent and once again saved their nadon's hero. Botched assassination attempts on <:astrt, were of minimal consequence, however, because his death at the hands of the Unifrrd States would only have served to further antagonize the Cuban populace. More effective for disrupting the revolutionary experiment was the targeting of the livelih(~od of the people themselves. "'Operadon ~Mongr>ose'\wasan extensive covert operation out of south FIorida in the early 1%Os that involved thousands of raids by small boatloads of saboteurs. Targeting infrastructure, including power stations, communications facilities, and bridges, these raiders caused new hardships for rural Cubans, who had overwhel~ninglpsupported the revolution. However, sabotage also failed to destabilize the regime. Gastrobgt,-c.em-rentpubficized US, attemp.ts to desac3j7 it, and in the early 1960s it continued to enjoy the ovenvhel~ningsupport of the Cuban people. Where invasions, assassination plots, and raids fdiled, an economic embargo introduced an exceedingly slow recipe ti)r success, A July 1960 sugar embargo was gradually expanded to a total embargo by 1964, including a navel ban (though circumvented by other nations, such was akle to monitor h e r i c a n traffic in as hfexico, where the U.S, errsbass~~. and out of the forbidden counuy). Only massive infusions of cash and material aid from the Soviet Union averted economic depression; when those infusions ahmpdp ended after the So7riet collapse in 1091, the C:ukan economy foundered. Soviet aid to the <:uban regirne began in the mid-1060s. It included a nzilitary component (both w e q t ' o n u d personnel), which played an important role in saengthening Cuban defense. In 1962, the Russians began to install nuclear warheads on the island, a swategy that provoked the fam u s Cuban Missile Crisis d e n the United States discovered the presence of the missiles in fjctober. From the Soviet perspective, it seetned only fair to have warheads poised for launch 100 miles off the U.S. coast, given the similar proximif~rof h e r i c a ' s nuclear spears located in Turkey.

But the Kennedy administration refused to accept the direct threat of nearby Soviet warheads, and it brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in a successful effort to remove them, T h e Pentagon went to ""Def Gom 2" status, its highest smte of nuclear alert during the Ch13 War, and put seven megatons of nuclear weapons in the air. A possible first strike against Moscow was not out of the question. The Strategic h r Command, Joint C:hiefs of Stat't; and Republican congressional leaders all urged Kennedy to invade Cuba with troops that could both neutralize the xnissile sites and take out <:astro9s regime. Kennedy, a cold warrior who accelerated military spending and ensnared the LJnitcPd States in Wetnam, uncharacteristically backed away from this confrontation (apparently due in part to the influence of Robert Kennedy, his younger brother, who was then US.. attorney general), Instead of an invasion, JFK ordered a naval hlockade to 'kquaranritze" Cuba. This relatively benign response proved fommitous: The CIA had failed to e missiles installed and detect that the Soviets had ~ e n t ~ ; - t h r enuclear ready for launch in Cuba. The targets, including Miami and Washington, D.C., had been selected. WC)U~$ Russians have fired the missiles in the event of an invasion? We cannot know for certain, but it is possible they would have. In contrast, the blockade was a winner. The GernXin had no stomach to force the issue-Cuba was not that imporant either economically or s~ategically-and the Soviets backed dotvn, Guevara a r p e d that Castro shodd throw: the Sovies out and keep heir.missiles, but instead the Cubans deferred tc,~LMr>scow"secisit>nto wihdraw. Soviet econan~ic aid continued, and as a result, extensix health care and education prograins kept a majority of Cubans faithful to their governlnent over the next quarter centuq. In the post-Soviet worXc3 of the 199Os, however, Cuka has nearly heen brou$t to its knees. ?he 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, supported by elderly southern senators like jesse Helms, who still rcmember Castro's desegregaGon, was designed by i t s Demtrcr-atic autlizors ""to make tile C:uhan economy scream." Yet the results were disappoindng. ?Be act's call for the punishment of countries ~ a d i n g with Cuba was a violation of international l a y and enkjrcement proved nearly impossible, Penalties imposed on foreign businesses that had acquired properties in Cuba once owned by Americans (prior to seizure by the <:asm, government) also violated treaties and offended some of Washingtonkcllosest allies. CanadabadiaInent briefly toyed with an identical xneasure regarding properdes in the United States, on the justification that many colonials who had fled to Czanada in the wake of the h ~ e r i c a nrevolution had ltltst their lands to the victorious "paaiots." In 1999 the Clinton adminiswation modestly eased resaicdons on Cuba--a slight reversal of policy that reflected a lack of poli c y options and fruswated anti-Czastro F'loridians.

CIA predic~urzsthat Cuba would fjll apart after the Sua;iet collapse in 1991 went unfulfilled. The Castro regime's legalization of what was once the black market--coupled with its diversif cation of exports, wooing of European (especially Spanish) and C:anadinn investors, and upstart tourist indusq---had stabilized the economy by ~nid-decade.Indeed, "communist" Cuba was more aggressively privatizing its economic sphere than was Russia under Boris Yeltsin-and the latter was being hailed by Wesern media as a champion of free enterprise. Yet even though the island nation has adjusted in the post-Soviet era, it would still likely benefit from a rapprochement with the United States. h open, post-Casao Cuba could be expected to amact new capital and lnyriad American a~urists,and its dilat3idated capital city of Havana would receive a much-needed renovation. &ha is close enough, and small enough, &at the volume of U.S. weal& would net its people real benefits, especially after the hardships
T h e success of Cuban nationalism in I959 sent shivers throughout the U.S. foreign policy establish~nentand pro~npteda reevaluadon of he~nispheric conditions by political analysts, diplomats, and academics. If Cuba, which was such a close ally, could turn on the United States, what might happen in the rest of Latin A ~ n e r i c a w e nVice President Richard Nixon'., motorcade was egged by hostile demonstrators in Venezuela just a couple of years earlier, alarm belXs had sounded in Washington. After Castro's triumph, Anerica was fully aroused. It engaged policies in Latin America during the 1960s with new vigor. Fortunately far hmericans, some of the forces in the region that might have threatened US.. interests were soon detected and neutralized. In the early 1960s, America embraced the youthful energy and charisma of its new president, John E Kennedy, Kennedy reinvigorated the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union and pushed for a higher U.S. pmtile in the Third World. His administradon formulated its policies in Latin h e r i c a with a mind tcnvard aver.ting other Cuban-svle revolutions.

Its propaIn, the Nliance for Progress, was not ideologically different from what had coIne before it; the intensity of Washington's efforts to safeward its hernisf)hericinterests, however, was. AL the core of the Aliaurce t i ~ Progress r was the premise that in order to stave off more revolts, a modicum of refor~nwas necessary. The old adage, a version of which is attributed to a Russian czar, that it is better to refc~rnrr from above than to experience reform (revcjlt~tion)frcm below, echoed in the offices of U.S. policpakers. During and after the 1 9 6 0 ~ several ~ U.S.influenced regimes in Latin h e r i c a experimented with li~nitedpolitical and economic reti3rms-at the same h e receir;ing ahnndant militar]v'provisions and increasinh sophisticated counterinsurgency instruction. In retrospect, the reforms seem not to have accomplished much, other than to heighten g2ubfiic awareness that change was possible. In contl.ast, the accelerated ~nilitarizationof the hemisphere paid real dividends. It tightened links b e ~ e e U.S. n and Latin American security apparatuses and allowed for the puqing of subersive eIementa that sought tt, challenge the seams quo. One of the most important features of the new security arrangemenu: was the establishment of the Inter-A&nericanDefense College 1962, Located at Fort it1cNail; on the outskirts of Washington was ostensibly established under the rubric of the Organization of can Stares, hut its direct parent is tzbe Inter-An~erieanDefense Board, a Wc~rldWar II organ heavil trolled by the U.S. Departnlent of Defense. Since the early 1960s the has been a critical. link hemreen U.S. and Latin h e r i c a n militaries. It trains Latin h e r i c a n army officers and keeps them in close contact with influential and friendly h e r i c a n counterparts. The economic features of the dliance for Progress also proved beneficial to h e r i c a , New loans, largely arranged tl~rougha host of l^isinginternational financial insdtulrions, helped stimulate U.S. exports, deepen trade links, and plant the seeds of a debt problern (see Chapter 9) that led to Latin hel-icahsubservience to U.S. macroeconomic goals hy the fiventieth century's close. Yet in Inany cases, early reforms initiated by civilian governments went beyond what both Washington and Latin America's rich were willing to tolerate, fzertain feamres of populism tlrrea~r-redto take m institutional f o m and promote a brand of economic and political narionalism clearly detrimental to vested interests. Elites were predictably nervous; after all, they lived, rtften quite fiterally, with she poor right outside their doors. IWhat uanspired in Cuba was frightening to them. Hence, the temptation to brook no dissent and intervene with newly impmved nzilitaries was naturaity swong, It was bt>&foreseeable and logical that military regimes would come to power. &though the armed forces took control in nearly all of South America, we can idendiy major patterns and con-

sequences of the coups, or takeovers, by reviewing events in the "ABC" countries: hgendna, Brazil, and Chile. The first major nation to experience military rule was Brazil. By the early 1(160s, Brazilians were expel-iencingthe henefits and contradictions of "development." During the previous decade, hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign (mostly U.S.) capital poured into the country, as corporations like Generaj Electric, Ford, and D u h n t built factories and established subsidiaries that faciliated access to the domestic xnarkeqlace and took advantage of favorable labor and raw material resources. A middle class of engineers, educators, lawyers, medical professionals, and entrepreneurs rose in cities like SQoPaulo-the met-ropolis that had already become the industry-pumping heart of the nation. The carving of a new capital, Brasilia, out of the jungles was a massive public works project designed and executed by the Brazilian government during the 1950s. Despite apparent political harmony, Brazil faced an uncertain future. Ideas of mass participation in pcdlitics did not die when Ckt-iilio \Jargas Elled himself in the Presidendal Palace in 19554. On dle contrary? his appeals to certain elements of the nation's large underclass spawned more grassroots mtrbilization*Labor unions in the cities and peasant leapes in the countlyside agitated for refor~n.They also tended to back a rising political organ (once tied to Vargas) called the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB). Populist ideas were mutating from personailism into movements and political parties. Many wealthy Brazilians, including Siio Paulok industrialists, who allied themselves with U.S. mrporadons and watched creeping industrial wages cut into their profir-s, feared the PTB and its most prominent figure, Jolio Goulart. Goulart, known by the nickna~ne"ango," briefly served as labor minister before winning the vice presidency in the 1950 elections (unlike the sirnation in the United States, the sanle poiirical party did not necessarily control both the presidency and vice presidency in Brazil). 1ndustl.iaiistsand others, who owned most of the mass media, promoted a SHo Paulo pliticiarl narned JSnio da Silva Quadrns far president in the 1960. Quadros, who carried a broom and roused crowds by pmmising to sweep away c~rmption,WPS not a man of deep ideological substance. kMedia, money, and flamboyance worked, however, and his campaign rolled to victory in a nadon of poorly educated people. Yet, tragically for the forces that had backed him, this less-than-stable man resigned from offifice in the summer of 1961, elevaring the PTB's Goulart into the presidential chair. The rich and the military generals, who were somerimes less than happy with @aLIros, were now thoroughly hesitle themselves. They arranged to weaken the powers of the executivt: bran& prior to Gutart's ascent, and a t least for a brief while, the new leader seemed under crlneal.

ButJango C;oulart was not the problem. A wealthy landowner, he was in Inany ways a Inoderate who tried to hold Brazil's increasingly divided body politic together. mass democratic pressures for change were percolating. In Siio Pauio and Rio de Janeiro, workers held enormous rallies, Strikes paralyzed major indusuies, and fc~reipinvestors cooled in their appraisal of Brazil. In the impoverished northeastern part of the vast country, peasants organized and pressed for meaningful land and wage reforms. All these cries far a new kind of xnass politics reached the receptive ears of Goulart; but in many ways he was only responding to those popular cries, not inspiring them.. He did, however, respond. h3 1963 his governxnent held a plebiscite that effectively undid the conditions that restricted him. By a five-to-one margin Brazilians restored a strong executive branch to government, W ~ t hthis ~nandate,the president outlined new plans. He called for agarian refor~n to reverse Brazil's cenmries of latifundio by dis~ihuringplots to the poor. He urged passage of a minimum wage law, applicable both in the cities ( h r indusaial laborers) and in the countryside. He envisioned extending vodng right5 to everyone-even the illiterate rural masses who were barred from participation hf:reading and writing tes6 (these uneducated Brazilians had been allowed to vote in the plebiscite, where they had ovewhelxningly favored restoring powers to Goulart). But even as the president prepared to rex-t~akeBrazilian sociew new ditisions soon racked the land. The nation seexned to be falling apart. Business elites, fearing the future under <;oulart, lampooned him in their newspapers and in radio and television medin. 'fl> the amusement of Inany, especially in the ~niddleclass, the president's Inanliness was constantly under question (he was reputedly unable to satisfy his amactive blonde wif'c). Every major press oudet in Brazil was affiliated with one of the two ~najorbusiness organizadons, both of which worked to destabilize the regime and cornhat "communism." Indeed, the specter of communism was tremendously usetzul in undermining Goulart. 7 h e Con~munistparg" had been oudawed in Brazil, and Goulart openly favored its relegalization. Although his intendons were largely those of a libertarian, the charge of a growing subversion aided opposition hrces-hr the vast majority of Brazilians rejected co~nmunistidec~law. Goulart tried to hold his own during the media onslaught. "I am not afraid of a being emled a "ubversive' h r declaring the need to reform our sociey,':"he told a crowd of 150,000 in Rio, with his wife by h s side. "Our political system perpetuates an economic system that is outdated, unjust, and inhumane." iMany Brazilians still believed Gctulart in late March 19664, when he delivered that speech (and others like it). But the clever medla barrage that clouded the lines between advocacy of democracy and communism, coupled with a deteriorating economy due to capita1 Night, de-

clining foreip invesnnent, and acceleradng inflation, diminished his popularity. Sorne Brazilians, and nearly all in the upper and ~niddleclasses, welcomed the military coup that unfolded on the first day of April. The Clnited States, ti~u,was very pleased. hbassador Lincoln Gordon called the event a "great rnoxnent in the histoly of civilizadon," and Washngton recognized the new authorities in Brasilia even before the former president had left the countrye The coup signaled an abrupt end to refor~n.Brazil, haltingly ~novingin one direction, now reversed course. Civil rights were curtailed and a purging of the most vocal segments of the popular fc~rcesbegan. 'li.oops broke up strikes; security forces rounded up union organizers. The offices of the PTB, which had been declared illegal, were closed. Press censorship began, though mt~stmajor news outlets, already sympathetic to the coup, were hardly affected. Brazil's military regime is known for its violations of human rights, but the sptematjc repression of political activists did not begin immediately after the coup. From 1964 to 1968, only business-funded efforu: (especially one designated OperagZo Bandeirantes) eliminated subversives-mostly h m e r PT13 and labor organizers, atong with impoverished and nflnerahle a , hard line, .tYithin peasant acti.c.iscsin the northeast. In 1968 a Z i ~ b gd u ~ ~or the military staged a so-called coup within a coup. It was only after this that the iarn~edforces replarly engaged in tormre and extrajudicial kilings on a significant scale. Perhaps strangely, the regime kept meticulous records of these operations, and a sampling of the more than one millicjn pages of documents eventually was puklished after the regimeUdensise, in a book ensided Nanca iM~~.s (7"04~zcr*ei~zBP-QZ& in its English trrandacion). Brazilians pioneered the use of elecuical shock torture, a technique popular with Third Wc~rldsecurit?l brees today (see Chapter 10). Nlilitary schools offered classes on rnethodolog, co~npletewith labs and victirns, and in countless tomre chambers the expenmentarion conrinued, L'ictims like Nlancrel da Soaza, a btry of age 9, were beaten soundly; others were sent flopping like fish out of water with electrical jolts to their genitalia. Luis de Vela, a ~enty-six-year-oldteacher, listened to the electriciv-generated screams of his pregnant wife-a g2sychoiogical dimension of anguish seemingly as powerful as an electrical current. CEN , Brazil&naval intelligence center, housed the o&ces of the U.S. military anachk, facilitating h ~ e f i c a nputicipation in mrture metkodolom breakthn~ughs-though a visiting rear adlniral co~nplainedthat the screams of the nearby victims was a constant distrachon. Even more significant than its systematization of toralre, however, was the Brazilian military's develop~nentof theories regarding internal subversion. The famous Docrritle of National Securiv was formulated in Brazil, The core of the d o c ~ i n eis the observation that Third World t h r e a ~to

