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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. Reconciling the Paradox: Non-Intervention and Collective Action in the OAS

By Ra&l Gonz&lez Diaz

Submitted to the Faculty of the School of International Service

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

in International Affairs

Signatures of Committee:

Chair:

ta

lbajut> L0 ( J b - c . Dean of the School

Date

1994

The American University ~Jhp5~l Washington, D.C. 20016

22E AMKBICIB UNIVERSITY LIBRAS?

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1361750

Copyright 1995 by Gonzalez Diaz, Raul All rights reserved.

UMI Microform 1361750 Copyright 1995, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "Non-intervention is a political and metaphysical term and means about the same as intervention” ______Talleyrand

’Principles must be upheld, even i£ the Republic must drown” ______Riego

"The OAS couldn't pour --- out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel” ______Lyndon Johnson

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. RECONCILING THE PARADOX:

NON-INTERVENTION AND COLLECTIVE ACTION IN THE OAS

BY

Radi Gonz&lez Diaz

ABSTRACT

This thesis discusses the inherent paradox in the

mandate of the Organization of American States (OAS): while

charged with protecting the members' sovereignty; the

organization is also entrusted with the duty of promoting

democracy and defusing threats to hemispheric peace, even if

they spring as a result of a member's internal dynamics.

The thesis will first trace the development of these

two currents from the early 19th century, up until the

establishment of the OAS (1943). Moreover, it will study two

instances in which the OAS became involved in the internal

affairs of a member in order to curtail a perceived threat

to hemispheric peace: the Dominican Intervention of 1965 and

the Nicaraguan Crisis of 1978-1979.

Finally, the thesis will argue that ultimately the real

contradiction afflicting the OAS is that between a

rhetorical commitment to collective action and the members'

reticence to exercise this authority except in cases where

it would directly benefit their national interest.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

PART II: BACKGROUND TO INTERVENTION 4

PART III: BACKGROUND TO COLLECTIVE SECURITY 46

PART IV: THE CHARTER OF THE OAS 67

PART V: THE DOMINICAN INTERVENTION 91

PART VI: INTERLUDE-THE BUENOS AIRES PROTOCOL OF

AMENDMENTS 136

PART VII: THE NICARAGUAN CRISIS 142

PART VIII: QUO VADIS OAS ? 181

BIBLIOGRAPHY 195

• • li

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PART I: INTRODUCTION

With most of the states in the Americas continually

obsessed over the perceived and real threats to their

sovereignty, it is no surprise that the principle of non­

intervention became the cornerstone on which the Inter-

American System was built. In 1948, the American Republics

met in Bogota in order to establish a strengthened regional

organization that would supersede the largely powerless Pan

American Union. The product of this meeting, the Charter of

the Organization of American States (OAS), incorporated the

principle of non-intervention in articles 15 to 17.'

Articles 19 to 25, however, established that exceptions to

the non-intervention principle could be made in cases where

a country's political independence and/or territorial

integrity were being compromised or when events in a given

country threatened the "peace of America". In these

instances, the principle of collective action was advocated

as a solution to the crisis. The contradiction between the

articles condemning intervention in specific, clear cut

terms and the vaguely phrased articles defending collective

action in special instances was to plague the OAS in the

succeeding decades as its members disagreed over which

circumstances constituted a threat to hemispheric peace.

1 The Charter of the OAS was amended in 1967 and 1985. The numbers of the articles cited throughout this thesis refer to the original charter, which was in effect from 1948 to 1970, unless otherwise noted.

1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Indeed, despite their agreement over the principle of

non-intervention as an abstract term, there were

considerable differences on how the concept was perceived in

practical terms. The United States saw the non-intervention

principle as a bulwark against penetration by extra-

hemispheric states and ideologies. Thus, for the US, the OAS

was part of its global system of anti-communist alliances,

an attitude reflected in the US' use of the organization to

take measure against the spread of communism (1951) and to

isolate Cuba (1962, 1964).

Meanwhile, the Latin American countries in general

perceived the OAS as a barrier against both extra-

hemispheric and US interventionism. For Latin America, the

OAS, with its concept of one country, one vote was to be the

perfect forum to counteract the overwhelming US superiority

in financial and military resources. To further muddle the

picture, on specific issues the Latin American position was

far from monolithic. Some Latin American democracies (mainly

Venezuela and Costa Rica) at times advocated intervention in

order to overthrow oppressive regimes. Conversely, Latin

American dictatorships (Trujillista Dominican Republic,

Somocista Nicaragua) used the concept of non-intervention to

neutralize destabilizing campaigns by their neighbors.

Furthermore, the dictatorships developed a penchant for

labeling any reformist movement as communist and demanding

collective action to block its coming to power. Finally,

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some countries (mainly Mexico) refused to sanction under any

circumstances the OAS* right to intervene in the domestic

affairs of a country.

This thesis will focus on the interplay between the

concepts of non-intervention and collective action within

the OAS. First of all, the thesis will document how the

historical experiences and ideological underpinnings of the

various member states shaped the relevant articles of the

OAS Charter. Moreover, it will study in detail two instances

in which the OAS became involved in the internal affairs of

a member in order to curtail a perceived threat to

hemispheric peace: the Dominican Crisis of 1965 and

Nicaraguan Crisis of 1978-1979. The thesis will analyze the

legal rationales for OAS action, the repercussions of the

involvement and the reasons why the OAS' actions in the

Dominican Republic could not be replicated in Nicaragua.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PART II: BACKGROUND TO INTERVENTION2

The Holv Alliance and the Monroe Doctrine

The 19th century began with the U.S. as the only

independent state in the hemisphere. Nonetheless, within a

few years, the U.S. was joined by more than a dozen newly

sovereign states. The achievement of independence, however,

did not mean that the sovereignty of the new states was to

be recognized or respected. Indeed, the American states had

reasons to fear European intervention. In 1802, Napoleon

attempted to reestablish French control over Haiti. By 1804,

however, a combination of disease and fierce resistance

forced the French to abandon their endeavor and Haiti

redeclared its independence. In 1807-08, the British

unsuccessfully attempted to occupy Buenos Aires and the area

surrounding the mouth of the River Plate. From 1812 to 1814,

the U.S. and Great Britain fought a short and inconclusive

war during which the British temporarily occupied

Washington. Moreover, any feelings of exultation felt by the

U.S. at having battled Britain to a standstill were tempered

by the knowledge that the British had not been able to

deploy the majority of their resources due to their

continued preoccupation with the political situation in

2 The researcher does not want to create the misguided notion that intervention in the Western Hemisphere was only carried out by Europe and the U.S. While not a part of this research, it is important to point out that the Latin American states carried out many acts of intervention during the period under scrutiny.

4

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Continental Europe. Moreover, in 1821, Russian Czar

Alexander I, laid claim to the Pacific shore of North

America from Alaska down to the fifty-first parallel.3

Furthermore, in 1815 the reactionary autocracies of

Austria, Prussia and Russia had established a Holy Alliance

devoted to reverse the spread of republicanism in Europe. In

1823, the Holy Alliance authorized France to cross the

Pyrenees and reestablish the autocratic rule of Ferdinand

VII of Spain, whose power had been curtailed by a liberal

revolution. This action, combined with Ferdinand's refusal

to recognize the independence of his former possessions in

the Americas, increased fears in the Western Hemisphere that

Spain would enlist the other European autocracies in an

attempt to regain its colonial empire.4

This possibility also concerned the British, who feared

that their lucrative trade agreements with the newly

independent American states would be nullified if Spain

reasserted its control over the area. Thus George Canning,

the British Foreign Minister, consulted the U.S. on the

possibility of issuing a joint declaration warning Europe

that any attempt to reconquer an independent American state

would be opposed. The U.S. government, however, feared that

it would be seen as a junior partner of Britain and

3 Ann Van Wynen Thomas & A.J. Thomas. Non-Intervention. (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1956), 10-11.

4 Spanish military presence in South America continued until 1826, when the last Royalist forces departed Peru.

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therefore turned down Canning's offer. Instead on December

1823, U.S. President James Monroe, in a speech to Congress

unilaterally declared that Europe had no right to establish

any further colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover,

Monroe declared that just as the U.S. had refrained from

intervening in European affairs or in the American areas

still under European control, Europe should refrain from any

attempt to conquer or control the independent American

states. It is important to note that while Monroe's

declaration opposed European attempts to establish direct or

indirect dominance over the American states, no mention was

made of European interventions to punish violations of

international law.5

Reaction to Monroe's declaration was mixed, as could be

expected. The Latin American governments hailed the

declaration as an assertion of hemispheric uniqueness and

attempted to multilateralize it and enshrine it as a

principle of international law. Thus, Latin America saw the

declaration as bolstering the principle of non­

intervention.6 The European Powers, on the other hand,

5 Atkins, G. Pope. Latin America in the International Political System. (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1989), 114- 115. Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 57.

6 Later U.S. administrations modified the Monroe Doctrine, reflecting the increase in U.S. military power and strategic interests. For Latin Americans, these alterations gave the doctrine a more sinister character and transformed it into an instrument of intervention.

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perceived Monroe's declaration as unwarranted intervention

in their foreign policy and were especially critical of the

U.S. warning against the establishment of new colonies in

the hemisphere. The European countries argued that

international law allowed states to colonize "unorganized

territories" and even to occupy independent states in

special circumstances.7

In practical terms, Monroe's declaration, which became

known as the Monroe Doctrine, had no immediate

repercussions. Britain, the premier naval power, had already

issued a stern warning that it would oppose any scheme to

reconquer Latin America. Moreover, up until the late 19th

century, the U.S. lacked the military strength and

diplomatic standing to thwart the European intervention that

would occasionally plague the hemisphere. For the purpose of

this thesis, the original incarnation of the Monroe Doctrine

is important for three reasons. First of all, it established

that the Americas were a political entity separate from the

rest of the world. Thus, the doctrine became one of the

precursors to the concepts of Panamericanism and of an

American International Law. Secondly, its contrasting

interpretations by Europe and Latin America established very

clearly that the principle of non-intervention was a very

ambiguous concept and that a given action might be perceived

as both intervention and non-intervention depending on the

7 Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 13.

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observer's standpoint. Finally, the Monroe Doctrine became

the first step in a long process of narrowing down the legal

rationales for intervention in the hemisphere.

Intervention in International Law

The extreme internal instability besieging most of the

new Latin American states, coupled with their inability to

establish a common front left them vulnerable to continued

intervention. Compounding this situation was the fact that

international law granted special privileges to the Great

Powers. While at first glance the international law system

seemed to provide protection for the sovereignty of all

states, in reality it was plagued with a series of loopholes

legalizing intervention. While a strong state could use its

military power to deter other states from exploiting these

loopholes, the weak states were completely unprotected. This

situation was further complicated by the disagreement of

international law authorities over what constituted legal

grounds for intervention. Thus, depending on which authority

was quoted, an interventionist action might be considered

legal or not.

One of the principal situations under which

intervention was considered legal according to international

law was the protection of the lives and/or interests of

nationals abroad. This was the only situation where there

was almost universal agreement regarding the legality of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. intervention. International law also sanctioned intervention

in order to halt abhorrent and brutal behavior of a

government towards its citizens. Humanitarian intervention

was considered legitimate because a government that

brutalized its citizens had lost the right to govern over

them, and therefore it was no longer sovereign. Some

international law authorities, however, argued that

sovereignty was absolute and that allowing intervention for

humanitarian reasons would create a precedent that would

allow states intervening for their own selfish goals to

masquerade as selfless defenders of universal moral values.®

The two most ambiguous legal rationales for

intervention (and thus, the most easily abused) were the

duty of international police regulation and the right of

self-preservation. In an era where there was no formal

organization that could regulate and pass judgement on the

behavior of states, the Great Powers granted themselves the

duty of intervening in order to stop "minor" states from

engaging in policies that could result in a threat to

general peace.9 The principle of self-preservation allowed a

state to disregard international law in order to counter

* For a detailed list of authorities supporting and opposing humanitarian intervention see Stowell, Ellery C. Intervention in International Law. (Washington, D.C.: John Byrne & Co., 1921), 51-61.

9 Ibid., 282. The author equates this action with a fire marshall destroying a house in order to prevent a fire from spreading throughout a city.

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potential or actual threats to its existence.10 This was the

most questionable of all rationales for intervention because

its acceptance of intervention to counter a potential threat

was recklessly exploited by ambitious states.

International law essentially recognizes two means to

carry out legal intervention: the principles of

interposition and self-help. The principle of interposition

allows a state to use "whatever force is reasonably

necessary" to force another state to comply with

international law in a situation where the rights of the

intervening state and/or its nationals were disregarded.11

Moreover, in a situation where a state proves itself

incapable or refuses to insure that the principles of

international law are respected in its territory, an

10 Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 81-83. The Thomases oppose the legality of this rationale by arguing that the rights of a state cannot infringe or transcend the rights of the community of nations.

11 Stowell, 2-3. It is interesting to compare the viewpoints of Stowell and the Thomases with regards to the enforcement of international law. Stowell believes that a coalition of Great Powers (a recreation of the Concert of Europe) is the best enforcer of international law. He justifies disproportionate acts of intervention against small countries as part of the Great Powers' duty to maintain global peace. The Thomases, on the other hand, believe that the enforcement of international law should be carried out by international organizations (either regional or the UN). Moreover, the Thomases are quite contemptuous of what they refer to as "traditional international law" arguing that international law should not be impartial. Instead, it should be used to maintain a standard of moral behavior. The Thomases refer to this approach as "axiomatic".

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aggrieved state is allowed to intervene directly and enforce

the disregarded laws.12 This principle, known as self-help,

authorizes the aggrieved state to bypass the government of

the offending state under the excuse that negotiations with

that government would be useless. Both of these principles,

while fair in theory, were skewed in favor of the Great

Powers because only they possessed the capability to

intervene directly in a state or force an offending

government into compliance.

Furthermore, while theoretically the state subjected to

the intervention was protected from excessive interference

by the principle of proportionality, in reality the majority

of interventionist operations were grossly disproportionate

when compared to the violations committed. This stems from

the fact that there was no organization that ruled on what

constituted a proportional response. The only constraint on

the interventionist operations of a Great Power was

opposition of rival Powers or the domestic situation in the

intervening state.13 Thus, this blatantly unequal system

served to provide a veneer of legality to countries which

12 Ibid., 3-4.

13 Ibid., 46-47. Stowell attempts to close this loophole by appealing to Realpolitik. He claims that the interests of the Great Powers are so widespread that in case of an illegal intervention, at least one Power would come to the aid of the weak state. He fails to consider the possibility that as reward for its role as protector, the counter-intervening Power would demand extensive special privileges that would severely hamper the sovereignty of the weak state.

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already had the military and economic power to intervene

with impunity in the "less civilized nations".

Interventions During the 19th Century and the Calvo Doctrine

In 1838, France imposed a naval blockade in the River

Plate as a reaction against the expulsion of its consul in

Buenos Aires and the imposition of special taxes on

foreigners by the government of Juan Manuel Rosas. The

blockade lasted until 1840, when Rosas signed an agreement

recognizing the legality of the French claims and

acquiescing to pay reparations. Also in 1838, France

demanded compensation for the material losses of French

citizens in Mexico after one of the country's regular

uprisings. When the Mexican government countered that it was

not responsible for damages that had occurred during a

political disturbance outside its control, French forces

attacked the city of Veracruz. In 1839, Mexico agreed to

recognize the French claims. In 1845, Britain and France

established a blockade against the Rosas government in

Buenos Aires. The purpose of this action was to force Buenos

Aires to halt its siege of Montevideo, the Uruguayan

capital. This blockade lasted until 1850 when Rosas reached

an agreement with the two European powers.

In 1861, Pedro Santana, dictator of the Dominican

Republic, requested reannexation into the Spanish Empire.

Spain agreed to his request, sent troops to the island and

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appointed Santana governor. Armed opposition against the

annexation emerged immediately, however. This, combined with

the fact that the Spaniards antagonized all political

factions in the island (including Santana's), forced the

Spaniards to withdraw completely in 1865.

In 1862, Britain, France and Spain occupied Veracruz

after the Mexican government imposed a two-year moratorium

on the payment of debts. Once Mexico agreed to satisfy the

demands of foreign bondholders, Britain and Spain withdrew

their forces.14 France, however, used the support of the

upper hierarchy of the Catholic Church and of the country's

conservative elite as an excuse to occupy Mexico's main

cities and establish a puppet empire with Maximilian of

Austria on the throne. French forces remained in Mexico

until 1866, when the geopolitical situation in Europe and

strong U.S. pressure forced French Emperor Napoleon III to

order a withdrawal. Maximilian's government collapsed

shortly afterwards and he was executed in 1867.

In 1864, Spain occupied Peru's Chincha Islands after

the latter refused to pay reparations to Spaniards who had

lost property during Peru's many political upheavals.

Fearing that Spain was using this incident as an excuse to

reassert its control over South America, Bolivia, Chile and

Ecuador joined Peru in a military coalition against their

former colonial master. The U.S. informed Spain that it

14 Atkins, 298.

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would not tolerate any annexation of Peruvian territory and

offered its good offices as a mediator, which both sides

accepted. This action led to an armistice, although the

final peace agreement was not signed until 1879.1S

While all these interventions were technically legal

under the international law rationales described above, it

is obvious that the means employed were disproportionate to

the ends to be accomplished. Both of the 1838 French

actions, the 1862 trilateral action in Mexico and the 1864

Spanish action, were taken ostensibly to protect the rights

of nationals abroad. The Anglo-French blockade of 1845 was

enacted under the principle of international police

regulation, purposely to protect Uruguayan sovereignty.

Finally, the Spanish reannexation of the Dominican Republic

and the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire were

seemingly legal actions because plebiscites were held in

both instances. The voting, however, was blatantly rigged in

both cases.

Perceiving that the international law system offered no

protection against intervention, Latin American legal

experts began a movement to eliminate most of the legal

rationales for intervention. These experts argued that rules

regarding the legality of intervention were a reflection of

the European Great Powers system and therefore did not apply

15 Wilgus, A. Curtis & Raul D'Eca. Latin American History. (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1967), 249.

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to the Western Hemisphere. In 1868, Argentine jurist Carlos

Calvo published a multivolume treatise on international law

in which he argued that the right of intervention in order

to further the financial claims of nationals abroad was

illegal.

Calvo argued that the sovereignty of the state was

absolute and it could not be breached by a state seeking

redress from the losses of private individuals during

incidents of violence in that country.16 Calvo asserted that

the government could not be held liable for events beyond

its control, unless it had deliberately failed to protect

foreigners. Moreover, this type of intervention was an

example of Great Power arrogance because of its demand that

their nationals abroad be given more privileges than the

citizens of the host country. Calvo argued that when

foreigners entered another country they willingly submitted

themselves to the laws of the host government. If a

foreigner wanted restitution for his losses, he had to

pursue his claims through the host country's legal system.17

Mirroring the reaction to the original incarnation of the

16 Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 56-57.

17 Ibid. , 303-306, 342. The Thomases argue that in a situation in which the legal system of a state is clearly inefficient or biased against the foreigner, the claimant does not have to exhaust all local remedies and can appeal to his home government. Calvo asserted, however, that the foreign government initially could only pursue the claims through non-violent methods like arbitration and use force only as last resort.

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Monroe Doctrine, the Calvo Doctrine was essentially ignored

by Europe and the US while it was readily accepted by Latin

America as a valid principle of international law.

The Olnev and Roosevelt Corollaries and the Draco Doctrine

After the early 1860s, one of the most important

variables affecting the mechanics of intervention in the

hemisphere was the steady increase in the military and

strategic influence of the US. By the beginning of the 20th

century, intervention by European powers had been almost

completely curtailed. At the same time, however, there was a

steady increase in the number and seriousness of

interventions by the US.

Disappointment over the US refusal to participate in a

multilateralization of the Monroe Doctrine turned to

suspicion after the Mexican-American War. In 1846, the U.S.

exploited a dubious territorial claim to trigger a war with

Mexico. The Mexican forces were thoroughly defeated, the

Mexican capital occupied and Mexico was forced to relinquish

half its national territory to the U.S. Once the Civil War

ended in 1865, the U.S. was able to capitalize on the

increase of its armed forces and exert pressure on both

France and Spain warning them to end their military presence

in Mexico and South America, respectively. In both

instances, the U.S. protests were influential, although not

the only factor, in ending the intervention.

In 1887, Britain and Venezuela broke diplomatic

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relations due to their dispute over the Venezuelan border

with the British colony of Guiana. While Venezuela advocated

solving the dispute through international arbitration,

Britain countered that it would only agree to arbitration if

certain areas in dispute were recognized as British before

the arbitration took place. When Venezuela rejected the

British counter-proposal, Britain increased its pressure by

substantially expanding its claim on Venezuelan territory.

Throughout the early 1890s, Venezuela attempted to gain

U.S. support to counterbalance the strong British pressure,

going so far as to offer a U.S. company a concession to

exploit the area under dispute.18 Finally in 1895, U.S.

Secretary of State Richard Olney claimed the right to

intervene in the dispute because the British claim to

Venezuelan territory represented a challenge to the Monroe

Doctrine. Furthermore, Olney warned the British that:

Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition...It is because, in addition to all other grounds, its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable against any or all other powers.19

This assertion of U.S. hegemony over the Western

Hemisphere became known as the Olney Corollary to the Monroe

Doctrine, and it unilaterally granted the U.S. the duty to

18 Keen, Benjamin & Mark Wasserman. A History of Latin America. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), 515.

19 Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 20.

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intervene in hemispheric disputes under the principle of

international police regulation. Faced with challenges to

its position in Europe, Africa and Central Asia, and being

warned that the U.S. was willing to go to war over the

Venezuelan question, Britain agreed to settle the dispute

through arbitration. Venezuelan exultation was tempered,

however, by the fact that the U.S. completely ignored and

marginalized the Venezuelans, going so far as to occupy the

two seats granted to the pro-Venezuelan position in the

arbitration committee.20 The Olney Corollary became the

first in a series of modifications to the Monroe Doctrine

that transformed the original declaration into an instrument

for U.S. intervention in Latin America.21

In 1898, the U.S. used the mysterious sinking of the

U.S.S. Maine and the Spanish repression of the Cuban

independence movement as a rationale to declare war on

Spain. In order to get the necessary votes to pass the

declaration of war through Congress, the McKinley

20 The other three seats were occupied by two British jurists and a supposedly impartial Russian judge. The U.S. jurists had been severely criticized because they limited themselves to securing the U.S. goal of denying the mouth of the Orinoco to the British, while making feeble efforts to advance Venezuela's claim to the Essequibo.

21 A previous modification, the No Transfer Corollary, asserted that the U.S. would not tolerate the transferring of any American territory to an European state by either an independent state or a second European colonial power. This statement, however, was well received by Latin America, who saw it as a foil against any opportunistic leader like Santana. The U.S. purpose in drafting the corollary was to block the transfer of Cuba to either Britain or France.

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Administration had pledged that it would not attempt to

annex Cuba, a goal of most U.S. presidents starting with

Thomas Jefferson.22 The war ended with a swift and

overwhelming U.S. victory and with U.S. forces in control of

Cuba. Unwilling to let Cuba fall under either the control of

a European power or a national faction opposed to U.S.

interests, the U.S. forced the Cuban Constitutional Assembly

to add to the Cuban constitution a series of articles

drafted by U.S. Senator Orville Platt. The articles, which

essentially established a de facto U.S. protectorate over

Cuba, gave the U.S. the right to veto any treaty or loan

between Cuba and a third state, the right to establish naval

bases at Guantanamo and Bahia Honda and ceded the Isle of

Pines to the U.S. Moreover, the amendment granted the U.S.

the right to intervene in Cuba in order to safeguard its

independence or for the "maintenance of a government

adequate for the protection of life, property and individual

liberty".23

Probably no issue provides a better example of the

interventionist "passing of the torch" from Europe to the

U.S. than the construction of an interoceanic canal to link

the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Despite the prohibitions of

the Monroe Doctrine, during the 1830s Britain had increased

22 The U.S., however, annexed Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, which were not included in McKinley's pledge.

23 Keen and Wasserman, 438.

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the territory of British Honduras at the expense of

Guatemala and gained official recognition of its

protectorate over the Mosquito Coast from the Nicaraguan

government in 1846.24 Control over the Mosquito Coast was

crucial for the British plans to built an interoceanic canal

across Nicaragua. The U.S., which held similar ambitions,

considered the British presence in Central America a threat

to its interests, but lacked the leverage to oust Britain

from the area.

After years of intense rivalry in which they tried to

outmaneuver each other by manipulating various Nicaraguan

factions, Britain and the U.S. finally signed a treaty in

1850 by which they agreed to refrain from unilaterally

building a canal or from controlling any part of Central

America.25 While the U.S. was able to freeze British

attempts at building the canal (at the price of freezing its

own attempts), in 1878 the French company that built the

Suez Canal received authorization from Colombia to build a

canal across Panama. Despite repeated protests, the U.S. was

unable to derail the agreement. Eleven years later, however,

the French company ceased operations overwhelmed by a lack

of funds, the deadly effects of yellow fever on its work

24 Wilgus and D'Eca, 196.

25 Atkins, 37. Despite the signing of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, Britain continued its protectorate over the Mosquito Coast Until 1860.

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force and the severe underestimation of the difficulty of

building a canal across the mountainous isthmus.

