Cuba’s 1959 Revolution offered an alternative reality that many young Latin Americans found attractive because it addressed the needs of poor and rural citizens. In Peru, Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) guerrillas inspired by the Cuban Revolution and Chinese-style communism began a violent campaign during the 1980s. In Colombia, two left-wing guerrilla groups inspired by the Cuban example began fighting during the mid 1960s to bring down Colombia’s government and replace it with a communist regime. The larger and more powerful of these groups, known as the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), funded itself by kidnapping among other methods. To protect themselves, wealthier residents of Colombia’s countryside formed armed paramilitary groups to defend themselves. The result was a longstanding albeit low level civil war that lasted for decades. The excesses and atrocities of the Shining Path and FARC also offer proof that left-wing guerrillas could be every bit as ruthless and vicious as their right-wing, reactionary counterparts.
For this week’s discussion, choose quotes from “Dialectic” and “Our New War in Colombia” (Find it here: https://archive.org/stream/lookingforhistor00guil#page/18/mode/2up ) that describe relevant themes. Then, in a supporting paragraph of approximately 350 words for each quote, explain the significance of your chosen quotes using relevant details from the readings. Total of minimum 700 words.
This discussion will be due promptly at 10 a.m. on Sunday, April 08. The discussion is worth a total of four points, with one point each awarded for the relevance of your chosen theme, factual correctness, the use of specific evidence from the texts to back your argument and grammar. In addition, an extra credit point may be earned by commenting on a fellow student’s post in such a way that improves his or her understanding of the topic. As always, no late work will be accepted for any reason.
Please feel free to contact me if any questions arise.
Example from another student and reply from instructor for the previous discussion topic:
“He was a minority president attempting radical change with a parliamentary democracy, a Third World leader under siege by the United States, an economic populist increasingly under squeeze…” (Stern, 26)
In 1973, the overthrow of the elected government of Salvador Allende was considered a rescue mission. “Military intervention saved their families and their nation from a disaster and set Chile on the road to good health” (Stern,9). In 1958 electoral reform replaced separate ballots, enabling owners of rural states to control votes. Allende ran for presidency that year and almost won. In fact, he lost by only 2.7%, which was fewer than 34,000 over the one million votes cast. Over a decade later, Allende agrees to a set of constitutional guarantees and congress declares Allende the duly elected president. Allende’s status as a minority president represented the problem for his ability to govern. Many forces restricted his ability to rule while unleashing a revolution. First, the U.S. foreign policy apparatus aimed to reduce the Allende government unworkable, Chilean society ungovernable. The United States used key tools: drastic reductions of economic aid, trade obstacles that impeded acquisition of machinery, parts, and made them more expensive, covert funding of opposition media and strike actions, and sympathetic political conversation with Allende’s opponents including coup-oriented actors. Second, the economic populism of Allende’s government led inflation to soar and real gross domestic product to fall. By 1973 Chile was governed by a president who could not keep his own revolutionary house in order. On September 11, 1973, the presidential palace was attacked by the Chilean Air Force on what was called a pronunciamiento (declaration on behalf of society). Salvador Allende committed suicide before letting his own army capture him.
“Señora Herminda’s remembrance of an early step in the Truth Commission process underscores her experience of military rule as a profoundly ruinous and unresolved rupture” (Stern,47).
On Sunday September 16, 1973, military and police forces conducted sweeps and break-ins of homes in La Legua where Señora Herminda and her family lived. Tanks, trucks, jeeps and helicopters cordoned off and kept watch over Herminda’s neighborhood while armed squads went from house to house to look for and imprison young men. Catholic youths organized to care for wounded civilians but were arrested and accused of running a clandestine health clinic for subversives. Señora Herminda and her husband Ernesto fled into another home during these raids but two of her sons, Gerardo and Vladimir were caught in the following days round up. The boys were eventually freed on October 8th after been beaten and tortured during their capture. Señora Herminda’s other son Ernesto, or Ernestito as she called him, along with Gerardo were targeted by agents of The DINA (National Intelligence Directorate). A scheme to round up Communist and Socialist militants in La Legua would “recruit” their targets for a project to “liberate” political prisoners. The two were last seen in Londres 38, where prisoners were tortured before being transported elsewhere. The bodies of Señora Herminda’s two boys were never found. “Señora Herminda’s search for answers took her into new forms of struggle, relationships, and inner determination. She met other people, mainly women, in search of disappeared relatives” (Stern,48). Herminda remembers the military period as a time of continuing rupture, and wounds that fail to heal. At sixty-six years old, Señora Herminda continues the struggle to honor and maintain the memory of her missing sons. In an act of loyalty, Herminda decides to join the years march from downtown Santiago to the National Cemetery to protest the period of military rule, demand full truth and justice, and honor the dead and disappeared.
Response:
You will receive 3.5 out of 4 points for this discussion. The breakdown is as follows: 1/1 for your choice of quotes, 1/1 for elaborating on those quotes using relevant evidence from the readings, 1/1 for factual accuracy, and 0.5/1 for grammar.
Your post does a nice job of describing the difficulties involved in bringing communism to Chile in a legal and constitutional way. Ultimately, as you point out, this not only failed but led to Salvador Allende’s suicide during the coup of September 11, 1973. Further, you provided a thorough account of one left-wing family’s struggle in the aftermath of Augusto Pinochet’s pronunciamiento. Her sons, as Allende supporters and opponents of the military regime, were arrested, tortured and, in some cases, killed. Your only shortcoming here is grammatical mistakes, which cost you half a point so be sure to proofread your work with greater care before submission.