poliidcal and ecmomic srrvcmres are invariably internal, k'lrrnies in Latin Allerica in the posmar world have not existed to defend their borders but rather to preserve domesdc order and keep subversive fc,rces at bay. This insight, simple yet prohund, has been a cornerstone of security docwine in the Western hemisphere ever since. In some ways, however, the Brazilian regime pmved disappointing to those seeliing pacification of the massive nation. Despite the widespread popular xnobiliaarion that had inspired Goularr, prior to 19664 there had not been any serious guerrilla acdvity in the country. But as the generals tightened dleir grip, small armed bands surfaced, carving out anncj~ng raids on isolated police and ~nilitalyposts. The regi~nealso had a mixed record in maintaining the allegiance of the initially enthusiastic middle class. In 1%68, the occupation ofuniversiy a m p u s s and repression of college students triggered Inass protests, including one of nearly 100,000 demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro. Discontent among middle-class youth was more prclblensatic than among the poor; since urbanites had access to social and legal resources that co~nplicatedtheir physical elimination. Yet for all of its limitations, the military government in Brazil was also innovative, It created two political parties (after abolishing all ofhers), held procedural elections, and orchestrated the process so creatively that its ""dexriocratic" aappings gave it some intemadonal legitimacy. N1ilital.y rule in Brazil was beneficial to the rich and to the United States, Ironically, the Brazilian governlnent banned the h e r i c a n Declaradon of Independence, with its talk of human equality, as a subversive document. But U,S, coq~orationsgained a great deal from the curtailment of civil liberties, especially a t the expense of unionism. Real wages for industrial workers declined steadily after the coup, which bn~ughtgreater profits to stockholders in hnctrica, Land r e b m that would have changed the economic equation in the c o u n v i d e was averted. Obviously, on a number of levels, reform in Brazil as articulated by C;ozxlart and others threatened An~ericaneconomic interests. ?'hat fact largely explait~swhy the h i t e d States not only backed the coup but, as much evidence suggests (despite continued governmental secrecy), even helped arrange and execute it. Chile ancl Argenrina Felrow Suit

N1any Brazilian labor, peasant, and democratic reform advocates Red to nearby countries in the wake of the ~nilitarytakeover. But theirs was a world of danger, for military regimes multiplied across the continent. One of the last havens for political activists was Chile, a nation with a tradition of stabiliy and relative: openness. But Chileans themselves were increasingly divided over radical initiadves that threatened the future of capitalism in their country, A ti.S,-backed government under Edrrardo Frei

(19661970) had implemented a modest program of land distribution in the spirit of the hlliance for Progress. But these very limited efforts only an~usedin the rural poor more expectations and hope. Nor had heavy U.S. investment during the 1%0s transiatcct into advances fclir 30w wage workers in the cities. Roughly a third of the nation was willing to vote for a socialist in the clean 1970 elections--just enough, in a three-way race, to deliver the presidency to Sahador dlende. As had happened in Brazil under Gaulart, the political establish me^ in Chile limited executive powers so as to curtail the new leader's options. Despite this, Mlende ft~sgetfahead with aggressive nationalimtion schenres and other programs designed to mm much of the economy to the benefit of the rural and urban poor who suplx~tedhim. In doing so, he fully alienated the nation's aalxady hostile elite and portions of Chile's large middle class. hdgovern~nentterrorist bands began a ca~npaignof sabotage, and the elite-owned media slandered the president. These internal pressures coincided with a covert U.S. plan to destabilize the Chilean economy. F'inancial credit dried up, Washington terminated debt negotiations, and CIA operatives did an efkcdve job in agitadng against the regime. But even with these effort-s, Allende's political party gained ground in ~nidter~n elections. The military trump card had to be played. Fortunately far his opponents, condirions placed on lUlende prevented him in 1972-1973 from exercising civilian command over the milit-a;r?y'. During the summer of 1973, arIny officers opposed to ending Chilean de~nocracywere either physically eliminated or reassigned to minor posts. lhd-hllende adnzirals 2nd generals, most of whonr had been trairled in the United States, were poised to spring a powerful and effective coup. On Septe~nber11 they h~mbedLn ,Mo~ed~l, the Presidential Palace. The despondent president inside apparently shot himself. During the next several days, thousands of pro-Mlende Chileans were rounded up, as well as mangr of the foreign activists who had come to Chile from other countries. The general who led the coup, Augusto Pinochet, coordinated operations with acumen. The soccer stadium in downtown Santiago became a Inass prison and torture center, and Brazilian military personnel flew in to help interrogate the c17ptives. 0 1 7 1 ~the embassies of a few west European cvuntries prclvided any irrlmediate safety for the coup's opponents; the U.S. embassy, in contrast, established a support operation that assisted the military in its takeover, About a thrd of the Chilean populace openly welcomed the coup and embraced the cause of Pinochet. Even a generation later, much of the middle class (and certainly the rich) view him as a savior-one who steered the country away from its airation with communis~n.Their assessment was not unrealistic, for Allende was pursuing policies that although democratic in implementation, sought to redistribute? weal& dc3wnward through state

intervention instead of ensuring entrepreneurial profirs and increasing capital. There is absolutely no doubt that to the United States his government posed an economic threat. The well-documented U.S. involvement in the coup was a rational choice for U.S. policymakers. h had similar governments in Brazil and elsewhere, the friendly military governInent in Chile brought with it a decline in labor costs, an end to disrupdve work stoppaga, and more favorabte tax and fiscal policies fr)r coq~orations. However, Pinochetk opposition--unlike those in Inany ~nilitarystates elsewhere in Latin herica-had at least a modicum of wealth, power, and international influence. Pro-Allende, middle-class C:hileans fled overseas and levied a steady barrage of international criticism against the dictatorship. (The fact that Pinochet's security forces murdered Mlende's arnhassador in the heart of Waskingtr~n,I3.C:" lent greaer credence to the exiles' accusations.) The presence of exiled Chileans in the First Rbrld partly accounts for the unprecedented arrest of an aged Pinochet in Britain in 1998. ?'he retired general, in Lonclon for medical treatment, was placed under arrest pending extradition to Spain, where a socialist judge was t+ng to hold him accountable for human rights abuses under his long rule (his regime had killed several SpaniarcSs), ~MargaretThatcher, George Bush Sr,, and Piope John h u l fl appealed for Pinochet's release, and in LVal.ch2 0 0 the British government blocked Pinofhet's extradition by Spain and allc~wedhim to rcturn to Chile. Despite t h i s inglorious episode in his fvvilight years, Pinochet was successful in depoliticizing Chile in the 1970s. His efforts may even have encouraged hrgentinian military planners to undertakc: a sjnzilar wholesale venmre in their c o m q . ilrgentina had never resolved the conwadictory legacies of Peronis~n.A series of coups had put military officers in power, but the nation remained deeply divided, h aged Juan Percir-r, now married to his second wife, Isabella--who dyed her hair and wore gowns reminiscent of those of Evita-resided in Spain but longed to come home. When he did so, in 1973, the militav acquiesced. Xeal-ty half a million Argentines mobbed Buetlos Ares's airport in anticipation of their legendarp leader's return. Some showed up with banners supporting the nation's burgeoning guerrilla movertlen6; others showed up with p n s and knives. Anticommunists ahducted several suvecred Leftis& and converted roorns in the airport's hotel into ad hoc torture chambers. Even before Peritds plane touched the ground (he was rercluted to an air hrce base because of the crowds), his people were at war with one anothet: Per& briefly stabilized hrgenrina in 1973-1974, before dying of a massive heart attack. His widcnv, whose training as a caharet singer pro.sided no fiber for governance, ineptly atte~nptedto manage a faltering econoxny ravaged by hpperinffadon. The armed forces bided their time as conditions worsened and Argentinians clamorecl b r change. The militav conse-

quently enjoyed considerable public support when it seized the government on Lqarch 24, 19'76 and placed tsabelim under house arrest. In the wake of the mup, a thon~ugh"cleansing" of hgentine sc~cietybegan. Ail prominent and pmskonate Peronisrs were subject tt, arrest, Secret detention centers cropped up in remote urban and rural settings, where thousands of liertlpnncido.~(disappeared persons) were subjected to sophisdcated tortures. Bodies were deposited in unmarked graves or taken by helicopter out over the Atlantic and du~npedinto shark-infested waters. Though the of6cial tally of political executions is around 8,000, historians almost uniforrxsly acknowledge a figure; three to four 6imes higher (the poor, especially, are loath to collle famarcl and help i d e n t i ~lost ones). Most politically active persons went into hiding. C;rassroots organizations, including lahor unions, dissolved. Recalcitrant lvorkers at Fwd Motor Company were put back onto the asse~nblpline a t pnpoint, and their strike leaders were taken out and shot. The Argendne regime is farnous for its brutality (as General Luciano ~Menkndezprophesied, "We are going to Ell fifty thousand-~env-five thousand subversives, m e n w thousand colla'aorators, and five thousand mistakes""); but its relatively selective elirninations did not antagonize the general populace. The urban middle class actually reaped some economic benefits from the regime. h overvalued hgentine currency allowed for the importation of consumer goods and for affordable vacations to Florida. The hrgentine militaly jusdfied its tacdcs by claiming that it was defending itself against armed subversives; but in ~ t h all, of the major perrilla bands were infiltrated even before the coup, usually at the highest levels. There was never any threat of a serious insurgency, though many youthful idealists had taken up arms. T h e regimei ultimate claim to legitimacy rested on revl.-cing the moribund economy and in this it completely failed, Skyrockedng debt (up threefold bemeen 1979 and 1981), hyperinfiation, capital flight, and myriad bankruptcies undermined the dictatorship. A brief and dismal war with Great Brizrain over the Falkland Islands sealed its fate. Popular opposition coalesced, in part thou$ the visible and evocative human rights agitation of the "Mothers of the Disappeared." These beremed relatives of political prisoners had gained international media attention during hrgendna's hosting of the 1978 World Cup (and therefore could not, themselves, he easily neutralized). They silently marched arormd the plaza in front of the National Palace, c a w n g white handkerchiefs and placards with photos of their Inissing husbands and children. Their appeals were poignant, in part, because the Lbgentineregime had repeatedly stressed its commitment to preserving nzotherhczod and supporting the family. Massive and largely spontaneous rallies against the gclvernment in 1982 convinced Rrgentina5 militaly leaders to step down, Their relinquishment

of power to civilians helped de~nonstrateto vested interests, during the ~nid-1980s,that ~nilitaryrule was not the only opdon for prevendng reforms. By threatening new coups and remaining influential behind the scenes, the armed forces in Argentina resisted serious reorganization as well as any serious penaldes for their earlier human ri$ts violadons. Civilian rulers, even Peronists who eventually came to power, did not try to profc~undlychange Argentine sociev-a reassuring sign to elites throughout Latin h e r i c a . But Lbgentina'spolitical culnlre has always been somewhat unique. Its nzilitar]vcoups were kacbard-looking in that they were air-rred at csuntering the dyna~nicsassociated with the long shadows of Juan and Evita Per6n. Could the rich in other coun&es sancGon a remrn to citiillian crlntrol without again opening the Pandorays hhox of popular agitation for xneaninghl change? Brazil and Chile both set out on convoluted roads to civilian rule that finalb culrninared in N8K As the armies retreated back into the hawach, it seemed that a possible cycle of repeased mass political ~nobilizationand new coups could emerge. Fears of such a partern, however, were laid to rest in the 1990s, when a new political synthesis took hold. Economic and political reforms that sought the hetterment of cunditioxls for Latin hnericag masses could be yrevented in a variety of more sophisticated ways. Military regimes outlived their usefulness after people in gyvwer slowly came to undersand that pacification does not always have to come a t the point of a p n . Learning that valuable lesson, however, involved a decade of warfare in Central herica--a topic of such conseF e n c e that it wawane explttration in greaser dept11.

6

Revolution in Centra America

In 1994, C;eorg.ia polidcian and hstory Ph.D. Newt Gingrich, flush with Republican victories in the biannual congessional elections, quipped that anyone who had opposed aid to Xicaragua's Contra rebels during the 1980s should be required to wear an "I despise America'%brrtton. Gingrichk revisitation of the Conaa aid issue was telling: Even a decade after the raucous debates on this subject in the House of Representadves, passions twer US. policies in Cenn-a1 America pelsisted. Indeed, C:ontra aid was a defining ideological issue during the presidenc)~of Ronald Reagan. In many ways it was also the last stand of a minuscule and shrinking A h ~ e r ican ""left9'-tl~e ~ t t e r e dremnant of a political movemat barn in the mrxnoil of the 1960s. But for the United States, re-rrolu~cjnon the isthmus was once much more than a question for debate, Begincring in the late 1WOs, momenmm began to gather in Central hrnerica for political change. Because the agriculture-based small nadons of the region were governed by inflexible, mili~rizecidictati~r-ships,meaningfial change could come only through armed insurrection. Mthough revolutionary pressures tended to undercut lowwaged, export-based agriculture, the economic threat they posed to the United States was minimal, given the mcrdest dimensions of the Central h e r i c a n econolny. The indirect danger, however, was irnmense. When Nicaraguan revolutionaries toppled a dictaa~rshipin 1979, they began to rex-t~aketheir saciey and redistribute wealth downward.'Z"he ideas behind their reforms, including notions of hurnan equality and responsive civil government, were exceedingly subversive in a world of haves and havenots. Had trhe Xicarapan revolution prospered, it wc~uldlikely have inspired similar experiments elsewhere in the Third World. When revolutionary sparks first flared in and around Nicaragua, the U.S. president a t the time, Jimmy Czarter, seemed unatrle to grasp this

wider danger. Carter had arped for ilrnerican pro~notionof hu~nanrights in his inauguration speech and in the early days of his presidency---a position not natural1y compadble with wealth-extraction from the pclorer areas of the glcthe. His early responses to the Nicaraguan crisis were uneven. By the end of his ad~ninistration,he had ceased wavering and vigorously sought to suppress the popular forces at work south of the border. The pr~verbiai"cat," bwever; was out of the bag. Only a determined and chao'cic effort under Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, restored order in Central h e r i c a and averted the rise of sentiments that eventually would have generated independent governments hostile to the h i e d Sates.