In 1901, Britain recognized the dramatic changes in the

military-strategic balance in the region when it signed the

Hay-Pauncefote treaty with the U.S. By this treaty, Britain

recognized the U.S.1 right to build and control a canal in

the region. Two years later, the U.S. and Colombia signed a

treaty granting the former a 99-year lease on a strip of

land across Panama, in which the canal would be built, in

exchange for a $10 million payment and an annual rent of

$250,000.26 When the Colombian Senate rejected the treaty,

hoping to negotiate more favorable terms, the latent

Panamanian nationalist movement erupted in a secessionist

revolution. The U.S. actively aided the revolutionaries by

establishing a naval blockade against Colombia that

prevented the deployment of reinforcements against the

rebels. Moreover, the U.S. landed troops, ostensibly to

protect U.S. citizens and maintain the freedom of transit

across the isthmus, and the U.S.-owned railroad company in

Panama refused to transport Colombian troops.

The Roosevelt Administration swiftly recognized the

independence of Panama and negotiated a canal concession

26 Most reputable historians agree that the shift from Nicaragua to Panama as the preferred site to build the canal was due to a combination of concern over the recurrence of earthquakes in Nicaragua and the corrupt machinations of Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a representative of the French company that held the rights to the canal.

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with the new state (with Bunau-Varilla as the Panamanian

representative). The Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty granted to the

U.S. perpetual sovereignty over a 10-mile wide zone across

Panama. The compensation to Panama was similar to that

initially offered to Colombia. Paralleling events in Cuba,

the U.S. pressured Panama to add an article to its

constitution allowing the deployment of U.S. forces in the

country in order to protect Panama's sovereignty or to

maintain domestic stability.27

In 1902, Britain, Germany and Italy established a naval

blockade against Venezuela after President Cipriano Castro

refused to meet scheduled payments to foreign lenders or to

indemnize foreigners for losses incurred during several

unsuccessful revolts against his government. Venezuela

requested mediation from the U.S., which was accepted,

leading to the establishment of an arbitration committee to

study the validity of all foreign claims. The three

blockading states were not satisfied, arguing that the

claims of other states that had not been involved in the

blockade might be given preference over theirs. They took

this grievance before The Hague Court of Arbitration, which

ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, stating that in the

collection of debts, preference had to be given to the

states that took action to force the debtor into

27 Wilgus and D'Eca, 222.

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compliance.28 The 1902 blockade and The Hague decision had

important ramifications because it led to the development of

the Drago Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe

Doctrine.

Luis Drago, the Foreign Minister of Argentina, expanded

on the Calvo Doctrine by arguing that states had no right to

use force in order to collect public debts. Drago argued

that foreign bondholders and bankers knew the risks they

were incurring when they became involved with financially

unstable countries.29 Moreover, he asserted that the debtor

state should not be forced to jeopardize the well being of

its citizens by giving priority to the financial

satisfaction of foreigners. While Calvo made allowance for

intervention as a measure of last resort, Drago completely

rejected the right to use force.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt initially had shown

little concern regarding European interventions as long as

the intervening state pledged that it would not annex any

American territory.30 This attitude was drastically altered

by The Hague decision. The U.S. government feared that the

ruling would give the European Powers an added incentive for

28 Atkins, 118.

29 Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 341. Drago also argued that lenders probably took these risks into consideration when they imposed high interest rates on the loans. Thus, ironically they contributed to the problem.

30 Ibid. , 19.

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intervention because the state which refrained form using

force would not be given priority when collecting the debts.

Therefore, in 1904 Roosevelt announced during a speech to

Congress that: Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America ... ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States ... in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.31

The president's speech, which became known as the Roosevelt

Corollary, explicitly asserted that under the principle of

international police regulation, the U.S. had the right to

intervene in delinquent Latin American states in order to

prevent European interventions.

Visit Exotic Places. Join the Marines

The Roosevelt Corollary was thereafter invoked to

justify the establishment of custom receivership agreements

with the Dominican Republic (1905), Nicaragua (1911) and

Haiti (1915). These agreements entailed the takeover of each

state's customs (virtually the only source of revenue for

the government) by the U.S., as well as the appointment of

financial officers who would manage each government's budget

and debt service. While these interventions were ostensibly

31 Atkins, 118. Roosevelt's speech was triggered by the possibility of a debt collecting European intervention against the Dominican Republic.

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limited to the financial sphere, invariably large numbers of

U.S. troops were deployed as the scope of the intervention

was expanded to include internal pacification, the building

of a modern infrastructure, the holding of elections and the

training of a supposedly impartial and professional armed

force. Moreover, during the presidency of William Howard

Taft, the U.S. government began a policy of actively

encouraging U.S. financial institutions to provide loans and

investment capital to Latin American countries.32 This

policy, which became known as "Dollar Diplomacy", was

officially envisioned as reinforcing the by now radically

altered Monroe Doctrine because the replacement of European

capital by U.S. lenders and investors would virtually

eliminate any rationale for extra-hemispheric intervention.

The continuing intervention by Europe and the U.S. left

the Latin American states in a very difficult quandary. On

the one hand, they were aware that declarations by

international law authorities (Calvo) or even by

representatives of a government (Drago), would be

meaningless unless the Latin American states lobbied

together to assure their acceptance as part of general

international law. Moreover, they knew that only by creating

a strong confederation would they be able to establish a

credible military deterrence against those states that chose

32 Ibid., 303.

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to intervene in the hemisphere anyway. On the other hand,

the Latin American states were deeply suspicious of each

other, their unity weakened by acrimonious border disputes,

and an unwillingness to create a strong regional

confederation that would undermine their sovereignty.33

Moreover, they were aware that on the global stage the

quality of their international law authorities and even

their standing as sovereign states were belittled by

Europe.34

Out of this quandary, the Latin American states

developed a two-pronged strategy in their attempt to

severely restrict the right of intervention. In the global

stage, Latin America sought a close alliance with the U.S.

in order to gain the necessary leverage to demand changes in

international law. In fact, the goal of the Latin American

states was to transform international law from being a set

of guidelines for the exercise of the right of intervention

into one that unequivocally demanded the duty of non­

intervention. Moreover, Latin America sought to expand the

legal definition of intervention to include the recognition

33 Ball, Margaret. The OAS in Transition. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1969), 6-8. During the 19th century several conferences were held in an attempt to establish either a Spanish American or a Pan American confederation. None of these conferences was attended by all states and none of the resulting treaties gained full ratification.

M Only Brazil and Mexico were deemed to have enough standing to be invited to the Hague Peace Conference of 1899, but only the latter attended.

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of governments. Latin America also called for the

codification of international law in order to eliminate the

confusion engendered by the fact that throughout the

centuries, international law authorities had published

treatises that often rendered contradictory opinions on the

same subject.

In the hemispheric stage, the Latin American states

sought to expand the agenda of the U.S.-dominated

International Union of American Republics to also cover

legal-political issues. Their ultimate goal was the drafting

and ratification of a series of treaties enshrining the duty

of non-intervention in the hemisphere. Thus, ironically,

they attempted to use a U.S.-controlled organization to

restrain the U.S. The duality of this strategy stemmed from

the fact, that while seeking greater involvement and

recognition on the global stage, the American states

(including the U.S.) had traditionally sought to limit the

influence of extra-hemispheric actors in the Americas.

Nonetheless, the dramatic increase in U.S. power vis-a-vis

the rest of the hemisphere forced the Latin American states

to seek extra-hemispheric support to counterbalance the U.S.

The Birth of a Regional Organization

Latin American attempts to establish a standardized

system of international law began at the hemispheric level

in the 1877 Lima Conference. At this conference, Argentina,

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Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru agreed upon a series of

guidelines for international private law and extraditions. A

more fruitful conference on the same subject was held in

Montevideo in 1888 and was attended by Argentina, Bolivia,

Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The conference

reached agreement on a wide array of international law

issues, including copyrights, patents, penal law and

international civil law.35

In October 1889, all the American states(except the

Dominican Republic) met in Washington for a U.S.-sponsored

International Conference of American States. The U.S.

assembled this conference in an attempt to bolster its

commercial links with the other states in the hemisphere,

and this goal was reflected in the majority of the

resolutions approved. Nonetheless, the Latin American states

acting in concert were able to pass resolutions calling for

compulsory arbitration to solve hemispheric disputes and the

banning of war for the purpose of territorial

aggrandizement.36 Another resolution sponsored by Latin

America established that foreigners had the same rights and

the same recourse to the legal system as nationals of the

35 Ball, 9.

36 This position was not universally shared by all Latin American states. Chile, which had defeated Bolivia and Peru in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), feared that the latter two would take advantage of this resolution to demand a revision of the peace treaty and the return of the territory acquired by Chile.

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host country- The purpose of this resolution was to ban the

principle of extraterritoriality and the penchant of

foreigners to seek aid from their home government in case of

a grievance. The conference also called for studying the

feasibility of applying the treaties adopted at Montevideo

in 1888 to the entire hemisphere.37

The conference adopted the name International Union of

American Republics for the entire system and established a

Commercial Bureau in Washington as their permanent office.38

The organization was established at the insistence of the

U.S. and was clearly U.S.-dominated, a situation exemplified

by the fact that the Governing Board was permanently headed

by the U.S. Secretary of State. Moreover, the Latin American

ambassadors to the U.S. also represented their countries in

the Governing Board. Thus, those governments not recognized

by the U.S. were excluded from the organ. Nevertheless, as

the resolutions in the First Conference demonstrated, the

Latin American states possessed some leverage and through

the decades were able to engage the U.S. in a series of

bargaining sessions that eventually led to the adoption of

the Latin American position on several key issues.

37 For a complete list of the resolutions adopted at the conference see: Caicedo Castilla, Jose Joaquin. El derecho internacional en el sistema interamericano. (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura HispSnica, 1970), 35-37.

38 The name for the overall system was changed to the Union of American Republics in 1910 and to the Union of American States in 1928.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In 1907, thanks to the lobbying by the U.S., all the

American States were invited to the Second Hague Peace

Conference.39 At The Hague, the Latin American states

attempted to enshrine the Drago Doctrine as a recognized

principle of international law. After facing severe European

opposition, however, the Latin American states reluctantly

gave their support to a more moderate version presented by

U.S. delegate Horace Porter. The Porter Doctrine, which was

officially approved by the conference, established that no

state had the right to use force in the collection of debts,

unless the debtor state refused to settle the legality of

the claims through arbitration or failed to comply with the

arbitral decision.40 Thwarted in their attempt to completely

ban the right of intervention for the collection of debts,

all the Latin American states (except for El Salvador,

Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama) refused to

sign the final document. After being snubbed by the 1899

Peace Conference and having their security threatened by the

1904 decision by the Court of Arbitration, for many Latin

Americans, The Hague became the embodiment of European

contempt for their countries.

The Latin American states faced further frustration on

39 Ultimately, Costa Rica and Honduras were the only American States that did not attend.

40 Wilson, Larman C. The Principle of Non-Intervention in Recent Inter-American Relations. (PhD Thesis at the University of Maryland, College Park, 1964), 37.

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the global stage during the Versailles Conference where the

Covenant for the League of Nations was drafted. The Latin

American states had looked upon the League as an

international countervailing force that would restrain U.S.

interventionism. Unfortunately, Latin America underestimated

both the extend to which Great Power politics still

dominated the international system and Western Europe's

reluctance to become involved in major conflicts after the

carnage of the First World War. In a futile attempt to

entice the U.S. to join the League, the delegates added

Article XXI to the covenant which stated that:

Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace.41

This article completely undermined Article X of the Covenant

which had stated the League's commitment to "preserve" the

territorial integrity and sovereignty of its members from

external aggression.

When the U.S. refused to join the League, however, the

Latin American states applied for membership, assuming that

the organization would not stand idle if a member faced

41 Atkins, 240. Note that the article purposely misstates the character of the Monroe Doctrine, labeling it as a "regional understanding" when in reality it was a Great Power's declaration of its right to an exclusive sphere of influence.

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aggression from a non-member (the U.S.)-42 To their

disappointment, the League proved unwilling to deter U.S.

interventionism and, in fact, generally remained uninvolved

in Western Hemispheric affairs.

The Latin American feeling of frustration at having

failed in their attempt to use global treaties and

organizations to restrain the U.S. was exacerbated by

continued U.S. interventionism in the region. The U.S.

exercised its constitutionally-granted right of intervention

and stationed troops in Cuba during the periods of 1906 to

1909, 1912 and 1917 to 1922. The U.S. exercised similar

rights in Panama in 1908, 1912 and 1918. In the Dominican

Republic, the takeover of the customs evolved into a full

fledged U.S. occupation that lasted from 1916 to 1924.

Throughout most of this period, the Dominican Republic

became a de facto colony governed by the Department of the

Navy. A similar fate befell Haiti from 1915 to 1934.

In 1914, U.S. troops occupied Veracruz, ostensibly to

avenge U.S. honor after an incident with Mexican authorities

in Tampico. In reality, the U.S. attempted to undermine the

government of Victoriano Huerta. In 1916, U.S. forces

entered Mexico in pursuit of a column of Mexican

revolutionaries led by Francisco Villa. The U.S. justified

42 All of the Latin American states were part of the League at some point during its existence. Brazil and Costa Rica withdrew form the League in 1926, followed by Paraguay in 1935.

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its intervention under the principle of self-help, pointing

to Villa's raid against a U.S. town and claiming that there

was no central authority in Mexico that could either patrol

the border or punish Villa. U.S. forces were also stationed

in Nicaragua from 1912 to 1925 and from 1926 to 1933 in

order to protect beleaguered pro-U.S. governments.

Throughout this period, the U.S. also expanded its

rationales for intervention. President Woodrow Wilson

rejected imperialism, nevertheless he embarked on a policy

of intervention in order to promote democracy. Wilson argued

that democracy could not flourish while a country was

wracked by internal instability. Thus, the U.S. would deploy

troops in the country and bring about the stability that

would make possible the establishment of democracy. In 1923,

the U.S. announced what became known as the Panama Canal

Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This corollary argued that

the Panama Canal was vital to U.S. national interests and

therefore the maintenance of its security was paramount.

Thus, the U.S. had the right to intervene in areas in the

proximity of the canal if events in these areas posed a

threat to its use.43

Besides its overt use of force throughout the Caribbean

43 Wilson, 25. Also, in 1912 the U.S. Senate approved a resolution stating that the U.S. would not allow the control of any American area by a private company having close ties with governments that could pose a threat to U.S. interests. However, this resolution was opposed by President Taft.

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Basin, the U.S. was also severely criticized by Latin

America for its practice of withholding official recognition

to governments it did not approve of. The Latin American

states argued that the U.S. exerted so much influence over

the region that the withholding of recognition could signal

to rival political factions in the country that the U.S.

would favor diplomatically, or even support actively, any

attempts to overthrow the government. Moreover,

international law stated that a government that exerted de

facto control over its national territory should be

recognized by the international community.44 In the exercise

of its foreign policy, the U.S. traditionally had recognized

de facto governments that agree to abide by international

law principles. Nonetheless, with the coming of the 20th

century the U.S. gradually shifted its position, arguing

that besides exerting de facto control, a government had to

have the population's consent to be ruled by it and

explicitly declare its commitment to specific principles of

international law as requested by the U.S. These

requirements were extremely fluid, varied with each

administration, and did not entail that a government had to

celebrate free elections, for a government could rule with

the "silent consent" of the population. The main virtue of

44 Stowell, 448. Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 244. The Thomases argue, however, that recognition should be withheld if the government does not abide by an internationally approved standard of behavior.

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these requirements was that they were ambiguous enough to

justify the withholding or granting of recognition to any

government depending on U.S. interests.

An example of this policy was the U.S. refusal to

recognize the government of Venustiano Carranza in Mexico

due to Carranza's unwillingness to pledge that Article 27 of

the 1917 Constitution would not be applied retroactively.45

In 1909, the U.S. withdrew its recognition of the government

of Jose Zelaya in Nicaragua because of the execution of U.S.

citizens who had taken part in a failed anti-government coup

and due to Zelaya's disregard for "republican

institutions".46 As one of the central tenets of his foreign

policy, President Woodrow Wilson declared that he would

withhold recognition of any government that came to power

through unconstitutional means.47 This policy was applied

several times during his presidency, chiefly against the

Huerta government in 1913 and the government of Costa Rica's

Federico Tinoco in 1917.

45 Article 27 asserted that the state was the owner of all land and subsoil resources. Licenses for the exploitation of these resources could be granted to foreigners, but in exchange they had to relinquish their right to call upon the home government for support if their license was canceled. Legal owners of resources (both nationals and foreigners) before the constitution was drafted could be expropriated, with appropriate compensation paid by the government.

46 Stowell, 43, 151.

47 This policy of denying recognition to governments that acquired power unconstitutionally was not limited to the U.S. as will be seen when discussing the Tobar Doctrine.

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Tying Up Gulliver

Concerted Latin American efforts to restrain U.S.

interventionism began to bear fruit in 1923 during the Fifth

International Conference of American States, held in

Santiago, Chile. During this meeting a resolution was

approved to make the president and vice president of the

Governing Board elective positions, thus ending the

permanent U.S. control over the presidency. Moreover, it was

agreed that states lacking official relations with the U.S.

could send special representatives to the board.4*

The Uruguayan delegation presented a resolution that

would have granted to the Governing Board the authority to

become involved in political issues, provided that members

gave their unanimous approval beforehand. This resolution

was rejected by a vote of 12 to 6, with the U.S. joining

eleven Latin American states in opposing the measure.

Finally, a resolution was passed calling for the

establishment of an Inter-American Commission of Jurists for

the purpose of codifying international law.

Latin American attempts to restrain the U.S. continued

during the next conference, held five years later in Havana.

There, a resolution was passed to end the overwhelming

preponderance of U.S. citizens on the staff of the Pan

American Union by requiring that hiring be carried on a

4* Ball, 14.

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proportional basis.49 The conference also approved a

convention codifying private international law (Bustamante

Code) and permanently institutionalized the Commission of

Jurists. The Commission was to be composed of three special

committees in charge of codifying both public and private

international law and for the comparative study of domestic

laws.50

In a reaction to Uruguay's resolution during the

previous conference, a resolution was approved forbidding

the Governing Board from becoming involved in political

issues. This resolution resulted from the fear held by most

Latin American states that if the Governing Board became

involved in political issues, it would be used by the U.S.

as a tool to further intervention. This rationale is

baffling, considering that in both 1923 and 1928 the U.S.

was opposed to granting the Governing Board the authority to

become involved in political issues. Moreover, Uruguay's

precondition that the involvement be approved by unanimous

decision would have severely constrained U.S. ability to

manipulate the body.51

49 The Pan American Union was the official name of the Union of American States' general secretariat and was in charge of running the organization's day-to-day affairs.

50 Caicedo, 81.

51 Ball is extremely critical of this resolution, arguing that its refusal to establish a central body with the authority to debate, approve and enforce decisions in politico-diplomatic issues led to the creation of numerous powerless commissions and complicated agreements that

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In fact, hostility and suspicion towards the U.S. was

rampant throughout the conference and reached its highpoint

when the Commission of Jurists presented its draft for a

convention regulating the basic rights of the American

states. The U.S. announced its opposition to an article

prohibiting external intervention in the domestic affairs of

a state, arguing that in conditions of severe instability a

state may be forced to intervene in order to protect its

citizens or to prevent the conflict from spreading across

international borders. When the U.S. delegation presented an

alternative article allowing intervention under the

principle of interposition, it was only supported by Cuba,

Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.52 In view of the controversial

status of the convention, it was agreed to postpone further

discussion until the next conference.

A significant victory in the struggle to curtail

intervention was achieved when the conference approved a

convention on the rights and duties of states during civil

strife.53 This convention required states to forbid

inhabitants of its territory (nationals or foreigners) from

aiding or launching insurgent operations. Insurgent forces

that crossed the borders into a neighboring state had to be

interned and disarmed. Moreover, arm sales to insurgents was

hampered the states' ability to act in times of crisis.

52 Wilson, 44.

52 Caicedo, 55-56.

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forbidden, even if they had been granted belligerent status.

In 1930, Mexican Foreign Minister Genaro Estrada

proposed the elimination of the recognition process. He

argued that the government which held de facto control over

the state would be considered responsible for fulfilling

that state's commitment before the international community.

Thus, Estrada argued that diplomatic relations were value

neutral links that merely stated mutual acknowledgement of

each government's control over its national territory. He

considered the act of recognition demeaning because of its

implication that a sovereign government's domestic and

foreign policies had to be judged by other states before

being granted formal "approval" as a member of the

international community. Estrada asserted that whenever a

government was substituted, regardless of the legality of

this action, the diplomatic corps should automatically

conduct business with the new authorities. Finally, Estrada

remarked that in the future, Mexico would maintain permanent

diplomatic relations with all governments, withdrawing

personnel (or demanding the withdrawal of personnel) if

displeased with a government's course of action. This last

statement undermined his entire declaration, as Estrada was

not really demanding the end of diplomatic recognition. He

was merely advocating the substitution of the traditional

formal and explicit process by an informal, implicit one.

Latin America's strident attacks on U.S.

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interventionism were a shocking embarassment to Washington,

especially considering that in previous meetings the Latin

American delegates had moderated their rhetoric out of

respect to the ideal of Pan American unity. Moreover, the

U.S. had naively believed that measures such as the payment

of $25 million to Colombia in compensation for the loss of

Panama (1921), the withdrawal from the Dominican Republic

(1924) and the return of the Isle of Pines to Cuba (1925)

were enough to reestablish Latin American trust in the

U.S.54 After the Havana Conference, U.S. President-elect

Herbert Hoover visited Latin America on a goodwill tour.

More importantly, once he assumed office his administration

enacted significant changes in U.S. policy towards Latin

America. Hoover renounced Wilson's practice of denying

recognition to unconstitutional governments, and in 1928 the

State Department produced a memorandum repudiating the

Roosevelt Corollary.55 Moreover, in early 1933 Hoover

ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Nicaragua.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt ascended to the U.S.

presidency in 1933 and during his inaugural address he

pledged that "in the field of foreign policy I would

54 Wilgus and D'Eca, 370. Keen and Wasserman, 524.

55 Atkins, 120. While the U.S. established that it would no longer use the Monroe Doctrine as a rationale for intervention, the right of intervention was not explicitly rejected.

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dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor".56

Nonetheless, by December 1933, when the Seventh Conference

convened in Montevideo, this pledge seemed to be just empty

rhetoric. At that time, the U.S. had deployed warships

outside Havana harbor while refusing to recognize the

government of Ramon Grau.57 While the Latin American states

were ready to resume the bitter fight over the convention

for the rights and duties of states, the U.S. presented a

conciliatory stance. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull

voted in favor of the convention, to the astonishment of the

Latin American delegates. This action represented only a

qualified surrender of the right of intervention. When the

U.S. signed the convention, it added a reservation stating

that the signature did not mean that the U.S. was abandoning

its right to intervene under conditions approved by

international law.58

The Roosevelt administration continued the Hoover

policy of eliminating the web of treaties that gave the U.S.

the legal right to intervene throughout the Caribbean. In

1934, U.S. troops were withdrawn from Haiti and the Platt

56 Ibid., 120.

57 Thomas and Thomas, Non-Intervention. 28. Grau, who was forced to relinquish power by the armed forces, referred to the U.S. non-recognition of his government as "intervention by inertia".

58 Thomas, Ann Van Wynen & A.J. Thomas. The Organization of American States. (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963), 22.

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amendment was abrogated. In 1936, the U.S. renounced its

right to intervene in Panama and one year later it gave up

its right to intervene in Mexico's Tehuantepec Isthmus.

Finally in 1941, the U.S. abrogated its right to supervise

the financial affairs of both the Dominican Republic and

Haiti.

In 1936, a special Inter-American Conference for the

Maintenance of Peace was held in Buenos Aires. During this

conference the U.S. signed without reservations a protocol

stating that:

The High Contracting Parties declare inadmissible the intervention of any one of them, directly or indirectly and for whatever reason, in the internal or external affairs of any other of the Parties.59

By virtue of this protocol, the U.S. officially renounced

its right of intervention in the Western Hemisphere and

pledged to abide by the duty of non-intervention.

There are several reasons behind the gradual shift in

U.S. foreign policy that culminated in the unqualified legal

acceptance of the duty of non-intervention in the Western

Hemisphere. First of all, the Latin American states were

ultimately successful in their endeavor of transforming the

International Union of American Republics into an

organization charged with the duty of establishing an

hemispheric-wide code of behavior with regards to

international relations. The organization slowly evolved

59 Ibid., 23.

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from a U .S.-dominated and powerless body created for the

purpose of disseminating information and promoting trade,

into the symbolic embodiment of the Pan American ideal.

Slowly, as the Latin American states eliminated the U.S.

monopoly over the presidency, its de facto veto on members

and its ability to set the agenda, they were able to use the

organization to set moral restraints on the U.S.

In practical terms, the organization in 1936 remained

as powerless as when established in 1889. Nonetheless, once

the U.S. acknowledged the organization's duty to codify

international law and to draft a convention of rights and

duties of the American states, it became morally and legally

impossible for the U.S. to reject the organization's end

product. After decades of celebrating Panamericanism and

extolling the ties binding the sisterhood of American

Republics, the U.S. could not reject a document the other

American states were willing to sign.

