RE THE MILITARY

Connections between the military and the powers that be have been prevalent in a number of places, including Central America.  Examples can be cited describing situations where the ultimate source of power within the government of a Central American nation has been the armed forces.

One such case in point would be the happenings in Nicaragua beginning in the 1930s. Power was already  primarily in the hands of the National Guard, a military organization fostered and supported by the United States.  Its chief leader, General Anastasio Somoza, eventually installed himself as president in 1937; and ruled the country with an iron hand until his assassination in 1956.  Cirruption, self-dealing, and repression of the poor were widespread and commonplace under Somoza, as well as under the subsequent rules of his sons Luis and Anastasio, Jr., until 1979.  In that year, after a decade or more of armed revolt, by a leftist oppostion group known as the "Sandanistas," control, via military action, was wrested from the Somoza regime.

Nicaragua continued to be a battleground, and was the scene of another ten or more years of repression and military conflict.  Fierce and frequent fighting raged on between leftist-leaning Sandanistas, who received aid from Russia, and exiled remnants of the prior National Guard, now known as "Contras," who were given assistance in the form of military supplies from the United States.

Thus, until the region was permnitted to arrive at peaceful solutions to its problems in the late 1980s, Nicaragua was an arena of armed opposing military and semi-military forces.  In addition, this chronic state of conflict that prevailed for decades resulted in conditions of economic devastation and widespread unemployment for most of the country's hapless citizens.

Another example would be Honduras, where after a bloody military coup that took place in 1963, power resided in the military.  This was favored, once more, by American investment interests, who owned most of the banana industry there--as well as most everything else in the country--so as to guarantee stability and continuation of the status quo.  Since 1981, after restoration of a "civilian" government, a "constitutional facade" greets the unaccustomed eye--but real power continues to actually abide in the hands of the army.

In Guatemala, a series of military leaders, or "caudillos," have run the country on and off--but mostly "on"--for generations; and power has for the most part continuously resided within the army.  In the 1980s, military leaders had even stooped to fighting amongst themselves over the spoils that were available for the taking.  Here too, as per the varied but similar situations within Central America, the contrast between the Mayan underprivileged and the white Spanish-speaking coffee-growing elite is marked and pathetic.  Attempts at reform were met with death to 65,000 at the hands of "security forces" between the 1960s and 1980s; as well as to another 120,000 during a civil war which took place in 1982.  Once again, we learn that the U.S. investment sector, as well as American fears of the installation of a communist regime, prompted United States support for the Guatemalan military as a means of strict control, and conservation of the status quo.

In El Salvador, similar vast contrasts between the great peasant majority and the forty or so economically dominant families who owned the coffee plantations, banking institutions, and most of the rest of the country, precipitated attempts at reform, tens of thousands of murders by right-wing death squads, and a civil war in the early 1990s that claimed at least 70,000 lives.  Moreover, any hope for democracy was doomed as a result of alliances between these wealthy oligarchs and the military, whose actions were primarily directed toward their benefit.  Here again, the United States' fear of communist infiltration caused American support for the military; and the army was frequently "a law unto itself."

Panama was controlled by military people for many years.  In 1968, General Omar Torrijos became president, and imposed a harsh form of authoritarian leadership upon his people.  After his death in 1981, his successor, General Manuel Noriega, governed even more brutally and unscrupulously, garnering huge profits from illegal drug activities, until his arrest and imprisonment by American invasionary forces in 1990.

Within this frequently embattled region, only Costa Rica can be credited with doing something along the lines of one of the themes of these paragraphs:  it abolished its army in the late 1940s.  The country apparently maintains only a police force for the purpose of maintaining internal security.  Sgtrangely, Costa Rica has been basically spared from civil war; and enjoys the highest per capita income of all the Central American countries.

These few examples, pertaining to a small sector of our world, portray the role, power, and frequent ruthlessness of military and semi-military entities, wherever they are permitted to acquire and maintain political power.

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