The Sandinistas of Nicaragua The small and impoverished counw of Nicarapa was at the center of the storm throughout much of the tumultuous decade of the 1980s. It posed no direct militaty threat to the United States (as Rolling Stone magazine pointed out, the place was so poor that it had only one building with a working elevator). In some ways, it was this very desperadon and poverty that made the hTicarapfanrctvolution such an incredibly dangerous exansple: If its poorly fed and illiterate Inasses could take conaol of their destiny, what people on earth could not? In the mid-IWOs, most Xicarapans were living in misel-).,Their nation was in the hands of a dictator, hastasio Sornoza, whose fa~nilyhad fir~nly governed the land since the 1930s. At the core of the dictatorship was the several-thousand-member Xational C;tlarct, which used abduction and torture to terrify and isolate the regime's ene~nies.So~nozaand his close supporters amassed uemendous fortunes worth nearly US$1 billion, largely through monopoiy enterprises in construction and agriculmre, muck of the country's best lands were owned by Somoza, who hogged so rnuch wealth that he even annoyed other light-shnned elites, some of whom funded a mildly critical newpaper in the capital city Nlanapa, called Lcr P~*e~zsl;r, 1978 was a momentous year in NicaraLqa,a year in which Sornoza made several big mistaks. Ficstl~either he or his confidants decided that the editor uf Lu PF-~PZSL~ should be Elled. In January, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro"s assassinadon undermined the regime's credibiliy and angered the paper's supporters, Meanwhile, since the 10Gl)s, obscure perrilla bands had operated in the count~side,the most significant of which, the Sandinista National Liberarrion Front (FSLXY, took its name f^ron~an an^-ihmerican nationalist named Aumsto Sandino, who had heen active in the I=&. By mid-1W78, perrilla acdvities in the nurdl had sparkd some very modest uprisings. Somoza responded aggressively with his air force. The strafing and bombing of mountain villages-the same strateLy used unsuccessfully

by Batista in Cuba wenty years earlier-only alienated masses of otherwise largely depoliticized rural peasants. In Aupst, a band of FSLN rebels led by the charismatic Eden Pastora seized the National Palace (which housed the legislature) and ti~ukfifteen hundred hostages. This remarkable display of daring captured the popular imagination and forced Somoza to cede to FSLN demands-the release of political prisoners and the publication of the FSLN's vision for the corrntrSi, By late fall 1918, much of the small narion was in open revolt. The United States watched the demise of its faithful ally LhastasioSom z a with surprising detachment, The Cart-er administration drastically cut aid to So~noza'sregime, largely because of its use of U.3.-supplied aircraft in bombing civilian populations. Military aid was halted, and U.S. economic assistance was reduced to a paltry $12 million in 1078. Carter also publicly complained about human rights abuses by the heretofore U.S.-suplx~tedNarional C;uard. The FSLN, for its part, had no shortage of a m s , with supplies coming in from multiple sc)ur-ces, including Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama. A t-urther rift between the U ~ ~ i t eStates d and Somoza came injttne 1979? when the hTational Guard executed ABC Netvs comespondent Bill Stewart. Most unfortunately for the regime, the shooting of the unarmed reporter was captured on film by his cameraman and broadcast to a shocked American public on nemork television, S o r t t y thereafter; the United States joined the Organization of American States in calling for Somoza's resignation. The dictator fled in midsummer, talang up residence a t his Nlianzi estate until-embitered by Carter's lack of support-he decided to leave the c o u n q that had bewayed him. It was the last in a series of bad decisions. Taking up residence in Parapa)i he soon fell victiln to a Sandinista flit squad, which blew up his limousine with a bazooka. Back in Xicarapa, the ~ k d i n i s t a shad emerged a t the forefront of various groups vying to lead a burgeoning popular revolution. Rural peasants and urban slum dwdlers were responsive to the FSLN, in part because they correctly idendfied the Sandinistas as the Inost ardent opponents of the dictatorship. Yet initial efforts at filling the sudden void produced by Somoza's departure involved coalition-building, too. T h e Sandinistas formed alliances with noder rates from Managuak s~nallupper class, including the widow of Pedro Chamorro, \5oleta, who had become a syrnbol of wealthy opposition to the regin~e.Uut in a pattern similar to that of the early Cuban revoludon, most of these moderates were soon alienated from the Sandinis~s,and vice versa. ?he fundamental y~resdonof hcjw to run the economy was central: Ws~uldNicarapa continue to hster privatc enterprise, or implement socialist policies benefiting the ~najority(the poor)? The answer, under the Sandinistas, was the latter. By 1981, nearly 40 percent of the economy was nationalized (including l a v e holdings previously

controlled by the So~nozaclan). T h e well-to-do were not particularly happy, whereas Inany of the poor were celebrating their newfound economic pc~ssibilities.Moderates resigned or were ousted from the cabinet. T h e elite began to flee en masse to condos and vacation homes in the Uflited States, near Miami. The Catholic hierarchy stepped fc~mardto oppose the new government, even while many of its rank and file, including a number of parish pries@,supprted the Sandinisas, h re.citalized Ltz f i - e ~ ~ - i t also became an importartr Lbl'u~nfor the opposition, and various middleclass business groups weighed in against Sandinista economic directives. The United Staes was also initiall-y divided in i t s response to the Sandinistas.Jirnmy Can-er welcomed thei; leader, Daniel 0r;ega, to the White House, and liberals in Washington flirted with ideas of working with the new ref;-ime.In 19770, Carter extended ctiplon~aticrecognition-tk government's legtimacy was undeniable---and in 1080, he granted Nicaragua $195 million in economic aid. C:ould the United States do business with i t s positjon in the world? Although such the Sandi~listasu.jtiilout dar-r~aging a policy appeared plausible in the short term, the lasting consequences might have been devastating. After all, much of Latin Lh~erica, and even the world, was monitol-ing the unfolding exyel-iment in xicarapa. Its success might have inspired similar quests for change by oppressed peoples in Mrica, Aka, and elsewhere. VVhere Cartsreooticies would have led us must he left to speculation, Washington's willingness to dialowe with the Sandinistas abruptly ended with the January 1981 ascent of Ronald Reagan to the presidency Mthough the D e m o c r a ~retained control of the ltwer house in Congress, a shift in U.S. f o r e i p policy regarding Nicarapa took place--a shift more consistent with L h e r i c a neconomic interests and historical precedent. President Reagan may not have fully understood the Nicaragrctan sirnation or even, perhaps, its illherent dangers. He did, however, understand that the Sandinistas were neither good capitalistc nor namrally compliant with US.. goals, A pmoifuct of the Cold War-a man who had made his mark in the antricommunist crusade in Holbwood (as part of the screen actors" guild, he fingered suspected "redsn)--Reagan saw the Wlaki-clad Sandinistas as carbon copies of Cuba's revolution;aries-and he understood that Castro and his comrades were "bad guys." The Reagan administration's policies to rid the world of the Sandinistas were admitredly very sloppy, hut they worked. In 1081, U.S. economic aid to hfana~ctawas halted, and an attempt to isolate and undermine the regime began in earnest. With the support of a steady stream of returning Nicaraguan expatriates, military bureaucrats conceived of new waj7s to oust the Sandinistas from power, The product of their effora was the cultivation and coordination of a polirical opposition called the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (EDhY. hfustered in the north, along the Honctumn border, the Csntras,

as they were commonly known, began a campaip of cross-border raids in Nicaragua in an attempt to inspire the overthrow of the Manapa government. A second front opened in the south, out of Costa Rica, led by none other than Edkn Pastora-\vho had g r w n disgmnded with his Sandinista brothers. But the Conaas proved unable to rally anyrhing even remotely akin to mass support. Part of the reason for their failure was that nineteen of the ~ e n t y - s i xtoy rebel leaders were f c m e r National Guards-members of an arm of the Somoza e~ablishmentthat the vast majoriv of Nicaraguans hated. .iUso, Contra raids snuck at what the CIA termed "soft targetsm-br-idges, schools, power stations, and health clinics-which did little to win the hearts and ~nindsof the peasanv. Early on, too, the Contras proved inept in battle, gaining a reputation as losers. W e n opportunities came tr> engage the Sandinisra army unblded, the C0ntr.a~usually scurried back across the Honduran harder, where a U.S. military presence assured their safet). Contra propaganda efforts were stymied by the goodwill enjoyed by the Sandinistas in the early 1980s. At the outset of their governance, the revolutionaries carried out heal&, education, and agrarian reforms in the countvside, and issued widely publicized decrees stipulating economic equaliq for wotnen (rhetoric often ridiculed by lower-class men), A vaccination campaign drarnadcally decreased infant mortaliw rates. The distribution of Somozcisa lands delighted nearly 100,000 peaants; and an ambitious literacy c a ~ n p a i pxnade further inroads in the countryside, though Sandinista claims of dramatic reductions in adult illiteracy were exaggerated. Because of these reforms and 3 dde of optir-izism in the cuuntq7, the FSLN rolled to victory in the first clean elections ever held in Nicarapa. Yet their adversaries could take heart: Nearly a third of the 1084 vote went to conservative oyposition parties. Nicarag~answere divided, and they could be split apart. Beyond Nicaragua5 borders, the Reagan administradon faced an uphill smggle in attempting to reverse the Sandixlistas9mtctnes. Europeans had soIne synpathy for the Sandinistas. France supplied the FSLN with arms until 1982, and myriad governments criticized Washingtony$policy-though the conservative British regime stood by its ally. The Wcjrld Court in The H a p e found the United States p i l t y of having violated international law in suppordng the Contras and ordered repararion payments (a verdict that the United States simply ignored). Cc~vertoperations in conj u n c ~ o nwith the Conr3-a war also were not g o i ~ ~ well. g In 198134, the GHk mining operations in Nicarag~anharbors resulted in damage to Japanese keighters, antagonizing yet anather important ally. Unitecl Natjons condexnnation soon followed. Even within the Ullited States, popular opinion iailed to decisively shift in favor of stoyping the Sandinistas, Polls repeatedly showed the public

badly split, even though Ronald Reagan expended ~nuchpolitical capital in defense of the FDN oppositim. H e lauded the Cuntras as ""re moral equivalents of our ( h e r i c a n ) Founding Fathers"; he called them "freedom fighters," a turn-of-phrase made silly hy revelations of human I - i g h ~ atrocities they had perpetrated. Indeed, because Reagan so publicly discussed the (:ontras, news outlets could not help but thoroughly invesdgate their activi ties-a development not beneficial to Washington. W e n Nczsalrek, for example, published a sequence of photos in which a Contra fi3rced a prisoner to dig his own grave before sticklng a knife into his throat, many Americans (who thought better of C k o q e Washington) were outraged. When excerpts from a leaked CIA ~nanualfor the Conaas entitled P~chologic~~l Opr~-tzrio~zs in GurfriNa Wn~finu (complete with subsections on the use of ten-or and the "neuu.alization""of civilians) appexed in the press, Inany again conde~nnedthe U.S. role. These mishaps, linked to the doomed high-visibility approach of the Reagan administration, unraveled US, poli~ytowad the Contras, Liberals in the Democrat-controlled House of Representat-jvesmoved to cut off funding for the Contras, once public pressure to do so materialized. hTearlyevery m j o r city in the industrial northern sates, as well as mallfr on the west coast, had grassroots political poups agitadng against Reagan's C e n ~ a iiZM~crican l policies by 1985. One hundred &clusand citizens even signed a Pledge of Resistance, in which they pblicly vowed to protest or engage in nonviolent civil disobedience in the event of a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. Coordinated largely through the Sojourner5 <:ommunity, a radical CXristian fellowship in Washingtc~n,D.C., this challenge posed ohvious proble~nsfor the adminiswadon in the event of direct militaly engagement, If the Contras had pro-\;en more effective on the battieSidd, an end to their funding night have been a ~najordisaster for U.S. poli given their ineffecdveness, the Reagan adminiswadon pmhably could have abandoned them almgether and banked solely on economic warfare in its efforts to destroy the Nicaraguan regime. T h e Contras did force the FSLN to divert resources to its army and rnilitarize the c o u n q ; and by the mid-198(3s, they were inflicting enough infrastnrctural damage that they had beco~nean asset for the United States. There was also the psychological factor. Nicaraguans were under s ~ e s sfearing , Contra violence and an expansic~nof the war. Vet there was litde chance that the Contras, by themselves, would force a change in government. Instead of allowing the operation to go dormant, the White House detennined to move funding underground, violating congressional law, 'This decision was a poor one, since the subsequent operadon was shoddily Inanaged and subsequently exposed to the public.

h-l the White House's defense, however, few other ~nilitaryoptions existed. Panama's dictator, Manuel Noriega, offered to kill the Sandinista leadership. But although xoriega had covert connecdons and was on the G1& pa).r.off, there were legitimate questions as to whether he could deliver on this grandiose pro~nise(U.S. National Security Adviser John Poindexter also disliked Noriega because of his drug operations). Public opposition and the Pledge of Resistance made a direct U.S. militcaly strike impractical, a1thoug.h the White House drew up contingency plans for internment camps and a temporary suspension of the Constitution in the event that a military operation were undertaken in the face of wictespread public disconen t. Illegal funding of the Contras was coordinated by Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Oliver North, operating largely frum within the M i t e House, Since tax revenues were now unavailable, North coordix-lated the sale of arms to another nadon, Iran, and routed the money to the Contras. The irony of the scheme was considerable: Iran was Gelrely anti-hel-ican, itself in the throes of popular revolutionary fervor; but it badly needed spare parts hecause of its war with Iraq. Saddam Hussein (at the time a "promising leader," according to C;ecrrge Busb) had invaded Iran with tacit U.S. approval. North was anempting to solve two foreign policy problems simultaneously. In selling arms, he worked to persuade Iran to pressure kidnappers in Lebanon tr? kee U.S. hosc-ages. The puklic position of the Reagan adminiswadon was that it would never negodate with hostage-takers; so the talks had to be kept secret. The pmfits from the arms sales were laundered throrrgh Swiss bank accounts and then used to purchase new arxns, which were in turn funneled to the Coneas. The conhas also raised money through their condnued sale of illegal narcodcs, though it remains uncertain whether the CM coordinated ti-teir cocaine oper~tims."Eourteen rnillion dollars to finance arms," recorded North in his Jtrly 1985 diary, "came from drugs." The Iran-Contra connection became public when a supply plane was shot down over Nicarapa and its h e r i c a n pilot and cargo were traced to the covert supply ring. News media gradually exposed the details of the poorly cloaked N%ite House program, and liberals in Ccrngress investigated Inatters to the point where &rth stepped forward as the fall p y . Television coverage helped North at this point--here was an earnest Marine in uniform, lu>ldtystating his case, befixe a panel of visibly indecisive politicians. Yet despite the popularitp engendered by North's appearance, Americans remained divided over the Contra cause. Evangelical Christians, who had long supported the Contras (~levangelistPat Rokertson visited Honduran camps, delivering supplies and prayers for the "andcornmunis~"")rallied to Narth"sefense, Old-line mainseean1 churches, such

as Presbyterians and Methodists, opposed the Conuas and lobbied the goas-the-wind-blows liberals in the Congress. North perjured himself during the congressional hearings; but as a Democratic president later proved, perjuv is not necessarily fatal to one5 political career, ilrnerican public support for the Contras only began to rise substantially near the end of the 1980s, as media reportage from Central h e r i c a dinzinished. Legal funding fix the Ct3ntr.a~revived un Jer President Get~rge Bush, and the t h e a t of renewed Conha raids detnoralized pro-Sandixlista Nicaraguans on the eve of an important second national election. It was financial and economic stranplation that ultimately cmshed the revolutionary regime. During the mid-1980~~ the United States pressured international financial institutions to withhold credit; blocked sympathetic businesses (such as dothing manufacturer Levi Strauss) from building plants in Nicarapa; and eventually erected a for~nidablee~nbargothat gutted the small country's economy. The Sandinistas, who had succeeded in stabilizing prices in the early 19130~~ watched helplessly as combined capital flight and isolation did their work. Inflation took hold and spiraled out of contrcjl--mahng Nicaraguan currency nearly worthless by 198% Nlany poor Xicarapans were barely able to afford fr)od. On the eve of the 1990 elections, the Sandinistas, gambling that good intentions could win them domestic and intemadonal support, freed Contra prisoners, sanctioned press freedom, and wen authorized a U.S.-funded polit-ical oppusiriun to forxn. The new W O Coalition, made up of pulitical groups ranging frt~marchconservatives to the small Nicarag~anCommunist Party, domhated the airnaves through the financial help of the United States. Knowing that only an and-Sornozcista candidate could win, UN0 wisely chose Violeta Chamorrt, as its presidential contestant. The a p ~ ~ eof a l a woman candidate was t~nzendous,since many poor women had been politicized during the course of the revolution. The Sandinistas staged rnamrnoth rallies featuring sympatheric foreign celebrities, such as guit-arist Jackson Browne. But rock and r011 was not enough; the Sandinistas lost Nicarapa's second clean election by a landslide. With the economy in ruins, popular senriment had turned against the regime, though this did not equate with an endorsement either of the Contras or of a remm to the past. Chamorro was able to serve out her term, despite a continued slide in the economy and the faihre of the U ~ t e dStates to RSMre economic aid at previous levels. By 19995, Xicarapa'ci economy was smaller than it had been in 1965, and nearly 40 percent of the populadon was suffering from malnourishment. Yet Xicaraguans remained depoliticized; a grc~\vingaddiction to television (even on low-cjualiq communal sets in the ban.ios) was more p r e d e n t than any. revoludonay inclinations. U.S. policies, though haphazard, had borne fruit. Wealthy citizens returned, and small pockets of affluence dotted the otherwise dismal landscape of Man-