The U.S. was also influenced in its decision by more

practical reasons. By the late 1920s, it became obvious that

U.S. interventionism, instead of creating a more pliant

hemisphere, was creating a virulent anti-U.S. reaction in

most American states. This anti-U.S. reaction had the

potential of triggering a vicious circle of attacks on U.S.

citizens and businesses, followed by U.S. intervention in

its defense, followed by more attacks. It became obvious

that issues once solved through direct intervention would

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most dramatic example of the more restrained attitude was

the U.S. government's refusal to intervene in Mexico after

the nationalization of the oil companies. Moreover, the U.S.

government was continually assailed by a domestic anti­

imperialist movement that demanded the end of all

interventions.60

Another contributing factor was the onset of the Great

Depression in 1929. With Europe closed to U.S. products due

to high tariffs, economists pointed to a friendly Latin

America as a market for U.S. goods.61 Moreover, concerned

with domestic economic problems, the U.S. could not afford

to be diverted by multiple military operations abroad. Also,

by 1936 some government officials predicted that a general

war in Europe was inevitable. Haunted by the specter of the

60 The anti-imperialist movement was composed by a wide array of divergent (and often contradictory) viewpoints. While it had no central organization, the variety of special interests represented found a sympathetic ear with many government officials. It included anti-capitalists (who criticized the use of U.S. forces to defend the interests of U.S. corporations abroad) and special economic interests (congressmen from the sugar producing states had opposed the annexation of Cuba). It also included moralist liberal egalitarians (who condemned the fact that a democracy was invading its small neighbors) and racists (who were outraged at the influx of Puerto Ricans and Filipinos and feared the same process would occur with the other areas occupied by the U.S.).

61 This policy proved ultimately unsuccessful because the Latin American middle class was too small to consume a significant amount of U.S. products. Moreover, most Latin American countries also enacted high tariffs to protect their small industries from foreign competition.

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Zimmermann telegram (and by the German communities in

Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela) they advocated a policy of

cooperation rather than confrontation towards Latin America.

Finally, the personality of the U.S. presidents was a very

important factor in the formal embracing of non-intervention

by Washington. Neither Hoover nor Franklin Roosevelt was a

crusading moralist like Wilson or a brash adventurer like

Theodore Roosevelt.

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The Congress of Panama

The century-long struggle to ban the right of

intervention in the Western Hemisphere was paralleled by a

trend advocating the establishment of collective security

mechanisms as a way of dealing with crises in the Americas.

While the attempts to ban intervention were a constant

hallmark in most of the American states7 foreign policy, the

advocacy of collective security only surfaced sporadically.

This is easy to understand when the legal and practical

implications of collective security are considered. If one

of the signatory states violates international law and is

the subject of a retaliatory attack, are the other

signatories bound to come to its defense? If military action

takes place, how is the contribution of forces assigned? Who

will lead the forces? How are the costs of the operation to

be divided? If a dispute erupts between signatories, what is

the procedure to be followed? What is the procedure to be

followed if a signatory establishes friendly relations with

a state other signatories consider to be a threat to their

security? The states of the Western Hemisphere have been

wrestling with these questions since their independence.

Even at the present they have not been answered

satisfactorily.

The right of collective security was sanctioned by

46

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international law if used to counter threats to peace or to

forestall unlawful behavior by other states.62 Thus, this

represented a multilateralization of the principle of

international police regulation. In the Western Hemisphere,

the efforts to establish collective security arrangements

can be divided into two distinct currents. The first one

sought to establish arrangements to protect the signatories

from extra-hemispheric military threats. (Occasionally, the

U.S. was also perceived as a threat and then the

arrangements were limited to Latin America). The second one

attempted to reverse the spread of despotism in the

hemisphere by sanctioning military operations against

dictatorial governments. This might include operations

against signatory states, if some governments later adopted

despotic policies.

Attempts to establish the framework for collective

security in post-independence America can be traced to the

Panama Congress. In 1824, Simon Bolivar called for the

celebration of a meeting between Gran Colombia, Mexico and

Peru to discuss the establishment of a strong confederation.

Later on, other regional leaders prevailed upon Bolivar to

62 Stowell, 285-286, 307-310. Stowell quotes international law authorities to justify the interventionist tactics of the Concert of Europe. Stowell and the authorities he quotes are believers in the concept that "many makes right" and argue that collective action is imbued by a moral force, the will of the international community. The flaw in their argument is that they overlook that intervention by many states can be as selfish and illegal as intervention by one state.

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extend an invitation to Argentina, Brazil, the Central

America Confederation, Chile and the U.S. While the U.S.

agreed to send representatives, it made clear that as part

of its policy of avoiding "entangling alliances" it would

oppose any multilateralization of the Monroe Doctrine.63 The

meeting was finally held in 1826 in the Gran Colombian

province of Panama and was attended by Central America, Gran

Colombia, Mexico and Peru. (Of the two U.S. delegates, one

died en route and the other arrived after the meeting was

over).

The Congress of Panama agreed to a treaty establishing

a collective security pact in order to establish a common

front against foreign intervention. The treaty also called

for regular meetings of the member states, for the

establishment of joint land and sea armed forces and for the

peaceful resolution of disputes among members. Furthermore,

the treaty established that member states were free to

pursue an independent foreign policy as long as it did not

contradict the goals of the alliance. The treaty also called

for the suspension of any member that became a monarchy or

pursued an unjustified war against another signatory.61

This treaty, especially in the last two articles

discussed, imposed many restrictions on the members' foreign

63 Caicedo, 19.

64 For a detailed description of the treaty, officially known as the Treaty of Perpetual Union, League and Confederation, see Caicedo, 20-25.

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policy. The members, however, were willing to tolerate the

treaty's interventionist clauses in order to present a

common front against intervention by non-members. This

treaty owed its existence to fear of an extra-hemispheric

threat. Once this immediate threat subsided, however, the

rivalries among the members (especially between Mexico and

Gran Colombia) and their refusal to accept any limits on

their sovereignty;" doomed the agreement.65

Other Attempts; Alberdi. Vicuna and Tobar

After the secession of Texas in 1836, Mexico attempted

to revive the idea of a confederation, this time aimed at

both European and U.S. expansionism. From 1838 to 1840,

Mexico issued several invitations, but all were rejected by

the uninterested Latin American states.66 In 1847, the

threat that former Ecuadorean president Juan Jose Flores

would attempt to reassert control over the country with the

support of the European autocracies led Peru to organize a

meeting to consider the idea of a collective security

alliance.67 All the American states (including the U.S.)

were invited, but ultimately only Bolivia, Chile, Colombia,

Ecuador and Peru attended. In March 1848, the states signed

65 While the treaty was signed by all the participants, only Gran Colombia ratified it.

66 Wilgus and D'Eca, 385.

67 Thomas and Thomas, The Organization. 9.

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a Treaty of Confederation, but once the immediate threat

subsided all interest was lost. Eventually, only Colombia

ratified the treaty.

The overwhelming U.S. victory in the war against

Mexico, coupled with its growing intromission in Central

America and the filibustering operations of William Walker,

led some Latin American leaders to call for the drafting of

another collective security agreement pact, this time

directed against the U.S. Although all the Latin American

states were invited, only Chile, Ecuador and Peru finally

attended the conference held in Chile in 1856. Similar to

the end result of the previous conferences, the resulting

treaty was not ratified. The French occupation of Mexico,

coupled with the Spanish takeover of the Dominican Republic

and the Chincha Islands, triggered calls for another

hemispheric conference. This time, the immediacy of the

crisis produced a large turnout, with Bolivia, Chile,

Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru and Venezuela meeting

in Lima in 1864. Argentina attended as an observer, but the

U.S. was not invited, despite Chile's pleas. The resulting

treaty called for an alliance against all aggressions,

whether extra-hemispheric or from one of the signatories.68

Once again, once the immediate crisis receded, the lofty

ideals of collective security and confederation faltered and

68 Ibid., 10.

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the treaty was left unratified.

While the Latin American political leaders drafted

agreements to ward off the threat of U.S. or European

military intervention, some Latin American intellectuals

posed the idea of establishing a confederation against Latin

American tyrannies. In 1837, Chilean Pedro Felix Vicuna

proposed the establishment of a Great American Congress with

the mission of preventing the rise of dictatorial regimes in

the region. The Congress would bind all members in an

alliance designed not only to provide protection against

attacks on signatories, but also to overthrow dictatorial

regimes.69 Whenever an unconstitutional change of government

took place, the Congress would examine the new government's

commitment to the upholding of the law and democracy. If

found lacking in this area, joint action against the

offender would ensue.

In 1844, Argentine writer Juan Bautista Alberdi

proposed the establishment of an American Court that would

pass judgement on the democratic character of the region's

governments and order collective action against the

dictatorial regime.70 The main difference between Vicuna's

and Alberdi's proposals was the fact that the latter

proposed that the European Powers would take part in the

69 Wilson, 86.

70 Atkins, 228.

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Court-sanctioned operations.71

It is interesting to contrast these two currents in the

struggle to establish functional collective security

arrangements. The Latin American political leaders, who were

entrenched in power, perceived extra-regional intervention

as the largest threat to their country's security. These

leaders attempted to create an alliance that would provide

the maximum protection while relinquishing as few of their

state's sovereignty as possible. For Alberdi and Vicuna, the

main threat to America's came from within, not from without.

To them, the concept of national sovereignty was superseded

by that of hemispheric security. And in their viewpoint, the

continent would be secure only when it became fully

democratic. Thus, according to their plans, members agreed

to a severe curtailment of their sovereignty by allowing the

rest of the signatories to pass judgement on the worthiness

and democratic character of their governments. While the

political leaders of the time saw Europe as a threat,

Alberdi saw Europe as the enlightened continent that would

support the beleaguered forces of democracy against the

hordes of tyranny in America.

In 1907 Carlos Tobar, a former Ecuadorean diplomat,

71 An avowed Europeanist, Alberdi was contemptuous of most of the new Latin American states and doubted their ability to establish ordered, democratic regimes. Alberdi, a Unitarian was forced into exile by the Federalist government of Rosas. Throughout his exile he proposed the establishment of a grand coalition composed of Brazil, Britain, France and Uruguay to overthrow Rosas.

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proposed that all the states in the hemisphere should refuse

to grant diplomatic recognition to governments that came to

power through unconstitutional means. Tobar acknowledged

that this measure would represent an infringement of

sovereignty. Nonetheless, he argued that the American states

"should intervene, at least mediately and indirectly, in the

internal dissensions of the republics of the continent".72

Thus, while refraining from advocating the extreme measures

proposed by Alberdi or Vicuna, he shared their belief that

the preservation of democracy in the American community

overrode concerns for the sovereignty of the individual

states. The American community would not be safe as long as

tyranny could flourish in its midst. Ironically, this idea

mimicked the rationale used by the Holy Alliance to justify

their interventions. Tobar argued that the refusal to grant

recognition should be a collective act so it could deal a

strong moral blow to the unconstitutional regime.

Interestingly, a modified version of the Tobar Doctrine

was incorporated into the final agreements of the Central

American Congress held in Washington during 1907.73 The

Central American states pledged not to recognize governments

coming to power through unconstitutional means (except in

72 Atkins, 228.

73 In 1906 Nicaragua and El Salvador invaded Guatemala in an unsuccessful bid to create a Central American confederation. After mediation by Mexico and the U.S., the five Central American states agreed to hold discussions in Washington.

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the case that the previous government had tampered with the

constitution).74 Furthermore, the recognition would be

withheld, even after elections, if the resulting government

was headed by one of the coup leaders. Host of the Latin

American states, however, rejected the doctrine as undue

intervention in the domestic affairs of a state. The

doctrine was discredited even further when the U.S. began to

use consistently the withholding of recognition as an

instrument to undermine governments.

Progress is Made in the Shadow of war

The next substantive attempt to establish a structured

system of collective security did not take place until 1936

during the Conference for the Maintenance of Peace. A

convention signed at this meeting established that if an

impending war threatened to engulf one or more American

states the hemispheric community would meet and attempt to

defuse the crisis before hostilities erupted.75 Taking into

consideration the increasing tensions in Europe, the

convention stated that meetings would also occur in case of

an extra-hemispheric war that could potentially pose a

threat to American peace. In case a war between American

states could not be averted, the other hemispheric actors

would hold a meeting to discuss the actions to be taken.

74 Thomas and Thomas, The Organization. 216.

75 Caicedo, 62-63.

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Two years later, at the Eighth International Conference

held in Lima, the boundaries of this convention were

expanded considerably to also cover "economic, cultural and

any other important issues".76 In a resolution known as the

Declaration of American Solidarity, the American states

pledged that in case of a threat to an individual state or

to the hemisphere as a whole they would hold a meeting of

consultation in an attempt to craft a common response. This

resolution also established that any state could request the

convocation of a meeting of consultation and that they were

to be attended by each state's foreign minister or

officially designated substitute. In a demonstration of

political realism, the declaration stated that after the

consultation each American state could independently follow

a path commensurate with the decisions reached.

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 soon put

the newly established mechanisms to the test. In the First

Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs,

held that same year in Panama, the American states declared

their neutrality in the conflict as well as their

determination to prevent the use of their territory in war-

related operations by the belligerents or their agents.77

These operations included sabotage and intelligence

76 Ibid., 65.

77 Thomas and Thomas, The Organization. 24.

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gathering. Moreover, in order to prevent the extension of

the conflict into the Americas, the foreign ministers agreed

to establish a naval security zone in the waters surrounding

the hemisphere.7* The belligerents, however, refused to

acknowledge the legal existence of the zone, declaring their

right to carry out military operations in international

waters or the waters of belligerent states.

The surprising capitulation of France and the

occupation of the Netherlands brought about concerns that

their possessions might declare allegiance to the pro-Axis

regimes established in Vichy and The Hague. In the Second

Meeting of Consultation, held in Havana in 1940, the

American states argued that they would oppose the transfer

of any of the European colonies to another non-American

state.79 If such an event took place, the American states

would establish control of the territory and administer it

for the duration of the war. Moreover, the foreign ministers

approved the Declaration of Reciprocal Assistance and

78 Pan American Union. Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. (Washington, D.C.: Department of Legal Affairs, 1973, vol.I, 1948-19591. 7. The American states were especially concerned that the Axis powers would carry out military operations against shipping coming to or from the British, Dutch or French colonies in the hemisphere.

79 Thomas and Thomas, The Organization. 24. As the American states still recognized the London-based governments in exile of France and the Netherlands, this declaration would cover, both a transfer of sovereignty to Germany or the pledging of allegiance to one of the puppet regimes.

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Cooperation, which asserted that an attack against an

American state by a non-hemispheric state would be

considered an attack against all other states in the

hemisphere. If such an event took place, the foreign

ministers would meet to decide which measures would be

taken. This declaration finally established an hemispheric-

wide mechanism of collective security designed to repel

attacks by extra-hemispheric forces.

The attack on Pearl Harbor triggered the first use of

the newly established security arrangement as the Third

Meeting of Consultation assembled in Rio de Janeiro in 1942.

During this meeting, it was agreed that all American states

would at least break diplomatic relations with the Axis

powers.80 Moreover, agreement was reached on a plan to

coordinate operations to prevent sabotage. The American

states also agreed to increase their production of strategic

materials. Finally, they agreed to establish an Inter-

American Defense Board, which would have the mission of

advising the foreign ministers on how to improve hemispheric

defense. The meeting also considered the necessity of

strengthening and expanding the duties of the Union of

American States both in the areas of security and economic

cooperation.

80 Ball, 20-21.

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From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Rio

All the American states, with the exception of

Argentina and Chile, quickly abided by the meeting's

decisions and broke diplomatic relations with the Axis. One

month after the Third Meeting of Consultation, Brazil,

Mexico and all the Central American and Antillean states had

declared war on the Axis.*1 Meanwhile, Bolivia, Colombia,

Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela had broken

diplomatic relations with the Axis.82 After being subjected

to strong diplomatic and economic pressure by the U.S.,

Chile severed diplomatic relations with the Axis in January

1943. Argentina, whose government harbored strong pro-Axis

sympathies, adamantly refused to abandon its neutral status.

In early 1944 Argentina finally broke relations with the

Axis after the British embarrassed Buenos Aires by revealing

evidence of widespread Axis activity in the country.

However, the Farrell government in Argentina refused to take

action against Axis operations in the country.

In October 1944, Argentina requested a meeting of

consultation to discuss the campaign of diplomatic and

economic pressure to which it was being subjected by the

U.S.85 Thus, the U.S. was faced with a nightmare of its own

81 Ultimately only Brazil (a division in the European front) and Mexico (an air force squadron in the Pacific front) provided troops.

82 Wilgus and D'Eca, 422.

8J Thomas and Thomas, The Organization. 28.

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making. The strong mechanism of collective security which it

had crafted to establish a common front against the

totalitarian powers was being used by a Latin American state

against Washington. The rest of the Latin American states

supported the U.S., however, and Argentina's request was

denied.

In February 21, 1945, all the American states with the

exception of Argentina met in Mexico's Chapultepec Castle

for a special Inter~American Conference on Problems of War

and Peace.*4 The American states strengthened the system of

collective security even further through the approval of the

Act of Chapultepec. This document expanded the scope of the

arrangements reached at Havana (1940) by stating that an

attack by any state against an American state would be

considered an act of war against all other states.*5

Moreover, the act spelled out concrete sanctions to be taken

collectively against the aggressor state. These sanctions

ranged from rupture of relations to the use of force.

Another important issue discussed at Chapultepec was

the effect which the United Nations (UN) would have on the

Union of American States. Fearing that the latter

organization might be eliminated or emasculated after the

M The conference only invited states which had declared war on the Axis, thus excluding Argentina. The South American states which had limited themselves to breaking relations with the Axis, subsequently declared war between November 1943 and February 15, 1945.

*5 Caicedo, 69.

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establishment of the UN, the Latin American states prevailed

upon the U.S. to support a strengthening of the regional

organization. As a first measure in this effort they agreed

to draft a treaty of collective security, a treaty for the

peaceful settlement of disputes and the constitution for a

revamped regional organization.86

The conference also condemned Argentina for its failure

to cooperate in ~the war effort, but nonetheless left the

door open to a possible reconciliation by declaring that

Argentina could sign all the agreements reached at the

conference ex post facto. The knowledge that only those

states which had declared war on the Axis would be allowed

to join the United Nations, coupled with the possibility of

increased sanctions (the Soviet Union was demanding harsher

treatment towards the country) and the conciliatory gestures

of the Chapultepec Conference finally led Argentina to

declare war on the Axis on March 27, 1945. Argentina adhered

to the Chapultepec Act one week later.

There are several reasons behind the American states'

embracing of collective security after decades of shying

away from such agreements. For the U.S. the global character

86 Neither the International Union of American Republics nor any of its successors ever had a formal constitution. Every time an International Conference was held, a resolution was passed altering rules and extending the life of the organization until the next conference. A new treaty of collective security was needed because the Act of Chapultepec was a temporary measure that would expire with the end of the war.

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of modern war forced the country to reassess its wariness

towards "entangling alliances". Washington made a conscious

effort to gain the trust and alliance of the Latin American

states, and thus avoid the possibility of an enemy power

using them to create a costly diversion in the U.S.'

backyard. For the Latin American states, the action of the

totalitarian powers revived fears of the earlier European

interventions. Of-more practical value, many Latin American

states were seduced by the U.S. promises of economic aid,

weaponry and increased purchases of their products if they

joined the hemispheric war effort. Moreover, Peru's attack

against Ecuador in 1941 and Argentina's inflammatory

pronouncements and rearmament program convinced some Latin

American states that a collective security agreement

(especially one covering attacks by other American states)

would be in their best interests. Finally, after the

agreements of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference were made

public, the Latin American states preferred that their

disputes be managed within the framework of an hemispheric

organization rather than a global context.®7

In April 1945, all the Allied states met at San

*7 During the Dumbarton Oaks Conference the main Allied powers established the framework for a post-war global organization which later became the United Nations. Regarding the issue of regional organizations, the conference decided that the former would have primacy when attempting to solve regional disputes through peaceful methods. On the issue of enforcement, however, it was agreed that the regional organizations would not be able to use force unless previously authorized by the Security Council.

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Francisco to draft the charter of the new global

organization which was to be in charge of overseeing the

maintenance of peace in the post-war world. Composing about

1/3 of the states represented in the conference, the Latin

American countries were able to orchestrate revisions to the

Dumbarton Oaks framework. First of all, the role of the

regional organizations in the peaceful settlement of

disputes was strengthtened. In fact the Latin American

states successfully lobbied for the inclusion of Chapter

VIII, which acknowledges the regional organizations' right

to deal with issues pertaining to the "maintenance of

international peace and security" (Article 52). Moreover, it

was established that in the event of regional disputes the

UN would only become involved after the regional

organization had used all the available mechanisms to solve

the issue and still failed to defuse tensions (Article

33) .** In fact, Article 52 states that members "shall make

every effort" to solve their disputes through the regional

organization before appealing to the Security Council. This

modification eliminated the fear that extra-hemispheric

states would meddle or even try to undermine American

attempts to solve disputes.

The requirement that the legal use of force could not

be exercised unless authorized by the Security Council was

** Pan American Union, 20. Article 36, however, authorizes the Security Council to provide recommendations at any step of the process.

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circumvented through Article 51. This article provided that

in case of a sudden, illegal aggression, UN members were had

a right to engage in individual or collective self-defense

until the Security Council was able to take action.*9 The

authorization of the exercise of collective self-defense

allows for states not directly attacked to come to the

defense of their embattled brethren. Nonetheless, self-

defense measures- taken under Article 51 do not represent

enforcement. They are merely temporary, stop gap measures

taken to contain or repulse an armed attack and would be

superseded by whatever decision is reached by the Security

Council.90 Article 53 established that besides the emergency

situations discussed above, the use of "enforcement action"

by a regional organization (or by an individual state) had

to be authorized by the Security Council.91 There is

disagreement among international law experts regarding what

exactly constitutes "enforcement action". Those who want to

restrict the right of individual states and international

organizations to take action without the authorization of

the UN Security Council argue that the "enforcement action"

*9 Article 107 of the UN Charter actually allows the use of force against former members of the Axis without prior Security Council approval in case that these states posed a renewed menace to peace. This article has never been invoked.

90 Moreno G., Luis. ONU v OEA. (Quito: Editorial Universitaria, 1975), 111-113.

91 Pan American Union, 22-23.

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encompasses the measures spelled out in Articles 41 and 42

of the UN Charter.92 Those who want to expand the collective

security power of regional organizations argue that

"enforcement action" only includes measures spelled out in

Article 42 of the UN Charter.

In August 15, 1947 the hemispheric states met in Rio de

Janeiro to create an American collective security

arrangement that~would replace the now extinct Act of

Chapultepec.93 The resulting treaty, officially known as the

Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, established

that an attack against an American state represented an

attack against all other states in the hemisphere. In case

of an attack, a signatory had the right to request a Meeting

of Consultation. This meeting would be attended only by the

foreign ministers of the American states who had ratified

the treaty.9*

If the attack was carried out by another American

state, the signatories would demand an immediate end of

hostilities and the return to the status quo ante. The

92 Article 41 indicates enforcement actions ("medidas coercitivas" in Spanish) that can be applied without the use of military force. Among these are the severance of diplomatic relations, economic embargoes and the curtailment of communication and transportation links. Article 42 indicates enforcement actions that require the use of military force.

93 Ecuador and Nicaragua were barred form taking part in the conference due to the unconstitutional character of their governments at the time.

91 Pan American Union, 426.

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refusal to comply would be taken into consideration when

discussing the measures to be enacted. Article 4 delimited

the geographical area where the collective security

arrangement would be applicable. This area was roughly

similar to the area defined by the First Meeting of

Consultation. Article 8, indicated the enforcement measures

that could be taken under the treaty. These measures

mirrored those spelled out in Articles 41 and 42 of the UN

Charter.

In the period between the attack and the convening of

the Meeting of Consultation, each state was authorized to

take the action it considered necessary to counter the

threat.95 The decision on whether to convoke a Meeting of

Consultation after the request of the signatory was to be

taken by majority vote. The decisions of the Meeting of

Consultation had to be approved by a 2/3 majority of the

states which had ratified the treaty.96

A thorny issue was whether the measures approved by the

Meeting of Consultation would be binding on all signatories,

or only those which had voted in the majority. The American

states finally agreed upon a compromise measure suggested by

Mexico. Decisions approved by the Meeting of Consultation

95 Caicedo, 73.

96 Ibid., 73. Argentina proposed that decisions had to be approved by unanimity. Uruguay suggested that decisions had to be approved by a simple majority. All other states opted for the 2/3 method.

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would be binding on all signatories, except those requiring

the use of military force.97 The treaty goes beyond the

traditional boundaries of collective security by

establishing that a Meeting of Consultation can be invoked

in case of a non-violent intervention or in case of a

potential threat to the hemisphere. In fact during the

conference, the Guatemalan delegation proposed that a

Meeting of Consultation be held if there was a threat to the

"democratic structure of the American governments", but the

proposal was soundly defeated.9® This event demonstrated

that while the American states might become comfortable with

the idea of erecting a collective security apparatus for the

defense of their sovereignty, they still vehemently opposed

its extension to cover issues of domestic politics. The Rio

Treaty was signed in September 1947 and entered into force

in December 1948.

97 Ibid., 74. Before the conference was convened, the Governing Board requested the member's position on the subject. Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru and Uruguay advocated that all approved measures should be binding on all signatories. Brazil, Cuba, Panama and the U.S. suggested that approved measures should be binding only on those who voted in favor.

9® Ball, 445-446.

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Character of the OAS

On March 30, 1948, the Ninth International Conference

convened in Bogota. Its main duty was the drafting of the

two final elements of the Chapultepec triad: a treaty for

the peaceful settlement of disputes and the charter of the

new regional organization. This new regional organization,

which substituted the old Union of American States, was

baptized as the Organization of American States (OAS). The

charter established the OAS as a regional organization under

the aegis of the UN (Article 1) and as such, its procedures

and demands on member states could not be in contradiction

to those of the UN Charter (Article 102). These concessions

to globalism are balanced out, however, with a determination

to maintain as much of an independent existence (and to

prevent interference) from the UN as possible. Thus, Article

100 established that the specialized organizations of the

OAS would retain their independence, even when replicating

the duties of existing specialized bodies of the UN. Perhaps

the clearest example of this is the parallel existence of

the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American

Health Organization (PAHO).

