Афганский вооруженный конфликт в 1980-е годы и позиция некоторых государств Латинской Америки

Abstract

The article reviews the policy of some Latin American states regarding the Afghan armed conflict of 1979–1989 with the participation of Soviet troops. The objective of the study is to find out the degree of support by Latin American states for both Soviet policy in Afghanistan and the Afghan government itself of that period. To achieve the objective of the study, the author resorts to studying documents, including collections of foreign policy documents of the Soviet Union and UN documentation. The author separately considered the Cuban policy in this matter, separately – the policy of the Latin American socialist-oriented states (Nicaragua and Grenada), the author also refers to the policy regarding the Afghan conflict of states that took an intermediate position of support for conflict (for example, Argentina and Mexico). The author pays the main attention to the diplomatic position of the above-mentioned states. The author comes to the following conclusions: on the Latin American continent, fewer states supported the Soviet policy in Afghanistan compared with the number of states condemning it or holding a neutral position – but nonetheless, the number of these supporters throughout the 1980s remained stable. A key supporter of the «Afghan» policy of the USSR in Latin America in the 1980s was Cuba, while Cuba supported not so much the policy of the USSR in Afghanistan, expressed in maintaining the Soviet military presence there, but the line aimed at a political settlement of the Afghan conflict; Nicaragua and Grenada’s position was more restrained than Cuban’s, and after the October events of 1983, the USSR lost the Grenadian support for its «Afghan» policy; and some states of the continent took an intermediate position – they did not provide the USSR with direct diplo-matic support, but carried it out indirectly.