The Dual Strategy Myth in Central American Policy

1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Vanderlaan
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Central American ◽  
White House ◽  
Dual Strategy ◽  
American Policy ◽  
Mixed Messages

The Reagan administration is sending mixed messages on its policy in Central America, leading some observers to label the policy “schizoid” and influencing yet others to give the president the benefit of the doubt until policy implications become clearer or unavoidable. Commenting in July on White House policy as it has been iterated in the first half of 1983, Senator Christopher Dodd (1983), a leading administration critic, asserted that “there is total confusion in Washington as to what the administration's policies are, and there is a total confusion in Central America as to what U.S. intentions are.” Similar charges have been made from both sides of the aisle in Congress.Almost sadly, these charges are not part of an opposition's political ploy, but in fact are rooted in speeches, position papers, and actions formulated by the president and his Central America policy team.

U.S. Guns Kill U.S. Nuns

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-130
Author(s):  
Theresa Keeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Central America ◽  
Central American ◽  
White House ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Church ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the murders of the churchwomen and how Reagan officials' critiques, which revealed that intra-Catholic conflict had become an integral part of United States–Central America policy with Reagan's ascension to the White House. It looks at remarks that bolster the Salvadoran junta's reputation or diminish the murders' impact on the protest movement against U.S. policy. It also discusses that the murdered churchwomen symbolized the church's championing of the poor and a U.S. foreign policy that was morally corrupt and politically unsound for training and arming their killers. The chapter cites that two murdered Maryknollers were members of a Catholic order and represented a dangerous trajectory for U.S. foreign policy and the church. It elaborates how the U.S. government aligned with conservative U.S. and Central American Catholics and amplified their perspective.

Rediscovering Democracy in Latin America

Worldview ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Paul E. Sigmund
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Authoritarian Government ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
American Policy

It is not unlikely that within the next two years nearly every country in Latin America will be governed by an elected civilian regime. This might surprise most Americans, accustomed as we are to thinking about the region in terms of coup-prone military governments and repressive oligarchies. We are surprised too at the recent embrace of democracy in Latin America by the Reagan administration. Some of its leading representatives went about touting the virtues of authoritarian government; but the administration has found that it is good politics to promote democracy and free elections in Central America and the Caribbean— and politically impossible to resume aid to regimes with bad human rights records. In fact, “Project Democracy” is the latest buzzword of Reagan's Latin American policy.

Kissinger and Central America

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-182
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Rabe
Keyword(s):  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central American ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter explores U.S. relations with Central America during the Kissinger years. In the 1980s, civil wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala frightened the Reagan administration into reasoning that the Cold War had come to the doorstep of the United States. The civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua erupted during Henry Kissinger's tenure (in 1972 and 1974, respectively). Wholesale political violence carried out by “death squads” continued to characterize life in Guatemala in the 1970s. Examining the U.S. response to the mounting right-wing oppression in Central America provides historical background to the crisis of the 1980s and deepens an understanding of Kissinger's worldviews. Whereas Kissinger may have been impervious to Central American violence, he acted boldly toward Panama, pushing both of his presidents to renegotiate U.S. control of the canal and the Canal Zone.

Marginalization, Assimilation, and Resurgence: Indigenous People in Central America since Independence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Gabbert
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Central American ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Land Loss ◽  
Agricultural Export

While the end of colonial rule brought formal equality it did not end discrimination and marginalization of the indigenous population in independent Central America. Many suffered land loss and proletarianization in the emerging agricultural export economy. However, indigenous people were not mere victims of exploitation, displacement, and ladinization but played an often active role in Central American politics. Participation in the market economy and access to education fostered stratification within the indigenous population. The emergence of well-off and educated Indians and changes in international politics promoting multiculturalism contributed to the emergence of indigenous movements in recent decades. While some progress has been made concerning the recognition of cultural difference and autonomy, land rights are still a much disputed issue.