Like the UN, the OAS can be described as a

confederation of states. While its members had agreed to

voluntarily accept certain restrictions in their freedom of

action (notably the right to engage in expansionist war),

67

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they retained their identity as independent, sovereign

states. Moreover, since the OAS was given no enforcement

authority, its decisions must be enforced by the member

states.99 As established by the 1948 charter, the OAS is a

complicated network of interconnected organs comprising: the

Inter-American Conferences (I-A Conferences), the Meetings

of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the OAS

Council and related bodies, the Pan American Union (PAU),

the Specialized Conferences and the Specialized

Organizations.100

Article 33 of the charter established the Inter-

American Conferences (the former International Conferences

of American States) as the supreme organ of the OAS. These

conferences were to set the general course of action to be

followed by the other bodies of the organization. Thus, the

I-A Conferences were charged both with setting the general

principles of the organization and determining the duties of

specific organs. Moreover, they had the authority to discuss

any other issues, including political and economic,

necessary for the "friendly relations" among members. The I-

A Conferences were to be held regularly every five years,

but only one was held after 1948, the 1954 Tenth Conference

99 Thomas and Thomas, The Organization. 41-42.

100 In order to avoid repetition, the researcher will refrain from discussing the Meetings of Consultation until the issue of collective security within the framework of the OAS is discussed.

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in Caracas. When the OAS Charter was amended, under the

Protocol of Buenos Aires, the I-A Conferences were replaced

by an annual meeting of the newly established General

Assembly.101

The Council of the OAS was entrusted with the duty of

dealing with any issue referred to it by either the I-A

Conferences or the Meetings of Consultation (Articles 50 and

51).102 Article 53* also charged the Council with drafting

proposals for the creation or elimination of Specialized

Organizations. The Council also had the responsibility of

approving the budget of the PAU and establishing the yearly

dues that members had to contribute for the maintenance of

the organization. More importantly, the Council had the duty

of requesting the celebration of a Meeting of consultation

if the measure was approved by a majority vote (Article 40).

The Council, in fact, was empowered to act as the

Provisional Meeting of Consultation in case of a crisis that

demanded the immediate attention of the organization.

The drafting of Article 40, however, proved to be

particularly contentious, with Argentina, Chile and Panama

101 Ball, 36.

102 Stoetzer, O. Carlos. The Organization of American States. (New York: Frederick Praeger, Inc., 1965), 24. The Council was the successor of the Governing Board of the PAU. In fact, according to the initial draft of the charter, the Council was to retain the name of its predecessor. The eventual change in name was an attempt to signal the expanded authority of the organ vis-a-vis the Governing Board. There was a restrictive undertone to Article 50, as will be discussed below.

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lobbying to deny any political functions to the Council.103

Argentina argued that political issues should be exclusively

dealt with by the X-A Conferences or (in case of emergency)

the Meetings of Consultation. Thus, Argentina was

reiterating its longstanding opposition to the creation of a

"superstate".101 Chile opposed the Council's right to act as

the Provisional Meeting of Consultation and argued for a

radical overhaul” of the Rio Treaty's articles dealing with

the issue. Chile advocated that every five years a member

state be selected as the site of the Meeting of

Consultation. The American ambassadors to that state would

be appointed to serve provisionally on behalf of the foreign

ministers in case of a sudden crisis.105 Panama, on the

other hand, preferred that a Council of Solidarity,

established in an American state other than the U.S., be

given sole authority to deal with political issues. These

proposals eventually came to naught, and Articles 25 and 43

recognize the authority of the Council to act as Provisional

103 U.S. Department of State. Ninth International Conference of American States. Bogota. Colombia. March 30- Mav 2. 1948: Report of the Delegation of the United States of America with Related Documents. (Department of State Publication No. 3262, November 1948), 21.

101 US Department of State. Foreion Relations of the United States. 1948. (Washington, D.C.: Department of State publication No. 8626, 1972, vol.IX, The Western Hemisphere). 32.

105 US Department of State, Ninth International Conference. 21. US Department of State, Foreion Relations. 29.

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Meeting of Consultation. Nonetheless, Argentina, Chile,

Ecuador, Haiti, Panama and Paraguay obtained a partial

victory in their attempts to minimize the Council's

involvement in political affairs. Thus, Article 50

established that the Council would not be able to become

involved in political issues unless receiving a direct

authorization from either the I-A Conference or the Meetings

of Consultation.--—

Finally, the Council was to coordinate and oversee the

performance of three autonomous bodies under its

jurisdiction: the Council of Jurists, the Cultural Council

and the Economic and Social Council.106 The Council also

underwent substantial changes under the amendments of the

Protocol of Buenos Aires.

Article 78 established the PAU as the General

Secretariat of the OAS. Thus, essentially the PAU continued

the role it carried out under the Union of American States.

Nonetheless, the OAS Charter ended the direct subordination

of the PAU to the Governing Board. The PAU was to be headed

by a Secretary General elected for a non-renewable ten-year

term. The Secretary General had the authority to be present

and speak, but not vote, in the deliberations of all other

organs of the OAS.

The Secretary General was to be aided by an Assistant

Secretary General, also elected by the Council for a ten-

106 Ball, 215-216.

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year period. The Assistant Secretary General was to serve as

Secretary of the Council and could be eligible for re-

election. The PAU was given the duty of producing annual

reports detailing the state of the overall organization and

its individual components. Article 82 also charged the PAU

with the more ambiguous task of promoting economic, social,

juridical and cultural relations among the members.107

Article 84 basically entrusted the Secretary General

with administrative functions, overseeing the work of the

PAU bureaucracy. In contrast to the UN, where the Secretary

General was given the authority to influence policy, the OAS

Secretary General was expected to be a civil servant,

carrying out the tasks requested by other organs and

refraining from voicing his opinion on controversial

issues.108 This greatly restricted role caused endless

frustrations to Alberto Lleras Camargo, the first OAS

Secretary General, who finally submitted his resignation in

1954.

The Specialized Conferences could be convened by the I-

A Conferences, an Inter-American agreement, the Meeting of

Consultation, or the Council of the OAS (Article 93). The

Specialized Conferences were to be held to discuss topics of

an extremely technical character, lying outside the purview

107 U.S. Department of State, Ninth International Conference. 12.

108 Stoetzer, 42.

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of the average diplomat. The Specialized Organizations were

autonomous agencies established by multilateral agreement.

The organizations were required to present yearly reports

before the Council. In order to be considered a Specialized

Organization, the agencies had to receive official approval

and recognition from the Council. In 1953, six organizations

met this criteria: the Inter-American Children's Institute,

the Inter-American Commission of Women, the Inter-American

Indian Institute, the Inter-American Institute of

Agricultural Sciences, the PAHO and the Pan American

Institute of Geography and History.109

Non-Intervention and Collective Security in the OAS Charter

While the American states had held numerous meetings

prior to the Bogota Conference in order to reach a consensus

and prepare a preliminary draft of the charter, disagreement

remained on certain critical issues pertaining to the duty

of non-intervention and the right of collective security.

Article 5 of the charter (Principles) reaffirmed the

principle of non-intervention indirectly by stating that for

international order to be maintained, the personality,

independence and sovereignty of the states needed to be

respected. More importantly, Article 15 stated that:

No State or group of States has the right to intervene,

109 For a brief description of the origins and responsibilities of these organizations, see: Stoetzer, 65- 74.

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directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements.

This article represented a substantial expansion of the

principle of non-intervention going beyond the boundaries

established by the Non-Intervention Additional Protocol of

Buenos Aires (1936). First of all, it condemned intervention

both by a single state or by a group of states. This

represented a rejection of the generally held pre-UN belief

that an intervention by a coalition of states represented

the will of the international community.'10 Moreover,

besides its prohibition of political and military

intervention it also encompassed interference in the

economic and cultural elements of a state.

The following article prohibits the use of coercive

measures to influence the decision making process in a

state. This article was especially tailored to prevent the

use of diplomatic and/or economic pressure in order to alter

the policies of a government or undermine its position

during negotiations. Such a prohibition had been discussed

at previous I-A Conferences, but ultimately it had always

been rejected due to the difficulty of differentiating

between those economic measures designed to undermine a

state and those taken due to domestic or purely economic

110 Ball, 53.

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reasons."1 Furthermore, Article 17 stated that:

The territory of the State is inviolable; it may not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures of force taken by another State, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatever. No territorial acquisitions or special advantages obtained either by force or by other means of coercion shall be recognized.

Often overlooked in the discussions regarding the issue

of non-intervention in the OAS Charter is the disagreement

over the drafting_of Article 12, pertaining to the rights of

foreign nationals. The working committee charged with the

drafting of that article had initially produced a version

stating that "The jurisdiction of States within the limits

of national territory applies to all inhabitants. Nationals

and aliens are under the same protection and owe the same

obedience to the laws and the authorities of the

country"."2 This version, however, was adamantly opposed

by the US which claimed that under international law states

had the right to protect their nationals abroad if the host

government was unable or unwilling to fulfill its duty of

protection under international law. US pressure eventually

led to the elimination of any reference to the fact that

aliens and nationals were under the same protection.1,3

111 Caicedo, 146-147.

112 US Department of State, Ninth International Conference. 36.

"3 Ibid., 37. In its final version, Article 12 read "The jurisdiction of States within the limits of their national territory is exercised equally over all inhabitants, whether nationals or

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Thus, the US had indirectly signaled the abandonment of its

absolute adherence to the principle of non-intervention

adopted in 1936 at Buenos Aires. Instead, it was retreating

to the position taken during the 1993 Montevideo Conference.

The US position regarding the right to protect its nationals

abroad would play a prominent role during the first stages

of the Dominican Intervention.

Articles 15 to 17 represented a specific condemnation

of the principle of intervention for "any reason whatever".

Nonetheless, this firm, all-encompassing assertion of the

duty of non-intervention was severely undermined by Articles

19 to 25 which enshrined the principle of collective

security in the charter. Article 19 established that actions

taken for the "maintenance of peace and security"

represented an exception to the prohibitions spelled out in

Articles 15 and 17.1,4 This article was adopted in order to

take into consideration the use of coercive measures under

collective security arrangements like the Rio Treaty.

aliens".

114 A minority of international law authorities have argued that the exclusion of Article 16 implies that political and economic pressures on a state are forbidden under all circumstances. This ridiculous assertion is easily dismissed when it is considered that Article 41 of the UN Charter and Article 8 of the Rio Treaty authorize the use of diplomatic and economic coercive measures. Furthermore, in page 148, Caicedo quotes the report of the relevant working committee stating that "el texto propuesto no afecta en modo alguno la aplicacion de las sanciones de caracter economico autorizadas a ciertos organismos internacionales en virtud de pactos vigentes".

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Nonetheless, Article 25 dramatically expanded the

circumstances under which collective security arrangements

could be invoked. The article established that collective

action would be taken in case an American state was the

victim of an aggression, either violent or non-violent, or

in case of a conflict between two or more American states.

Furthermore, action would be taken in case of an

extracontinental conflict with the potential to endanger the

security of an American state or in case of any other

situation that might threaten the "peace of America". This

ambiguous phrasing represented a de facto reinstitution of

the principle of "many makes right" that had ostensibly been

renounced in Article 15 of the OAS Charter. Indeed, if

enough states shared a desire to intervene against a given

government, the sweeping generalizations in Article 25 made

the generation of a justifiable rationale for action

extremely easy.

While the principle of collective security for the

defense against external aggression was, at least

presumably, successfully ensconced in the charter, attempts

by a handful of Latin American democracies to add provisions

demanding collective action against dictatorial regimes were

defeated. These attempts, carried out largely by Brazil,

Ecuador, Guatemala and Uruguay were invariably rejected as

interference in the states' internal affairs. Article 5 of

the charter, which listed the principles of the American

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community, established that representative democracy was a

prerequisite for American solidarity. Nonetheless, this

rhetorical commitment was not supported by concrete action.

When Brazil attempted to make membership in the OAS

contingent upon the existence of a democratic government

that guaranteed the rights of man and allowed the existence

of a multiparty system, its efforts were soundly

defeated.us A Bolivian-Brazilian attempt to limit

participation in the Meetings of Consultation, Inter-

American and Specialized Conferences to those governments

that were recognized by at least 2/3 of the hemispheric

community was similarly defeated.116 Blocked in their

attempts to enshrine the principle of collective action for

the defense of democracy in the charter, the Latin American

democracies attempted to influence the drafting of the Final

Act of the Conference. The results in this endeavor were

equally fruitless. Ecuador and Guatemala attempted to gain

support for a convention that would forbid the granting of

recognition to governments which had taken power through

115 US Department of State, Ninth International Conference. 15. It is interesting to compare the reticence of the American community to take action against dictatorial regimes to the measures taken only a year before in Rio, where Ecuador and Nicaragua were denied participation.

116 Ibid., 18. The rationale behind this failed measure was that if the democratic governments would deny recognition to dictatorial regimes there was a strong possibility the latter would be barred from the crucial, decision-making bodies of the OAS.

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unconstitutional means.117 Uruguay took this measure one

step further by proposing the severing of relations with

governments (either de facto or de jure) which consistently

violated the human rights of its citizens. These attempts

where either subverted or defeated by an adamant opposition

led by Mexico and the US.

Resolution XXXV of the Final Act (Exercise of the Right

of Legation) represented a victory for the Mexican position

that de facto governments should be automatically recognized

as soon as their capacity to exercise control over the

national territory was confirmed.118 The resolution states

that the continuity of diplomatic relations is "desirable".

Moreover, the granting or withdrawing of recognition as a

method to obtain concessions from a government is forbidden.

Finally, it was stated that the maintenance of diplomatic

relations with a state did not represent approval of the

state's domestic policies, merely recognition of its status

as the main political authority in the state. Thus, one of

the ideological underpinnings of the Estrada Doctrine was

accepted as an Inter-American principle.

Resolution XXXII of the Final Act (The Preservation and

Defense of Democracy in America) was subverted by the US and

117 US Department of State, Ninth International Conference. 82-83. US Department of State, Foreign Relations. 18-21.

118 US Department of State, Ninth International Conference. 271.

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transformed into a denunciation of communism. The resolution

specifically condemns communism (as well as to what is

generically referred to as "totalitarian doctrines").1,9 Any

use of the resolution as a possible tool against right-wing

dictatorial regimes was further minimized by the strong

implications that the communistic and "totalitarian"

influences were not indigenous, but exported by foreign

governments and organizations. This resolution heralded the

future use of the OAS as an anti-communist alliance that

would reach its zenith during the 1954 Inter-American

Conference, the suspension of Cuba in 1962 and the Dominican

Intervention in 1965. In all fairness, the U.S. was acutely

aware that any anti-communist agreement could be used by

right-wing governments to suppress the moderate and

socialist opposition in their countries.120 The U.S.

delegation, therefore, supported an addition to the

resolution that exhorted states to take the necessary

measures to eradicate the threat without violating

constitutional rights.121 The resolution also acknowledged

119 Ibid., 266-267. A literal interpretation of the term "totalitarian doctrine" would refer to regimes that exercised strict, all- encompassing control over its citizens. Such a definition would cover communist and nazi regimes, but would not include the typical Latin American dictatorship. Such regimes would be better qualified as authoritarian.

120 U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations. 31, 194-201.

121 U.S. Dept, of State, Ninth International Conference. 266.

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that the ultimate safeguard against communism was a decent

standard of living.

Thwarted in their attempts to forge an explicit

procedure to ostracize and undermine dictatorial regimes,

the Latin American democracies would either make use of the

ambiguous character of Article 25 or simply ignore the OAS

altogether.

The Meetings of Consultation

Chapter XI of the OAS Charter (Article 39 to 47)

established a mechanism that allowed for the convocation of

a Meeting of Consultation in case of a situation that

required immediate action and was of "common interest" to

the states of the American community (Article 39). Moreover,

Article 43 declared that in case of an armed attack within

the security zone delimited in Article 4 of the Rio Treaty,

the Chairman of the Council was to immediately summon a

Meeting of Consultation.122 Thus, the OAS' authority to

react to hemispheric crises overlapped the mandate of the

Rio Treaty. Both agreements provided the same mechanism to

deal with a crisis situation: a member state would request a

Meeting of Consultation of Foreign Ministers, with such a

meeting being held if approved by a majority of the Council

of the OAS. Decisions by the Meeting of Consultation had to

122 As previously discussed the Council was to serve as Provisional Organ of Consultation until the foreign ministers could hold a meeting.

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be approved by a 2/3 vote.

The difference between the two agreements lay in the

fact that article 8 of the Rio Treaty provided a clear list

of measures to be taken in response to the crisis, including

the use of armed force.'23 More importantly, as previously

discussed, decisions taken under the Rio Treaty were binding

and required the compliance of all signatories. In contrast

with the clear specifications of the Rio Treaty, the OAS

mandate to request a Meeting of Consultation provided no

details on either enforcement measures or compliance. Thus,

a Meeting of Consultation held under the OAS Charter was

only capable of discussing events and making

recommendations, but was not authorized to impose sanctions,

let alone approve the use of armed force.'24 Another

difference between the two is the fact that a Meeting of

Consultation under the OAS Charter would be attended by all

members of the organization, while a meeting held under the

Rio Treaty would only be open to the signatories of that

agreement. Since all the founding members of the OAS had

also ratified the Rio Treaty this difference was irrelevant

123 Pan American Union, 425.

124 Gomez Robledo, Antonio. Las Naciones Unidas v el Sistema Interamericano. (Mexico, DF: Colegio de Mexico, 1974), 115-117. A.J. Thomas & Ann Van Wynen Thomas. The Dominican Republic Crisis 1965. (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications for The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 1967), 47- 48.

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until the mid-1960s when the former European possessions in

the Caribbean basin began to achieve independence.125

UN and OAS: Confrontation or Cooperation ?

Articles 1, 4, 53 and 102 of the OAS Charter clearly

established the OAS' position as a part of the global system

headed by the UN. Moreover, both the OAS Charter and the Rio

Treaty (Article 3.0) recognized the primacy of the UN in case

of a conflict between the rules and decisions adopted by

both organizations. Nevertheless, the OAS was established by

both the US and Latin America in order to minimize global

involvement in hemispheric issues. Thus, since its

inception, the members of the OAS had been involved in a

rather creative reinterpretation of the relevant articles in

the Rio Treaty and the Charter of both organizations. The

goal of this reinterpretation, often based on an intricate

analysis of semantics, was to free the OAS from the

constraints it was subjected to by the global organization,

especially on the issue of collective security.

As discussed above, Articles 33 and 52 of the UN

Charter established the regional organizations' primacy in

attempting to find a solution to disputes through peaceful

methods. Article 20 of the OAS Charter reinforced this

mandate by establishing that member states should attempt to

125 Presently, Trinidad and Tobago is the only one of the newly independent states which joined the Rio Treaty.

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solve their disputes through the mechanisms provided by the

OAS, before appealing to the Security Council. Regarding the

use of coercive measures, however, approval by the Security

Council was needed for the measures to be valid (Article 53

of the UN Charter). The regional organizations (and the

individual states) were only allowed to use force without

prior Security Council approval in the case of a sudden,

illegal attack (Article 51 of the UN charter).

One of the first sources of confrontation between the

UN and the OAS involved the issue of whether the American

states could bypass the regional organization and submit

their disputes directly before the UN. Not surprisingly, the

PAU argued that the language in Articles 33 and 52 of the UN

Charter ("shall make every effort") and Article 20 of the

OAS Charter ("shall be submitted") established that states

had to exhaust all their alternatives at the regional level

before appealing to the UN.126 Nonetheless, the overwhelming

majority of international law authorities repudiated this

interpretation and argued that members of the OAS could

appeal directly to the UN. This argument was based on

Article 52 of the UN, which in its fourth paragraph

implicitly recognizes the right of a state to appeal to the

126 Acevedo, Domingo E. "The Right of Members of the Organization of American States to Refer their 'Local' Disputes Directly to the United Nations Security Council". American University Journal of International Law and Policy, vol.4, num.25, 1989. 29. Moreno G., 53-54.

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Security Council.127 Moreover, Article 103 of the UN clearly

declares that obligations contracted as a member of the UN

have primacy over those contracted under any other

agreements.12® Thus, Article 103 would invalidate Article 20

of the OAS, which forced members to use the regional

organization as a first recourse to solve disputes.

A second important source of conflict emanated form the

OAS' assertion that it did not need Security Council

authorization to enact non-violent coercive measures. In

1947 Alberto Lleras, then Director General of the PAU,

asserted that:

Evidentemente, las medidas de coercion con el empleo de la fuerza fisica, son privativas del Consejo de Seguridad, con una sola excepcion, la legitima defensa individual y colectiva. Pero las otras, las del articulo 41 [of the UN Charter] no lo son, y aun podria decirse que esta dentro de la facultad de cualquier Estado, sin violar necesariamente los propositos, los principios de la Carta o sus disposiciones, romper relaciones diplomaticas, consulares y economicas o interrumpir sus comunicaciones con otro Estado.125

127 Acevedo, 63. Article 52 of the UN in its fourth paragraph declares that "this Article in no way impairs the application of Articles 34 and 35". These two articles allow members to present unresolved disputes before the Security Council.

128 Moreno G., 54-55. Uruguayan jurist Jimenez de Arechaga argued regarding this issue that: "Los Estados Miembros de un organismo regional tienen derecho a ir directament ante la jurisdiccion universal, existe opcion para acudir, segun las circunstancias a uno u otro regimen de proteccion juridica".

129 Gomez Robledo, 70. Lleras maintained this position when he became Secretary General of the OAS.

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Lleras' argument was based on his interpretation of

"coercion" as entailing the use of physical force.

"Coercion", however, is defined as "compulsion", "contener"

or "sujetar". Thus, it entails compelling an individual or

entity to follow a given course of action. Therefore, non­

violent methods of persuasion fell under the category of

"medidas coercitivas".130

Moreover, Lleras argued that states, in the exercise of

their foreign policy, were free to engage in the use of

economic sanctions and the severance of diplomatic relations

to pursue their goals. If such measures could be legally

used by a single state, then by extension they could be

exercised by a group of states. Ironically, this argument

represents a clear violation of Article 15 of the OAS

Charter which forbids intervention for "any reason

whatever". Moreover, his argument is further undermined by

Article 16 of the OAS which refers to "coercive measures of

an economic and political character", clearly demonstrating

that coercion does not necessarily imply the use of force.

Jimenez de Arechaga also believed that the OAS had the

right to enact non-violent coercive measures, but he based

his argument on the concept of ratio legis.131 This concept

130 Ibid., 71-73.

131 Ibid., 77. In other international law issues, Jimenez demonstrated a lucidity that he clearly lacked in this instance. This is explained by the fact that on this particular issue, Jimenez

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stated that when interpreting the charter, emphasis should

be given to the spirit and intent of the drafters over the

actual wording of the relevant article. Such an argument is

clearly inadmissible as it would open all international

agreements to the selective reinterpretation of its

signatories.

A third source of conflict emanated from an attempt by

naturalists and advocates of increasing the power of

regional organizations to expand the scope of legitimate

self-defense as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter.

D.W. Bowett, for example, argued that Article 51 declares

self-defense to be a "inherent right" ("derecho inmanente"

in Spanish). Therefore, based on a naturalist interpretation

of international law, self-defense (as a natural right)

transcends any stipulations of the UN Charter and can be

exercised in other situations in which a state feels

threatened.132 Bowett argued that the principle of self-

defense could be exercised without prior Security Council

authorization in the defense of territorial integrity,

political independence, nationals abroad and if certain

economic rights were being curtailed.

Opponents of this "expansionist" vision of the

was not trying to be impartial. His use of the ratio legis concept was motivated by his concern that if the OAS needed Security Council approval for the enactment of all coercive measures, then the organization would become emasculated and redundant.

132 Ibid., 40-41.

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principle of self-defense admitted that the use of force was

perceived as legal and valid in some of the instances

mentioned by Bowett before 1945. With the establishment of

the UN, however, a new system of international law came into

being. Before 1945, states were often forced to use military

power in the defense of their rights (even when their

existence was not immediately threatened) because there was

no higher authority to which they could appeal for

redress.133 After 1945, however, this vacuum was filled by

the UN and the Security Council came to exercise a monopoly

on the use of force. Thus, the right of self-defense (either

individually or in connection with a collective security

arrangement) could only be exercised in a situation where a

state was facing an armed attack. Moreover, the self-defense

measures had to be strictly limited to repelling the

attack.134 Hans Kelsen, perhaps the most respected authority

on the subject, stated that "this article [51] applies only

133 The Concert of Europe was perceived by many international law authorities as fulfilling this role. The Concert, however, only met intermittently and did not render impartial decisions. Its decisions were based on the maneuvering and back-room dealings of the Great Powers and were designed to maintain a carefully constructed balance between them. The Arbitration Court at The Hague while rendering decisions based on an impartial interpretation of the law, had no power of enforcement.

134 Moreno G., 110-113. Thus, self-defense could not be invoked for launching retaliatory or preemptive attacks. If a state or group of states which had been engaged in legitimate self-defense invaded the aggressor, then they would be engaging in an illegal act of violence.

