KEY POINTS
- Washington repeatedly accused of backing coups against leftist governments
- CIA-backed coup ousted Guatemala’s president over land reforms in 1954
- Bay of Pigs invasion failed to overthrow Cuba’s Fidel Castro
- US troops intervened in Dominican Republic citing communist threat
- US supported Pinochet’s coup against Chile’s elected socialist government
- Operation Condor targeted leftists with tacit US backing
- Panama invasion led to arrest of former US ally Manuel Noriega
PARIS: The United States — which on Saturday launched an attack on Venezuela and is reported to have detained its president — has a long record of military intervention and support for authoritarian regimes across Latin America.
Former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro — whom Donald Trump now claims is in the US custody — repeatedly accused Washington of backing coup attempts against their governments.
Below is a chronology of major US interventions in Latin America since the Cold War.
1954: Guatemala
On June 27, 1954, Guatemala’s president, Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, was overthrown by mercenaries trained and funded by the United States after he introduced land reforms that threatened the interests of the powerful US firm United Fruit Corporation, later known as Chiquita Brands.
In 2003, Washington officially acknowledged the CIA’s involvement in the coup, which it justified at the time as part of its campaign against communism.
1961: Cuba
Between April 15 and 19, 1961, around 1,400 anti-Castro fighters trained and financed by the CIA attempted to land at the Bay of Pigs, some 250 kilometres from Havana. The operation failed to topple Fidel Castro’s communist government.
More than 100 people were killed on each side during the fighting.
1965: Dominican Republic
Citing a “communist threat,” the United States deployed Marines and paratroopers to Santo Domingo in 1965 to suppress an uprising supporting Juan Bosch, a leftist president who had been removed from office by military generals in 1963.
1970s: Backing military dictatorships
During the Cold War, Washington supported several military dictatorships in the region, viewing them as a barrier against left-wing insurgencies.
The United States actively assisted Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet during the September 11, 1973 coup that ousted socialist president Salvador Allende. Declassified US documents released in 2003 show that then secretary of state Henry Kissinger also supported Argentina’s military junta in 1976, urging it to swiftly conclude its so-called “dirty war.”
At least 10,000 Argentine dissidents were forcibly disappeared.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, six military regimes — Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil — coordinated efforts to eliminate leftist opponents under “Operation Condor,” with tacit backing from the United States.
1980s: conflicts in Central America
In 1979, Nicaragua’s Sandinista movement overthrew long-time dictator Anastasio Somoza. Alarmed by the new government’s ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union, US president Ronald Reagan secretly authorised the CIA to provide $20 million in support to the Contras, the counter-revolutionary forces — funding that was partly raised through the illegal sale of weapons to Iran.
The Nicaraguan civil war, which ended in April 1990, claimed around 50,000 lives.
Reagan also dispatched military advisers to El Salvador to combat the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a far-left rebel group, during a civil war from 1980 to 1992 that left about 72,000 people dead.
1983: Grenada
On October 25, 1983, US Marines and Army Rangers invaded Grenada following the assassination of prime minister Maurice Bishop by a far-left faction and amid concerns over Cuban involvement in expanding the island’s airport, allegedly for military use.
At the request of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Reagan launched Operation “Urgent Fury,” citing the need to protect around 1,000 US nationals. The intervention, widely condemned by the UN General Assembly, ended on November 3 and resulted in more than 100 deaths.
1989: Panama
Following a disputed election in 1989, president George H.W. Bush ordered a US military invasion of Panama, leading to the capture of General Manuel Noriega, a former US intelligence asset who was wanted by American courts.
About 27,000 US troops participated in Operation “Just Cause,” which officially left around 500 people dead. Human rights groups, however, estimate the death toll to be significantly higher, possibly in the thousands.
Noriega later spent more than 20 years in US prisons on drug trafficking charges before serving additional sentences in France and Panama.