Gulf of Mexico

Pacific Ocean

Central America and the Caribbean agua. Domino'\ Pizza magnate Torn Monaghan even underwn~tethe costs for a snappy new cathedral, a tribute to the persistent and helpful antiSandinista effcjrts of &kchbishopiVipei Obando y Bravo,

Smging Grounds: Costa Rica and Honduras The Contra war against Nicarapa could not have been prosecuted without the help of <:osta Rica and Honduras, which collaborated with the Clnited States to facilitate the Sandinisras' demise. Regional animosities as well as self-interest on the part of Nicaragua's neighbors aided U.S. foreign policy goals. Officials in Costa h c a and Honduras cooperated with the United States and were duly rewarded with money and bl-ihes, while much

of the general populations in both nations swallowed a steady diet of antico~nrnunist~nediahype or re~nainedpolitically ill-informed and detached from events. Costa Rica has long been unusually receptive to h e r i can influence. Sometimes referred to as the 'Switzerland of Central America" "cause of its relative stability and prt~speritycoupled with its mountainous terrain, Gosm Rica entered the 1980s with a &adition of reasonably free electims and a sizable middle class. a shallow colonial past, lieate racial or cultural diversity, and a minuscule Indian population, the country has remaine J provincial. Its conservative political culture has tong resisted radical change. Given these precedents, coupled with Costa Rica's longstanding rivalry with Nicarag~aand disdain for thlngs Nicaraguan, it is no sulprise that Washington found in Costa Rica a quick and willing ally for its cuunterrevolwtionary crusade. Costa Rican authorities cooperated by quietly allowing the <:ontras to open a second, southern frt~ntagainst the Sandinistas in 198132. This front was unpredictable-not hecause of the TZ'CQS, as Cost-a Ricans are called, but because the C o n ~ farces a were led by Pastora, the former Sandinista who had undertaken the memorable assault on Sornoza"sTational Palace and had wound up in Czosta Rica shortly thereafter. Equipped with arms frt~mPanamanian authorities, Pastora had launched a frontal attack on the dictatomhip during the final stages of the upfjsing, He and hrs men were late in reaching Manapa, however; and the more intellectual and polidcally minded Sandinista leaders who had seized power relegated him tc,a nominal post that involved bureaucratic paper-pushing, Pastora had always been a Inan of acdon, and he soon grew restless. The takeover of the Xatinnal Palace had made him the icon of the revolzrltion; hut now, few Niearagums seemed to tlc~t-icehim. His peasant backgrorrnd and limited schooling made a serious managerial post unlikely* A few months later, stymied by these events and disillusioned by the newfound nzaterialism of some of his Sandinism colleapes, Pastc~radecided to leave the country and explore the possibilities for inidadng a second wave of revolt. He wandered off to Libya, where he sought funds from Muammar Qadhafi and talked of joining the Indian rebellions in Guaten~ah,He also visited Cuba and spoke with Castro, who told him to go back to Nicaragua, do his best, and support the Sandinista cause. Pastora ended up communicating with U.S. o%cials and go-betweens representing the C:H, In time, he was convinced that he should restart the Nicaraguan civil war and replace the Sandinistas himself. heavy backing from the United Smtes, he set up camp in CcIsta Rica. Pastora was a proble~nfor the United States, because although he was charismaric and a talented fighter, he was not completely malleable. For example, he snfbbornly refused tt, work with Contras who were ex-Somoza

National Guards (a serious Bay given the composition of the Cuntra ranks). He rexnernbered his childhood, when the National C;uard had murdered his father in order to seize his farm. Because of thls and other preconditions Pastwa set, his relationship with his American bakers was exceedingly tenuous. By spring 1984, when he had several thousand men in the field along Nicarapa's southern border, he seemed to spend as much time haranping the C H as the government he was supposed tt, he fighting! In May, when Pastora was meedng with a group of reporters at his jungle hideout, a bomb exploded, wounding him. Sandillistas probably had planted the bomh, but no one on the Amelticatl side was terribly sad to see Pastora go into an unanticipated redrement. The man behind Pastora and in charge of coordinating much of the Gontras' southern front was a wealthy American rancher named John Hull. Working as a CIA agent, Hull orchestrated airlifts, supply operations, and aaining programs for the rebels with the knowledge of Costa Rican authorities. D u r i ~ ~the g adnsinistration of Luis Alberta Monge (1982-1986), Costa Rica was exceedingly helpful in these efforts, turning a blind eye to violadons of sovereignty and human rights, and even allowing the United States to build a secret airstrip in a remote area of the corrntrSi, Monge himself beca~nea Reagan ad~ninistrationpoint Inan on Central America, flying into Washington and lobbying the U.S. Congress for more Gontra and militaw aid. He and his cabinet mert~berspersonally enjoyed the benefits of cooperation, with WMD hnds and other foreign bank deposits often ending up in their private accounts. The lack of an invesdgative press corps in Costa Rica assured contimed puMiic dociligr, U'flformnately for Washingtc~n,however, Mon$eS successor was not as compliant, Oscar Arias was an intellectual who was bothered by the Contras' Goiatic-tnsof Costa Rican sovereignq and neutralicq. and was not easily persuaded. h i a s threatened to disclose the location of the secret U.S. airfield--a ploy that prompted Oliver North to tell hixn he muld forget about U.S, economic aid if he ever did so, Apparently even without a leak from the h i a s governlnent, h e r i c a n reporters found out about the landing site and decided to go ahead and report it. The newspapers that ran the story; including the Mami Ile~paidand New Erk Tk~~ges.? pried fur-tller into the extensive CIA operations around Nicarapa-which in addition to supplying the Coneas were moving shipments of cocaine northward. Arias, for his part, did not remain idle. His government began to prosecute John Hull for kidnapping, torture, drug smuggling, and a range of charges ct~llectivelyterrned "hostile actc." Hull fled for home, where the intervention of Lee X-lrmliltr~nand other Indiana politicians helped block his exwadidon back to Costa b c a to stand trial (a proceeding that, had it occurred, could have brought forth damaging evidence about U.S. covert operations), The Tico president met? lectured Ronald Reagan, in a closed

~neetingin 1987, audaciously telling the leader of the W s t that he understood neither the even6 in Cent-sd Anerica nor the consequences of U.S, policy in the region, and would do well to quit funding the Contras. Tn 1987, the United States cue off econon~icaid to Cos& RRa as Arias pursued a new peace initiative. Cosra Kicans conr.inced the Sandinistas to sign a pact that sought to demilitarize the isthmus, as a consequence of which the i"\iZ.anaparegime pursued a host of new policies that led directly to the Sandi~listas'defeat in the 1990 elecdon. ?Bey siped a peace accord with the <:ontras and lifted nearly all res~aintson political activities, allt~wingfor the weli-organized, V.$,-filnded c~pposirionand a highly cl-itical press. Ironically, although the United States resented Arias's peace plan at the dine, the pact helped pave the way for what was clearly hest for L h ~ e r ica: The end of the Sandinisas. Nor could h i a s himself complain: He received the Xobel peace prize and worldwide recognition. Costa Ricans, however, rejected his party at the polls in 1990, turning the presidency over to hjs l%H eelectoral rival and bringing Costa Rican policies back into har~nonywith those of the United Stares. Weueas Costa h c a was a key but inconsistent ally, Honduras served CI.S.. interesa more st-eadily.Government magisuates in Tegucigalpa never raised any serious objections to a profound militarization of their pour country. During the mid-1980~~ enonnous Cones support bases sprang up in Pafmerola and elsewhere near the southern Honduran frontier; where tens of thousands of knerican service~nenwere engaged in aaining or giving other support to the Contras. Honduran officers served as g(>-bemeens in mili2-a;~ operations, and opportunities for graft kept them hap12y. Most poor Hondurans see~nedalso to welco~nethe foreip presence, as the dollars flowing into the hands of restaurateurs and prostitutes aided the morihund lt~caleconomy. Despite the apparent docility of Hondurans, a small cadre of military ogicers and U.S. advisers who feared that unrest in El Salvador and Gatemala might spread into Honduras created Ifat~aJr~jn 3-15. A secret intelligence unit funded by Washington, B 3-16 set up safe houses in Honduras, where political activists were interrogated and tortured. That U 3-56 operatives were Jigging Jeep in order st_, find sulwersives is e.videcrt by the idend.tlies of their prisoners: Most victirns were reporters with a penchant for accuracy, or human right5 and labor union organizers critical of the government, Several students who agitated for free schoolbooks and lower bus fares were also rounded up. Many victims, like journalist Oscar Reyes and his wife, survived sessions of beatings and electric shocks (tlrtrugh the eauma continued to haunt them), All told, when investigations by Leo Valiadares Lanza and other pro-dernacracy advocat-es in Honduras systematically documented 3-16's activities during the lVVOs,

they could idendfy only two hundred persons who were "completely disappeared" (killed after undergoing tormre). Ircjnically, the crearion of B 3-16 seems to have sparked the klnd of upstart opposition it was supposed to prevent. A fevv guemilla bands formed in the Honduran mountains in the late 1980s, though they never amounted to much. Perhaps their biggest score was the killing of General Gustavo Alvarez ~Martinezin 198%~Martinez,who helped cxate B 3-15, had received the Legion of Merit from Ronald Reagan for "encouraging the success of democratic jjracesses in Hc~nduras,"Mter he was ousted from the a m y cirte to scandal in 1984, he resided with his family in Florida, m e n he remrned to Tegucigalpa in order preach the gospel (like Inany Central Arnerican military men, Mardnez was an Lberican-influencedevangelical), the obscure Popular Liberation alovenzent ""sent him to God" with a barrage of heavy ~nachinegun fire. When B 3-16 and the Conwas ceased operarions in the early 1990s, the Honduran guerrilla cells also disbanded. In 2000, ezavations began izl earnest a t a fi~rrxsert:ontra camp near the Nicaraguan border, where B 3-16 victims and Contra prisoners were buried. Digging has turned up small metal prison cells, where victims apparendy were he13 between tormre sessions, Human rights investigators believed they had found da~nningevidence there of B 3- 165. dirty war, but the Honduran militar): acknowledging the find, suggested that the bodies had come from a nearby hospital.

Exterminating lndians in Guatemala Fears of Honduran instability were not only due to the nation's proximity to Nicaragua but also to the massive reprmssion unleashed in Guatemala, to the west. Betvveen 1978 and 1085, tens of thorrsands of Mayan Indians were eli~ninatedin counterinsurgency operations by the Guatemalan army and security forces. The scope of the bloodletting was probably unnecessary to preserve order, since Guatemala5 disparate guemilla bands never really inspired the popular support necessary for a seizure of the state. However, race was a driving factor in the repression and its excesses. It is unclear what benefits, if any, the United States expected to derive from these killings; but as is documented in the U.N. Xuth Com~nission's 1999 report, U.S. security resources were integral to facilitating the ethnic cleansing. With racial diversity and one of the most skewed dis~ibutionsof wealth in the hemisphere, Cguatemala has long appeared ripe for revolution. In fact, the Indians that make up dle vast majoriy of the population have always been deeply divided by regional, linpistic, and cultural differences, and remote villagers in the mountains have tended to keep to themselves.

A powerful lndilro (light-slanned elite) in C;~~ate~nala City has politically dominated the country for centuries, having usurped direct control over large tracts of land in the 1870s. Insg3ired by overseas demand for coffee, the rich carved largejz'izcfi.~,or coffee plantations, out of proyerv o\vned by villagers or the Catholic Church, acquiring tracts through legal mechanislns provided by a classic liberal government. By the mid-twentieth century, Guatemala had both mini- and latihndis. E n o r m o u s j l i , ~consumed ~ much of the best land, with a Inere menty-WO estates occupying 13 percent of the country. Surges in population gmwth left too many Indians on too few plots of n~arginalland. By 1050 most of Gt~atemala'snearly I million Indians were destitute; and more than 150,000 were barely subsistent, with less &an four acres. The political system opened up at the close of Wc~rlctWar 11,when urban unrest ousted a pro-German president. 'Tbe subsequent rule of middle-class reformer Juan Lbkvalo laid the gmundwork for land reform through a new constitution; but it was his s ~ c c e s ~ ~ ~ f a J Arhenz, a ~ O b o who led a truly revolutionary government. h b e n z issued Decree 900, authorizi~~g a ~nassiveredistribution of rural lands. Mthough well conceived, Arbenz's agrarian ref o m faced determined t~ppositionfrom planters and wiggered a chaotic process of change in the countryside. Peasant leagues flourished, even though their leaders suffered headngs and intimidadon. Yet the poor themselves were divided, with different tribal groups vying fur various tracts of land, and preInature land seizures badly disrupting the legal processes of distribution. The U~litedStates, perceiving communist influence in the hhenz gclvernment and annc~yedby the seizure of properv t~\medby United Fmit Cornpany (Cfiquita Brands), bunched a covert operation against the regime. The conservadve Guatemalan military, instead of protecdng their country, gelded to outside pressures and forced hhenz, hirnself a colonel, to retire, Both the wealhy and the small C;uatemala City middle class, unnerved by the uncontrolled changes taklng place in the countryside, rejoiced. Nearly all1 of the confiscated lands were retctmed to the rich, and a decades-long process of suppression began. It was not so much the coup as the dghtening of intemal security in its wake that spawned modest gt~errilacells in the late 1950s. Guatemala found itself in tur~noilduring the re~nainderof the mrentieth century. Various U.S. programs equipped and aained it5 security forces: Much of the officers' corps received counterinsurgency instruction horn An~ericans; and in the mid-1960~~ US. special forces pracdced counterinsurgency operations in <;uatemala's mountain highlands (we still know relatively little about these clandestine field exercises), Although the government in Guatemala City often displayed civilian feamres, the military firmly held the reins of power into the mid-1990s. In the late 1960s C;uatemala was among the first Latin h e r i c a n countries to develol-7death squads-secre-