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in case of an armed attack. The right of self-defense must

not be exercised in case of any other violation of the

legally protected interest of a Member" .,3S

These attempts to expand the authority of the OAS were

based on extremely loose interpretations of international

law and were rejected by the overwhelming majority of

jurists. Thus, from a legal standpoint the OAS could not

carry out coercive measures without Security Council

approval. Moreover, member states could bypass the OAS

altogether and appeal to the UN directly. Finally, while the

American states could engage in collective security action

without prior Security Council authorization, this right was

severely limited. It could only be exercised in a case where

a member state was under an actual attack. Thus, this

interpretation would nullify the extension of the security

zone to cover broad spaces of the Atlantic and Pacific

oceans. Moreover, it would nullify Article 6 of the Rio

Treaty which technically could lead to the approval of the

use of military force against a non-violent intervention

(through the exercise of the measures listed in Article 8).

In practice, however, the OAS was able to impose non­

violent coercive measures and even to engage in the use of

armed force without Security Council approval. What allowed

the OAS to circumvent the clear and specific legal

restrictions imposed upon it by the UN Charter were the

135 Gomez Robledo, 42.

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realities of Cold War international relations and their

pernicious effect on the Security Council. Indeed, the veto

power granted to the US and its three allies (Britain, China

and France) allowed them to block any resolution demanding

approval of measures enacted by the OAS. Moreover, the

constant deadlock in the Security Council due to the "veto

wars" between the Soviet Union and the US and its allies

served to provider legal rationalization for the OAS use of

unauthorized coercive measures. Article 51 allowed the

states to engage in emergency self-defense measures to

contain a threat to their existence until the Security

Council could take action. The deadlock in the Security

Council, however, meant that in many instances that body was

permanently unable to take action. Thus, the OAS could argue

that its actions were necessary due to the Security

Council's inability to fulfill its mandate.116 Commenting on

this situation Josef Kunz stated that:

Como el tratado [Rio Treaty] tuvo ciertamente en cuenta el hecho de que el Consejo de Seguridad estaba paralizado por el veto, resulto que aqui, al igual que en las Naciones Unidas en su conjunto, el Articulo 51 ha venido siendo usado mSs y mSs como un sustituto, como un Ersatz de la inexistente seguridad colectiva general y sus sanciones. Con esto, sin embargo, la legitima defensa y el Articulo 51 asumen un sentido muy diferente y se convierten de hecho en una tecnica muy semejante al antiguo derecho del recurso a la guerra, y sobre todo cuando no hay un control jurisdiccional sobre el ejercicio de legitima defensa.137

136 Gomez Robledo, 54-55.

137 Ibid., 54-55.

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Introduction

By the late-1950s the Caribbean basin had become a

focus for conflict, pitting right-wing dictatorships,

democratic governments and a radical revolutionary regime

(Cuba) in a chaotic struggle for survival. Indeed, all three

types of governments reached the conclusion that the only

way that their continued existence could be insured was

through the overthrowing of rival regimes. This realization

led to an abandonment of the principle of non-intervention

by the sponsoring of armed opposition against rivals.

Moreover, the right-wing dictatorships and the democratic

regimes attempted to use the OAS both to sponsor collective

action against their ideological rivals and to provide a

protective shield against foreign-sponsored guerilla

movements.

The US watched the unfolding of events in the Caribbean

with great concern. Despite the conventional wisdom that

often portrays the us as an overwhelming colossus exerting

complete control over regional events, the US government

often found itself reacting to completely unforeseen

situations. In fact, the US was unable to manipulate the

actions of many of its so called puppets— somoza in

Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and Batista in

Cuba. Thus, in an attempt to prevent the spread of

destabilization in its sphere of influence, the US adopted

91

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the same tactics used by the Latin American governments,

sponsoring guerilla movements (Guatemala 1954, Cuba 1961)

and subverting the OAS for the pursuit of its strategic

goals.

For the few Latin American democracies, the biggest

threat to their political stability emanated from right-wing

dictatorships. Spearheaded by Guatemala, Uruguay and

Venezuela, these_states advocated a mandatory break in

relations with "anti-democratic" governments and prior to

the Ninth Conference had proposed the use of collective

measures to overthrow right-wing regimes. Both proposals

were rejected by a majority of the American Republics.

In contrast, the U.S. perceived communism as the greatest

threat to hemispheric security and desired to transform the

OAS into an allaince to combat communism. The "loss" of

China and the outbreak of the Korean War heightened the

sense of threat among U.S. policymakers and led to a

purposeful (and largely successful) attempt by the State

Department to transform the OAS into an anti-communist

alliance.13*

These three trends, (non-intervention and collective

action to combat either right-wing dictatorship or

communism), were to converge in the Dominican Republic

during the period of 1959 to 1966. The Dominican Republic

131 For an overview of the OAS' role as an anti­ communist alliance see: Thomas & Thomas, The Organization. 302-337.

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had been under the oppressive rule of Rafael Leonidas

Trujillo since 1930. The Trujillo dictatorship was

characterized by flagrant corruption and nepotism, a

pervasive personality cult, the brutal suppression of

political opponents and the enactment of repulsive racist

policies against Haitians and black Dominicans. After almost

thirty years of virtually unchallenged rule, problems

started for Trujillo in the late 1950s when many dictators

in the Caribbean Basin where overthrown by popular

uprisings.139

The Fifth Meeting of Consultation

Romulo Betancourt, a social democrat and the head of

the Venezuelan delegation during the Ninth Inter-American

Conference, was elected president of Venezuela in late 1958

and immediately began a crusade to oust Trujillo from power.

By early 1959, Fidel Castro, the leader of the successful

revolution against Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, had joined

forces with Betancourt. In June 1959, both leaders

orchestrated an invasion of the Dominican Republic by

Dominican exiles, Cubans, Venezuelans and a handful of

citizens from other countries in the Caribbean basin.140 The

139 The dictatorships in Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba were overthrown in 1956, 1957 1958 and 1959, respectively.

140 Pan American Union, 417. U.S. Department of State. Inter-American Efforts to Relieve International Tensions in the Western Hemisphere.

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invasion was crushed by Trujillo who reacted by demanding a

Meeting of Consultation under Article 6 of the Rio Treaty.

Nonetheless, the Latin American democracies in conjunction

with Cuba and Haiti (a dictatorship that despised Trujillo)

were able to block Trujillo's petition and the Dominican

Republic withdrew its resolution.

The US, however, reminded the delegates that the attack

on the Dominican-Republic was not an isolated attack, but

part of a pattern where exiles in several Caribbean basin

countries were forming invasion with the full knowledge (and

sometimes support) of the host governments. The US, in

conjunction with Brazil, Chile and Peru, proposed a Meeting

of Consultation under Articles 39 and 40 of the OAS Charter.

This meeting would have the duty of studying the general

situation in the Caribbean and proposing measures to end the

recurrent violations of the principle of non­

intervention. 141 This resolution was approved by a vote of

19—0—1.142

The Fifth Meeting of Consultation held in Chile in 1959

(Washington, D.C.: Department of State Publication 7409, July 1962), 17-18. Prior to this invasion attempt, Cuba had launched invasions against Panama and Nicaragua. These attempts were easily defeated by the government forces.

141 Pan American Union, 418.

142 US Department of State.Inter-American Efforts. 20. Cuba and Venezuela supported the resolution after being reassured that it would not deal with any specific instances of violations of the non-intervention principle.

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ended in a stalemate. The agenda for the meeting contained

discussions both on how to strengthen the principle of non­

intervention and a Uruguayan-Venezuelan proposal to study

the possibility of the OAS monitoring and taking action in

cases where representative democracy and human rights were

not being upheld. Moreover, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,

Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela supported a

Cuban proposal to~add a discussion on the relationship

between underdevelopment and instability as part of the

agenda.145 During the meeting, the delegations of Bolivia,

Ecuador (headed by Tobar), Peru and Venezuela attempted to

gain approval of measures to grant the OAS the right to

become involved in situations where a state's internal

policies were not in tandem with universal human rights

standards and where democracy was non-existent. These

attempts proved fruitless, however, in the face of staunch

opposition by the Latin American dictatorships together with

Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and the US. Ultimately,

resolutions were approved reaffirming the absolute character

of the non-intervention principle.

On the other hand, the foreign ministers agreed to a

Colombian proposal to establish an Inter American Commission

on Human Rights, an Inter-American Court of Human Rights and

to upgrade the American Declaration of Rights and Duties of

145 Ibid., 23.

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Man to a convention.144 Moreover, the foreign ministers

drafted the Declaration of Santiago and approved resolutions

calling for the strengthening of the Inter-American Peace

Committee.145 The Declaration of Santiago (which emerged

from a Brazilian proposal) clearly spelled out the

attributes of a democratic government.146 This declaration

was not binding.

After Venezuela continued its vocal condemnation of the

Trujillo regime in the OAS, the dictator retaliated by

inciting two military coups against the Venezuelan

government and by attempting to assassinate Betancourt in

June, 1960. All three attempts were unsuccessful.

Ironically, Trujillo's violation of Venezuela's sovereignty

gave the Latin American democracies the necessary excuse to

successfully demand a Meeting of Consultation under Article

6 of the Rio Treaty.

The Sixth Meeting of Consultation

The Sixth Meeting of Consultation convened in Costa

Rica in August, 1960. In its initial deposition, Venezuela

144 Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Uruguay opposed the creation of the Commission of Human Rights arguing that such a body had the potential to become involved in unwarranted intervention in the internal affairs of states.

145 Pan American Union, 9-10.

146 US Department of State, Inter-American Efforts. IS­ IS.

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presented its case against the Dominican Republic and called

for the imposition against the Trujillo government of all

the "sanctions1' spelled out in Article 8 of the Rio Treaty,

except for the use of armed force.147 This was the first

instance in which a member state had called for the

imposition of the measures in Article 8 against another

government. The Dominican Republic correctly pointed out

that the Rio Treaty was a collective security agreement not

an instrument of punishment.148 According to the Dominican

Republic the measures spelled out in Article 8 were to be

used only in case of a continuing act of intervention.

Instead, the Dominican delegate suggested that the issue

should be dealt with through the mechanisms for the peaceful

settlement of disputes. Moreover, the Dominican Republic

also pointed out correctly that in the absence of an

emergency, any coercive measures enacted by the OAS needed

prior Security Council approval.

Despite these arguments, the Sixth Meeting of

Consultation agreed by a vote of 19 to 0 to break diplomatic

relations with the Dominican Republic and establish an arms

147 Ibid., 66. Notice the Venezuelan use of the word sanctions, which entails punishment. Venezuela, thus, was attempting to expand the original scope of the Rio Treaty.

145 Moreno G. , 121. As part of his deposition, the Dominican delegate quoted Kunz who had stated that the Rio Treaty was : "un sistema de legitima defensa y no un sistema de sanciones".

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embargo on the country.149 According to the stipulations of

Article 5 of the Rio Treaty, a report of the actions taken

was submitted to the Security Council. The embargo was

further tightened in January 1961. This tightening of the

embargo was approved by exactly 2/3 of the members.150 This

was the first instance in which sanctions were taken against

an American Republic under the Rio Treaty.

In early September, 1960, the Soviet Union requested

that the Security Council be convened in order to approve

the sanctions enacted against the Dominican Republic. On

September 8, two competing resolutions were submitted to the

Security Council. A resolution presented by the Soviet Union

called for the Security Council to approve the measures

taken by the American community. The resolution presented by

Argentina, Ecuador and the US (the hemispheric

representatives in the Security Council) merely called for

the body to take note of the measures enacted.151 The US

defended this obvious disregard for both the spirit and the

letter of the UN Charter by using Lleras' argument that the

149 Pan American Union, 318. The two parties in the dispute did not vote, according to the stipulations of the Rio Treaty.

150 Jerome Slater. The OAS and United States Foreign Policy. (Ohio State University Press, 1967), 193-194. The Dominican Republic voted against. Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay and Uruguay abstained. As part of its compliance with the embargo the U.S. first imposed a special tax on Dominican sugar and later reduced the Dominican sugar quota.

151 Moreno G., 127-128.

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measures chat could be enacted by a single state could also

be enacted jointly by a group of states. Venezuela (speaking

as a special participant with voice, but no vote) argued

that Security Council approval was not necessary because the

coercive measures enacted were in harmony with American

international law.'57 The outlandish Venezuelan argument was

exceeded by Great Britain's which claimed that the measures

enacted were "political" and therefore beyond the scope of

the Security Council.153 Finally, in a vote along Cold War

lines, the resolution presented by the American states was

approved by a vote of 9-0-2. The Security Council's willing

abdication of its right to approve the enactment of coercive

measures by a regional organization was prompted by Cold War

politics. This precedent, however, was adopted by the OAS as

a shield to ward off future demands of the Security Council

to rule on the legality of future measures enacted by the

OAS. The Security Council, thus, was reduced from its

rightful role in approving the use of coercive measures to a

role as a mere observer.

Assessment of the Fifth and Sixth Meetings of Consultation

Various factors come strongly to mind when examining

the results of the Fifth and Sixth Meetings of Consultation.

First of all, the Latin American democracies where able to

152 Ibid., 129.

153 Ibid., 129-130.

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use to their advantage the discrepancy in mandate between a

Meeting of Consultation under the OAS Charter and under the

Rio Treaty. Thus, while no punitive actions were taken

against Venezuela or Cuba, (as the meeting was held under

the relevant articles of the OAS Charter), the Dominican

Republic was subjected to sanctions that weakened the

Trujillo regime both materially and morally. Thus, the Latin

American states"-acted with glaring partiality, punishing the

Dominican Republic for actions that they were willing to

overlook when committed by Cuba and Venezuela. Secondly, the

Latin Americans proved as willing to violate the principle

of non-intervention and to subvert the OAS Charter and the

Rio Treaty as the US. Cuba, Dominican Republic and Venezuela

were all guilty of violating the principle of non­

intervention. Yet, when becoming the targets of intervention

they hypocritically condemned the aggressors and claimed the

protection of the OAS Charter they had so blatantly

disregarded.

Moreover, the American states, which prided themselves

in their punctilious observance of international law,

shamelessly expanded the scope of the Rio Treaty from

collective security in case of emergency to an instrument of

punishment after an aggression had taken place. While there

is no doubt that Trujillo had committed a flagrant violation

of international law by attempting to assassinate

Betancourt, the Dominican delegate was correct in his

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assertion that the American community had no legal basis to

enact sanctions against his government. The "new"

international law of the post-1945 world and the intense

(and justified) fear of US interventionism had conspired to

render the OAS legally incapable of enacting sanctions

against states that committed "one-shot" acts of

intervention. Once the intervention was over, the American

community was forced to solve the issue through the peaceful

settlement of disputes. Sanctions could only be enacted if

the aggressor continued its interventionary tactics or if it

refused to participate in the peaceful settlement of the

issue.

Thus, the sanctions imposed on the Dominican Republic

were not legal if the relevant stipulations of the Rio

Treaty were strictly interpreted. The only way that the Rio

Treaty could legally impose sanctions on the Dominican

Republic was by embracing the concept of ratio legis.

However, Trujillo was so thoroughly despised by all the

states in the hemisphere that even the other Latin American

dictatorships decided to ignore the illegal expansion in the

mandate of the Rio Treaty. The measures against the

Dominican Republic were enacted in a spirit of retribution

and in order to set a precedent that would empower the

OAS.154 Ironically, Cuba was the only state other than the

,w Ibid., 122-124. Bolivia approved the measures because "Venezuela esta buscando una satisfaccion a esos ultrajes y nosotros estamos

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Dominican Republic which voiced some fleeting concern over

the actions taken by the American community.1” This, of

course, was not out of love for Trujillo, but out of fear

that this precedent could be used against them.

It is also important to note that despite the Santiago

Declaration and the commitment to establish an Inter-

American Human Rights Commission and Court of Human Rights,

the overwhelming~majority of Latin American states were

still leery of setting a legal precedent for an OAS

intervention in the domestic policies of member states.

Thus, if Trujillo had not committed the mistake of

retaliating against Venezuela, the American community would

have been legally incapable of taking action against his

regime.

In 1960, the democratic Latin American governments

celebrated their victory over the despised Dominican

dictator. It was a victory they came to regret five years

later when the US and the Latin American dictatorships used

the same semantic and legal legerdemain, and the same

blatant disregard for clear and specific agreements to

prevent a moderate reformist regime from taking power in the

Dominican Republic.

obligados a darsela en nombre de la conciencia de America". Paraguay approved them because it would serve as "una contribucion y como un fortalecimiento del sistema interamericano".

155 Ibid., 121.

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Death of Truiillo and Resulting Chaos

Although Trujillo was assassinated in May 1961, his

family, with the support of the armed forces, was able to

remain in power. Joaquin Balaguer, a close ally of Trujillo

who had been appointed president by the dictator in August

1960, also remained faithful to the regime. The OAS refused

to be swayed by Balaguer's cosmetic reforms and maintained

the economic embargo in place.

The Kennedy administration supported the continuation

of the OAS' sanctions while at the same time advocating the

creation of a coalition government between Balaguer and

moderate elements of the opposition. This course of action

reflected the U.S. desire to establish a democratic

government in Santo Domingo, tempered by the belief that any

Dominican government totally controlled by the opposition

would fall prey to communism. In fact, Kennedy himself said

"Balaguer is our only tool. The anti-communist liberals

aren't strong enough".156 When Balaguer refused to carry out

a detrujillization of the government, the U.S. began to

advocate the lifting of the OAS sanctions in order to

encourage Balaguer to carry out more reforms.

This lenient U.S. policy was shattered on November 15,

1961, when Trujillo's brothers returned from exile and

demanded Balaguer's resignation and the reversal of the few

156 Piero Gleijeses. The Dominican Crisis. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1978), 41.

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reforms that had been enacted. The U.S. reacted swiftly to

the Trujillos' attempt to restore the old order in its

totality by ordering elements of the Second Fleet (including

Marines) to sail toward the Dominican Republic. By November

19, Trujillo's son and brothers had left. On January 1, 1962

the U.S. forced Balaguer to resign and he was substituted by

a seven member Council of State which was to rule the

country provisionally until the celebration of free

elections at the end of the year. The OAS reaction to the

Trujillo brothers' coup attempt was pathetic. The OAS, in

fact, did not convene to discuss the situation until

December 14, 1961. By then, the display of U.S. military

power had already solved the crisis. On January 4, the OAS

sanctions were lifted.

In elections held on December 1962, Juan Bosch, a

member of the social democratic Dominican Revolutionary

Party (PRD), was elected president. Despite his honesty and

commitment to democracy, the new president soon came to be

perceived by the U.S. as arrogant, incompetent and

paranoid.157 Moreover, Bosch's extreme nationalism, his

157 John Bartlow Martin. Overtaken bv Events. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966), 344-371,519- 528. Martin served as Kennedy's special envoy to the Dominican Republic from September 1961 to March 1962, when his position was upgraded to ambassador. After the coup in September 1963, relations were severed and Martin left for the U.S. were he continued as a recalled ambassador until February 1964. During the Dominican Intervention he returned to the island as Johnson's special envoy.

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refusal to compromise in his dispute with the U.S. sugar

companies in the island and his refusal to enact

restrictions against marxist parties further strained his

relations with the U.S.

Furthermore, among the U.S, military there was concern

that Bosch had links with the communists. Lt. Col. Bevan

Cass, military attache to the Dominican Republic said that

he had "misgivings-about Bosch's attitude towards the

Castro/Communists".158 It is interesting to note that while

the U.S. officials suspected Bosch of communist ties,

marxist elements accused Bosch of being a "Betancourt in

disguise" and a "Yankee puppet".*59 Bosch also was the

victim of a quandary often faced by moderate reformists.

While being perceived as too radical by the ancien regime,

he was not radical enough to satisfy the demands of the

masses that elected him.

On September 25, 1963, Bosch was overthrown by a

military coup which turned power over to a triumvirate

composed by conservative civilians. While the U.S.

government was not involved in the coup, it made no move to

forestall it. Ambassador Martin's request for a show of

military strength in support of Bosch was turned down by the

158 Gleijeses, 96.

159 Gleijeses, 101. Martin, Overtaken. 308.

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State Department.160 Bosch was deported from the country.

The top priority of the new government was to gain U.S.

recognition. To achieve this, the Triumvirate banned the

marxist parties and announced that elections were to be held

in 1965.161 Despite an initial reluctance by the Kennedy

administration to recognize the new government, by November

the U.S. had improved its relations with the Triumvirate.

This occurred notronly because of the Triumvirate's promise

of free elections offered the U.S. the best of possible

alternatives (democracy without Bosch), but also because the

1J4 launched a guerilla uprising in late November. On

December 14, 1963, President Johnson recognized the

Triumvirate.162 By late December the untrained guerrillas of

the 1J4 had been thoroughly vanquished.

While the U.S. saw the Triumvirate as a source of

stability and a bulwark against communism, the putschist

160 Jerome Slater. Intervention and Negotiation. (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1970), 15.

161 By the early 1960s there were three small communist parties in the Dominican Republic. The 1J4 was pro-Havana, the MPD was pro-Peking and the PSP was pro-Moscow. The three were riven by both inter and intra party disputes. Gleijeses, 133-145.

162 John Bartlow Martin, interview by Paige Mulhollan, Oral Histories of the Johnson Administration, ed. Robert E. Lester. (Frederick, Md.: University Publication of America, 1987), microfiche series 88/201, fiche 234. pp.1-14,1-15. The Kennedy administration's plans to recognize the Triumvirate were aborted by the president's assassination. Once Johnson was sworn in he was advised to delay recognition in order to avoid the false impression that he was reversing a Kennedy policy.

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government was unpopular with the low classes, which

supported the PRD, and with the middle class, which

supported the newly created Reformist Party (PR). Moreover,

the conservative coalition that overthrew Bosch was being

splintered by an internal squabbling for cabinet positions

and by Donald Reid Cabral's increasing dominance over the

other members of the Triumvirate.163

Reid announced that free elections were to be held in

September 1965.161 Reid's anticommunism, his acceptance of

IMF austerity measures and his removal of corrupt top rank

army officers (done largely to eliminate threats to his

government from within the armed forces), gained him the

fervent support of W. Tapley Bennett, the new U.S.

Ambassador.165 As Reid's unpopularity continued to increase,

rumors spread that a military coup against his government

was going to take place and on April 23, Ambassador Bennett

was summoned to Washington for consultations with State

163 Martin, Overtaken. 637-638. Reid, a conservative former member of the Council of State, joined the Triumvirate after one of the original members resigned in December.

1M However, Bosch, Balaguer (leader of the PR) and the marxist parties were not allowed to participate.

165 An extremely conservative Foreign Service career officer, Bennett is sharply criticized for his refusal to establish links with the moderate pro-Bosch opposition, for his overestimation of the communists strength and for his barely concealed preference for authoritarian right wing governments. Slater, Intervention. 27,29,59. Martin, Overtaken. 653-657.

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Indeed, Bosch, exiled in Puerto Rico, had been

orchestrating a civilian-military countercoup to regain

power without elections. Bosch argued that he was still the

legal president of the country until his constitutional term

expired. On February 1965, the PRD signed a formal agreement

with the Christian Socialist Revolutionary Party (PRSC)

committing the tw o r parties to a joint fight for the

restoration of constitutionality without specifying the

means. The three marxist parties, tried to create a leftist

anti-Reid coalition but their entreaties were rejected by

both the PRD and the PRSC.'66

The countercoup was set for April 26, but it was

triggered on April 24 when the Reid government discovered

and tried to suppress the plot.167 Amidst great confusion,

the pro-Bosch military forces were able to take over two

army bases in the vicinity of Santo Domingo. By early April

25, the Reid government was tottering. Both the air force

and the navy ignored Reid's orders and remained neutral.

More importantly, Gen. Wessin y Wessin, head of the Armed

166 There is disagreement among experts regarding the PRD-PRSC pact. Lowenthal argues convincingly that the marxist parties were not a part of the pact. Slater supports this assertion.Conservative writers argue that the marxist parties were secretly part of the pact. Martin argues that the PRSC saw the pact as an electoral alliance while the PRD saw it as the political base for a coup.

167 Center for Strategic Studies. Dominican Action-1965. (Washington: Georgetown University, 1966), 10.

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Forces Training Center (CEFA) refused to deploy troops in

Reid's support.16* Moreover, constitutionalist elements,

(the name of the pro-Bosch forces) in the army began to pass

out weapons to civilian elements throughout the capital.

That morning, Reid approached the U.S. embassy and requested

pressure on the officers who had remained neutral and even

direct U.S. military aid.169

On April 257_the State Department requested the U.S.

Navy to send vessels to Santo Domingo. The ships would

remain out of sight from land and be ready to rescue U.S.

citizens. The State Department decided that the best

alternative was to support the establishment of a military

junta and began to pressure Reid to relinquish power to such

a junta. By the evening of the 25th, however, Reid was

arrested by the constitutionalists.

The rapid and surprising victory of the pro-Bosch

forces alarmed both the conservative Dominican parties and

many high level officers in the armed forces who were anti-

Reid, but not pro-Bosch. The top hierarchy of the Dominican

navy, air force and the CEFA began to pressure the pro-Bosch

forces to accept the creation of a conservative military

junta. The constitutionalists refused and instead swore Jose

Molina Urefia, highest member of the PRD on Dominican soil,

l6* Gen. Wessin had been instrumental in orchestrating the coup against Bosch. CEFA was the elite force of the Dominican army and the only unit with tanks.

169 Gleijeses, 179.

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as Provisional President. This triggered air attacks by the

conservative military against the constitutionalists'

positions.

