A Sad Legacy

America has always been able to fabricate an excuse to justify its expansionist ambitions. Notice its interpretation and management of the drug problem; it is clear that this is a two-way highway going to the same destination, but one way is official and the other is filled with contraband.

But anyway, the bottom line is: If these countries are and have been its gold mine, why not give them better treatment? Why does the U.S. still think we will allow it to manage us so easily? It has spoiled our democracy; it has depleted our economy. And… so?

Signs of abuse in the continent are abundant: In 1954, with the story that Arbenz’s government was communist, it invaded the country, interrupting a legitimate government and causing such damage that Guatemala still hasn’t recovered.

Those struggles and public demonstrations, the clamor for land, are remnants from the stupidity committed following a misinterpretation of the true meaning of Decree 900. “If the traitors had even a modicum of vision (I say in my book: Comimos muca), they should not have interrupted the process and progress agriculture had achieved.”

They should have given it life and perhaps even improved it. If that had been done to our fields, hunger and misery would not have taken over as it did. Oh well; the deaf lion did not understand reason and did not understand why he could not speak with his own voice.

On September 11, 1973, Chile’s recalcitrant right wing and the sordid fanaticism of some cadres of the armed forces ruined the government of Salvador Allende. Chile suffered because of a dependent economy, one that was easy to strangle, and thus got rid of a government that was not to its liking.

Viewed differently, the sovereign people had not asked the U.S. for permission to vote for Allende. And because of that, Richard Nixon commissioned Henry Kissinger of the CIA to cause restlessness and polarize the situation. Nixon called on a solicitous and at times punctilious general who had already formulated a plan on how to crystallize a coup. They achieved the goal and plunged the country into a bloodbath.

It seems unbelievable, but it is true: The U.S. looks into the smallest of details. Grenada is an independent country in the foothills of the Lesser Antilles (south of the Tropic of Cancer), a mere 344 square kilometers and with a total population of less than 100,000 inhabitants. It was discovered on August 15, 1498, by Christopher Columbus, then inhabited by the Arawak, who were displaced by the Carib Indians, who were displaced by British occupation in 1650, who passed it into the hands of the French, who took slaves to work on the sugar plantations.

By 1983, Grenada, Martinique and the Grenadines were governed by the leftist leader Maurice Bishop, not well-liked by the rulers of Dominica and Barbados, who persuaded the United States to invade Saint Georges. Afterward, Bishop was executed by Bernard Coard of the same ruling party.

The reason: The New Jewel Movement adhered to the Marxism and Leninism of the Soviet Union and Cuba. Then, the United States had to protect a group of medical students who were at the University of Saint Georges. In addition, there were fears that Grenada would invade the nearby islands, as it was because of that that they were building an airport that would serve for landing military aircraft.

Was that true? No. This was the ploy used to gain support for the invasion of a small and defenseless country. Imagine how it will invade another country with an army made up of 1,500 soldiers and 700 Cubans who are not military, but rather construction workers, who therefore show no resistance to an attack by helicopter battalions and naval artillery.