The United States launched a “large scale strike” by military forces in Venezuela on Saturday, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The U.S., which said Maduro would face criminal charges in the U.S., where he was indicted years ago, has a long history of military interventions in Latin America.
Here are the major U.S. interventions in Latin America since the Cold War.
1954: Guatemala
On June 27, 1954, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, then-president of Guatemala, was driven from power by mercenaries trained and financed by Washington, after a land reform that threatened the interests of the powerful U.S. company United Fruit Corporation (later Chiquita Brands).
In 2003, the U.S. officially acknowledged the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s role in this coup, in the name of fighting communism.
1961: Cuba
From April 15 to 19, 1961, about 1,400 Cuban exiles were trained by the CIA and they launched the Bay of Pigs invasion to liberate Cuba. The plan was to use exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist government.
At the time, there was a strong fear of the Soviet Union. But the mission went horribly wrong and became a black eye for both the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
The fighting left more than 100 people on each side.
After the Bay of Pigs, the CIA tried to hatch more plots to overthrow Castro that included poisoning his cigar, among other implausible ideas. Other plans were in place under a Kennedy administration plan called “Operation Mongoose.”
No other attack of that magnitude was ever launched against Castro after the April 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco.
1965: Dominican Republic
In 1965, citing a “communist threat” in the Dominican Republic, the U.S. sent Marines and paratroopers to Santo Domingo to crush an uprising in support of Juan Bosch, a leftist president ousted by generals in 1963.
1970s: Support for dictatorships
Washington backed several military dictatorships in Latin America during the 1970s, seeing them as a bulwark against left-wing armed movements in a world divided by Cold War rivalries.
It actively assisted Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet during the September 11, 1973 coup against leftist President Salvador Allende.
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supported the Argentine junta in 1976, encouraging it to quickly end its “dirty war,” according to U.S. documents declassified in 2003. At least 10,000 Argentine dissidents disappeared during that time.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil joined forces to eliminate left-wing opponents under “Operation Condor,” with tacit U.S. support.
1979: Nicaragua
In 1979, the Sandinista rebellion overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. U.S. President Ronald Reagan, concerned about Managua’s alignment with Cuba and the Soviet Union, secretly authorised the CIA to provide $20 million in aid to the counterrevolutionaries, the Contras, partly funded by the illegal sale of arms to Iran.
The Nicaraguan civil war lasted until April 1990 and claimed 50,000 lives.
1980: El Salvador
President Reagan also sent military advisers to El Salvador to crush the rebellion of the Farabundo Marta National Liberation Front, or FMLN, in a civil war that lasted for 12 years and resulted in 72,000 deaths.
1983: Grenada
On October 25, 1983, U.S. Marines and Rangers intervened on the island of Grenada after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was assassinated by a far-left junta, and as Cubans were expanding the airport, presumably to accommodate military aircraft.
At the request of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Reagan launched Operation “Urgent Fury” with the stated goal of protecting a thousand U.S. citizens.
The operation, widely deplored by the United Nations General Assembly, ended on November 3, with more than 100 dead.
1989: Panama
Maduro’s capture came 36 years to the day after U.S. forces arrested former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Noriega rose to prominence in Panama’s military government before taking control in 1985. He spent years on the CIA’s payroll, assisting U.S. interests in Latin America, before falling out of favor with Washington in the late 1980s.
Former President George H.W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to invade Panama in late 1989, sending 24,000 troops to topple Noriega’s government. The operation left 23 American soldiers dead and hundreds more injured. “Operation Just Cause” officially left 500 dead in total. NGOs have listed the toll in the thousands.
Noriega hid out in the Vatican embassy before surrendering to U.S. authorities on January 3, 1990. He was taken to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. His fall led to the end of Panama’s military dictatorship. He spent more than 20 years in prison in the United States, then extradited to France and Panama. He died in 2017.