South America

South America

Don’t cry for South America. Where there once were dictators, there now are many elected leaders publicly accountable to the voting masses. Inefficient, state-run autocracies have transformed themselves into free-market democracies. It’s been a remarkable transformation in a short amount of time. Furthermore, the Yankees have, more or less, gone home. Historically, the United States has been the policeman – and sometimes the bully – in its own backyard, aiding governments it considered friendly to its interests and occasionally playing a hand in toppling those it opposed. These days, the United States is less in evidence.

1970 – 73 – Allende falls in a coup: Three years after winning the Chilean presidency, Salvador Allende dies during a successful coup led by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973. Allende, a Marxist, had nationalized industries – including U.S. – owned copper companies – and improved conditions for the poor. During the last year of Allende’s regime, strikes paralyze many sectors of the economy and inflation soars to over 300 percent.

1973 – The return of Juan Peron: Peron is elected president of Argentina. He had been ousted by a military coup in 1955, after ruling the country with an iron hand for nine years. Peron dies 10 months after his election and is succeeded by the wife Isabel who had been elected vice president and who became the first woman head of state in the Western hemisphere. In 1976, amid charges of corruption, Mrs. Peron is ousted by a military junta. A state of siege is imposed as the army battles leftists and guerrillas, killing and torturing thousands. In 1985, after a five-month trial, five former junta members are found guilty of murder and human rights abuses.

Alem Avenue, Buenos Aires, Argentine. Photo by Elena

1978 – Mass suicide at Jonestown: At the urging of their leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, 1,930 people commit suicide at their Guyana commune. Children are poisoned first, then adults drink a cyanide solution. Those who resist are reportedly injected with cyanide or shot to death. Jones had ordered the mass suicide after suspecting that authorities might soon break up the commune. He dies from a seemingly selfinflicted gunshot wound.

1982 – 83 – War in the Falkland Islands: British forces invade and successfully recapture the Falkland Islands, 250 miles off Argentina’s coast, after Argentina briefly takes them over. Both countries had claimed sovereignty over the islands since 1833.

1985 – The Cocaine connection: Drug trafficking and related violence in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador increase dramatically as the demand for cocaine in the United States rises. In 1989, the presidential candidate of Colombia’s ruling party is assassinated in apparent retaliation for increased government activity against drug traffickers.

A year later, two other presidential candidates are murdered as the drug lords carry on a campaign of intimidation to stop the presidential election. The election proceeds and a strong advocate of the government’s war against the drug cartel is elected. To try to stem the drug trade and bring the dealers to justice, the United States begins using an extradition treaty with Colombia, causing many dealers to go into hiding.

1989 – Save the Amazon: Brazil unveils a comprehensive environmental plan for the Amazon reign amid an international outcry from environmentalists and others about the ongoing destruction of the Amazonian ecosystem. The Amazon rain forest is considered a global resource because of its impact on world weather patterns.

1992 – Peru: Since his 1992 “self-coup,” President Alberto Fujimori has reinforced the structure that allowed human rights abuses in the 1980s. Security forces raid houses indiscriminately, raping, torturing, and carrying out extrajudicial executions in a purported crackdown on Shining Path guerrillas, but victims are often unrelated to Shining Path.

1994 – Brazil: People are watching anxiously to see how President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, elected by an absolute majority, will change the human rights climate. Among the abuses to be rectified are the violent attacks and murders of children who live on the streets.

1994 – Colombia: President Ernest Samper, elected in August 1994, emphasizes human rights but is haunted by his predecessor’s powerful military. Elite counterinsurgency troops routinely carry out extrajudicial executions and torture.

1994 – Dissatisfaction with the Castro regime deepened in 1994 in the face of continuing repression and economic hardship. In the last 30 years, thousands have been jailed for violating “illegal exit” laws, which forbid them to leave the country without government permission.

1994 – Guatemala: The government and the guerrillas made important human rights commitments with a 1994 – and then proceeded to flagrantly disregard it. In the last 30 years, tens of thousands of people have disappeared.

Largest lake Lake Titicaca – Bolivia, Peru. 3,220 square miles.

Longest River – Amazon.

Highest Point – Cerro Aconcagua.

Lowest Point – Peninsula Valdez, Argentina, 22,833 feet.

Largest City – Sao Paolo. Brazil.