It seems clear that again we are going to have to discuss the effects of western intervention in developing nations. This week while covering Latin America, it was evident both form Prof. Holt’s lectures and from the Bayly and Galeano readings that the region suffered greatly from western intervention. Specifically, the United States’ foreign policy long claimed to support democracy, yet the U.S. repeatedly interfered with democratically elected leaders, with whom they disagreed. For the purpose of brevity, let’s look merely at one example from Dr. Holt’s Lecture, Cuba.
Cuba is really what caused the U.S. to become so concerned with the progression of socialist experiments in Latin America. The ironic part is that Cuba’s socialist movement might have been less violent and maybe more successful were it not for American intervention. Galeano writes “It was the ceaseless aggression and the long, implacable blockade that drive the Cuban revolution to become more militarized, far removed from the model that was originally envisioned”( Galeano, 317) Instead, the U.S. repeatedly tried to kill or otherwise remove Castro, going so far as to poison his diving suit, as mentioned in Dr. Holt’s lecture. Castro then, naturally, turned to a more powerful country (the U.S.S.R.) for support. Bayly tells how the economic blockade of Cuba, established by the U.S. “drove the country towards ever-greater political dependence on the USSR.” (Bayly, 160) the result being the Cuban missile crisis and a period of diplomatic isolation that only ended in 2015.
It seems that American intervention in Latin America was so tainted by a Cold War hysteria that they ended up creating the very problems they wished to avoid. And this legacy of American intervention has left long-lasting, damage to Latin America. Damage that is still being repaired to this day.