tive bands of military Inen who carried out not-so-secret polidcal killislgs in order to frighten people and squelch public dissent. Despite the repressive environment, guerrilla groups in Guatemala never mobilized mass support like that of the FSLX in Xicstragua. hfost of the early rebel leaders were educated ~nesdzos,and the culmral and ideological gaps between them and the Maya were considerable. Living in tight communities and often suspicious of outsiders, conservative Maya resisted their overtures and mrned inward. Deep-seaed tribal rivalries and divergent cultural traditions also made Indian revolutionary unity unlikely. Even at the peak of their actj.riity, around 1980, active perrilias numbered only a few thousand. Xolence in the counrrpside spiraled upward in the late 1970s, when a nervous securifiv estaklishment tighsened i t s grip and sanctioned actirities designed to induce fear. Fortunately for the state, not only did Indians fail to ernbrace revolutionary change but they also were highly susceprihle to division. ~Militar7;-linkeddeath squads set out to terrorize iMaq""lnvillages. For example, in San Pedro de Laguna, on the shores of Lake Atitlin, a small band of locals, equipped with military arms, abducted and killed village leaders in the night, They operated under the orders of the militav commissioner, tli~nselfa local Indian. The prospect of near-absolute power, the ability to take possessions from others, and the authority to kill onehrivals-these motivated the paramilitaries. In San Pedro de Lap~na, over time, locals fipred out that it was soIne of their own who were doing the kllling (despite the death squad's practice of spraying yerrilla slogans on walls or copses). In time, they convinced the army to intercede-making the ~nilitalya kind of savior for the people. Under President-Ceneral Romero Lucas Cgarcia (1978-1982), the a m y itself can-ied out several sensational massacres in rural Guatemala, Repression accelerated during the saange presidency of Efrain Rios Montt. h evangelical Christian, Rios Montt was prominent in Csuaternala (:ity9s Church of the w~rd, a prophetic sect that held tent revivals among the rich in the capital. Its parent organization, C;ospel Ourreach &finistries of Eureka, California, sent out waves of eamest evangelicals to help win souls for Christ. Rios ~Uc~ntt himself had long coveted the presidenq and was probably deeply involved in planning the coup that broug.ht him to power in march 19882. Surrounded by church elders-turned-political consultants, he donned army fatipes and preacheuesus on natiorlal television even as the aatesnalan arxny was revving up its killing ~nachine.Rios Montt and many of his cohorts shared an apocalypdc vision of
Indian co~nmunitiesravaged by repression so~netimesfound relief thou$ conversion to Protestantism. For all of the ar~ny'ssavagery, under Rios Montt it began to provide the populace with a way out. Cooperadon against p~er-rill;as won communities peace, and by 1983 the army wisely hegan to reward such cooperation. In conwast, the perrillas could only deliver hunger and hardship, and elicit more reuibution. For years, bands of insurgents (especially under the banner of ECG$ the Guerriila Army of the Poor) visited villages and ~nadehollow pro~nises:If inhabitants flew their flags, they would receive pmtection and weapons for self-defense. Aiter years of terrol-, a traumatized village-based populace lc~ngedfor peace at any cost. Sunrival was more important than reform. Indians lined up to assist the army in tracking dawn perrillas and restoring civil order. In 1982 the miiitaly created civil defense patrols, requiring every Grratemalan adult Inale in the insmgency zones to serve at roadblocks and report on any subversive acritriries. Hundreds of thousands of Indians comg3lied; and even when mandatr~rysel.vice in the patrol was abolished in the l986 Constitrrtion, a majority continued to serve. Check12oints greatly curtailed Inovement in the counu-yside, and the ""carrot" of relative securiy undercut the appeal of Guaten~alaberrilIagroups, which were forced to consolidate into the Chatemalan National Revoludona~h i o n (URMC;) soon thereafter, The Gsibiliy of state terror in Gt~atenzalapron~ptedJirnrny Czarter to cut off U.S. ~nilitalyaid. However, aid was restored under Ronald Reagan, who sympathzed with Rios Montr and was responsive to the evangelical lc~bhythat supported him. Even the years when supplies were cut off posed no problem for the Guatemalan regime. Carter himself yuietb appc~ved shipments of helicopters and hardware in violation of his own public position, and other nations-in particular, Israel-routed arms and intelligence assislance to Guatemalans during the gap. h Israeli-supplied trackng system, using computerized databases, greatly aided authorities in identifying and eliminating suhversives. Still, on the downside of the repression (after 1985), multiple high-profile human rightc cases damaged the public credibility of U.S. policy and of the Guatemalan regime. First was that of US, citjzen Biana Ortiz, a Hispanic knerican & o ~ New n i\laexico who was abducted and tortrured in 1989 by one of the many mercenary-infused death squads operadng in the countryside. An Ursuline nun, Ortk was stl-ipped and burned in one hundred places with cigarertes, then du~npedinto a pit filled with rancid, deco~nposing bodies (of both the still-living and the dead) and rats. Dragged out for still more rape and trlrture, she was recognized as a foreigner by an ilrnerican supervisor, who realized that although killing poor Indians posed no problem, the repercussions of eliminating a U.S. cidzen would be formidable. ififlowed to escape, Ortiz made her way back to the United

States and began a years-long fight to inform the public of her ordeal, despite considerable psychological aauma and a skepdcal, corporate-owned press.. Like most Latin h e l - i c a n regimes, the Guatemailan government hires U.S. public relations and adverdsing fir~nsto prolnote a positive image of Guatemala in the United States. In this particular cause, the Washington, D.(:,-based firm of Patton, Boggs, & Blow appears to have rendered effective s e ~ c e B : C:news con"esp~ndentCoke Roberts, sister of the firms senior parmer Torn Boggs, confronted Ordz during an interview with accusations of fraudulence. 'The Guatemalan government earlier had issued a public statelnent contending that Ortiz had fallen victim to an out-ofconat~l,sadomasochisdc lover--an explanadon that no well-informed person could have taken sericrusly, t'l~imately~ the Guatemalan government's effore to sTpress reports of the C)rdz incident failed, and Ordz's case received enough public exposure to raise serious quesdons. C>n the heels of QIZrtiz'srevelations came the sensational decision of the Nobel committee to award the 1992 peace prize to a Mayan Indian woman named Rtgoherta Menchri. Mencl16 had been interviewed by a European anthopologist in the early 1%80s, who recorded, edited, and published her life story, complete with grim tales of repression. MenchG and her editor took liberdes-changing facts and altering details in an attempt to maximize the emofional impact of the br~oli,which was widely read in US,universities. In real life MenchG and her fa~nilplost their land to other marginalized Indians in a web of local rivalry, rather than to ladif~os,as the book contended. The facts surrounding the deaths of hfenchlifs relatives were also altered, as the common penchant for por~ayingprimidve peoples as i n n r ~ c e nwon ~ slut over truth. Widely read, the account brought Menchri fame, and evenm3114i, the Nobel prize, Some h e r i c a n academics were appalfed. Williarz.1 Kadcliffe of the Hoover Instit-cttion at Stanford bewailed the influence of Marxism among the members of the Nohel committee. In 199% aftttr S~3nfor.dPh.D. Davicl SmlZ scrutinized &c; biography and revealed its errors, the hyobel laureate's name h e c o ~ ~ tarnished. ~e In the late 1980s and 1990s, however, Rigoberta MenchG9sprominence did much to evoke First Wc3rZci sympathy for the revolrttionary cause, Her influence in Gatemala, however, rexnained zninin~al. A third dismptive case involved f-laward Law School graduate Jennifer S-iarbuy, who had mamied a second-tier perrilla leader who was at~ducted and tortured to death by security forces in the early 1090s. Harbuly had enough contacts and influence to secure some media coverage. A particularly damaging interview on C:BS"s611 lW2'nutes did much to elevate her cause. htte~nptsby the U.S. and Guate~nalangovernznents to stonewall the investigarion into her husband's death unraveled; and several major media outlets subsequentiy exposed e.cidence of CIA complicig. in the case (in

part because of the work of New jersey Represexltative Robert I'orricelli, who was in turn reputedly prodded to investigate by his friend BiancaJagger). hlthough the Clinton administradon issued a public pmmise to release classiEied papers on the Harbury and Ortiz cases, it repeatedly reneged on the pro~nise,avoiding further da~nagingreveladons. In April 1998, Catholic Bishop Juan (Gerardi was found dead in his home just after releasing a study dlat blan~edthe militaly and security forces for X0 percent of the human rights auocities during the several decades of repression in (Guatemala. The C;uaternalan gclvernment at first tried to implicate the bishop&dog-another attempt at disinbmation that evoked more public cyllicis~nthan belief. A year later, it acknowledged that the military had played a role in the bishop's death. In 2000, several suspects were arrested, including a priest. The pace and vigor of tlle investigation suggest that high-level collaborators will not be found. In this and other inquiries, death threats have caused lawyers, judges, and human rights advocates tr) stop scrutinizing the past, or wen to leave their professions or their counay altogether. In the closing months of the twentieth century, (Guatemalans of all stripes symboljcally endorsed the official evasion of swcb questions hy electiilg Mfonso Portillo to the country's top leadership post. Portillo, a former universiy professor and a friend of Rios Montt, admitted to having shot two indigent men in sorrdlenz Mexico while on vaca.fion in B82Ellirzgs for which he had never been prosecuted. His media consultantproduced television ads, in the wake of the revelation, explained to Guatenlalas Indians that " m a n who can defend his own life can defend yours." Apparently persuaded, the poor voted for Portillo in large nurnbers. His nearest rival, who forced a run-off vote, was a rightist candidate of a g3rc~husinessparty, In contrast, the choice of human rights msaders and demobilized guerrillas, Alvaro Colbm, mustered a pathedc 12 percent of the tally in the well-conducted elections. Clearly the vast majority of Guaten~ala'spoor prefer peace and stakility over social justice and the risks involved in atte~npdngsocial change. In 2000, Portillo's governlnent, with excellent media relarions (the presidential press secretary is a former <:hw reprter), beg2n to i m p v e Grxatemala's image a'nrc3acl. The extermination of recalcitrant Indians in C;uateznala in the last decades of the ~ e n t i e t hcenr-trv presewed social srructures beneficial to US. national securiv interests. Direct Anlerican involvement under President Ronald Reagan turned back the threat presented by the revolution in Nicaragua (namely, that its delivery of equitable condidons to the poor would inspire similar expel.jments elsevvhere in the Third Wc~rld),albeit in a rather awkward manner. Yet while these operations can rightly be called victories, the m e success of American foreign policy came in El Salvador, where a U,S.-supplied and -coordinated counterinsurgency campaign de-

feated a popular revulution. The victoq in El Salvador is important for several reasons: It provides a case smdy of how to defeat a perrilla insurgency; it all hut assures that there will he no more "Cubas" in Latin L h ~ e r icsl in the filmre; and it has contributed to a hndamental redefinition of the role and strateges of the U.S. ~nilitaryand intelligence establish~nents in the tvvenr~r-firstcent-uy.

7

Christianity and Counterinsurgency

A philosopher in a dny province of the Roman Empire once told a crowd, ""Let the man who has m o tunics share with him who has none." Not surprisingly, t h i s advice was poorly received by his better-dressed listlrtlers, A friend of this thinker, whose teachings were arguably even more radical, sternly warned the wealthy: "Woe to you who are rich, for you are receivto you who are lveli-fed now, for you shall he ing your. c0mfor.t in fi~ll. hungq." Within a few years, both of these men were imprisoned and put to death by the governing authorities. The teachings of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, however, remain widely read and pol>ular to t h i s day. ilrnong Inany of the poor in Latin h e r i c a , their Inessages have had special significance. In the 1%SOs, in the wake of the social and political ferment spalvned by the Cuban revulutiors, a second and potenrcially even more powerful current for change began to rock Latin Lh~erica. Thls new revolutionary impulse came kom the heart of one of the most conservative and hierarchical insdtlrtions in the region: the puuierhl Roxnan Catholic Church. It caxne in the form of Bible-influenced libnztion theolo~f.Liberadon theolom had its roots in several momentous events in the C : ~ U I ^ C ~in the IS160s. By the beginning of the decade, much of the Church's world leadership had coIne to realize that in some ways, Roman (:atholicism was becoming archaic. Attendance in tfle increslsir-rgly secular First Wc>rld was down, 2nd a healthy percentage of the burgeoning Inasses in the Third World seemed untouched by church teachings. Aware of the stagnadon, Pope John convened a high church cuuncil, charging it wit% the task of modernizing Catholicism and reviving its social relevance. Vadcan II, as this meeting of high clerics was called, met in Rome and quickly set to work, actually going beyond tfle expectations of the conservative Pope 2nd his advisers.

From 1962 to 1965, its participants implemented a series of substantial reforms, including instructions ending a fifteen-century-long tradition of conducting services, or masses, in Latin. Xow both the illiterate poor and the oligarchs of Latin h e i c a cvuld attend masses in the vernacular and could understand what the priests were saying. As \%tican I1 closed in December 1965, same Latin h e r i c a n CatEzc~lics were ailreacfy wrestling with the implicit message: How can faith be relevant in the ~nodernworld? For one young priest in Colo~nbia,the answer was visionary. Camilo x~rres, born into a wealthy Bogoti family, concluded that it was the duty of every Christian to resist institutions that perpemate gross social and econo~nicinequities. lbrres declared the need for social revolution, and warned Ghrisrians that those who ignored the call to alieviate poverty wex cornmittring a mortal sin. Xot one to shy abvay from putting his beliefs into practice, he joined Colo~nbia'snascent guerrilla movement, only to he killed in battle against counterinsurgents. Torres's convictic~nswere made all the more dramatic ky his death, and provided an exa~npleto emerging liberation theologians. In the shadow of x~rres's witness, at &ledellin, Colombia, about one yarter of Lath An~ericakbishops met to discuss the Vatican I1 reforms in 1968. These bishops tended to represent the activist wing of the Church, and they were sensitive to the plight of the majority poor in their countries. Noting economic inequities and ""istitutionali zed vioience" h the region, they accepted the premise that lay acdvism and social change were necessary. Hardly revolutionaries, they did seem to at least sanction an increased social conscience among pl-iests and nuns, many of whorn interpreted the pronouncexnents at Medellin as a new Magna Carta for the Church in Latin h e r i c a , One of the proptlnents: of social actiism on the part of CXrlstians was a young Peruvian adviser to the ,Medellin bishops, C;ustavo a t i k r r e z . Gutikrrez had been a prolific reader since his youth, when he was bedridden due to a crippling illness. Trained as a thecliogian, he had been a classInate of Carnilo Tires's in seminary; and though he rejected Torres's willingness to embrace violence, he strongly believed that silence in the face of oppression was also wrong. Gudbrrez penned a number of books in the early 1970s that made him one of the most renowned advocates of Christian social acdvism. He and his cohorts accepted the premises of dependency theory and certainly were aware of the ideas of Kari iVar?c;but at the core of their thought (or at least, Gutierrez's) was the Bible. Harking back to the teachings of Jesus Christ, they saw, in their God5 nature, a thirst for justice and liberation-a passion reflected in the exodus legend of the Israelites from slavery in E g p t . God, C;tlri6rez concluded, had a "preferential option" for the world's poor. He sought their material well-being as well as their spiritrral liberation.

