From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Re-Salas
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 23:17:11 GMT

In article <41016@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> robarr@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Robert O'Barr) writes:
>>> To an american, it looks like the latin-americans here on s.c.l-a are
>>> borrowing the tactics of their dictators to remove any opinion that
>>> doesn't agree with their interests.
>
>Well Jose, I was thinking in particular of dictators like Castro,
>Noriega, and the Ortega brothers where the opposition press was always
>in danger of being thrown in prison.  Thank goodness that our
>"interventionist" policies have lead to democratic elections in most
>of these contries where dictatorships used to be the norm and the
>people have tossed out the maximum leaders and the communists.

Edelmiro, el escritor de tanta edelmierda, is in no danger of being
thrown into prison.

Your ignorance of your own government's actions in Latin America is appalling.
Curious, for instance, that you mention Noriega; are you not aware that
Noriega was for years *on the CIA payroll*, to the tune of $250,000 a year?

Consider just a few of the interventions of our democracy-loving government
over the years:

Brazil: U.S.-supported coup ousts elected but left-leaning President Goulart.
Cuba: U.S. supports Batista dictatorship; wages war against successor
  Castro with invasions and exploding cigars.
Chile: U.S. bankrolls opposition to Allende, supports Pinochet's coup
  and subsequent brutal repression.
Dominican Republic: U.S. occupies country to prevent an uprising in support
  of Juan Bosch, who was elected President but ousted in a CIA-backed coup.
Ecuador: CIA-backed coup ousts elected president Velasco Ibarra.
Honduras: U.S. supports and trains Honduran military; death squads active;
  Nicaraguan contras based here act as a state within a state.
Guatemala: CIA organizes force to overthrow elected president Arbenz Guzman.
  Its hand-picked leader Castillo Armas obligingly outlaws political parties,
  mandates the death penalty for strikes, and undoes Arbenz's land reform.
  Over 100,000 citizens are killed in the subsequent 30 years of dictatorship.
  U.S. trains Guatemalans in "counter-terror", including death squads
  and aerial bombing of towns suspected of collaboration with rebels.
Nicaragua: U.S. backs the Somocista dictatorship (based on the National
  Guard founded by the U.S.) for half a century, then wages an undeclared
  war against the left-wing Sandinista government (violating its own
  laws in order to fund it).
Panama: U.S. supports and pays Noriega-- until he becomes too uppity.
El Salvador: CIA payrollee Jose Alberto Medrano organizes ORDEN paramilitary
  force, considered a precursor of later Salvadoran death squads.
  U.S. backs military government, despite murders of over 35,000 civilians,
  including the country's archbishop.
Uruguay: U.S. supports military takeover.  The dictatorship is marked by
  one of world's highest proportions of citizens held as political prisoners.

After all this you presume to lecture Latin Americans on democracy?
Give me a break.

>For someone who's lived his entire life in a country were someone
>can express his opinions without fear, the opinions expressed by Edelmiro 
>are nothing new.  However, some of you have never been subjected to
>these "alternate" viewpoints because they are not tolerated in your
>countries.  

Edelmiro's opinions are nothing new in Latin America either.  In their
knee-jerk opposition to communism and subservience to the US, they are
mostly the views of the governing elites.

As for alternative viewpoints not being tolerated in Latin America, you
are several years out of date.  The days when U.S.-backed, U.S.-trained
military leaders put journalists in jail-- times when the U.S.-supported
Brazilian government could censor magazines for daring to print the text
of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, because it encouraged subversion--
when writers could be shot for protesting censorship-- are fortunately over 
(except of course in places like Haiti and Cuba).

>In many ways, latin-america has been as politically
>close-minded as the countries in the middle-east.  They have a faith
>that the United States is the great Satan and that only through a
>marxist takeover can true salvation come.  

Some Latin Americans may think this way, but most are more realistic.
They find much to admire in the U.S.  But that the U.S. is also a threat
to their sovereignty, to their economic development, and to their 
democratic institutions, is not unfounded dogma but somber historical fact.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america