Latin America Military Interventions
The intervention of them Military in issues politics has been a common phenomenon in Latin America. The interventions have either been from the local army or foreign armies assisted with the local armies of Guerrillas. This phenomenon has been witnessed in a number of Latin American nations including El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Haiti, Guatemala and Chile (Putnam, 1967). This scenario has been playing itself over and over in most of these nations. Thus, whenever a party gains popularity and goes into office and decides to keep its promises to the electorate, their victory is quickly neutralized by military forces.
Leftists that came into power by democracy got overthrown in most cases by military (Becker, 2004). In some cases these efforts were aided by the local military, business elite in the nations and/or with the assistance of the United States in some instances such as in El Salvador. The United States is particularly mentioned in the military interventions because it has engaged in military interventions in approximately twenty Latin American nations including Cuba, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Panama, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Chile, Dominican Republic, Argentina, and Uruguay-just to mention but a few (Becker, 2004). Therefore, while looking at these military interventions it is also good to have a look at the U.S and its involvement because it has been force to reckon in the military interventions.
Perhaps the first and most important reason for most of these interventions has been the establishment of democracy. Democracy and leadership principles based on it have been a foreign concept in most Latin American nations. However, because of its ideals most these nations have been struggling to incorporate democracy into their governance (Emayzine.com, 2010). In cases where there has been a perception of totalitarianism or any other forms of leadership deemed authoritative and oppressive, there has always been some form of uprising to counter the negatives of bad governance.
As a result, most nations’ military forces have been forced to intervene and create calm so as to facilitate the re-initiation of democratic processes and institutions in these nations (Becker, 2004). It is in most of these circumstances that the United States has been able to intervene as the world’s number one promoter of democratization of most nations. The push for democracy at times has been the biggest source of these conflicts. A good example would be Panama’s case in which Manuel Noriega (the military) leader of the nation at the time tried to manipulate elections severally in his favor, in order to prevent the course of democracy. This acts coupled by Noriega’s declaration of war led to an invasion and military take over.
The military at times has taken over as a means to return calm in cases where thee has been national unrest. An example in such cases was the Peruvian (SL) “Sendero Luminoso” movement that sought to create civil unrest to the extent that the take-over by the military would be inevitable. The SL had plans to have the military take-over so that they could begin plotting on how to get to power (Emayzine.com, 2010). The SL politics and tactics aside, we realize that civil unrest characterized by uprising from the populace mainly due to poor economies and policies may lead to military interventions to bring back calm to the nation. The establishment of calm by the military is by far its biggest reason for intervention. Thus the military takes over to facilitate a smoother transition towards better governance (Emayzine.com, 2010).
In some instances military interventions have had nothing to do with instituting good governance rather they have been a means to the elite taking over power through the military to further their own interests within nations. Most Latin American nations have been characterized with poverty and inequality, which could be termed the root cause of violence and military interventions (Emayzine.com, 2010). But the immediate causes have included the military’s takeover with the support of the elite whenever they felt their interests were not being taken care of. The poor populace has mostly risen to put leadership into office that could help eliminate the inequalities and re-distribute resources amongst people. Many at times this has not augured well for the elite in society, including the political and military leadership, and thus whenever the citizens manage to put up a leader of choice in office the elite and military leaders rise up against the leadership to usurp power for self interests and ego (Becker, 2004).
In some instances interventions especially, foreign nations’ military such as U.S.A intervention in Haiti and Panama, were out of self interest portrayed by other nations. The intervention of U.S.A in Panama was not solely for a democratic purpose, even though democracy had actually failed in Panama, but it was out of U.S national interests in the Panama Canal’s control and protection.
There are various cited factors that make military intervention possible because of the weaknesses in the state. Lack of strength of the governing party and firm institutionalization of the regimes are contributors to most military interventions. Other indicators of potential interventions include unfavorable balances of trade, political and social unrest (Putnam, 1967).
The reasons of military interventions are thus varied and depend on the type of situation in different nations, but the not all of them are actually warranted good. Interventions in cases of unrest are most appropriate because they help in bringing about peace and ending unrest and any potential escalation of unrest into civil wars. This also facilitates a period within which political effort can be consolidated, parties made and political efforts of achieving good governance initiated under the watchful eye of the military. However, this has not been the case with most military leaderships that have instead sought to have their interests first. Therefore, in the ideal case there are very few cases where the military has facilitated such smooth transition, but in most cases it has sought to control and manipulate the democratic processes to its advantages-just as witnessed in Panama (Putnam, 1967)..
Interventions to bring about democracy instead of letting it charter its own way are not the best kind of interventions, because they seem like an imposition of leadership and certain type of governance upon the people. Democracy should be left to develop of its own accord, because as a good form of leadership, its advantages are easily evident and people are able to witness and experience its goodness locally or even abroad. As time passes by soon people come to accept the importance and essence of embracing and it slowly develops in a nation (Becker, 2004). It is good to note that even in America democracy developed on a slow path with a pace that allowed the nation to adopt it to its operations.
There are a few observations that have to be taken into account avoid such unrest and military interventions. Firstly, governance should be let to grow at its own pace rather than be pushed towards a certain end. Imposing democracy on nations populated by a poor majority may bring about instability in most cases, because the poor are empowered by their universal suffrage to vote and demand for their desires to be met, which at times may be unrealistic to the situation and state of development of their respective countries. Thus, if the leadership fails to meet their needs as per their requests unrest seems to be the result in most cases (Calleros, 2009).
Therefore, the introduction of democracy should include introduction of initiatives to upgrade the people’s lives and economic status alongside the development of democratic values. This challenge results from the fact that people perceive democracy as a means to an end. There should be more democratization via educational forums and sensitization. Latin Americans should be made aware of the realities of democracy, what to expect and what not to expect, because the political unrests that lead to most interventions result from struggles dubbed as democratic struggles. The democratization should instantly manifest at the electoral level only, but rather through the development of democratization within key institutions of the state before the top leadership can focus on nation-wide democracy, because it is hard to achieve democracy in a nation devoid of democratic institutions to support the democracy-it akin to building a house with no foundations (Calleros, 2009).
References
Becker, M. (2004),. History of United States’ Interventions in Latin America, retrieved 6th May, 2011 from http://www2.truman.edu/~marc/resources/interventions.html
Calleros, C. J. (2009),.The unfinished transition to democracy in Latin America. Taylor & Francis Publishers
Emayzine.com (2010),. Latin American Politics, retrieved on 6th May, 2011 from http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/LAPOLS~1.htm
Putnam, D. R. (1967),. Toward Explaining Military Intervention in Latin American Politics: World Politics Journal, volume 20, issue 1, pp. 83-110
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