illthough the label libel- ion theoloat was soon attached to the wridngs of Gutiirrez and others (coming from the title of his book A Theology oflibel-rrtion), current use of it potentially misrel)resent$the subsequent movement as sometl-tingother than Christian. Indeed, there was nwer a single sheology of liberation, but rather, ~nultipleideas from myriad authors--many of whom, like Gutierrez, emphasized the Bible. Surely the claim of these religiorrs g2ersons to C:l?ristianity is just as valid as h a t of others. If liberation theologians warrant the label of illin-xists, then Biblical Chrisdans should perhaps be considered communists. For Acts 4 3 2 states that early believthat ers ix-t Christ "were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claix~~et-t anything belonging to him was h s own; but all thngs were common property to them." In the early 10TOs, many Catholics began to read the books of GutiCrrez and similar thinkers in seminaries around the world. Though only a small minorit~rof the Church embraced liberation ideas, the irnpact of h o s e ideas on the Latin American Church was profound. Adopting tfle practices of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, nuns and priests, Inany of them foreign-horn, began to engage the poor in a process of concimtiirrcid~z,or consciousness-raising, Rather than dc>rninatethe poor in a paternalistic fashion, liberation Christiaxrs approached them as equals, shared in their sufferings, and sought to empower them to effect social change. Small groups of peasan6 organized under the rubric of consciousness-raising and welco~nedthe aid of liberation Christians in learning to read. These groups, known as <:hrisdan Base Communities, had sprouted up thrc~ughout Latin h e r i c a by the mid-l970~,especially in Central h e r i c a and Brazil. Hundreds of thousands of poor began to read the Bible and believe that Jesus Christ was a (God who desired their physical and s~~iritual wellbeing, The message of liberation Christianity was, needless to say, htnda~nentallysubversive in societies marked by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, Liberation Christianit-y played a significant role in heling the revolutionaly upheavals in Nicarapa and Guatemala. Though the U.S. media, and even many academics, describcd the Sandinistas and (Guatemalan guerrilla hands as &lamis& or leftists, the realiq was mu& more complex, Nor should the influence of religious ideas surprise us (what would truly have been amazing is if conservative, devoutly Catholic, poorly educated peasan6 bid been sitting around reading f i r 1 Mam), In Nicaragua, Christian thinlung had especially per~neatedthe barrios of Managua, where masses of poor rallied to the Sandinista cause. Four liberation-oriented priests served in high levels of government, including Emesto Cardenal, a poet d o was the Sandinista Lqinister of C u h r e . In C:uatemala, the Guerrilla Army of the Pt~or(E(;P) was heavily shaped by liberation Chrisdanity, as was the C o n s m i t ~ eof Peasant Univ (CUC), a predc~rt-tinaxltlyI d i a n

group that arose in the ~nid-1970s,out of Catholic Action organizations. Nowhere, however, was liberation Chrisdanity more decisive in fomenting unrest than in El Salvador; and it was here that counterinsurgency evoiued into a war on the Christ-ian faith itself,

E E 1 3 Saivador: Rtevslrurt8on:Brews in City and Countryside El Salvador in the mid-fl70s was, even by Latin ih~ericanstandards, a nation of stark inequity. A small enclave of light-skinned elites, numbel-ing only a few hundred families, owned and managed a crowded c o u n q of some five million people. These elites, who had security-pmtected, spacious homes in the Escal6n neighhorhood of San SaIvador, held nearly 90 percent of the producdve land in the countryside, though they rarely visited their rural estates, many of which were coffee plantations filled with hean-picking peasants during the harvest season, R o s e coffee beans, like the rich the~nselves,frequently ended up in the United States; Folgers, a division of the <:incinnati-based Proctor & Gamble Company, commi~nly used Saivadoran beans. Other exports also tied the powerful families to foreign-largely U.S.--interests. Their sons and daughters attended American universides, and many families owned second or third homes in Florida and Europe, By the mid-1970~~ the top 0.1 percent of Salvadorans had incomes greater than the next 50 percent, and the lower half of the population had nest to nothing. Poverty was acute illthe counqside-so bad, in fact, that sorg.hum (used in most places as cattle fodder) became a dietary subsdnrte among the peasantry for beans and mm, which many could no longer afford. Linemplc~j7mentwas se-vere, and existing work, mosdy in agriculture, was seasonal. In short, El Salvador was prime territory for a bloody s m g gle between the haves and have-not$. Yet history is replete with evidence of stawing people who remain collectivelj~docile. VVhat caused El Salvador to percalae was the influence of liberation theology, which became quite pronomced in much of the countvside through the work of energetric, Bible-\Nielding priests, lay leaders, and nuns. In the 30,000-member parish of Aguilares, just north of the capital, 700 peasants began anending Base Community Bible studies by the mid- 1WOs. "She local church sporwd colorfarl banners about letting ""justice roll down like Inany watersv-until the conservative bishop visited and had the inflammatory words removed. Despite the church hierarchy's opposition, tens of thousands of poor flocked to join the Federation of Chl-istian Peasants of El Salvador (FECCAS), whch although it had been outlawed by the government was circuladng petitions and holding peaceful hut provocative rallies calling for political democracy and land reform.

ail1 the capital, there were similar calls far reform from a more tradit-ional and arguably less threatening sector. A small but active middle class had emerged in San Salvador during the 19hOs, made up of businessmen and professionals who sent their dlildren to the nearb;ti national university; A9 anticipated by modernization theorists, these "middle sectors" supported political change. They wanted free and open elections, and pushed far them by founding and supporting E3 Salvador's first authentic poti tical party, the PDC, or Christian Democrats. In the mid-1960s the PDC won several local offices, with its most successful politician, Jos6 Napole6n Duarse, capturing she m a p r a l y of San Salvadc>ritself- But the oligarchs bad deep-seated reservations about the PDC and the rniddle class, and instead of building an alliance that could have averted insurrection, they repeaedly opted to use fraud in order to keep their tnvn men in po\ver. Those men, generally, were not the rich themselves. A tightly run xnilitar): subservient to the elite, governed the counrrp at its behest. (Generals non~inatedeach other and ccirorcfinated fake national elecdons in order to retain the presidency. Wisely, the United States pressed for soIne changes in the system (a move consistent with the hlliance for Progress); a younger generation of officers, too, recognized that a dose of refc~rmcould stave off serious unrest. For a while, in the early 1 9 7 0 ~some ~ of these refor~nminded officers held influendal posidons in the government, and a balance hetween change and continuiv appeared, at least brieflq: to assure the peace. The nature of the hrnerican interest in reaching this balance was clear: A number of U.S. corporarions had set up shop in El Salvador in order tr, take advantage of its favorable lahor laws and wc~rkingcondi.tions, There were several light manufacturers in the capital, such as a PhelpsDodge copper wiring plant, and prosperous agribusinesses, such as Esso and Cargill. Yet the potential of continued popular passivity, coupled with solid profits, was slowly lost, in part due to the inepritude of the Salvadoran elite. their counsel and blessing, hard-line officers edged out the moderates during the mid-1970~~ and more patently fake elections in 1972 and 1977 preserved order hut alienated portions of the urban rniddle class. The P D C W u a r t e ran for the pesidency in 1972 and was denied it by fraud; beaten up by securi~~i forces shortly thereafter, he was driven out of the country. His running mate, Guillenno Ungc,, remained in El Salvador but watchetl as the PDC was nsarginaliaed and i t s popular support dwindled. In the mid-1970s, rnuch of the urban populace was leaving the party to join mass democratic bodies known as "popular organizations." Instead of hankrag on elections, these groups-which included large numbem of university students and labor activists--took to the sweets, demonseating in the tens of thousands and calling for a new government that would support land, wage, and labor reforms.

Demonstrators can shout until they are blue, but as long as they do not take up arms h e y are only a nuisance to established instimions. A minuscule number of angry university students hegan to form armed cells and carry out kidnappings; but in the mid-1970s they were sdll insignificant and on the fringe of El Salvador's polidcal suucture. Although the small narion swirled with energy, it did not have to explode. What largely tore it apart were the repeated decisiclns of tfte army and dite to shoot peaceh1I pratesters. One of the earlier and more xnernorable street massacres took place in 1975, when universiy students marched in opposidon to the Miss Universe extrravaganza. Rich Salvadorans were delighted to host the worldwide pageant, and spent lavishly on state-sponsored dances, parties, and other galas. Some idealisrs saw &is as sharnehl, given the povery in the countvside. M e n the strrdents gathered, security fi~rcesoyened fire with ~nachineguns, lulling dozens and wounding scores of others. hnd the beauty pageant was merely the first of multiple Moody affairs. Salvadoran authori~esacquired so much eqertise at p n n i n g down seeet demonsn.ators that the operation almost became a science: Fleets of mechanized street-cleaners stood at the ready; after the bodies were remt~ved,they scmbked the blood off the pavement, and police offrcers reopened thoroughfares to traffic within an hour. After hundreds of Salvadorans had died in downtown massacres, popular organizations gave up on street protes6 as a tactic (not surpr-isingly, as the U.S. e~nbassynoted at the time, they increasingly had trouble getting people to show up). They turned instead to forcible takeovers of public buildings, gmeral strikes, and labor unrest, which often nearly shut down the capital. Far worse for vested interests was the fact that the Inass of unorganized residents now clearly sympathized with the opposition-after the street slaughters, sentiment was feverishly antigovernment, In response, the oligarchs and their allies created what soon became known as "death squads." From 1079 to 1981, these bands of trained killers, primarily formed from the ranks of the national police and other securiy forces, ravaged popular sociopolitical organizations. Their standard procedure was to abduct members and take then1 ta a secluded l o c a ~ o nfor tczrture. After body parts were chopped off and flesh was kt~rnedby electricity, cigars, or blowrnrches, a hullet to the head ended the life of the acd-v.isr,and a trip to a uash heap on the outskirts of San Salvador concluded the exercise. El Playcin, as the dump was knownl feamretl headless and mangled corpses among its piles of rubbish, with literally hundreds of pardal bodies dotting its wl~re-coveredlandscape at any given rime. &lass terror does not a1waq.s pacify a countv. The decimated popular organizations went underground, and their surviving ~ n e ~ n b eturned rs to armed insurrecdon. The death squads also incited revolt by taking on the institutional protagonist of change: the Church. That liberasion theolom

per~neatedthe Salvadoran Church and prornpted its advocacy of reform is undeniable; but instead of selective and thoughtful repression, security forces persecuted the Church wholesale. L&sassinarionsof priests and nuns aroused the indignation not only of devout an d namrajly conservatbe p e s a n ~but also of influential Catholics abroad. hnerican cfturch leaders tried t t con\Piince ~ the Carter adminis.tlratric)nto distance itself from its client government, but with only limited success, The head of the Salvadoran Church was hchbishop Oscar Roxnero. Appointed by a conservadve Vatican in 1977, Romen, was supposed to have heen a voice of moderation. Instead, as he saw his priests die and his Bock trernble, he condexnned the government and its repression. He wrestled with the age-old theological quesrion about jusrified use of force. W l ~ a t would the Good Samaritan have done, the Archbishcjp speculated in an inten.iew with Canadian television, if he had happened upon the thieves ilthilc they were heating their victim? Rornem concluded that (:hristians must distinpish bemeen proactive violence and self-deknse, Like most liberation Christians, he accepted the pre~niseof "just revoludon" against an "evil" government, although he stopped short of giving his explicit hlessing to the buddi~lgperrilla movement in El Salvador. Romero was almost joined in his intellectual analysis by the Vadcan itself. During the 1070s, the church hierarchy in Italy had heen influenced hy liberation thinking an3 other idealistic currents. In July 1978, Abino Luciani, Cardinal of Venice and son of a socialist bricklayer, was unexpectedly placed on the (:hurch9s throne in Rome. It was apparent that this huoyant and srt~ilingman, adopting the name John Paul, was not going to be an ordinary pope. He rejected the d a ~ n o u rof the office, abandoning the thousand-year tradition of coronadon in favor of a simple ceremony. Atl7ough John Paul did not wish t r ~receive Latin An~er-jcahilitary leaders into his audience, the Vatican's Secretav of State-whom be apparently planned to fire-had invited them anyway. Three hundred prtltesters, who had the new Popehympathy, were arrested a t St. Peter's when ilrgentina's C;eneral Xdela arrived. Formnatelp for the militaries and the rich, after ctnly 33 days in power, John Paul suddenly and conveniently died. His successor, a conservative Polish cardinal, adopted John Paul2 naIne but little else. John Paul II silenced liberation theologimq appointed high church officials involved in the secretive Opus Dei movement, and catered to the spil-itual needs of the rich. M e n visitjng Chile, he stood heside the dictator, Pinochet; and in Mexico, in 199, he even held a private, special mass for the nation's billionaires. In the late 1970s, however, he could not renlove the previously appointed hchbishop Romero from his post; someone else w u l d have to do that. The Vadcan's alliance with earthly powers under John Paul 11did aanslate into a harsh disapproval of Romero, however. When the hchhishop

called on El Salvador's rich-who~n he judged as the prirnary perpeaators of violence-to change their ways, he did so alone. When he visited the Vatican, the new Pope let him wait for hours and hours, then chided him for being soft on ""communism." Romero nied vainly to explain she nature of events in El Salvador to the Holy Father. He ret-urned to El Salvador deslx~ndent,finding no alternatives a, the death that was engulfing his Church. Re wrote to PresidentJimn tzsrrter, a r p i n g that it was innmoral for the United States to supply and support the ~nurderousregime. Carter ignored him. Then, with no opdons left, Romero went even further. Filled with a strange confidence, this often abvhard and bouliish man a-ied out one day; in a sermon: like to make an appeal 111 a special way tc.o the xrlera of the anny, . . . Brotl-rers,you are part of our peo"pfe. 'dou kill your own cit~?lpesinr) bri~tfiersand sisters. And 1)efo'urclan order to kill titat a man may give, the Xaw of C;oci must prevail that says: XI'hou shalt not kill! Xo soldier is obliged to obey an order d tlze name of this stxfferirzg pecjpfe whose agai~zsttlze law of God. . . . h ~ irz laments rise to heaven, each day more mr-x~ultuozls, I beg you, I ask you, 1order you in h e nalr-re of God: Stop the pressi ion!"