Exploring ethno-racial policy for the Garinagu in Central America: making the case for Black Indigeneity

2020 ◽  
pp. 117718012097900
Author(s):  
Sheryl Felecia Means
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
Central American ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Collective Rights ◽  
Land And Water Rights ◽  
Racial Policy

Across the Central American region, several groups received political autonomy by the end of the 20th century. By granting autonomy to these groups, countries like Nicaragua acknowledged certain populations as members of distinct ethnic groups. This was not the case for every country or group in the region, and the lack of effective ethno-racial policy-making considerations across Central America has led to language attrition, loss of land and water rights, and commodification of historic communities. This article focuses on Honduras and Belize as unique sites of ethno-racial and socio-cultural policy making, group identity making and unmaking, and group rights for the Garinagu. Specifically, this work forwards a re-examination of national ethno-racial policy and a critical assessment of political models based on ethno-cultural collective rights intended to combat racial discrimination.

Freedom Tide? Ideology, Politics, and the Origins of Democracy Promotion in U.S. Central America Policy, 1980–1984

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Dramatic Shift

The Reagan administration came to power in 1981 seeking to downplay Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Yet, by 1985 the administration had come to justify its policies towards Central America in the very same terms. This article examines the dramatic shift that occurred in policymaking toward Central America during Ronald Reagan's first term. Synthesizing existing accounts while drawing on new and recently declassified material, the article looks beyond rhetoric to the political, intellectual, and bureaucratic dynamics that conditioned the emergence of a Reaganite human rights policy. The article shows that events in El Salvador suggested to administration officials—and to Reagan himself—that support for free elections could serve as a means of shoring up legitimacy for embattled allies abroad, while defending the administration against vociferous human rights criticism at home. In the case of Nicaragua, democracy promotion helped to eschew hard decisions between foreign policy objectives. The history of the Reagan Doctrine's contentious roots provides a complex lens through which to evaluate subsequent U.S. attempts to foster democracy overseas.

UNICEF in Central America

1960 ◽  
Vol 329 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-77
Author(s):  
Alice C. Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Central America ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Central American ◽  
The World ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Integrated Programs ◽  
Regional Basis ◽  
The United Nations

Central America has been one of the pioneer areas for the United Nations Children's Fund assisted pro grams. When the United Nations Children's Fund, under a broadened mandate from the United Nations, shifted the emphasis of its aid from emergency to long term and from war-torn countries to those economically less developed, Cen tral American governments immediately requested its assist ance to strengthen and extend services to children and mothers. As one of the first areas in the world to aim at the eradication of malaria and to have engaged in an inten sive campaign against malnutrition on a regional basis, the Central American experiences in these fields have become known, watched, and studied by people from many countries. Against this background, international and bilateral organi zations are working together with governments as they broaden the scope and the extent of their programs. Ten years of co-operative action have highlighted the need for train ing of personnel, both professional and auxiliary. This period has also made clear the value of more integrated programs with wider collaboration both within the ministries of government and between the international organizations.

Sir Lionel Carden's Proposed Agreement on Central America, 1912

1959 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-295
Author(s):  
Walter V. Scholes
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Central America ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Central American ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Foreign Office

As American economic interests expanded in Central America in the early twentieth century, many British representatives concluded that the Foreign Office would have to devise some method to protect existing British investments against American encroachment. When Secretary of State Knox visited Central America in 1912, he and Sir Lionel E. G. Carden, the British Minister to Central America, discussed Central American affairs when they met in Guatemala on March 16. Knox could scarcely have been very sympathetic as Carden expounded the British point of view, for the Department of State believed that the greatest obstacle to the success of its policy in Central America was none other than the British Minister. As early as April, 1910, Knox had unsuccessfully tried to have Carden transferred from his post; the attempt failed because Sir Edward Grey backed up his Minister.

Our Policy of Non-Recognition in Central America

1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandler P. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Central American ◽  
Treaty Obligation

The treaty obligation, which the Central American countries have imposed upon themselves, to refuse recognition to new governments established in those countries in certain specified circumstances, was first adopted in their General Treaty of Peace and Amity of December 20, 1907, and their supplemental treaty of the same date.2 The stipulations of these treaties were restated and consolidated in their later General Treaty of Peace and Amity of February 7, 1923, which treaty is still in force.3

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