When first listening to the concept of a dirty war, we might think about a conflict that became so extreme that ended up leaving a complete mess in a nation. Well it does refer to something similar. The concept of “Dirty wars” came from Argentina, and it was used to talk about a war in which it was not clear who was the enemy, therefore military forces treated anyone as an enemy. The period of the Dirty wars in Latin America is interpreted to be between 1959-1990, these period is seen as extremely violent, even more than  during independence times.

During this time of terror, we can see how the successful accomplishment of the Cuban revolution, made the division between the left and right wing even wider. While Latin american countries became proxies for the cold war, due to the fact that the USA was a supporter of all of those right wing movements, and provided them with military. An example of this is the financing of the strikes in Chile by the USA. Their biggest goal by doing o was to prevent the expansion of communism in the Latin American region. On the other hand, the USSR at that time supported the left wing-socialist and Marxist ideals in the region, for example Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.

It is sad to see that during this period a clear cycle of violence takes place from both sides the left and the right, depending on which country’s context we based on. For example the left was tired of so much oppression and violence coming form those authoritarian right wing regimes, and so reacted with violent revolutions to overthrown  the governments. However we also see how in some countries, especially in Central America and Cuba, after these left wing revolutionaries took power, they also applied violence against their enemies among the population. The Peruvian example given by Dawson is an exception to this, because it shows how both sides actually acted with equal violence towards each other, showing us that there is not a clear hero or villain in these stories.

As a personal connection to this chapter I can recall all the stories from my mother of the times of rationalization of food, and any kinds of food during the Sandinista’s socialist regime in Nicaragua. My uncles had to flee the country illegally because any boy older than 16 would be sent to war, a war that was sustained against the US intervention, which was trying to prevent the prevalence of socialism in the country

Populism as we know throughout history has been widely associated with Latin America. Revolutions that took place in countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia were believed to be lead to success by populism. The idea of populism refers to the believe that power should be given to the regular people. Populism defends the idea that the common people have the right to take control over the governance rather than a small group of political insiders or wealthy elites.

It is interesting to see how the boom expansion of the economy in Latin American then lead to a totally different governance style such as populism and communism. The same power concentrated in the elites and people in power, as well as a vast part of the territories being in the hand of foreigners triggered resistance from the common people at the bottom who were tired of sch inequalities to look for a movement to change the system and redistribute power among the people.

With technological advance and economic expansion in Latin America, came the use of the media. The use of radios and other forms of information devices for the population allowed a new way to make politics to arise. Now politicians were capable of communicating their ideas to larger masses around the country and get their speeches across the territory. It was here when revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro took their opportunity to persuade the Cuban population to join his socialist ideals. These communication we can saw allowed political movements such as this one to grow stronger.

Dugdale-Pointon, TDP. (3 March 2002), Peninsular War (1807-14), http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_peninsular.html

The first research site I used is this website called “History of war” where it introduces the peninsular war between 1807 and 1814. This is relevant to the topic because even though this war did not directly take place in Latin american territory we know that the invasion to Spain from the French, weakened the Spanish administration in Latin American colonies. Creoles saw themselves directly affected by this because, as previously all the profit made in the colonies had to go to Spain, they knew that now it will go to the French kingdom instead, that made them feel detached from their duty to do so. Therefore in this moment of instability was the perfect time for creoles to look for that change and archive political and economical freedom from the Spanish crown.  We see how the period of the Peninsular war was the start of the movements for independence in Latin America, making this a relevant event in the history of Latin American Independence.

http://www3.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/hist106web/site7/The%20Bourbon%20Reforms.htm

The second source of information I used is this website called: “gettysburg.edu” which explains about the Bourbon reforms established in Spain and brought consequently as a model for the Latin American colonies. This is relevant because these reforms implied aggressive and effective tax collections, less economic power for Creoles and the Spanish crown sending new administrators to the colonies. For the Creole at the time these political and economical legislation implemented in the colonies were an attack to their freedom and power. Therefore, they provoked rebellion against this reforms and later on, against the crown itself. This shows the creoles resentment toward the crown and their restriction of power. Independence was not only a move for political reformation, but a strategy for Creoles to get power over land, and economic affairs in the colonies. Once the spanish administrators sent by the Spanish crown left, Creoles could have absolute power over the productive economies in Latin America, which at the time were flourishing with the harvest of coffee, sugar and other goods such as gold.

So far this has been my favorite chapter of all the syllabus. I believe it is because it talks not ony about things I learned during my high school history, but also because it introduces us the reasons why Latin America is so influenced today by the US culture and economically dependent of it. While I was reading, specially the document written by Dorftman, I started thinking how even me as a Latin american did not notice this stereotypes and portraits of the Latin american people in Disney cartoons, which ironically were something I grew up with and would identify as part of my childhood. These only emphasizes more the fact that Latin american culture is so influenced by this north american culture which is seen as foreign, expensive and therefore superior.

The history of the Panama canal is a very explicit example of the political and economical power of the US in the region. We can argue that in this case the US intervention helped the country of Panama to gain their independence from Colombia, however we can not hide that this was done in order to fulfill their own interest of being able to construct an inter-oceanic canal, that would bring about a lot f economic profit and would not even leave a revenues for the Panamanians at least for the first decade of it being productive.

As said in the readings, it is incredible to see how many military interventions were there in the past in Latin american territories by the US, even to see how this interventions were supported by some of the governments in Latin america that were looking to get some; economical benefits from this example the overthrown of Arbenz, in Guatemala. They sould by many years the idea to the Latin Americans that communism is totally terrible and that good commerce with the US is the only road to economic and technological development for all this region.

On the other hand for me as a Nicaraguan was outstanding to red the “Political Manifesto” made by Sadino, that as we know today is known in the whole region as a symbol of that resistance to US domination. Although he was assassinated by the Somoza military, his legacy is still alive today even more than ever, he also follows in his ideals Bolivar’s dream to see a Latin America united.

This signs of crisis in Latin America were previously announced to us in the previous chapter. One of the things I found most interesting is the fact that while reading the “Plan de Ayala” you can see a very strong contrast with the description made by James Creelman about mexico and how progressive it was, how beautiful, that he almost made it seem to us that there were no problems what so ever, but what they did not see was all this crisis that was hidden growing to exploit at a future point.

On the other hand we do not  only see the growing internal problems in Latin america, but also how there are external threats, such  as the growing power of the United States. For me, as a Nicaraguan, I feel so identify with this poem from Ruben Dario. I find it powerful the fact that Dario being a poet in “To Roosevelt” he uses a very direct language calling the United state “the hunter” and preventing the Latin american from this threat that will take away their freedom, because the government of Roosevelt was now allowed to intervene in the Latin  American provinces

Mariátegüi, in his essay shows us his Marxist point of view about the economy. He is against the land distribution, and says it is better to go back to the commonly shared land and to an authoritarian system just like the Inca’s communism.

Another  very attractive reading was the called “La raza cosmica” which explains that taste is our first step to relationships. Describing 3 stages, first materialistic, second intellectual and third, aesthetic and spiritual. These caught my attention specially because I personally believe everyone has different interests and therefore this reading could not apply to all the population equally, however it is interesting to see this point of view, according to which the race in Latin America is of great pride because it has a mixture of cultures.