Z would

Broadcast nadonwide on the Cat_holic Church's radio station, Rcjmerc~'~ appeal was subversive, and posed a danger t-r? the integriq of the army, Inany of whose rank and file were church-raised peasant boys. A few days later, in LMarch lW0, the archlsishop himself was murdered while conducting mass at a small chapel. The next day, army troops visited his childhood village, rounded up its inhabitants, and tortured and executed several dozen of them. Some 100,000 persons mmed out far Romero's funeral, and security fc~rcesagain staged a forn~idahleassault: Al~r>ut two hundred mourners were killed or injured. Inside the basilica, liberation theolog priests, including Gustavo Gudkrrez, hastily stuffed the archbishop's casket into the s rattled. wall while the machine g ~ n out;liide A few days later the United States extended several million dollars in new military aid to El Salvador-a testimony to Washingtonyscommitm n t to preserve the stmcclrtres of power; but policymakers also understood that they had a problem on their hands. The Salvadoran regime was malang absolutely no effort to pacify its people through conciliatc~rygestures. Indeed, Rollzero's death had triggered massive new unrest in the countryside, as thousands of Christians rose up in arms. Washington wanted stability, and remaining true to its MElliance for Progress recipe, it pressed k;rr a modicum of limiad refom. kt h e r e were two problems: First, the oligarchs not only resented hnerican advice but were openly hostile to it. Second, the political space in which compromise was possible had all but disappeared hy 1980,

Earlier, in October 1079, a core of junior army ofticers willing to entertain some refor~nshad staged a coup with the blessing of the United States. They brought in civilians to manage adlninisrrative affairs and provide some much-needed legitimac~including Cguillermo Ungo, and with much fanl'are, the formerly exiled and once-popular Jos6 Napolehn Uuarte, Under pressure from Washingtc~n,businessman Mario h d i n o of the PhelpsDodge Corporation also jclined the government. All of dze junta members repeatedly stated that the new regime was different, com~nittedto human rightq, and suppordve of change. At about the same time, the UnitecJ. States recalled its ambassador and replaced him with a career diplomat known as far more liberal than most in the State Department. Rt~bertWhite, once on the scene, pushed the regime toward agrar-ian rehrm. A program of land disaibution to the poor began-albeit on a very rnodest scale. This initiative deeply annoyed highranking, hard-line military officers as well as the rich, and it might well have llasaned the decision to kill Rcrmero, The rebrmist junior officers and M i t e ' s erllbassy were effectivelj~undercut and outmmeuvered behind the scenes. The U.S. bid to pacify the nation by creating a believable political "center" h h been too feeble, and had come tot] late. C;uillermo Ungc~,aware of what was going on, warned the power brokers that they must restore military moderates or accept his resignation. Spurned by the oligarchs and hard-liners, he followed through on his threat, tarnishing the refor~nistimage of the coup govemxnent. In coneast, the unpercepdve and egotisdcal Duarte hung on-convinced that he could nzanip1at-i: the antireformis6 and oligarchs as effectively as they could toy with him. He was wrong. m o l l y marginalized, his Christian Democratic party became a shell without popular support, as Duarte himself was perceived as a civilian front man for a terrorist miiitaly government. Plte disagreement bemeen the ljxzited States and its client on how to achieve pacification was a major factor in generating civil war in El Salvador; The 12eopXe of EX Salvador, after Romero3 death, liked neither their governmen; nor the United States. Instead, they ernbraced a new opposition movement, the Democratic Revolutlionary Front (FUN, which vr~wed to establish democracy in the corrtln-y by what it concluded was the only means possible-med revolt. The FDR was, in reality, the same as the popular organizations, though they had disappeared from public view hecause trf the repression, It was led, ironically, by an oligarch: Enrique Avarez, a rich coffee planter who had broken ranks with his class and adopted Romerc~igospel of social change. iUvarez was joined by Ungo, who having resigned from the coup government, now cast in his lot with the opposition. The FDR clearly had a mandate frt~mthe people, and after Romero's assassination, it became more and more intransigent-stating that the otiC

1

garchs and arIny were incapable of refor~nand had to give up power, either peacefully or by force. Alvarez, Ungo, and other leaders fanned out around the hemisphere, taking their case to other nations as they sought diplonzat-ic recognition. The militaq regime in El Salvador was understandably furious. M/%en Alvarez caIne back into the country, be and the FDRk leadership were seized and eliminated. Only Ungo, who was in X e w York at the time, evaded death. T h e FDR killings were followed by still more high-profile ~nurders. Two h e r i c a n land reform advisers were gunned down in the San Salin which soldiers invador Sheraton in December 1980, the same n~ont%l tercepted three hrnerican nuns. kcumpanied ky a lay w o r k r also from the United States, the sisters were abducted at a roadblock and executed. h usual, no serious effort was made to cover up the kiliings-the point was to scare the masses and rebuke the United Stares. h enraged h b a s sador White visited the scene and watched as the bodies were dragged out of their shallow graves in front of rele\.ision cameras, ""They won't get away with it this time," he ~nuttered.He ins~uctedthe e~nbassystaff to launch a full investigation. Enlisted soldiers evenmally went to prison for the murders. Upcm his release in t9%, one of &em confessed that their orders had come from above, The! Period of Massacres Just a month after the nuns were killed, Ronald Reagan entered the presidency. H e quickly fired An~hassadorWhite. The Salvadtrrat? oligarchs and ~nilitary,so disdaillful of U.S. "interference" in their c o u n v , welco~ned the move. The rich celebrated Reagank ascent to power with parties in the mansions of EscaZrin. The new U.S. secretary of state, Alexander Haig, told Congress that the hrnerican nuns had been pn-toting extremists--a lie ridiculed by Catholics, who generated enough pressure to bring about the soldiers' evenmal trial and conviction. The Reagan administration realized that El Salvador was unstable and that any further attempts a t reform or creation of a political center would be futile. This was war, and it was time to get on with it, New pachges of militaly aid poured into the cotmtry. The death squads had done their work in 1977-1980 and had eliminated the popular organizations and the FDR horn the capital. By 1981, everyone in San Salvador pretty much stayed a t home and avoided any type of action that might even remotely antagonize the government. In the countyside, however, the military wing of the FDR-the Farahundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), narned after a peasant leader in the 1930s who had led a failed revolt--was booming. It coneolled whole sections of the countv, 2nd increasi~~glp coorcfinated ia diverse, peasant-

based perrilla insurrection. The FMLN was aided by army defectors: A number of peasant soldiers were either heeding Romero's words or reacting against the brutality of their officers. The leader of the rebels, a liberation theoiou Chl-is.trjanand former universiv strrdent, Joaquin Wlla3ohos, recopized that the FMLN's best hope was for a quick victory. He therefare undertook a major offensive, although his fighters were poorly equipped and badly trained. The Salvadoran h ~ n was y also primitive and relatively small (consisting of about 13,000 men); but it was a kllling machine, with much experience from the street slaughters in the city With the countwide in revolt, it adopted the same basic tactic, albeit on a grander scale. It staged pincer movements that funneled the rural poor into constricted areas where they could be annihilated. l'here were several stunning massacres, especially in summer 1980 and early 1981; even years later, we know very little about them. One such operation that is well documented, largely due to field hrensics work, was at El hfozote, in northeastern El Salvador, Scholars and others were interested in the massacre a t El Mozote because, although it was not the largest, it had received substantial publicity. In early December 1981, the flagship battalion of the army, called the Atlacatl (narned after an Indian who had fought the Spanish in colonial times), helicoptered into a small mountainous district while thousands of other troops cut off avenues of escape. Wlatobos and the FAiILN high co~nmand,realizing that pitched battles were a losing proposition, pulled their fighters out of the zone and warned civilians to flee as well--through broadcasts over their n~ohileradio station, Iknceren~os.Thousands o f civilians fled, since the army's routine was well known by this time; but others congregated in frc~ntof the advancing troops in the village of El Nlozote, which had been a hotbed of Protestant missionav activiq and consequently enjoyed an unusual reputation for neutrality. The Atlacatl Battalion arrived in town around dusk and pushed everyone out into the sweets, where they made them lie face duwn in the dirt as they began to interrogate the men. For several hours they allowed villagers to return to their homes, sporadically beadng the adults, who nied feverishly to keep their little ones from ayirsg, Then, on orders from their of'ficel-s ftT.S. advisers were not on the scene, but m a q officers a t El Mozote had recently received U.S. counterinsurgency training), the battalion again rounded up the peo$e and separated &em, Children were smffed into a rooIn by themselves, where they cried and cried. Women, housed in separate buildings, heard the screams of their tortured husbands coming from the CZatZzolic C:htrrch (predictably, a preferred interrogation site dul.ing the war). T h e process of elimination then proceeded s~noothly:Men were taken out in pairs to he hung, shot, or decapitated. The soldiers took their time with the women, raping them in gmups on the edge of town, then

torturing and executing them. In the process, at least one young girl fri$tened the warriors. During her rape, she sang about Jesus. A group of soldiers gathered an~undand cut off her breasts, hut even duriilg that common Salvadoran mrmre, she kept singing, One then snick the bayclnet of his M-16 into her throat. There was still a faint, but a~nazinglystill calm, gurgle of praise to God. Finally, out of fear, the men opened fire with their lveapons, Last, it was the children's mrn. h officer started the cleansing in a dramatic way: He took a boy about 2 years old, tossed him up into the air, and caught him on his bsyt~netThe work was then emhraced by the enlistees, who &upped and cut the kids up for an hour. M e n it was all over, 767 persons had been eliminated in and around El Momte--a brutal task, hut presumably useful fr)r brealiing the spirit of the people, C>rwas it? As with the death squad operarians, &ere was no serivus attempt to hide the slaughter. The point of the big massacres, in fact, was to instill fear in the pecrple and get &ern to submit. But it? the wake of these ~nassivekillings, Inany peasants joined the FMLN. The perrillas issued largely accurate reports of these operations, and people learned to hate the a m y and government all the m r e . The massacre at El Mozote did another type of damage to the pacification efforts. Two h e r i c a n reporters made their way to the massacre site and revealed the incident to the world. Mma Guillermoprietr?of the msbing"~ Poe had been dpped off by Raymond Bonner of the Nm?YOrk Times, and both hiked into the intetrior with the help of FLMLN contacts. Field photographem snapped phoms of partially decayed and mutilated corpses. In January 1981, the two major newspapers ran stories about El Mozote, stating emphatically that a massacre had occurred. lUthough the stories generated little political hllout (only Ted Kennedy andJerr;tr Smdds raised the issue in Congress), the Reagan ad~ninisaationsuffered a public relations sethack. In the shadow of El Momte, the snategy of wholesale massacre showed its fundamental flaws: Killings of this size could alienate Inore peasants than they frightened, and they also aroused ~nediaexposure. The military and their supporters therefcjre began to change their snategy in 1982.

Amerjica" Secret War: Lessons Learned The civil war in El Salvador is profoundly significant because it became a laboratorq. for testing modern counterinsurgency techniques. After E1 ~ l o zote, h e r i c a n militaly advisers arrived in large numbers and took direct conaol of the war. Over the next decade, the U.S. militav establishment used El Salvador as a m d e l for perfecting the means by which popular-

based rural insurrections could be defeated. The lessons of El Salvador assme us that successful revolurions in Latin hrnerica are a thing of the past. In this small and impoverished land, h e r i c a n strategists mastered counterinsurgency warfare and produced one of historq.5 most astounding military victories. To appreciate the meaning of what happened in El Salvador, one must undersand its rnilitarq.context. The atmafs of histort; are replete with variations on guerrilla-style warfare, but populnr insurgency-in which the people are overwhel~ninglyunited behind a rebellion-had long pmven impossible to suppress*Nthorrgh isolaad and poorly supported perrillas can be aacked down and defeated, how can an arIny pacify an endre people, except by killing them! The question perplexed Pentagon planners during the Memam waq where, according to CIA analysfs in 1%5,95 percent of the populace supported the Met Cong rebels and opposed the Arnerican presence. Strategic hamlets had failed, and political assassinations under the pathbreaking Phoenix program were no more effective, Despite a half million men, t e c h n o l o ~light years ahead of the opposition, a bombing campaign that dropped more tonnage than that in all of World War II, and a kill ratio of 50 to 1, the f i i t e d Smtes failed to pacify MetnaEn. The war in El Salvador was designed and prosecuted h o ~ nthe vantage point of that difficult experience. There is no way to defeat a truly popular rebelllion except by making it unpopular. In El Salvador, the U.S. military overtly engaged in a political war where a major portion of the battlefield rested in people's minds. Propaganda has been widl us, of course, for as long as warfare, hut not on this level. The coordination b e ~ e e nthings ~nilitaryand things political became explicit. Psychological operations, or psy ops, underwent a massive revision and enhancement at the Pentagon in the mid- 1980s. h process was perfected whereby simple people could be subtly indoctrinated to view the army as their friend. Psy ops have since become the centerpiece of countel-insurgenq campaigns (""low-intensit):conflicts," or LICs, in the military's lexicon), for the first dme in histoy. American Alilitary Group (M1C;roup) advisers, numherillg on average four hundred at a time (congressional 3iznitations were circumvented by very long rotadon cycles), implemented a Pentagon-coordinated war in El Salvador beginning in 1982. They ended the large-scale massacres in favor of selective repression based on sound intelligence, Fmn~the start, they swessed the need to politzicallq. recaptnrre the '"hearts and xninds" of a majority of the populadon--a nuly fc~rmidabletask in the wake of what had @anspired. Instead of meeti~agpeasants and killing them, the Salvadoran k m y began to peet them and hand out g i b and food. ?Be officer in co~nrnand at El Momte, Domingo Mnnerrosa, was rersained as a PR man. He helicoptered into scores of villages and dis~ibutedaid, asking sick chilcfren to

step fomard in order to receive xnedical care. Enlisted soldiers dressed up in cosmrnes and entertained kids, handing out toys and candy. Backed by the wealth of the United States, the military and government had the resources with which tt, lvoo the poor into their ranks-and show them that the FMLX, in conwast, could deliver only stmggle and hardshp. A seminal feature of the psychological war was the relegidmizadon of the Sislvadoran grlvernment. U.S. aid bought g2rinting presses, polidcal propaganda blared from army trucks, and leaflets fell fro~nhelicopters. The most powerful tool of reeducation were the mass media, especially television, In time, oft-repeated ideas in the media began to take hold in the general populadon. The death squad terror of security forces, for example, was attributed a, a clandestine "far right" that Duarte and the heficans, try as they might, could not control. (Jn fact, there were pl-ivate death squads tried to the elite; but their links with securiv Forces, especialb with the Treasury Police, are certain.) The freewheeling mastermind of the deatih squads, Roberto D'Aubuisson, rather convenientlj~was caught in an overseas airport with documen~on him that linked him to the assassination of hchbishop Romero. US,-sponsored plans to relegitimize the grlvemnzent were repeatedly tlatnpered by the independent spirit of the Salvadoran elires, who bdked at working with Duarte and favored their own political organizadon, the National Republican Alialzce (mENI11). Elections were crucial to con.vincing the poor that the political process was becoming fair. The probletn was, with the popular organizations gone and the FDR unable to pardcipate, voters did not believe that they had genuine electoral choices. Duarte9sadrninistradon, highly corrupt, was despised (its postal service raided incoming mail from abmad, much of which included small amount5 of money sent by Salvadorans working overseas to their families). ?'he eiections themselves were manipulative. Voting was rnade mandatory, and the poor had to show their sramped vodng cards at arrny check~~oints after the election or face arrest for subversion, In the X984 contest for the Salvadoran presidency, only the influx of catnpaign Inoney from the CM saved Duarte from a humiliadng defeat. Eventually, when MENA won power in 1989, the elite celebrated in the sweets, chanting "h~el-ica,eat shit,'" Pdidcal and psychological efforts to recapture the hearts and xninds of El Salvador's people did not, of course, bring an immediate end to the fighting, Under the mtelage of heficans, Salvadoran securitry forces tirelessly gathered intelligence, hired informants, tortured capmred guerrillas, and pinpointed ardent FMLN supporters for eliminadon. The war was not to be won hy ail-enplfing public tenor hut thrortgh information and control. The tide turned against the rebels gradually, and by the late 1980s they were reduced to rank terrorism-blocking roads, blowing up power stations, and tllreatening the hq.ctroelcctric sptem, The a m y mushroomed