For the following two days, the constitutionalists and

the loyalists (the name of the conservative military

elements) battled each other for control of Santo Domingo.

By the afternoon of the 27, it appeared that the loyalists

had the upper hand_and Molina Urena approached the U.S.

embassy asking Ambassador Bennett, (who had returned that

same day) for his support in arranging negotiations with the

loyalists. Bennett refused Molina Urena's plea, claiming

that the U.S. was not going to get involved in Dominican

internal affairs. After Bennett's refusal, Molina Urena,

together with most of his cabinet, sought asylum at various

Latin American embassies.

With all the important PRD leaders under asylum, Col.

Caamano Deno became de facto leader of the

constitutionalists. Caamano promptly organized a counter

offensive that by nightfall had forced the loyalists to

retreat out of the city. On April 28, at the insistence of

Ambassador Bennett the loyalists established a military

junta. The loyalists, however, were in no position to return

to the offensive and, in fact, told the U.S. embassy that

they were no longer able to guarantee the lives of U.S.

citizens.

In the afternoon, Col. Benoit, head of the military

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junta, formally requested the landing of U.S. troops

claiming that the revolt was controlled by communists. In

reality, the anti-communist Caamano remained in control of

the movement.170 Bennett supported the immediate landing of

troops, pointing out that the loyalist forces were

demoralized and on the verge of collapse. Bennett proposed

that "if Washington wishes, they can be landed for the

purpose of protecting the evacuation of American

citizens11.171 At about 6:00 PM President Johnson authorized

the landing of 500 U.S. Marines with the condition that they

would only open fire if attacked first. Benoit's written

request had asked for U.S. troops to restore order. The

State Department considered that was not a justifiable

reason for intervention and instructed Bennett to get a new

request from Benoit, this time requesting U.S. troops to

protect the lives of U.S. citizens.172

Although the official U.S. rationale for intervention

was safeguarding U.S. lives, the administration greatest's

concern was the imminent victory of a movement supposedly

led by communists. William Raborn, Director of the CIA,

170 Caamano, however, would undergo a gradual radicalization after the events in 1965. After living several years in Cuba, Caamano returned clandestinely to the Dominican Republic in 1973. His attempts to establish a guerilla movement were unsuccesful, however, and was later killed by the Dominican armed forces.

171 Ibid., 254.

172 Martin,Overtaken, 656-657.

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argued that the constitutionalist movement was "Moscow-

financed, Havana-directed".173 Senators Russell Long and

George Smathers described the goal stated by the

administration in a secret meeting as "to be certain that

the island of the Dominican Republic was not lost to

Communism".174

The administration and the U.S. embassy initially

believed that the~mere presence of U.S. troops on the island

would be enough to cause the collapse of the

constitutionalists. Thus, the U.S. troops restricted

themselves to their official mission of protecting U.S. and

other foreign nationals and were stationed in the embassy

and in the Hotel Embajador, where U.S. citizens were told to

congregate.

While the landing of U.S. troops stopped the

disintegration of the loyalist forces, they did not resume

their offensive. The loyalists were simply too demoralized

to engage in another offensive and were simply waiting for

the U.S. troops to "mop up" Santo Domingo for them. The

loyalist inaction signaled to Washington that the

constitutionalists could only be stopped by a direct

173 Abraham Lowenthal. The Dominican Intervention. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 105. For an assessment on the quality of the CIA list of "communist leaders" see: Martin, interview by Paige Mulhollan, Oral Histories microfiche series 88/201, fiche 234. pp.1-18 - 1-20.

174 Lowenthal, 105.

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involvement of U.S. troops. In the afternoon of April 29,

500 more Marines landed in the country. They were followed

the next morning by 2,500 men from the 82nd Airborne

Division. This was the beginning of a massive U.S.

deployment that would reach 23,000 men by May 10.175 These

troops quickly took an active role in fighting the pro-Bosch

forces and by the afternoon of April 30, had dislodged the

constitutionalists~from the Duarte Bridge and from several

blocks in Eastern Santo Domingo.176

Enter the OAS

Acutely aware that its military intervention would be

severely criticized as a violation of the non-intervention

principle, the U.S. moved swiftly in an attempt to assuage

the OAS members. In the evening of April 28, the Latin

American representatives to the OAS were informed of the

actions taken by the U.S., presumably in order to protect

the lives of its citizens. The next day the Council was

convened and the U.S. representative, Ellsworth Bunker, gave

a formal presentation of the U.S. actions. Acting on a

Colombian proposal, the Council sent a message to the Papal

Nuncio in the Dominican Republic, the Dean of the Diplomatic

Corps in Santo Domingo, requesting him to attempt to forge a

cease fire. Although the Nuncio presided over a cease fire

175 Ibid., 112.

176 Slater. Intervention. 34.

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on April 30, this agreement was repeatedly violated by both

sides.

On April 29, Chile requested convoking the Tenth

Meeting of Consultation under the OAS Charter to discuss the

events in the Dominican Republic. The Chilean choice

represented an acknowledgement of reality. By requesting a

meeting under the OAS Charter, Chile would be unable to

request binding~actions against the U.S. intervention. On

the other hand, this effectively blocked any attempt to

establish a binding resolution legalizing the U.S. landing.

Finally, Chile argued successfully that given the urgency of

the situation it would be necessary for the Council to act

as a Provisional Meeting of Consultation, rather than

waiting for the foreign ministers to congregate. This

proposal entailed a very liberal interpretation of the

Charter. While article 42 allowed for a member of the

Council to serve in place of the foreign minister, this had

been intended to apply in individual situations, not to the

whole body.177

Once the Meeting of Consultation was officially

inaugurated, those Latin American states opposed to the

intervention shrewdly argued that they lacked the authority

to exercise their own judgement when voting. Therefore, they

periodically requested recesses in order to receive

177 Thomas and Thomas, The Dominican Republic. 46-47.

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instructions from their foreign ministries.17® This strategy

allowed these delegations to prolong the debate and delay

the vote on the Inter American Peace Force.

Those states opposed to the intervention suffered a

heavy blow, however, when the Council approved a resolution

by a vote of 16-0-4 urging the establishment of a neutral

zone to protect the areas where the embassies were located

and where foreigners had congregated awaiting evacuation.179

While this resolution had no binding power, the U.S. swiftly

complied because this provided it with a convenient excuse

to expand its presence in Western Santo Domingo. By the end

of April 30, this "neutral area", known as the International

Security Zone (ISZ), had been established. That same day,

the Council approved a resolution authorizing the OAS

Secretary General to go to the Dominican Republic in a fact

finding mission.

On May 1, the delegates to the Council met in their

capacity as a Provisional Meeting of Consultation. They

immediately began discussion on three individual resolutions

presented by the delegations of the U.S., Mexico and Chile.

The U.S. resolution called for the establishment of a five

member Special Committee to investigate the situation in the

178 Organizacion de Estados Americanos. Decima Reunion de Consulta de Ministros de Relaciones Exteriores, Acta de la Cuarta Sesion de la Comision General 3 de mayo de 1965 (OEA/Ser.F/II.10/Doc.32 Rev.2), 89.

179 The four abstentions were Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela.

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Dominican Republic and make recommendations to the Meeting.

The Committee would also have the authority to act as

mediator in achieving a cease fire. The Chilean resolution

requested the U.S. "to terminate its unilateral action in

the Dominican Republic".180 It also called upon the U.S.

forces to behave with the utmost impartiality while in

Dominican soil. The Mexican resolution merely combined the

two previous resolution.

In a successful attempt to deflect criticism of the

U.S. actions, Brazil, Costa Rica and the U.S., argued that

the Meeting needed to make a distinction between issues that

had to be attended to immediately and issues that could be

addressed in due time. The creation of the Committee which

could be instrumental in forging a cease fire and evacuating

foreigners needed to be approved as soon as possible. The

other issue, the legality of the U.S. actions, could wait

until order in the Dominican Republic was restored. The U.S.

resolution was approved by a vote of 19-0-1 with Chile

abstaining.181 It was agreed that the Committee would be

composed of the delegates of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia,

Guatemala and Panama.

180 Organization of American States, Tenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs Request to the Government of the United States to Terminate its Unilateral Action in the Dominican Republic. (OEA/Ser.F/II.10/Doc.10, 1 May 1965).

181 Chile argued that the principle of non-intervention took precedence over all others, even if this entailed human suffering.

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On May 2, the Special Committee demonstrated its

willingness to serve as a pliant instrument of U.S. foreign

policy when it approved the establishment of a cordon

sanitaire linking the U.S. forces in Eastern Santo Domingo

with the ISZ. The official rationale for the cordon,

officially known as the Line of Communication (LOC) was to

serve as a direct link between the ISZ and the San Isidro

airport (where~the~loyalists where headquartered). In fact,

the LOC served to divide the constitutionalist forces in

two, bottling up the stronger group in downtown Santo

Domingo. This effectively neutralized the majority of the

constitutionalist forces which were completely surrounded by

the sea, a river and a continuous chain of U.S. troops.182

On May 3, the Meeting of Consultation was reconvened

and Ambassador Bunker presented a resolution calling for the

establishment of an Inter-American Peace Force with the duty

of assisting the Special Committee in carrying out its

functions.183 The U.S. troops already on Dominican soil

would become part of this force. The Colombian ambassador

pointed out that as described in the resolution, the Inter-

182 Bruce Palmer. Intervention in the Caribbean. (Lexington, Ky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989), 50- 51. Gen. Palmer was in overall command of the U.S. forces which occupied Santo Domingo. Once the IAPF was created, Palmer was appointed Deputy Commander of the force.

183 Organization of American States, Tenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Draft Resolution Presented by the United States. (OEA/Ser.F/II.10/Doc.7 Rev.2, 2 May 1965)

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American Force would be a conglomerate of allied forces with

a unified command, but still under the authority of their

respective governments. He proposed instead that the force

should be under the authority of the OAS. Bunker promptly

produced a revised resolution clearly establishing that the

force was to serve under the command of the OAS

(OEA/Ser.F/II.10/Doc.7 Rev.3).

By the time~the Meeting was adjourned, a clear fault

line between the American Republics had emerged. On one side

were Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. These states

argued that the principle of non-intervention was sacrosanct

and that the integrity of the state took precedence over the

life of individuals. Moreover, they questioned the integrity

of U.S. motives by pointing out how the Johnson

administration's press releases had shifted the goals of the

operation from protecting U.S. lives to preventing a

communist takeover. They also argued that numbers did not

bestow legality. Thus, an invasion by several states was not

more acceptable than an invasion by only one state.

All the other states were in favor of the establishment

of the international force. Most of these states were ruled

by right-wing dictatorships and therefore were sympathetic

to any forceful action taken against a reformist movement.

While Colombia, Costa Rica and Venezuela were ruled by

democratic governments, the three states had their own

particular reasons for supporting the U.S. resolution.

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Colombia's foreign policy had traditionally been based on

closely matching the U.S. position (the North Star

Doctrine). Moreover, all three states were located in the

Caribbean Basin and therefore were acutely aware of Castro's

subversive activities. In fact, the Venezuelan government

had been battling a Havana-supported guerilla movement since

the early 1960s.

On May 4,“the Special Committee delivered its first

report to the Meeting and requested the establishment of an

international force. As the debate on the U.S. resolution

continued, supporters of the measure appealed to pragmatism,

a sense of history and sentimentality. On the first hand,

they argued that U.S. troops were already in the Dominican

Republic and that therefore it was up to the Meeting to make

the best out of a decidedly uncomfortable situation by

establishing OAS control over the U.S. forces. Other

delegates argued that the OAS was at an historical

crossroads and that if it failed to establish the

international force it would be discarded as irrelevant.

Finally, an argument was made that to allow the civil war to

continue unabated would be an act of cruelty. Human beings

could not be sacrificed on the altar of abstract principles.

On May 4, the constitutionalists declared Camaano to be

the provisional president until Bosch's return. On May 5,

the constitutionalists and the loyalists signed a second

cease fire under the aegis of the Special Committee. Under

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the Act of Santo Domingo both sides recognized the legality

of the ISZ and agreed to accept the Special Committee's

authority in supervising the compliance with the cease

fire.184 As a reaction to Camaano's appointment, John Martin

pressured the military junta to resign and to establish a

new government with civilian participation. In May 7, a five

member civil-military Government of National Reconstruction

(GNR) under the"leadership of Antonio Imbert Barrera (a man

idealized by Martin) was established. This government was

never recognized by Washington.1*5

Birth of the Inter-American Peace Force

The Meeting reconvened on the evening of May 5, for the

holding of its Sixth Session. Conscious that they lacked the

necessary votes to block the U.S. resolution, the states

opposed to the intervention attempted one last desperate

ploy based on two obscure procedural technicalities. While

the U.S. resolution (Doc. 7) calling for the establishment

of the international force had been received by the

presidency of the Meeting on April 30, it had not been

,M Organization of American States, Tenth Meeting of Consultation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Act of Santo Dominao (OEA/Ser.F./II.10/Doc.38 Rev., 6 May 1965)

,M The brainchild of John Martin, the Imbert government became both an embarrassment and an obstacle for U.S. policymakers. Martin, interview by Paige Mulhollan, Oral Histories 1-31 - 1-36. Slater, Intervention. 83, 85.

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presented to the floor until May 3. On the other hand,

Mexico (Doc. 8) and Chile (Doc. 10) had drafted resolutions

which reached the presidency after the U.S. resolution.

However, these resolutions had been presented to the floor

on May 1. Therefore, the Chilean and Mexican ambassadors

demanded that voting on the U.S. resolution should be

suspended until a vote was held on their respective

resolutions.

The Chilean and Mexican claim seemed to be strengthened

by the fact that in an attempt to garner goodwill, Bunker

had agreed to a new draft of his resolution which used more

florid and grandiloquent language. Because this proposal had

been submitted by countries other than the U.S., the

international force resolution had been reclassified as Doc.

39. Thus opponents to the resolution argued that Doc. 39 was

an altogether new resolution preceded by the Chilean and

Mexican resolutions, both in regards to when it reached the

presidency and when it was presented on the floor.

Unfortunately for the opponents of the resolution, the

president of the session was Guillermo Sacasa, the

representative of the Somoza dictatorship. Sacasa ruled that

Doc. 39 was the outgrowth of Doc. 7 and therefore should be

voted on first. Continuing their delaying tactics, Mexico

and Chile were able to pressure Sacasa into submitting the

dispute to a vote by the floor. The Chilean-Mexican gambit

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was defeated 15-5.186 Immediately afterwards, the U.S.

resolution calling for the establishment of an hemispheric

peace force was finally approved by a vote of 14-5-1.187

Thus, the resolution was passed by the bare 2/3 minimum.

The U.S. expected participation by many Latin American

countries, but at the end only six nations sent troops.188

Brazil sent 1,152 men, Costa Rica 21, El Salvador 3,

Honduras 250, Nicaragua 159 and Paraguay 178. Of the six,

only Costa Rica had a democratic government. The U.S. forces

were integrated into the Inter American Peace Force (IAPF),

and a Brazilian general, Hugo Panasco Alvim, was named

overall commander. Gen. Palmer, however, made very clear

that in case of a conflict between U.S. and OAS policies he

would follow the orders of the U.S. government.

Having come only one vote short in their attempt to

derail the creation of the IAPF, the states opposed to this

action devised a new stratagem, one that if successful,

could have led to the imposition of severe restrictions on

186 For a look at this confusing yet crucial procedural vote see: Organizacidn de Estados Americanos, Decima Reunidn de Consulta de Ministros de Relaciones Exteriores, Acta de la Sexta Sesion de la Comision General (OEA/Ser.F/II.10/Doc.40 Rev.2, 4-5 May 1965), 166-170.

187 Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay voted against. Venezuela abstained because its proposal for evacuating all U.S. troops before the international force began operations was rejected.

188 Gleijeses, 262.

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or even to the elimination of the peace force. On May 8, the

Credentials Committee of the Meeting of Consultation

presented a resolution stating that due to the civil war in

the Dominican Republic, none of the factions vying for power

could claim to exercise de facto control over the country.

Therefore, the committee recommended declaring that the seat

of the Dominican Republic would be hereafter considered

vacant.1*9 InsteadT"both Dominican factions would be allowed

to appoint observers (with voice, but not vote) to the

Meeting of Consultation. This resolution was drafted by

Chile and Ecuador, two committee members who had opposed the

creation of the IAPF.*90

This resolution was immediately opposed by Costa Rica,

which reminded the delegates that during the first session

of the Meeting of Consultation (May 1st), the Credentials

Committee had declared that all delegations were in good

standing and could take part in the proceedings. Ecuador

countered by reminding the delegates that in previous Inter-

American meetings of various types, delegates had had their

189 Organization of American States, Tenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Draft Resolution. (OEA/Ser.F/II.10/Doc.49, 8 May 1965) The Dominican seat had been occupied by Jose A. Bonilla Atiles, a representative of the overthrown Reid government, which nonetheless had continued to represent his country with full voice and voting rights.

190 El Salvador, the third member of the committee refrained from either endorsing or opposing the resolution during the committee session by claiming that it lacked the necessary information to make the proper decision.

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participation revoked due to changes in government. Once

more, Sacasa attempted to block this new ploy by the anti-

IAPF current, this time arguing that the Committee of

Credentials had exceeded its powers because it had acted

without a formal petition from the plenary session.

Venezuela immediately reminded Sacasa that such a petition

had been lodged in the previous plenary session.191 Forced

to allow voting~on~the resolution, Sacasa proceeded to

personalize the issue by stating that the resolution was an

insult to the honor of Bonilla.192 The resolution was

soundly defeated by a vote of 5-0-15.

On May 1, 1965 the Soviet Union requested the

convocation of the Security Council to discuss the landing

of US forces in the Dominican Republic. The Soviet Union

accused the US of violating both Article 2 of the UN Charter

and Article 17 of the OAS Charter. On May 3, the Security

Council discussed the situation for the first time and the

US claimed its right to intervene in the Dominican Republic

in order to protect the lives of US citizens and other

foreign nationals. Nonetheless, similar to the position

taken in the OAS, the US eventually shifted the focus of its

191 Organizacidn de Estados Americanos. Decima Reunidn de Consulta de Ministros de Relaciones Exteriores, Acta de la Quinta Sesion Plenaria 8 de mayo de 1965 (OEA/Ser.F/II.10/Doc.50 Rev.32), 105-106. In an extremely cunning maneuver this petition was submitted by Venezuela late at night and approved without scrutiny by tired delegates who only wanted to adjourn for the day.

192 Ibid., 110.

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rationale to the danger of a communist takeover in Santo

Domingo.

The Soviet Union countered one day later by presenting

a resolution that condemned the US for its intervention in

the Dominican Republic and demanded the immediate withdrawal

of US forces.193 On May 11, Uruguay submitted a resolution

that reaffirmed the right of the Dominican people to

exercise their"right of self-determination and called for a

cease fire among the hostile Dominican factions. The

resolution also invited the UN Secretary General to take the

necessary measures to keep the Security Council abreast of

the events taking place in the island. Moreover, it called

for the OAS to cooperate with the UN and to keep the

Security Council informed of the actions taken. Thus, even

Uruguay, which had voted against the establishment of the

IAPF, refused to grant to the global organization any

significant involvement in the issue. This is exemplified by

its refusal to condemn the US and by its obviating any

mention of the fact that neither the US operation nor the

IAPF had been approved by the Security Council.194 In the

end, the UN was once again crippled by Cold War politics,

and its involvement in the Dominican Republic was limited to

the sending of an observer team in May 1965 and to

supervising (jointly with the OAS) the elections of July

193 Moreno G., 203.

194 Ibid., 205-206.

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1966. The Soviet resolution was never presented for a vote,

while the Uruguayan resolution was vetoed by the Soviet

Union.

In mid-May the UN observer team arrived to the

Dominican Republic. Relations between the UN observers and

the members of the IAPF were characterized by mutual

distrust. The latter complained that the observer team,

especially IndiarrMaj. Gen. Indura Rikhye, were biased in

favor of the constitutionalists.195 Indeed, the observer

force was quick to report alleged violations of the cease­

fire by the loyalists and the IAPF while dismissing IAPF

charges against the constitutionalists.

Having achieved the containment of the

constitutionalist forces through the LOC, and having given

the intervention a multilateral status through the creation

of the IAPF, the U.S. now used a combination of negotiations

and force to nullify the constitutionalists. On May 13,

talks began in Puerto Rico between PRD leaders (including

Bosch) and high level U.S. officials.196 Two days later both

195 Palmer, op. cit., p. 63. The observer team was headed by Jose Mayobre from Venezuela.

1% This delegation included Thomas Mann, Under Secretary of State; Jack Vaughn, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs; McGeorge Bundy, Special Advisor to the President and Cyrus Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense. While those involved in the mission categorically deny it, most writers on the subject argue that the mission was plagued by dissension between relatively "soft-liners" Bundy and Vance and "hard-liners" Vaughn and Mann.

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sides agreed on the so-called "Guzm&n formula". This

agreement called for Antonio GuzmSn, a PRD member, to serve

the remainder of Bosch's term. His cabinet would be

completely composed of PRD members except for one seat

reserved for Balaguer and another for a loyalist. Wessin was

to be sent out of the country and replaced by a neutral

Chief of Staff. Finally, U.S. troops were to remain for an

indeterminate period of time.

While the talks with the PRD were going on, however,

the U.S. violated the cease fire agreement and allowed the

loyalists to cross the LOC and launch a devastating and

brutal attack against the weak constitutionalist forces

located in Santo Domingo's slums. When the stronger

constitutionalist forces in downtown Santo Domingo attempted

to cross the LOC and reinforce their beleaguered comrades,

the U.S. forces prevented them from doing so.157 By May 21,

the constitutionalist enclave in the slums had been

eliminated. The increased weakening of the

constitutionalists allowed the U.S. to seek a revision in

the GuzmSn formula. On May 23, GuzmSn agreed that his

cabinet would be composed of three members of the PR, five

independents, a GRN member and two PRD members. The

increasingly weak position of the constitutionalists reduced

their leverage even more, however, and by June the GuzmSn

formula had been discarded by an administration in search of

197 Gleijeses, The Dominican.264.

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a "neutral" political solution.

On May 18, the Special Committee ended its mandate and

produced a report blaming U.S. diplomatic efforts regarding

GuzmSn for hindering its own attempt to establish a national

government encompassing all factions.198 Once the Special

Committee ended its mission, its task was taken over

directly by OAS Secretary General Mora until June 2. After

the U.S. high profile mission failed to forge a lasting

political solution with its GuzmSn formula, the U.S. pledged

to leave this issue to the OAS. The end result was a thinly

disguised facade. On June 2, 1965 the Meeting established an

Ad Hoc Committee (AHC) with the task of providing directives

to the IAPF and continuing with the attempts to establish an

agreement between the two sides. The AHC, however, was led

by Ellsworth Bunker, who acted on his own initiative and

limited his links with the Meeting to periodical reports of

his progress.199 In fact, the Meeting did not hold any

session from June 2 up to August 9.

In early June, the AHC proposed the establishment of a

provisional government presided by Hector Garcia Godoy, a

diplomat under the Trujillo era and Bosch’s last foreign

minister. Elections were to be held from six to nine months

198 Slater, Intervention. 83-84. The Committee also complained that the presence of a UN observer mission undermined its authority.

199 Ibid., 98-100. The other two members were Ramon de Clairmont (El Salvador) and Ilmar Penna (Brazil).

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after Garcia's inauguration. A general amnesty covering

combatants on both sides was to be enacted and following the

holding of elections, a new constitution was to be

drafted.200 While negotiations were being held, the IAPF

violated both the cease fire and its neutral position by

launching an offensive against the remaining

constitutionalist enclave in downtown Santo Domingo. This

offensive carried-but in June 15, led to an IAPF takeover of

a fourth of the area allotted to the constitutionalists.

This restricted use of military power was one of the main

reasons leading Camaano to accept the new proposal in July

9.

The final agreement was formally approved by the

constitutionalists on August 29. The loyalists gave their

approval one day later and the Government of National

Reconciliation with Garcia Godoy as president was formally

inaugurated on September 3, 1965. While some scattered

violations on the cease fire occurred during Garcia's tenure

only one major incident took place, (an attack by loyalist

forces against a hotel where the constitutional military

leadership was holding a meeting) and it was diffused by the

IAPF. With the fear of a communist takeover finally

dispelled, the U.S. could afford to tolerate a moderate

200 Organization of American States, Tenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Second General Report of the Ad Hoc Committee (OEA/Ser.F./II.10/Doc.374 Rev.3, 1 November 1966)

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government and it exerted pressure upon the most unsavory

figures of the loyalist faction to obtain a pledge that they

would respect the Garcia government and abide by the result

of the free elections. In order to diffuse tension among the

two factions, Garcia decided to appoint the military leaders

of both sides as military attaches in Dominican embassies

abroad.

In June 1965t~ another precedent was set with the

involvement of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

(IACHR) in the Dominican situation. Up to that point, the

IACHR had only dispatched investigative teams after

securing authorization by the government of the country to

be visited and receiving the approval by a majority of OAS

members.201 In the case of the Dominican Intervention,

however, the IACHR bypassed the authorization by the member

states and dispatched a team after receiving invitations

from the two Dominican factions. The IACHR performance was

hailed for its impartiality and for its attempts to maintain

channels of comunication open with both factions. In fact,

for the constitutionalists, the IACHR became the only OAS

organ they could trust. Besides its reporting of murders and

other human rights violations in the country, the IACHR was

instrumental in organizing a prisoners exchange between the

201 Shiv Kumar, V. US Interventionism in Latin America. (New York: Advent Books, 1987), 86.

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two factions in late-summer 1965.202

On July 1, 1966, elections were held and the two exiled

former presidents, Bosch and Balaguer, were allowed to run.

