Human Rights, Latin America, and the Cold War

Abstract

The Cold War proved a gruesome time for Latin Americans. In the four decades that followed the overthrow of the constitutional government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (1950–54) over 200,000 Guatemalans perished in political violence. In tiny El Salvador, a country of only five million people, over 75,000 citizens died, principally during the 1980s. Over 500,000 citizens fled the country and another 500,000 were internally displaced by the political violence. Warfare ravaged Nicaragua during the 1970s and 1980s. On a per capita basis, Nicaragua lost more citizens during its Cold War than did the United States in the Civil War and all of its international wars combined. Cruelty, death, and destruction were not limited to Central America. During la guerra sucia (“the dirty war”) of the late 1970s, the Argentine military and associated death squads massacred 30,000 Argentines. Many of the dead assumed the title of “disappeared” or desaparecido. The...