Tag Archives: violence

Week 11

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This week we looked at Latin America in the late twentieth century and the political upheaval that took place in many nations. We focused specifically on the civil war within Peru. The war was really acts of terrorism perpetrated by both the state and a radical political group called The Shining Path. I found it particularly interesting how this terror began and the lasting effects on Peruvian politics today.

The rise of The Shining Path was driven by Abimael Guzman and his ability to mobilize the disenfranchised indigenous peoples in the Ayacucho highlands. It seems that a lot of the people recruited to the Shining Path were young, university-aged students who were well-educated. This surprised me because I have generally thought that educated people like university grads and professors like Guzman and his colleagues would not resort to such extremely violent measures to get their agenda across. I think that they felt they needed to resort to this, speaks to the significance of political ineptitude at the time as well as the degree of abandonment that people felt from their government being in such a remote region of Peru. Professor Cameron discusses how it is so unique that this type of violent reformation movement would spring up after an agrarian reform rather than before, again speaking to the lack of political leadership at the time.

Similarly, I was intrigued by the discussion in the video of the lasting effects that the war and the very public violence had on the political and cultural climate of Peru. For example in the conversation with Professor Maxwell Cameron he mentions that 70,000 people were killed, billions of dollars of materials are lost, and that there was “a deep trauma to the political psyche of the nation”. This was unsurprising; considering the degree of violence and the length of the war it is understandable that Peruvians would be weary of politics and reformations. What is interesting is how the war and the corrupt political moves by Fujimori resulted in a degeneration of democracy and political parties that are still struggling to fully recover.

My question for discussion is what was the international reaction to the violence and what was the reaction of the average Peruvian? It seems like neither side was really “in the right” and both were perpetuating grotesque bloodshed. Similarly, what is the sentiment about the war today and whose side is portrayed as the right one if either?

Week 9 – Commerce, Coercion and America’s Empire

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This week we learned about how the US grew to become such a neo-colonial power in the early twentieth century with a focus on its military and economic relationships with Latin America. On the military side of things, I found it really interesting how the US used political unrest within a nation for its own gain. For example in Nicaragua, when there was a lot of violence between liberal and conservative groups and the US used this to gain control. It is the tried and true “divid and conquer” method. Similarly in Panama, where the US waited for the French to lose money and lives other the building of the canal and then brokered a multi-million dollar deal to build it. Again we see the US acting similarly in Guatemala, using the CIA to back the UFCO in ousting Jacobo Arbenz. Economically, the US became a large and prominent investor during the export boom, fuelling construction of railways and other infrastructure. From here, this grew into having a monopoly on extremely profitable exports such as bananas as with the UFCO. With these countries relying so heavily on these exported goods, those who had a monopoly had a tremendous amount of political power. Altogether, learning of all of the ways in which the US intervened in Latin American countries to gain political and economic control really helps to answer the question of why they became such a power compared to the still-developing Latin American nations. From the texts like Augusto Sandino’s Political Manifesto and with the above context in mind, I can really understand why the US was often viewed in such a negative  light by many middle and lower-class Latin Americans. As well, this week helps to connect the documents from previous weeks such as Ruben Dario’s “To Roosevelt” and Jose Marti’s “Our America” which identified the US as a war-centric, neo-colonial threat. With this in mind, I can also further understand why so many prominent Latin American figures that we have looked at called for unity amongst Latin America as well as the development of a Latin American identity that was distinct from the US and Europe.

I also really didn’t know much of the US-Latin America relations until taking this course and following the news of hurricane relief in Puerto Rico. I hadn’t realized that the US was not only a neo-colonial threat symbolically but they actually did forcefully invade and conquer many regions of the Americas.

My question for discussion this week is what are the current relationships like between Latin America and US? Being a Canadian, I am really unsure of how Latin Americans largely view North Americans and considering this history of oppression/exploitation from the North I am interested.