Balaguer won the presidency with 57% of the vote, followed

by Bosch with 39%. The elections, which were supervised by

the OAS and the UN, were considered free and fair. On June

10, the Balaguer government reached an agreement with the

AHC on the gradual'withdrawal of the IAPF. The last IAPF

forces left the country on September 21, 1966.

Assessment of the OAS1 Role in the Intervention

The Dominican Intervention of 1965 represented the

first overt use of force by the US against an hemispheric

neighbor since the early 1930s. Washington's use of the OAS,

the organization designed to prevent just such occurrences,

to cover its actions with a thin veneer of legitimacy

represented for the Latin American democracies a slap in the

face.201 Moreover, despite its claims of impartiality, the

US manipulated the OAS instruments to neutralize the

constitutionalists.

In first place, the Council of the OAS was used to

202 Ibid., 92. While the IACHR reports chronicled considerable far more violations by the loyalists than by the constitutionalists, experts agree that this merely reflected the reality in the country.

203 Interestingly, Costa Rica, which during the Figueres administration had advocated the use of force to overthrow Caribbean dictatorships, approved the creation of the IAPF.

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establish the ISZ, an effort to reduce the strategic

advantage of the constitutionalists. With the Special

Committee's approval, the US proceeded to establish the LOC

which divided the pro-Bosch forces. Once divided, the IAPF

allowed Imbert's forces to cross the LOC and crush one of

the pro-Bosch pockets. Finally, with its offensive of June

15, the IAPF itself took up arms against the

constitutionalistsr These last two actions were especially

repugnant because the U.S. had called for the creation of

the IAPF, supposedly in order to bring order and halt the

loss of lives. The final manipulation by the US occurred

with the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee, which gave

ambassador Bunker a blank check to establish the provisional

government of his governmenmt's preference without being

held accountable by the Meeting.

The only exception to this pattern of flagrant

manipulation was provided by the IACHR. While the role of

the IACHR was marginal when compared with the activities of

the IAPF or the AHC, it earned the commission a reputation

for professionalism and impartiality. This reputation was to

prove crucial 14 years later when the IACHR investigated the

violation of human rights in Nicaragua.

Perhaps most important, however, is the fact that the

establishment of the IAPF was blatantly illegal on two

counts. In the first place, the IAPF never received an

official approval from the Security Council as required by

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Article 53 of the UN Charter. Moreover, the establishment of

the IAPF was also illegal according to a strict

interpretation of the relevant OAS articles because Chile

had called the Meeting of Consultation under the OAS

Charter, not the Rio Treaty.

The use of the OAS as a mere instrument of US foreign

policy, coupled with the close cooperation between the US

and the Latin American dictatorships in approving and

managing the IAPF, altered the Latin American outlook

towards both the regional body and the UN. Up to that point,

Latin America (with the exception of Castroist Cuba) had

perceived the UN as another external influence to be kept at

bay.

With the successful use of the OAS for a purpose that

blatantly contradicted the principle of non-intervention,

the Latin American democracies and/or neutralists became

pessimistic about their capability to influence the OAS.

Instead, they sought to present their grievances in the UN,

a forum where they found a much more sympathetic audience.

In the OAS, the Latin American democracies and/or

neutralists limited themselves to counter any further U.S.

attempt to use the OAS in its global crusade against

communism (or any force the U.S. identified as communist).

Thus, after 1965, Latin American attitudes in the UN can be

described as active, while that in the OAS could be

described as reactive. This entailed a reversal of the

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attitudes demonstrated from the late 1940s to the early

1960s. Ironically, the Latin American democracies never

considered that they themselves had opened the door for the

US intervention and manipulation of the OAS by their actions

in 1960. Indeed, the enactment of sanctions against the

Dominican Republic opened a Pandora's Box that the Latin

American states were unable to close.

Ironically, the ghosts of the Dominican Intervention

would return 14 years later to haunt President Carter, a man

committed to democratic reform and hemispheric cooperation.

Carter's attempt to establish a second OAS peace force to

bring an end to the Nicaraguan Civil War was categorically

rejected by Latin America. With its emphasis on peacemaking

and peaceenforcina. its distribution of food, its

establishment of an interim government and its supervision

of elections, the OAS operation in the Dominican Republic

predated by more than two decades similar operations carried

out presently by the UN. Unfortunately, the nakedly partial

character of the operation led to the stunting of the OAS,

because its democratic members lost all confidence in the

institution. With its narrow minded focus on immediate

concerns, the Johnson administration overlooked the fact

that an organization will only be as powerful as its members

allow it to be. If in 1965 the OAS soared like a fearsome

and powerful condor, fourteen years later it was ridiculed,

reviled and considered irrelevant. Its wings had been

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PART VI: INTERLUDE-THE BUENOS AIRES PROTOCOL OF AMENDMENTS

By the early 1960s, it had become clear to almost all

members of the OAS that the charter of the organization

needed to be amended. Argentina, Guatemala and Venezuela

were worried that with the intensification of the

decolonization process, the British colonies of the Falkland

Islands, British Honduras and British Guiana would become

sovereign states and join the OAS. The Latin American states

were incensed by the fact that the Assistant Secretary

General, a US citizen, could be eligible for reelection.

Moreover, the charter did not forbid a national of the same

country as the outgoing Assistant Secretary General from

being elected to the same post. Thus, there was a strong

possibility that the US would establish a permanent

stranglehold over the position.20*

Moreover, the Latin American countries, which wanted to

establish development planning and economic integration as

two of the principal tasks of the OAS, were critical of the

fact that the Inter-American Economic and Social Council was

a mere organ under the OAS Council. The Latin American

states were not only critical of the fact that this

represented a symbolic trivialization of economic vis-a-vis

political issues, but they also complained that the

20* In contrast, the Secretary General could not be reelected and could not be followed by a countryman.

136

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representatives to the Council lacked the expertise to make

decisions on complex economic issues. Furthermore, the US

wanted to avoid a repetition of the time consuming and

acrimonious debate that preceded the OAS involvement in the

Dominican Republic during 1965 by creating a permanent

Inter-American Peace Force. Also, the Latin American

democracies wanted to strengthen the status of the Inter-

American Human Rights Commission by making it an integral

part of the OAS Charter. Finally, there was a consensus that

the Inter-American Conferences needed to be seriously

revamped. Not only was the five-year span between

conferences considered too long, but also the conferences

were being held hostage to disputes among members. Indeed,

the Eleventh Inter-American Conference slated for Quito in

1959 was never held due to the tensions created by the

border dispute between Ecuador and Peru.205

On November 1965, the Second Special Inter-American

Conference was held at Rio de Janeiro. One of the principal

issues under discussion was the revision of the OAS

Charter.206 The conference organized a Special Committee

which was entrusted with the mission of establishing a

preliminary draft of amendments to the OAS Charter which

would be discussed at another special conference. The Third

Special Inter-American Conference was finally held during

205 Caicedo, 195.

206 Ball, 33.

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1967 in Buenos Aires. The conference approved the Protocol

of Amendments of Buenos Aires which was to enter into force

when ratified by 2/3 of the member states.207

The amended OAS Charter eliminated the I-A Conference

and replaced it with a General Assembly which according to

Article 55 (Rev.) would meet on a yearly basis. The General

Assembly would be held each year in a different member

state, but in case of intra-member disputes or turmoil in

the designated site, the Assembly would convene in

Washington, DC. The General Assembly inherited the duties of

the I-A Conferences plus a series of responsibilities that

were previously exercised by the OAS Council.208 Thus, the

General Assembly was given the responsibility of approving

the budget of the organization and setting the amount of

money to be paid by each member state, coordinating the

activities of the different organs of the OAS and

strengthening relations between the OAS and the UN.

The OAS Council was radically transformed by the

amendments agreed upon at Buenos Aires. The single, powerful

OAS Council was divided into three co-equal councils, each

with authority over a different self-contained sphere

207 Ibid., 41. The members states agreed upon a confusing system by which the amended Charter would enter into force immediately after it had been ratified by 2/3 of the membership but only for those states that had ratified the protocol. Those states which had not ratified the protocol would still be under the authority of the 1948 Charter.

208 Caicedo, 197.

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(Article 68 Rev.). The Permanent Council (PCOAS), the direct

descendant of the OAS Council had the primary function of

dealing with the pacific settlement of disputes and serving

as Provisional Organ of Consultation.209 This dramatic

curtailment of its old powers was partly compensated by

Article 80 (Rev.) which gave to the PCOAS the authority to

become involved in any issue refered to it by either the

General Assembly or the Meeting of Consultation.

The Inter-American Economic and Social Council (IA-

ECOSOC), was detached from the old council and declared a

co-equal of the PCOAS. IA-ECOSOC was given the

responsibility of coordinating all economic and social

activities of the OAS, and promoting measures that would

increase economic development in the region. At least once a

year, IA-ECOSOC was to hold a meeting where the member

states would be represented by the appropriate cabinet-level

functionary (Article 96 Rev.). The Inter-American Council

for Education, Science and Culture (IA-ESC) was the third of

the co-equal councils established at Buenos Aires. This

council had the responsibility of understanding and

strengthening the Pan American bonds among members.

Article 112 of the Revised Charter established the

existence of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights

and declared that pending the drafting of a binding

convention, the organ would function according to what was

209 Ball, 90.

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stipulated by the resolution of the Fifth Meeting of

Consultation. The Revised Charter also eliminated the Inter-

American Peace Committee and increased the authority of the

General Secretariat vis-a-vis the PCOAS. Article 114 (Rev.)

reduced the term of office of the Secretary General from ten

to five years, but allowed for the possibility of a one-time

reelection. Article 120 (Rev.) also reduced the term of the

Assistant Secretary General to five years with the

possibility of being reelected once. However, the article

also established that no two consecutive Assistant Secretary

Generals could hold the same nationality, thus ending the

fear of a US monopoly on the position.

The amended OAS Charter also established a clear

mechanism for the admission of new members, an issue that

was not addressed in 1948. Applicants for membership must be

approved by a 2/3 majority from both the Permanent Council

and the General Assembly (Article 7 Rev.). The next article

established that membership applications from states whose

territories were part of litigation between an OAS members

and an extra-hemispheric state before 1964 would not be

considered. This article was used as a rationale by both

Guatemala and Venezuela to prevent Belize and Guyana from

gaining membership in the OAS.210

The Revised OAS Charter entered into effect on February

27, 1970 after being ratified by Colombia. Uruguay was the

210 Caicedo, 195.

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Charter, doing so on April 1974.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PART VII: THE NICARAGUAN CRISIS (1978-1979)

Introduction

In 1936, three years after the departure of US forces,

Gen. Anastasio Somoza Garcia overthrew Nicaraguan President

Juan Bautista Sacasa, his wife's uncle. Somoza, who had been

appointed by Sacasa to head the US-trained National Guard,

ruled through a number of puppet interim-presidents until

early 1937 when he was elected president in an uncontested

election.2"

The similarities between Trujillo and Somoza are

interesting. Both rose to power by taking advantage of their

positions as heads of US-created National Guards, although

the goal of the US had been to create a professional,

impartial force that would uphold the democratic process.

Both established an all-encompassing control over every

significant economic activity in the country and maintained

themselves in power through the flagrant use of nepotism, by

maintaining the support of the armed forces through

extensive bribery and by successfully courting influential

political figures in the US. Both also were extremely good

at judging the prevailing trends in US foreign policy. Thus,

both Trujillo and Somoza shifted from strident anti-fascism

to anti-communisr while maintaining a thin democratic facade

2" Lake, Anthony. Somoza Falling. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 12. During the Nicaraguan Crisis, Lake served as Director of Policy Planning for the Department of State.

142

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by occasionally stepping out of office and orchestrating the

election of a puppet president.

Yet, the Trujillo regime unraveled with the death of

the dictator while the Somoza dynasty was able to hold on to

power for forty-three years and to withstand the death of

its founder and his first successor. The Somoza dynasty

essentially owed its longevity to a combination of regional

events and the personality of the dictators. Indeed, for the

most part the Somozas eschewed the kind of wanton and

widespread brutality practiced by Trujillo, preferring a

"surgical" approach targeted towards those few elements that

posed an actual threat to the regime through their advocacy

of violent resistance to the dynasty. Moreover, the Somozas

were able to charm and coopt a considerable portion of the

upper and middle classes by offering a dramatic improvement

in the infrastructure of the country and by promoting

economic growth.2,2 The Somozas also allowed a reasonably

free press and the creation of opposition political parties

as long as they did not advocate violent struggle against

the regime. In reality, of course, none of the opposition

parties ever stood a chance in the rigged elections that

2,2 Pezzullo, Lawrence & Ralph Pezzullo. At the Fall of Somoza. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), 65. Pastor, Robert. Condemned to Repetition. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 43-44. During the Nicaraguan Crisis Robert Pastor served as the Latin American specialist in the National Security Council. Lawrence Pezzullo was US Ambassador to Nicaragua from April 1979 until the beginning of the Reagan administration.

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were always won by the presidential candidate of the Liberal

Party, the Somozas' tool in the political arena.213

By the late 1950s, the Somozas had earned the enmity of

Costa Rican President Jos§ Figueres, much in the same way

that Betancourt: and Trujillo were to engage in a mortal

confrontation a few years later. After providing material

support and allowing the use of Costa Rican territory to

stage operations against Somoza, Figueres' attention was

drawn to Trujillo's brutal and desperate attempts to remain

in power. Once Trujillo was murdered and his family was

forced to abandon the Dominican Republic, however, all the

attention of Figueres and the rest of the leadership of the

Latin American democratic left were devoted to their efforts

to contain the spread of communism throughout the region.

This turn of events provided the Somozas with a much needed

respite from their conflict with the forces of Latin

American democracy, but at the same time it opened Nicaragua

to subversive activities by communist elements.

As discussed above, Nicaragua was the target of a small

Cuba-sponsored invasion by communist guerrillas in 1959. At

the same time, a group of Nicaraguan Marxists abandoned the

pro-Moscow Nicaraguan Socialist party and travelled to Cuba

where they sought the guidance and cooperation of Castro's

government. While in Cuba this group, led by Carlos Fonseca,

213 In an attempt to enhance his democratic credentials, Somoza Garcia amended the constitution to guarantee opposition parties 1/3 of the seats in Congress.

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Silvio Mayorga and TomSs Borge, founded the National

Liberation Front (FLN). In 1961, after merging with several

other small Nicaraguan communist and moderate leftist

guerilla groups, the FLN evolved into the Sandinista Front

for National Liberation (FSLN) ,214 While throughout the

1960s and early 1970s the FSLN remained an ineffective force

incapable of threatening the Somozas, their presence was

used by the Nicaraguan government to stroke US fears of

"another Cuba" and obtain considerable economic and military

aid from Washington. Moreover, the Somozas further gained

the gratitude of the US by allowing the use of Nicaraguan

territory as a staging point for both the overthrowing of

Arbenz in Guatemala and for the Bay of Pigs invasion and by

providing troops for the IAPF.

In 1956, Anastasio Somoza Garcia was murdered and his

position as president and head of the Somoza clan was taken

by his son, Luis Somoza Debayle. When Luis Somoza died of

natural causes in 1967, he was replaced in turn by his

brother, Anastasio Somoza Debayle.

The Earthquake, the Terror at the Christmas Party and the

Murder of Chamorro

While extremely shrewd and charming, Anastasio Somoza

2,4 The group adopted its name in honor of Augusto Cesar Sandino, a Liberal leader who led a small band of guerrillas against the US forces occupying Nicaragua. In 1934, after the departure of the US forces, Sandino was treacherously murdered by orders of Anastasio Somoza Garcia.

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Debayle lacked the subtlety of his brother and father and

was far more inclined to use force in an open and visible

manner to strike fear in his rivals. Moreover, rather than

being satisfied with his position as de facto leader of the

country, Somoza Debayle craved the formal trappings of power

and refused to play the convoluted democratic charade

maintained by his predecessors until it was too late.

In 1971, after ending his first term as president,

Somoza Debayle attempted to run for president for a

consecutive second term, in direct violation of the

country's constitution. Somoza Debayle dissolved Congress

and called for the establishment of a constitutional

convention that would allow him to run for reelection. In

the interim, he ruled through a three-man junta. Somoza

Debayle had sought to limit criticism of his elimination of

Congress and the postponement of the 1971 elections by

coopting Fernando Aguerro, his opponent in the 1967 election

and appointing his to the junta. This ruse was a complete

failure and his actions were sharply criticized by Pedro

Joaquin Chamorro, one of the main opposition figures, and

Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo, the head of the Nicaraguan

Roman Catholic Church.215

215 In 1959, Chamorro had led a guerilla force in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the regime. Chamorro was captured, but in an attempt to demonstrate their "benevolence" the Somozas freed him and allowed him to run the main opposition nev/spaper, La Prensa with only minor interference.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 4 7 On December 23, 1972 a powerful earthquake destroyed a

substantial portion of the Nicaraguan capital, killing an

estimated 10,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands

without shelter, food or jobs. The international community,

especially the US, responded to the tragedy with a massive

outpouring of aid, both monetary and in-kind. In a flagrant

display of greed, Somoza Debayle and the high echelon of the

National Guard hoarded the emergency supplies and then

proceeded to sell them at exorbitant prices. Moreover, he

made sure that those areas in the city owned by him and his

close supporters received priority in the rebuilding effort,

thus enhancing their property value even more.216 These

actions alienated the Nicaraguan business class and a

substantial portion of the middle class which until that

moment had hoped to bring about change by working through

the established political system.217

In 1974, Somoza Debayle once again became president,

this time for a seven-year term, after winning an election

boycotted by the legitimate opposition parties. As in 1971,

the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church openly displayed

their opposition to Somoza's regime by refusing to attend

his inauguration. The Somoza dictatorship received another

blow to its image of invincibility in late December 1974

216 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, 62. Lake, 19.

2,7 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, 59-60. Pastor, 37-38.

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when 13 Sandinistas raided -the house of Jos& Marla Castillo,

a former cabinet member and a staunch supporter of Somoza,

who was holding a Christmas party attended by the Nicaraguan

political and social elite. The Sandinistas killed Castillo

and three guards and held the rest of the guests (including

the foreign minister, the mayor of Managua and the

ambassador to the US) hostage. On December 30, the

Nicaraguan government agreed to release 14 imprisoned

Sandinistas, to pay a $1 million ransom for the hostages, to

broadcast a communique explaining the Sandinista goals and

to provide safe passage to the Managua airport. The

Sandinistas then boarded a plane bound for Cuba. This daring

Sandinista raid captured the popular imagination and became

the one glowing achievement after more than a decade of

continuous and painful failures.

Two years later, however, the FSLN was on the brink of

disintegration. After the Christmas party raid, Somoza

Debayle launched an intense counter-insurgency campaign

designed to brutally eradicate the FSLN and erase the

humiliation suffered at their hand. The campaign destroyed

many Sandinista cells and culminated in the death of Carlos

Fonseca and the arrest of TomSs Borge. Moreover, Somoza

Debayle imposed a state of siege in the country as well as

severe restrictions on the freedom of the press. With the

original FSLN leadership either dead or in prison (Silivio

Mayorga had been killed in 1967), the movement fractured

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into three distinct groups. The Tendencia Proletaria (TP),

led by Jaime Wheelock, advocated urban guerilla warfare,

massive union strikes and the indoctrination of the urban

working class into Marxism-Leninism. The Guerra Popular

Prolongada (GPP), led by Borge, argued that the FSLN's

energy should be invested in organizing for a long, drawn

out struggle where the peasantry would provide the backbone

of the Sandinista movement. Representing the view of the

founding group, the GPP believed that the foco theory could

be successfully applied to Nicaragua. Finally, the

Tercerista faction or Tendencia Insurrectional (TI), led by

Daniel and Humberto Ortega, rejected the idea of a long

conflict and instead advocated the forging of alliances with

the moderate opposition as a way of hastening the fall of

the Somoza regime.2,1 Moreover, the Terceristas were in

favor of carrying out operations in both the countryside and

the cities.

The Terceristas began their campaign of redefining

themselves as a moderate force by convincing Eden Pastora to

return to the armed struggle in 1977.2,9 More importantly,

the Terceristas gained the support of a committee composed

by twelve prominent members of the (ostensibly) moderate

219 Pastor, 42.

2,9 A moderate leftist, Pastora had been one of the founding members of the FSLN, but had abandoned the group due to its ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism.

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opposition, which became known as Los Doce.220 The

endorsement by Los Doce in October 1977, was crucial in

helping the FSLN gain the support of members of the middle

class who despised Somoza, but feared that if he fell the

vacuum was going to be filled by a doctrinaire Marxist-

Leninist force. That same month, the Tercerista faction of

the FSLN launched a series of coordinated urban offensives

in several of the country largest cities, including Managua

and Leon.

During these operations, the Terceristas first

demonstrated a strategy that they would continue to use

during the rest of the civil war. Guerilla units would

penetrate the cities and besiege National Guard posts while

mobilizing the civilian population. When the National Guard

came to the aid of its besieged comrades, the Sandinista

units would retreat into the countryside, leaving behind a

roused group of excited, but poorly armed civilians. Somoza

Debayle and his son, National Guard Major Anastasio Somoza

Portocarrero, would invariably order that the revolt be

brutally extinguished with the use of tanks and heavy

220 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, 120, 122. Pastor, 58. In reality several members of Los Doce, like priests Miguel D'Escoto and Fernando Cardenal, were either sympathetic to or actual members of the FSLN and favored a radical program of socio-economic change. In fact, Los Doce had been established by poet Sergio Ramirez at the (secret) behest of the Terceristas. Los Doce were to serve as a provisional government after the overthrow of Somoza and they moved to Costa Rica at the beginning of the Sandinista offensive.

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bombardment by the air force. The resulting carnage caused a

wave of disgust both internally and around the world and

significantly increased the membership of the FSLN.

Those elements of the middle class which tried to reach

a peaceful, negotiated end to the Somoza dictatorship were

completely antagonized by the murder of Pedro Joaquin

Chamorro on January 10, 1978. Chamorro's murder galvanized

the entire country and he became a martyr in the struggle

against the dynasty. An estimated 30,000 mourners attended

his burial. Perhaps, the clearest example of the middle

class decision to abandon all attempts to forge a compromise

with Somoza was the fact that after Chamorro's murder, the

Democratic Union of Liberation (UDEL) and the Superior

Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), two coalitions of

businessmen, declared a massive and successful strike in

repudiation of the regime.221 Moreover, the businessmen

called for the immediate resignation of Somoza Debayle.

After the government's callous behavior during the 1972

earthquake, the bloody repression of the October 1977

offensive and the murder of Chamorro, the Somozas' image as

221 Pastor, 59. Lake, 99. No one ever claimed responsibility or was charged for Chamorro's murder. While most scholars believe that Chamorro was assassinated by the Somoza regime, some writers theorize that he was murdered by the Sandinistas in an attempt to eliminate the most important non-Marxist opposition figure. In October 1977, COSIP and UDEL had proposed a dialogue with Somoza to discuss a peaceful transfer of power. Somoza flatly rejected this proposal.

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a dynasty of benevolent dictators was completely erased and

the family became as internationally despised as the

Trujillos.

Ironv: Latin American Intervention. US Non-Intervention

With the swearing-in of Jimmy Carter as President in

1977, a major shift in US foreign policy took place. Carter

established very early in his presidency that the

advancement of human rights in the international arena was

to be one of the main goals of his administration. Carter

and his supporters argued that this policy was correct not

only from a moral, but also from a strategic standpoint.

Indeed, by aligning itself with the forces of reform and

social justice, the US would be providing an alternative to

radical revolution.

Carter established the Interagency Group on Human

Rights and Foreign Assistance under the aegis of Deputy

Secretary of State Warren Christopher. This committee had

the responsibility of monitoring violations of human rights

in foreign countries, and recommending cuts in the aid

packages of consistent transgressors.222 This policy caused

a severe rift in the US government between career officers

in the State Department and political appointees in both

State and the National Security Council. The former argued

that cuts in aid would eliminate the US leverage in foreign

222 Pastor, 51.

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events. The latter, many of whom were veterans of the civil

rights movement, argued that dictatorial regimes would only

engage in reforms if subjected to tangible pressure.

Moreover, there was a rift between the State Department's

Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs (HA), whose

goal was the promotion of human rights, and the Bureau of

American Republic Affairs (ARA), whose main goal was to

maintain stability and advance US interests in the

region.223 These rivalries were to hamper the coordination

of US policy towards Nicaragua, as the formulation of policy

was slowed by bureaucratic infighting.

In April 1977 the Interagency Group produced a report

that was critical of the Somoza regime, leading Congressman

Edward Koch to present a resolution striping Nicaragua of

all military aid. While Somoza's allies in Congress where

able to preserve the military aid program, the Carter

administration announced that it would refuse to sign any

military aid agreement with the Somoza regime. Somoza

effected a series of largely cosmetic measures, like

broadening his cabinet and ending restrictions on the

freedom of the press, in an attempt to mollify the US. After

an intense and bitter debate between the Human Rights and

Inter-American Bureaus, the Carter administration settled on

223 Cline, Ray & Roger Fontaine. Foreign Policy Failures in China. Cuba and Nicaragua. (Washington, DC: United States Global Strategy Council), 156-157.

