Blog Six

The cold war impacted Latin America and the world in a variety of ways, but while many people know about the war itself and its after effects in the United States and Europe, a lot of people tend to overlook the strong impact the war had on Latin America and the role these countries played in the war itself. Many conflicts both internal and external rocked Latin American countries and many capitalist countries including the United States feared the rise of communist militias in Latin America and those who did not have foreign intervention fought what they viewed as the communist threat through their own means. This eventually led to a type of anticommunism for many Latin American countries that had consequences that seemed unexpected at the time. Specifically the rise of many dictatorships throughout various countries that used anticommunism to justify unconstitutional seizing of power and control. This phenomena, the militaries and political groups ruling by force after taking power are known as Juntas.

 The acts of violence and terrorism performed by Juntas ranged from constitutional amendments to acts of torture and murder on those who governments believed supported communist idealogy including sexual assault, the torture of loved ones, and the dissapearance of their bodies and identities after their deaths. These acts of violence were not just directed to influential political radicals and guerrillas, but anyone who could be considered to have even the slightest sympathy towards the communist party or criticism of the government, going as far as to murder communist protestors, for instance the Tlateloco massacre in Mexico, dismissing, ridiculing, and trying to silence family members of and organizations advocating for the dissapeared who wanted to know about their fates and wereabouts such as Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo (The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) in Argentina, and persecute and assassinate religious workers for helping the poor or criticizing human rights violations such as the assasination Oscar Romero in El Salvador after condeming the country’s disregard for basic human rights. Chile for example, while they considered themselves different from many other Latin American countries, and initially a country with a stable, democratic process, were no exception to these actions. The political polarization of the country previously was used to justify the oppressive and violent actions of the Pinochet regime, despite national condemnation the Chilean military would not acknowledge any injustice had been done until twenty eight years later. Chile was not the only country to deny that these atrocities have taken place, in the country of Argentina eight thousand people were found to have had recorded evidence of their “disappearance” after the country returned to democracy, despite this not all disappearances were recorded and as a result the number in reality was likely much higher.

 While there was an exception when it came to the country of Peru, that while classified as a dictatorship was not involved in any human rights violations. This is sadly a rare case with many of these atrocities being overlooked by the United States simply because of their anticommunist stances. Not all the struggles of the Cold War in Latin America were internal either, the United States feared the rise of communism in these countries to the point that they weren’t against intervening in these countries political processes, they would often send financial and military aid to anticommunist Latin American countries overlooking the violent actions of their leaders in the name of defeating communism, one dark instance of this is the massacre of the village of El Mozote in El Salvador, in which the majority of the village’s men, women, and children, who were unarmed and did not resist arrest were slaughtered by U.S. trained soldiers who mistook the village for a guerilla base. The communist revolutionaries of Latin America’s refusal and inability to participate politically combined with the financial aid given by the United States to anticommunists and the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet bloc meant that victory for communists was farther than ever. The cold was over and the Capitalists have won, but for Latin America, the cold war was a war that everybody lost, with many democratic nations being replaced by dictatorships like Brazil and Chile using a war against communism as justification along with the loss of countless men, women, and children, or guerilla movements leading to the collapse of democratic governments like those in Uruguay.

 The end of the cold war spelled the end of an era whose after effects could be felt everywhere.