to well aver 50,000, as the nutnber of hll-time perrillas dwindled. Kandom machine-gunning from helicopters stopped, and laser-visionequipped American pilots, operating out of Panama, picked off rebels in the dead of night-a phenomenon that must have mys.ti.fiedthe tcchnologically unsophisticated. By Novexnber 1989, when h5llalobos aurhorized another " h a 1 ctffensive," he did so more out ctf desperation than with any hope of victolyl The rebels tried to take the war into the city during this offensive, with fighters even briefly occupying the streets of Escalbn, to the horror of tlle rich, The greatest success of this strateLq was to evoke a reaction from the Atlacad Battalion, which in the xniddfe of the crisis, reverted to its old ways. Sc~ldierseliminated six Jesuit priests at the (:atholic University, and their tracks were not well covered, The sensational murders attracted media atten.cjun and raised questions about whetrtler or not conditions in El Salvador, ten years after Oscar Romeroi murder, had really ckanged. Athcjugh U.S. senatorJohn NlcCain tried to hlarne the FhfLN for "provoking" the killings, and U.S. Army Major Mark BucWand (adviser to the Atlacatl) defended the need to reniove the ""intellectual authors of revolution," the jesuit sla;virzgs undermined the achievements of U.S. psy ops and helped force a negotiated peace settlement that ended the civil war in 1992. Ueqite this, the greatest success of psy ops in EI Salvador was the US, ~nilitary'sabilitp to prosecute operadons without the presence of the nosy investigarive news media. When conducting psy ops, the Pentagon actively discourages unconmolled media coveragmf events in the field. As militav consultant Carnes Lord, Ph-D., has explained, gaphic footage is bad because "images of death and destruction . . . so common in television coverage of war, inellitably encourage the feding &at b a r ] is futile, i m o r a i , or absurd."2 rls rlmerican media coverage ctf the Cenaal h e r i c a scene diminished after 1985, public sul,lx~tfor U.S. policy in the region rose significantly, as ellidenced in polling data. In the wake of his reports of the massacre at El RiEo~ote~ Ncz Timm reporter Raymond Bonner was dismissed from his post. He had been roundly stacked by U.S. government officials and consernatives as a liar, The mll Smet y~a~-nul edirorialized on his pllibility, and think tanks like the Xevv York-based Freedom House bemoaned the "liberal" nnredia's portrayal of the Salvadoran regime as repressive. Bonneh removal had a chilling effect on independent-minded correspondents who remained in El Salvador, and they increasingly echoed the official line-that the United Smtes was helping t r ~plant heedons and democraq in the tiny republic. The U.S. xnilitarp discouraged media coverage generally, but pressed for favorahle reportage whenever possible. It cultivated direct ties with the press, both +rough on-the-ground relations with comespondents and via

contacts with news outlets. In 1988, military analysts wrote, "Relations with the ilrnerican rnedia consdtute a major success t'or US. xnilitary palicy in El Salvador, . . . [since] more favorahle reporting helped take the edge off domestic opposition to U.S. policy."' Military planners were corning to realize that the news media could be used to shape public opinion rather than to inform it. In contrast, opposition groups in the United Smtes corrld not wen get some of their paid advertisements about El Salvador aired. One ad, which showed an ilrnerican wridng a check to El Salvador's army as the paper mmed to blood, was dismissed by television execut-ives as ""to vi<31entm" Media influence and spin conwol became integral to rnilitaly srrateg after the El Salvador experience, as evidenced, for example, by the decision to target Serh television drtring the I090 bombing of Yugoslavix aTA,TO C_;ener.alRresley Clark had corrrrnanded U.S, forces in Central Anerica during the 1990s). It is also now standard that the military creates its own news outrlets and sources, linking them up, whenever possible, with the corporate-owned media. h El Salvador, efforts to silence the F&ILN's Radio Venceremos we= not always successful; hut the creation of the military$ t~wnvoice, Radio CZuscatlAn, did nmck tt, impugn \lenceremos's rreliability and to confuse the general populace. El Salvador was the great laboratory, but low-intensity conflict and psy ops also were practiced and further refined elsewhere in Latin h e r i c a during the 1990s. In the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, in 1094, seeds of rebellion blew over f r c m Central h e r i c a and spread among impovel.ished M a p n Indians. The Chiapas highlands, thtwgh part of Mexico, are geographically and culturally wedded to aaternala, and had experienced a similar influx of subversive Chris~anideas. Several hundred of the & l a p , calling themselves Zapatisras, after the famt~usrevojiutionarfr hero, rose up in revolt against the corrupt and distant national government. Easily suppressed, they fled to small villages in the jungle, and a counterinsurgency campaign ensued. A U.S. MilC:roup teaxn covertly joined the Mexican h y in June 1994. Many of its members, like Major John Kord and Lieutenant Colonel Man Hasson SBnchez, had served in Ef SalvastclreTens of thousands of Mexican soldiers poured into the region, establishing caxnps, building roads, and dividing the Indian populace by distributing aid ranging from free dental check-ups to haircuts, U.S. funciing and trraining of the Mexican Army ailso accelerated. 11housands of soldiers fc~llowedin the footsteps of heir regional commanders, (Generals Manuel Garcia Ruiz and ~MarioRehiin Casdllo, in sclrtclgng with U.S. Special Forces a t Fort Uragg, North CZarolina. Thousands of others learned counterinsurgency techniques at the y's School of the Americas in Georgia. Xew military hardware-given under the auspices of fighting the dmg war-included armored per-

sonnel carriers and Apache helicopters. State-of-the-art satellite technology, interfaced with colnputers, allowed U.S. aainers and Mexican pilots to "fly" over the three-dimensional jungles of Chiapas in preparadon for ~ forces real missions. such stunnil-rgahances in t e c h n o l o ~offensive have been able to xnaster the terrain better than their primitive indigenous opponents, who still ride on horseback! Brute force, however, has not won the war in Ghiapas, Psy ops, involving a carefully orchestrated effort to divide the M a p against each other, have carried the day. As the Mexican military's October 1994 "Plan of Chiapas Gampaign'\pedfied, the gual of the operation is ""c cut the relationship that exists bemeen the population and the lawbreakers by secretly organizing certain sectors of the civil population . . . who would he employed in support of our operations," Mexican government-sponsc~redparamilitaries, co~nposedof hdians willing to kill their brothers, terrorized proZapatista villagers in the late 1990s. Death squads such as these provide a cover for the esahlished order &rough plausible derziabiliq-that is, when they lall, the governxnent can deny any involve~nent,and the arIny then becomes the arbitrator of the peace. By expelling foreign observers and forbidding reporters from sealed operational zones, the alexican governInent imposed secrecy on its war in Chiapas (although the use of the internet by the pc~lidcalopposition has undermined the contrt~lof informadon alu~utthe LIC:), When paramilitaries massacred forv-five unamed Zapatista sppathizers in a Catfi~licChurch in Decembcr 199%&ere was Iittle news coverage of the event. In the United States, no commercial television nemorks mentioned it, and PIIS5 New-rhow insinuaed that it was a product of internecine Indian strife, beyond the control of authorities. Killing fortjr-five Indians at a time, however, was risky. More discreet, small-scale eliminations have been more responsible fijr driving up the death tally. By 2000, more people had been "ethnically cleansed" in Chiapas than in Kosovo prior to the NATO intervention, yet the Lberican put.slic t i ~ the r most part has heen successhlly kept in the dark. Counterinsurgency efforts at the outset of the twenty-first century continue, especially in Colombia, where perrilla forces burgeoned during the past two decades, in the ahsence of a decisive U,S. militaw presence. In the ~nid-1980~~ a nu~nberof Colombian perrillas disar~nedand atte~nptedto integrate into the normal political process, creating the Patriotic Union Party; but a wave of assassirlsltions forced them to retrurn to armed insurrection. Priests and Christian activists have been eliminated at a steady pace in the land of Camilo Torres, as well. The gmwth of the Revolutionary Arn~edE'orces of C o l o d i a (FMG) in the 1WOs finally t-riggered increased U.5. milleav aid and xnore direct inrrofvement under the Clinton administration.

illthough LIC and psy ops are not fully i~nple~nented in Colombia, a deniable proxy war by paramilitaries has been under way for years. h n d e d by the gclvernment, drug lords, and elites (and indirectly, U.S. aid), paramilitarics regularly invade gt~erritla-dominatedareas and terrorize the populace. At Mapiripjn in July 1997, for exa~nple,they decapitated mrentysix civilians assumed to he sympathedc to the FARC, and afterward used their heads as soccer balls, Slayngs accelerated in spring 2000, aided in part by the arrival of foreign mercenaries and the Colo~nbian~nilitary's growing intelligence-gathering capabilities. Media coverage of the kllings is limited, since as a general mle no more than ~ e n t suspected y sul3versives are eliminated at a tirne. The limited efforts of independet~tjournalists and human rights organizations to identify and pmsecute murderers have been successfcrlly evaded. Key wimesses often disappeac In addition, authorities almost always allow the few suspects who are arrested to "escape" afterward from military jails. Several prominent human rights investigators have recently been murdered, as well. Since 15180, at least 55,000 Colombians have died violently, though not all of them for exclusively political reasons. Most Colombians, including the urban poor hehind army lines, a t least tacitly support their governtnent. hlth0ug.h there is no reason to believe that the FARC could seize power and maintain it for long, in the short term more bloodshed appears inwimkle. The FARC has warned that unbridled paramilitary killing will drive it away fro~nthe negotiating table, yet both (:olornbian and U.S. policymakers seem to favor a military solution. By g7or.trajrtng the rebels as ""narco-perrillas"-when, in fact, all of Colombian society is saturated with drug money-U.S. officials have laid the disinformarion groundwork necessary for winning sul,lx~tfrom h e r icans for military aid to C:dornhia. The FmC, with its calls for land rsform and weal& redistribu.rjon, poses a genuine threat to U.S. economic interests in the region. Formidable revoIutionary mtrvements in Latin h e r i c a will be rare in t h s century, largely because of the advent of effecdve polidcal counterinsurgency techniques. Recent military advances are also stunning--radio transmission interception, ti,r example, has become so sophisticated &at insurgents dare not even whisper over walkie-talkies when U.S. reconnaissance aircraft, such as RC-7s, are parrolling the skies--but a complete and lasting vica~ryrests in the political conquest of the human mind. When the FMLN finally laid down its arms in 1902 and turned to politics, it unwittingly consigned itself to defeat, for it entered an arena in which it cannot win. A divided electorate favored the party of the elite in the presidentjal contest of 1994, despite the i~npassionedstuxnp speeches by the FMLN's candidate, who cried, "These are the people who kjlled Archbishop

Komero!" In 109%the FMLN again succumbed at the polls. And significandy, neiher the rich nor the Ul~iteclStates have much to fear even if former yenillas someday win El Salvador's highest oftice. Joaquin Ullalohos, the ex-rebel commander, has become an advocate of pro-business economics, and the FMLN has all but abandoned its revolutionaly stance. That it has done so is, in large part, a reflection of the very namre of Latin h e f i c a n politics today,

PART

Latin America

8

The Politics

of Contro

During the war in El Salvador, the U.S. army taught Salvadoran military personnel how to idendfy "subversives." Anlong other things, according to the Combnt itrtelligcnce field manual disnibuted to soldiers, subversives

1. 2. 3, 4. -5.

accuse the government of comption; ridicule government or military ofticials; charactes.ize the government and politjcal leaders as US. puppets; characterize the Army as an enemy of the people; use slogans against the government, the A r r n j r , or the United States; h. accuse the police or h m y of torture.

It is apparent from this list that the United States was nut in the br~siness of pro~noti~lg freedom in El Salvador. In another manual, Salvadoran soldiers were taught that communists "can resort to subverting the government by means of electionsDand t'hat subversive activity may inclrrde ""political meetings" or participation "in political races as candidates for government posts." Obviously, America also was not promoting democracy. It is not in the imerest of the United States to promote freedom or democracy in the Third World. dthough in its quest for stability Lhmerica m y on occasion (such as in El Salvador.)endirrse she trappings of electoral polidcs or a modicum of econo~nicreform, genuine people's power is anathema-and for goi~dreason. If poor people in poor counaies had m e political power; they could, ifocganized, ournote the rich and elect governInents co~nmittedto real economic change. It can be safely assulned that resrmcmred capitalis~nin the Third World, accompanied by a redistrihut i m of weal& and by social welhre policies, worrld prof;>undlyaffect trade

patterns and could diminish the qualiv of life for hnericans and other First World residen~. Yet if U.S. support for democracy in the Third World is an illusion, even more critical is the myth that Latin herica's poor want political democracy. In fact, histoly suggesrs that poor people ovewhelmingly desire to impmve their economic life. Only when democracy seems to provide an avenue fix better living conditions do we find mass pt~fiticalmobihzation and "democratic revolufion.'-It; cullecrivelj~,people do nut perceive the political pmcess as capable of bringing meaningful economic change, they tend to become detached, apolitical, and disinterested. m e n this dpamic is a t work elections obviously do not pose a danger to the starus quo. At the outset of the ~ e n t p - f i r s century, t precisely this kind of mass depoliticization is flourishing throughout Latin h e r i c a , There are cleaner and Inore frequent elections throug.hout the be~nispherenow than ever before, but the nature of the electoral process has convinced many that politics canncjt bsing change, The irony, as evidenced in three case studies, is that Latin hrnericans are arpably Inore "democradc" but less and less free.

Peru: Limiting Democrscy by Consensus The Peruvian experience over the past few decades demonstrates many of the contradicrions concerning what we term ""dmocracq:'knd clarifies the namre of popular sendments regarding the interface of econo~nicconditions and polit_icalrights. A nation of sharp racial conr;r.asts,with an urbanized white elite still entrenched in power ahove a mral and poor Indian ~najority,Peru should pose problems for a conservadve and authoritarian government. Yet t h s is not the case. Late-twentieth-century Peru hardly yalified as a den-rocra~y, and for the most part, the majoriq of its citizens did not seem to 1nin.d. In the age of militaq dictatorships Peru sailed a slightly different course. Its army took conaol late, springing a coup in 1%8, and irnplemerlted a regimen of populist rhetoric and refor~nunder General Juan Velasco, who ruled until 1975. The government nationalized Standard Oil Company's holdings; expropriated haciendas and distributed land to peasants in a quest to break up ladfundio; organized workers into cooperatives; and espoused nationalist rhett~ricwhile purchasillg Soviet military hardware. It was a very strange military gclvernnsent; it even extended diplomatic recopition to Cuba. The clique of officers at its center were, like Velasco himself, mostly from the rural middle class-part of the explanation for its unusual idecrlom. But the regime was also clearly irltent on undeminix~g the potent intellectual left in Peru, as college caxnpuses during the 1960s spmned multiple communist parties and infiamed revolutionary passions. It was author-ial-ian and reti~mistfrom the top down, one reason why the

United States tolerated it (albeit with reduced aid packages and ~nuchpublic criticism). Washington welcomed a shift within the military in 1975, when a new clique of officers seized power and began what they terrned the ""second phase" of governance, with a decidedly more consemativc turn. In time, they weeded out the "leftists" within army ranks and clamped down on political dissent, finally bringing to Peru the eappings of a more convexldonal militay government, The late 1970s were not healthy for the Peruvian economy, as foreign investors remained cool and inflation deepened in the wake of oil price hikes. The generals decided to retrurn to the barracks, Yelding to civilian rule under Fernando Belaunde in 1980. Belaunde, who campaigned on the slogan "a million new jobs," began to reverse the state-led grt~wthmodel, only to watch the economy further deteiorate. He and his advisers, represendng an urban political class resenrful of the ~nilitary's"~nismle,"cut the arlny budget and all hut eliminated its intelligence-gathering apparams, unwitsingly doing so on the eve of a dramatic revolutjon, The Sendero Lurninoso, or Shining Path, was an obscure Maoist faction that had broken away from the convenrional BeruGan communis~in 1969 under the cltarisnzat-jcleaderhip of Abimael Guzm8n, a philosopher and intellecmal with an uncanny ability to coin poetic and simple revoludonary phrases. Ulllike in Central h e r i c a , where the Church served as a conduit for retvolufionax7; smggle, in Peru the educatic~nalsystenl was at i t s heart. Guzmin and his ideas prospe