A Terrible History

AMERICANS can only express frustration as history repeats itself in Central America Neither the problems confronting the troubled region nor the cures diplomats and economists have proposed signal a significant change in the vicious cycle that has trapped the United States ever since it became a world power.

Once again Central American states find themselves either wrestling with or recovering from the most enduring features of their history poverty and despotism. And once again the United States demonstrates its seemingly incurable myopia as it props up unpopular regimes and points to military solutions for recurring economic problems.

Unfortunately, Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions does little to relieve this sense of anguish. Barraging the reader with too many unimportant names and dates, the book describes two centuries of U.S. involvement in Central America with the depth of a high school textbook. Although LaFeber outlines and criticizes the major currents behind U.S. policy he offers no escape from the not-so-merry-go-round in Central America at a time when alternatives are needed most.

Unlike other areas of the globe, Central America is less of a pawn in a superpower chess game than a vital security interest to the United States. As LaFeber points out in the beginning of the book, roughly two-thirds of the nation's trade, not to mention virtually all of its oil and key minerals, pass through the Caribbean sea lanes bordered by the five Central American states. As a result, the United States has reacted violently to any foreign influence it perceives as a threat to its lifeline.

U.S. foreign policy towards Central America essentially began with the Monroe Doctrine and has since been directed with an admixture of economic and political motives. After the United States emerged from the Civil War as a major industrial power, the significance of Central America, both as a source and a conduit for raw materials became apparent to policy makers in Washington. The U.S. acted ruthlessly and often arbitrarily in guarding the zones for the future Panama Canal, and sanctioned the rapacious activities of American entrepreneurs who soon took control of the only sources of wealth in the impoverished countries, the banana and coffee trades.

LaFeber charges the United States in the 20th century with perpetuating a colonial style economy in Central America. Like many critics of U.S. policy, LaFeber sees the post World War II global economic system tailored entirely to U.S. and Western needs. The U.S. continues to look upon the Central American states primarily as sources of raw materials and markets for the resulting finished goods. The subsequent trends that have led to a drop in the he prices of agricultural products, like coffee and bananas, but an increase in prices of manufactured goods have pushed Central American into further misery.

A dominant feature of U.S. foreign policy, according to LaFeber, has been a fear of revolutions, and Washington has busied itself with preserving the status quo. This stems partly from the need to safeguard U.S. economic interests which might be jeopardized in an upheaval, but also from the inability of American politicians to fathom the right of all nations to the same ideals and liberties they themselves enjoy.

IN ORDER TO insure stability the U.S. has habitually answered Central American uprisings with force. Such was the notion behind Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick approach to the regions' troubles. It was Roosevelt who began the practice to dispatching the marines for any misbehavior south of the border. When, during the Depression, this became too costly a procedure, the U.S. began training local armies, such as Nicaragua's infamous National Guard, to do its police work.

In addition, the United States sides continually with the most repressive elements in Central American society, the military and the oligarchy. These factions, often comprised of the major landowners in each country, benefit from U.S. demand for agricultural products and are likewise interested in preventing reform in the area. More important, since World War II members of the social and military upper classes have been willing to carry out Washington's top priority: the prevention and eradication of Communism in the hemisphere. LaFeber quotes a 1950 memorandum by George Kennan on U.S. policy in Central America:

The final answer must be an unpleasant one, but...we should not hesitate before police repression by the local government. This is not shameful since the Communists are essentially traitors. It is better to have a strong regime in power than a liberal government, if it is indulgent and relaxed and penetrated by Communists.

The case of Guatemala illustrates perfectly what befalls a country when its own policies oppose U.S. interests. In 1950, the State Department, beset with Cold War fever, grew frightened at the presence of a small number of Communists in the liberal coalition of popularly elected president, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. After Arbenz under took a program of land reform in a country where two percent of the population owned close to 75 percent of the land, U.S. officials said they sniffed Communist influence. The Guatemalan government's subsequent confiscation of uncultivated land owned by United Fruit Company prompted the U.S. to begin training an army of Guatemalan guerrillas in nearby Honduras despite the fact that the United Fruit Company was compensated. The arrival of 2000 tons of Soviet arms in Guatemala for Arbenz's use led to the unleashing of the guerillas who soon overran Arbenz and inaugurated a period of military rule and inaugurated a period of military and despotism still underway.

No doubt the U.S. overreacted and squashed the mosquito with the sledge hammer, but LaFeber ignores the historical context of the incident. Surely 2000 tons of Soviet arms alone did not represent a threat to U.S. security, but coming in the wake of the Communist takeover in China, the Korean War and continued tensions in Eastern Europe, the U.S. was understandably alarmed at the appearance of Russian arms on its doorstep.

The current Administration's policy in LaFeber's eyes, therefore, represents a continuation of the age-old practice of preventing revolution in Central America by supporting repressive regimes combined with Cold War reflexes.

BUT LAFEBER'S analysis of post-Somoza Nicaragua, for example, is questionable. Like many liberal and left wing critics of current U.S. policy, LaFeber asserts that American over-reaction to Sandinista actually pushed Nicaragua into the arms of Cuba and the Soviets. A closer reality in the explanation given by former junta members that argues that Nicaraguan shift to the left was the result of the Marxist inspired Sandinistas emerging from an anti-Somoza coalition as the predominant political power. One fact LaFeber doesn't cite is that only eight months after rebels poured into Managua, and as U.S. aid was still coming in on a steady basis. Sandinista members of the junta declared that Marxism and Leninism would guide the Nicaraguan revolution.

As for El Salvador, LaFeber claims that U.S. policies have failed on two counts. Increased aid and training to Salvadoran troops has not produced a victory over leftist guerrillas in the civil war and the much publicized election of March 2, 1982 have only ducted the rebels' cause by bringing to power a reactionary coalition that has curbed the land reform program and perhaps even tacitly sanctioned political violence. The only hope appears to be a coalition of moderates from both the right and the left although such partnership will inevitably invite violence from both extremes. The lack of solutions is painfully clear, and after 300 pages of harangue against U.S. policies LaFeber provides no suggestion of his own.

What is truly missing from the debate on Central America is the realization on the critics side that Soviet and Cuban influence in the region is unacceptable for security reasons, and on the Administration's side, that force is not the solution to the problems. It is true that the Reagan Administration understands the nature of U.S. interests in Central America, but not how to protect them. Military might, even if temporarily successful, can only temporarily quell the deep social and economic problem burdening the regions. Although even for the armchair analyst these problems seem endlessly frustrating, it's important at least to address them regretfully, does not do.