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a middle-of-the-road approach in which the US signed a

military aid agreement with Nicaragua (otherwise the money

would revert to the US Treasury), but refused to provide the

funds until more far reaching democratic reforms were

enacted.224 Instead, conditions in Nicaragua worsened with

the October Tercerista offensive and the murder of Chamorro.

Chamorro's murder served as a catalyst thrusting

Venezuelan President Carlos Andrfis P6rez directly into the

fray. Perez, a protege of former President Betancourt who

shared his mentor's combative spirit, was a close friend of

Chamorro and was enraged by the murder. Perez, who had led

the Betancourt administration's struggle against the

Castroist urban guerrillas in the early 1960s, also feared

that the longer Somoza remained in power, the greater the

danger that the government would eventually fall into the

hands of radical elements. Emulating the approach followed

by Betancourt in his struggle against Trujillo, Perez made

clear to both Omar Torrijos of Panama and Daniel Oduber of

Costa Rica that Venezuela's considerable financial resources

would be made available to overthrow Somoza.323 At the same

time, Perez send a letter to Carter requesting joint US-

Venezuelan action to press for Somoza's resignation and to

324 Lake, 22. Both Lake and Pastor complain that the US press misunderstood the subtlety of this approach and unjustly criticized the US for continuing to provide military assistance to Nicaragua.

325 Pastor, 60.

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sent an investigative mission of the Inter-American

Commission of Human Rights to Nicaragua. Perez' letter

triggered another intense debate between elements of ARA who

supported increased US involvement in Nicaragua and their

opponents, the political appointees in HA and the NSC, who

argued for a strict non-interference in the crisis.

Eventually, the faction in favor of non-interference proved

victorious and a response was drafted, indicating a US

freeze on military aid to Nicaragua, and its support for

involvement by the Inter-American Commission of Human

Rights. At the same time, however, the letter emphasized

that the US would adhere strictly to the principle of non­

intervention and would refrain from directly meddling in

Nicaraguan domestic politics.226

The response to PSrez' letter highlighted a crucial

flaw in the Carter administration's foreign policy approach:

while interested in improving the human rights record of

countries around the world (a domestic issue), the

administration was unwilling to intervene in those

countries' internal affairs. Thus, the only weapons left to

the US were a symbolic break with oppressive regimes or the

curtailment of economic and/or military aid. A break in

diplomatic relations, however, would deprive the US of its

most reliable sources of information and it would undermine

226 For a detailed description of the Byzantinian struggle behind the response to Perez' letter, see: Lake, 25-43.

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efforts to establish contact with moderate elements in the

country. Moreover, the curtailment of aid proved to have

almost no deterring effect on oppressive regimes. As

demonstrated by Rhodesia and Guatemala, even relatively poor

governments could withstand the suspension of military or

even economic aid. Also, the curtailment of economic aid

would end up affecting the poorest elements of the country,

exactly those the US government wanted to help.

Thus, a policy of non-intervention represented the

worst of all possible scenarios. First of all, it would

antagonize the government without significantly weakening

it. Secondly, it would undermine the US ability to influence

events and would cause resentment among the opposition

forces. Moreover, there was the strong possibility that the

opposition forces would confuse the US principled stance as

proof that Washington was uninterested in their fate, thus

forcing them to accept more radical and willing patrons. To

quote John Bushnell, a career officer in the State

Department:

The problem with nonintervention is that it is like denying the law of gravity. We are involved and willy- nilly exert great influence. Nonintervention is nonfeasible. The question is how to exert influence.227

In the case of Nicaragua, the formulation of a coherent

policy was undermined by Carter's desire to improve

conditions in the country while remaining uninvolved in

227 Cline and Fontaine, 158.

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internal politics and by the debate between the ARA and the

HA. Moreover, the top echelon in both the State Department

and the White House was almost exclusively involved in what

they considered to be more pressing matters: the fall of the

Shah in Iran, the Egyptian-Israeli peace process,

discussions with the Soviet Union of nuclear issues, the

ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, the geopolitical

situation in the Horn of Africa and the invasion of

Afghanistan. Thus, the Nicaragua policy lacked clear

guidelines and was shaped by mid-level officials afraid of

overstepping their authority. By the time the situation in

Nicaragua reached a critical level and gained the attention

of high level US officials it was too late for the US to

influence events in a significant manner.

In late March 1978, Carter and PSrez met in Caracas

and addressed the Nicaraguan issue. Once again an agonizing

Carter reaffirmed his commitment to the principle of non­

intervention. In May, moderate activism against Somoza was

heightened with the creation of the Broad Opposition Front

(FAO) a coalition headed by Alfonso Robelo, the leader of

the COSEP. Two months later the reputation of the FAO was

enhanced when Los Doce agreed to join the coalition. At this

point, Somoza pledged that he would abandon power with the

end of his term in 1981, but both the Sandinistas and the

moderate opposition would not be satisfied by anything less

than an unconditional and immediate resignation.

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Of course, neither Oduber, Perez nor Torrijos was

burdened by the esoteric debate consuming Carter. P§rez

began to provide both funds and weaponry to the various

Sandinista units, especially fellow social-democrat Eden

Pastora.22* Costa Rica also cooperated with the anti-Somoza

effort by providing sanctuary to Los Doce and by allowing

the use of its national territory to transport weapons and

to stage guerilla operations against the dictatorship. In

fact, Figueres himself allowed the Sandinistas use of his

property as a training area and served as intermediary to

help the FSLN obtain weapons. In July, Somoza and Perez met

off the coast of Venezuela and the latter offered to

purchase all of Somoza's properties in Nicaragua and to

provide protection to the dictator in exile if he agreed to

resign.229 Somoza, however, adamantly refused, stating that

he would remain president until 1981 and the meeting

degenerated into a battle of rhetorical posturing.

In June 1978, Somoza announced that as a gesture of

goodwill he would allow Los Doce to return to Nicaragua as

well as allowing an investigative team of the Inter-American

Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in the country.230 Once

again, his statement failed to mollify the Nicaraguan

population. The Terceristas, fearing that the National Guard

228 Pastor, 65.

229 Ibid., 69.

230 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, 38.

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would stage an anti-Soraoza coup that would lead to the

establishment of "somocismo without Somoza", reignited the

conflict in August with another daring hostage-taking raid,

this time directed against the Nicaraguan Congress. Their

demands were similar in nature to those of the Christmas

party raid: a $10 million ransom (Somoza ultimately paid $

500 thousand), publication of a communique, the liberation

of Sandinista prisoners and safe-passage to the airport.

There, the guerrillas boarded airplanes provided by

Venezuela and Panama and were received in those countries as

heroes.

The liberation of TomSs Borge and other leaders of the

GPP increased the tensions among the FSLN/s ranks. While the

Terceristas' strategy had proven successful, albeit

extremely costly in terms of human lives, it was sharply

criticized by the TP and GPP as irresponsible adventurism

and bourgeois deviationism. Nonetheless, the TP and the GPP

despised each other so much that they could not make common

cause against the Terceristas. With the FSLN in danger of

falling apart just when it could finally see the light at

the end of the tunnel, Fidel Castro intervened in the

dispute and offered his services as mediator. Castro chaired

a reconciliation meeting between the three factions in March

1979. The meeting successfully brought unity among the

factions by eliminating most ideological disputes (although

personal dislikes and suspicions were to remain) and led to

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the establishment of a central directorate composed by nine

members, three for each faction.231

The Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation, the OAS Mediation

and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights

In early September 1978, the Terceristas once again

launched a series of coordinated offensives against various

urban National Guard posts around the country. Mirroring the

events of October 1977, the FSLN withdrew after their

surprise attack, leaving behind the civilians who had

spontaneously joined the attack to face the full wrath of

Somoza's retaliation. The counterattack by the National

Guard was exceedingly brutal, especially the indiscriminate

bombing of the cities, and caused worldwide revulsion. On

September 15 after National Guard units violated Costa Rican

sovereignty in their struggle against a Costa Rica-based

FSLN force which had attempted to enter Nicaraguan

territory, Venezuela formally guaranteed Costa Rica's

territorial integrity and signed a defense pact with the

"neutral" country.232 Venezuela also substantially increased

231 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, 123. Among the members of the Directorate were Daniel and Humberto Ortega (TI), Jaime Wheelock (TP) and Tomas Borge and Bayardo Arce (GPP).

232 Up until the National Guard's violation of Costa Rica's sovereignty, San Jose had unofficially allowed the Sandinistas to use its national territory, but had clamped down whenever their actions threatened to spill the violence south of the border. After the September incidents, in which several Costa Rican children were almost killed, new Costa

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arms shipments to the FSLN.

On September 2, 1978 Venezuela formally requested a

Meeting of Consultation under the OAS Charter. The

Venezuelan request was approved by the PCOAS and the

Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation was convened on

September 21.233 The PCOAS also established an Ad Hoc

Committee with the duty of observing events in the region.

At the inaugural session of the Seventeenth Meeting the US

presented a resolution calling on the Nicaraguan government

to allow a visit by an investigative committee of the IACHR

and requesting all political factions in Nicaragua to settle

their disputes peacefully.234 The resolution also called on

all parties to refrain from violating international borders

and for the Ad Hoc Committee to remain observing events in

Rican President Rodrigo Carazo openly gave its support to the FSLN and the FAO.

233 Organization of American States. Permanent Council, Convocation of the Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. (OEA/Ser.G/CP/Res. 251 342/78, 18 September 1978). The PCOAS had first addressed the Nicaraguan Crisis in late 1977 after several border violations by Nicaraguan forces into Costa Rica and guerrillas entering from Costa Rica into Nicaragua. Attempts to create a committee with far reaching investigative powers were derailed by a conflict between military-ruled Uruguay and Venezuela. The former suggested that the committee should limit itself to study the effects of subversive violence. The latter proposed that the committee should also focus on government brutality. See, Quiroga, Cecilia. The Battle of Human Rights. (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988), 229-230.

234 Organization of American States, Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. US Draft Resolution for 17th MFM. (OEA/Ser.F/II.17/Doc.11.78, 21 September 1978).

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Nicaragua. El Salvador presented a basically similar

resolution except for the fact that it explicitly mentioned

Costa Rica and Nicaragua when urging the parties in the

dispute to refrain from violating international borders.

The resolution which was finally approved was forged by

a working group composed of Argentina, Chile, Ecuador,

Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico

and the US. The resolution noted that Somoza and the

Nicaraguan government had extended a formal invitation to

the IAHRC to visit the country in early October, and that

the latter had accepted. The resolution called for the

Secretary General to coordinate the disbursement of

humanitarian aid with the Red Cross and the governments

involved in the fighting. Moreover, the resolution called

for the Meeting of Consultation to remain in session until

peace had been completely restored and urged the governments

"directly concerned" (an indirect reference to Costa Rica

and Honduras) to refrain from escalating the already

explosive situation. Finally, the resolution noted that

Somoza had accepted the good offices of the American states

in solving the crisis as long as such efforts did not

violate the principle of non-intervention.m

It is important to note that at this time, the

235 Organization of American States. Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Working Document. (OEA/Ser.F/II.17/Doc.20/78, 22 September 1978). The resolution was approved by a vote of 23-1-1. Paraguay voted against and Trinidad & Tobago was the abstention.

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the Sandinistas with aid) shied away from the appearance

that they were involved in discussing Nicaragua's internal

affairs. Thus, they framed the debate as an attempt to

eliminate border tensions between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

The US and Venezuela were the only states to discuss the

issue of atrocities committed by the National Guard.236 The

irrelevant character of this resolution in a moment in which

Nicaragua was being torn asunder by a civil war was noted by

several observers. Indeed, Omar Torrijos sarcastically

remarked that:

The crisis in Nicaragua can be described as a simple problem: a mentally deranged man [Somoza] with an army of criminals is attacking a defenseless population... This is not a problem for the OAS; what we need is a psychiatrist.23*

Nonetheless, taking advantage of the "good offices"

portion of the resolution, the OAS formed a mediation team

composed of William Bowdler (US), Admiral Ramon Jimenez

(Dominican Republic) and Alfredo Obiols (Guatemala) .23S

236 Quiroga, 241.

237 Pastor, 76.

2311 Bowdler had had a distinguished career in the Foreign Service that included stints am ambassador to El Salvador, Guatemala and South Africa and a stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the ARA. Interestingly, contrary to previous occasions in which the US had been the dominant force calling for mediation teams and ad hoc committees, in this instance the mediation team was basically a Costa Rican idea. In fact, the Carter administration in its pursuit of a non-intervention policy had at first declined to be part of the mission. The US was finally forced to take the leading role after Costa Rica refused to pursue the idea (Carazo

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Somoza at first had been adamantly opposed to the idea of a

mediation team. Later, seeing the possibility of a public

relations victory, Somoza relented, but demanded that the

team include Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador and Guatemala,

all of them dictatorships. In the end, a compromise was

reached and the team was composed of the US, Guatemala

(military dictatorship) and a democratic government

represented by a military officer (Dominican Republic).

Meanwhile, the FAO was equally opposed to the idea of

mediation, rightly perceiving the issue as a Somoza attempt

to prolong his rule. Nonetheless, the FAO eventually

accepted the idea of mediation, selecting a three-men

committee composed of one member each from COSEP, UDEL and

Los Doce.239

The mediation team immediately fell prey to

grandiloquent grandstanding by both sides. Somoza made clear

that he was willing to negotiate the mechanics of the 1981

elections, but that he would remain in power until then. The

FAO responded by demanding negotiations on Somoza's

resignation and his clan's departure from the country.

Moreover, the National Guard would be reorganized and a

wanted to overthrow, not to negotiate with Somoza) and the other Central American countries had declined to take part (they were military governments that wanted Somoza to remain in power). Once the team was created, however, the US asserted itself as the dominant player. For a detailed look at another of those soul-searching and agonizing Carter administration decisions, see: Pastor, 76-91.

239 Ibid., 94.

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provisional junta would be created. This junta would be

composed of members selected by FAO and the Liberal

party.240 Ironically, this position led to a split in the

FAO ranks, as Los Doce condemned the coalition's call for

the reformation (rather than elimination) of the National

Guard and the idea of negotiating a junta government with

Somoza's government. In fact, the Los Doce representative to

the FAO mediation committee resigned in protest.211 In

November, Somoza seemingly softened his position by

proposing a plebiscite to test the electoral strength of the

different Nicaraguan factions. This was an obvious Somoza

ploy to divide the opposition between radicals and

moderates. Moreover, if the plebiscite was held it would

actually benefit Somoza because in order for the voting to

take place, the guerilla campaign would have to end. Also,

Somoza was offering a vote to test political strength, not

to decide if he would resign or not.

Bowdler, however, modified Somoza's offer and proposed

that instead a plebiscite should be hold on whether or not

the dictator should remain in power. The FAO (minus Los

Doce) eagerly accepted Bowdler's proposal. In what is

perhaps the most bewildering event in the whole crisis,

Somoza not only accepted the new plebiscite idea, but also

discussed with Bowdler the possibility of his resignation

240 Lake, 148.

241 Ibid., 148.

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and eventual asylum in the US. Assistant Secretary of State

Viron Vaky, however, analyzed the query in strictly legal

terms and answered that while asylum to Somoza would be

provided, the US could not guarantee his wealth in the case

of legal claims or his person in the case of an extradition

request.242 This response essentially killed the plebiscite

idea, although Somoza continued feigning interest in the

issue until January 1979. Somoza's rejection of the

plebiscite basically terminated the role of the OAS

mediation team. An embittered FAO sharply criticized the

mediation effort because it had driven a wedge between the

FSLN and the moderates without giving any substantial gain

to the latter.

While the OAS mediation team was negotiating the

plebiscite idea with Somoza and the FAO, the IACHR was

drafting its report on the human rights conditions in

Nicaragua. The IACHR investigative committee was composed of

six members who stayed in Nicaragua from October 3 to the

17, 1978.243 The committee interviewed both national and

local authorities as well as citizens who had complaints

about human rights violations. The IACHR's report was

extremely critical of the Somoza regime and was to serve as

a rallying point by opponents of the regime both internally

242 Lake, 159. Cline & Fontaine, 174.

243 Quiroga, 234.

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and abroad. The report exhaustively documented the

widespread massacre of civilians through indiscriminate

aerial and tank bombardment, the murder of Red Cross

personnel by the Guard and the methodical door-to-door

extermination of civilians carried out by the National Guard

after retaking areas controlled by the FSLN.244

The report, however, saved its most scathing

condemnation for the conclusion. In clear and sharp language

that the IACHR had refrained from using ir. previous

investigations, the reports found that:

the Government of Nicaragua is responsible for serious attempts against the right to life... in repressing in an excessive and disproportionate manner the insurrections that occurred last September [1978]... the bombing of towns by the National Guard was done in an indiscriminate fashion and without prior evacuation of the civilian population...245

Moreover, it stated that:

The Government of Nicaragua is also responsible for the death, serious abuse, arbitrary detention and other violations to the human rights of peasant groups...there were serious violations to the right to personal security, by means of torture and other physical pressures which were inflicted on numerous detainees.244

Finally, the report provided an implicit endorsement of the

armed struggle against the dynasty by remarking that:

244 Ibid., 237.

245 Organization of American States. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Nicaragua. (OEA/Ser.L/V/II.45/Doc.16 Rev.l, 17 November 1978), 76.

244 Ibid., 76.

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The damage and suffering caused by these violations have awakened in a very forceful way, an intense and general feeling among the Nicaraguan people for the establishment of a system which will guarantee the observance of human rights.247

Latin American Action. US Reaction, the Dvnastv Crumbles

The collapse of the mediation effort served as

confirmation to P£rez, Torrijos and Carazo that the Somoza

regime could only be ended through violence. Perez and

Torrijos had been dissmissive of the mediation team since

its creation, but ultimately went ahead with the idea out of

respect for Carter. Torrijos had, in fact, threatened the US

by revealing that Venezuela was on the verge of bombing

Somoza's bunker in Nicaragua and remarked that the mediation

effort would only prolong the dictator's permanence in

power.24* After another border incident, Costa Rica finally

broke diplomatic relations with Nicaragua in November 21,

1978. Moreover, the Carazo government called for Nicaragua's

expulsion from the OAS.249 One day later, the PCOAS approved

a resolution establishing a team of observers to document

the situation in the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border. The team

247 Ibid., 77.

241 Lake, 138-139. Notice how Torrijos, probably one of the shrewdest modern Latin American manipulators, threatened action with another state's armed forces. Perez would later assert that he had not authorized the bombers to take such action.

249 Gordon, Dennis & Margaret Munro. "The External Dimension of Civil Insurrection, International Organizations and the Nicaraguan Revolution". Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, vol. 25, no.l, February 1983, 72.

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never became operative due to the continued high level of

violence in the border region.250

On February 8, 1979, the US government announced the

imposition of sanctions against the Somoza regime due to its

brutal violation of human rights and its refusal to

cooperate with the mediation efforts. The sanctions included

the refusal to grant more economic aid programs (although

those programs already in progress would be continued), the

termination of military assistance programs (which had been

previously suspended) and the withdrawal of all Peace Corps

volunteers and of most of the embassy personnel.25' While

Carter congratulated himself on this action, the response

was pathetic considering both the increasingly chaotic

situation in Nicaragua and the bold actions by the anti-

Somoza Latin American states. Indeed, at that point Somoza

had no need of Peace Corps volunteers or economic aid

programs, while he had already found alternative sources of

weaponry.

After the collapse of the OAS mediation, the FAO

abandoned all hopes of a negotiated solution and once again

made a common cause with the Sandinistas. This action,

however, demonstrated the shift in momentum which had taken

250 Ibid., 73. In 1955 a similar observer team was deployed in the border by the OAS after a right-wing invasion force funded by the Somozas crossed into Costa Rica.

251 Pastor, 119.

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place in Nicaragua since mid-1978. While originally the

Sandinistas (through Los Doce) had joined FAO, now FAO

joined the Sandinistas in forming the National Patriotic

Front (FPN),2Sl The FSLN intensified its military operations

in Nicaragua, with the now familiar result of triggering

indiscriminate Guard retaliations which in turn only served

to increase enrollment in the Sandnista ranks. A dramatic

proof of the FSLN confidence took place in June 1979, when

the Sandinistas altered their strategy of hit-and-run

attacks and instead began to occupy towns and cities. By

mid-June the FSLN had a substantial armed presence in

Managua, Matagalpa, Le6n, Esteli and SapoS.

In March, PSrez' term as president concluded and he was

replaced by Luis Herrera Campins, a Christian socialist.

Herrera, more conservative than Perez, essentially ended all

military support to the FSLN while continuing to exert

diplomatic pressure on the dictator. This attitude, of

course, resembled the US position and led to some charges

that Herrera was a US stooge. The FSLN were kept well

stocked, however, with shipments from Costa Rica, Panama and

Cuba (initially in relatively low quantities in order to

avoid US opposition). In early May, Mexico broke diplomatic

relations with the Somoza regime, bringing another

252 Lake, 212.

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influential actor to the anti-Somoza coalition.253 The open

use of Costa Rica as a staging area by the FSLN finally led

Somoza to request a Meeting of Consultation under the Rio

Treaty to discuss the issue. The anti-Somoza block was able

to thwart Nicaragua's request, just as their predecessors

had successfully nullified Trujillo's attempt to use the

Meeting of Consultation to preserve his regime.254

Also in May, Herrera demonstrated Venezuela's

willingness to remain an influential, if less directly

involved, force in the struggle against Somoza. At the

Chiefs of State Meeting of the Andean Group expressed their

displeasure with the Nicaraguan government.255 The Andean

Group, in fact, became a highly visible actor in the ensuing

months. On June 11, the foreign ministers of Ecuador and

Venezuela travelled to Managua where they unsuccessfully

attempted to convince Somoza to resign.256 Six days later,

253 Ibid., 213. Since the mid-1970s Mexico and Venezuela had been involved in a competition to become the most influential Latin American state in the Caribbean basin. The Mexican action, which of course was a contradiction of the Estrada Doctrine, was part of this rivalry.

254 Gordon and Munro, 73. Among the rationales for denying the Nicaraguan request was the fact that the Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation was still technically in session.

255 Ibid., 66. The Andean Group was composed Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Chile, which had been a charter member, withdrew after the Pinochet coup.

256 Ibid., 67.

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Ecuador broke relations with Managua. That same day, the

Sandinista leadership announced the creation of a Government

of National Reconstruction (GRN) composed of Daniel Ortega

(TI), Sergio Ramirez (Los Doce), Hassan Morales, Violeta

Barrios de Chamorro (Pedro Joaquin Chamorro's widow) and

Alfonso Robelo (FAO) ,257 The reconstruction government was

based in Costa Rica. The Andean Group immediately recognized

the GRN as a belligerent according to the rules of

international law. At this point, Costa Rica and Panama had

become involved in a covert operation to supply Cuban arms

to the FSLN.25*

By late May 1979, the situation in Nicaragua had

degenerated so much that the Carter administration was

finally forced to discard its policy of non-intervention and

attempt to remove Somoza before the ever increasing

radicalization of the country produced "another Cuba". The

US, however, naively sought to maintain a reformed National

Guard to counterbalance the Sandinistas. At that stage, not

even the moderate factions were in favor of such a move.

Nevertheless, on June 18 the US and Somoza began

negotiations on his resignation and exile in the US.259

According to the US plan, Somoza was to be replaced by a

provisional president who would establish a provisional

257 Pezzullo & Pezzullo, 73.

251 Pastor, 127.

259 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, 75.

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junta composed of members of the GRN and the Liberal Party.

Three days later the Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation was

reconvened at the request of the US.

A Dramatic Miscalculation: The Peacekeeping Proposal

Fearful that the Sandinistas would be able to establish

total control over Nicaragua before an ordered transition of

power could be achieved, the US presented a resolution to

the Meeting of Consultation requesting the creation of a

special committee with the duty of organizing a government

of national reconciliation (GRN plus the Liberals). The

resolution also called on all members to refrain from

supplying arms to the competing sides and requested an end

to the hostilities inside Nicaragua. More importantly, the

resolution asked members to:

...be prepared to provide an OAS peacekeeping presence as may be requested by the delegation [that was supposed to create the government of reconciliation] to assist in maintaining public order as circumstances may require during this political process.260

This resolution served as a dramatic example of the US

policy makers lack of understanding, not only of the

developments in Nicaragua, but of the attitudes held by the

anti-Somoza bloc of Latin American countries. Calling for an

end to the hostilities and to the termination of arms

shipments at the moment in which the National Guard was

260 Organization of American States. Seventeenth Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Draft Resolution. (OEA/Ser.F/II.17/Doc.33/79, 21 June 1979).

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visibly falling apart was by itself extremely naive. So were

the demands for a government of national reconciliation,

something that the GRN would dismiss as being "somocismo

without Somoza". Requesting the creation of a "peacekeeping

presence", however, was a terrible blunder that reminded

Latin Americans of the heavy handed US approach used 14

years earlier to deny victory to the constitutionalists in

the Dominican Republic.

In an attempt to appeal to humanitarian feelings and to

the deep hatred towards Somoza, Secretary of State Cyrus

Vance remarked that humanitarian assistance in the middle of

a war was impossible, leading to the death thousands of

individuals. Moreover, Vance argued that the reprisals by

the National Guard had increased since the IACHR visited the

country and had to be stopped. However, any positive

feelings generated by these statements were immediately

erased by his next remarks. Vance argued that:

there is mounting evidence of involvement by Cuba and others in the internal problems of Nicaragua. This involvement may transform these internal problems into international and ideological issues, making it increasingly difficult to arrive at a peaceful solution."'

Not only had the fear of Cuba receded considerably among

Latin Americans since the late 1960s, but by mentioning

"others" Vance was offending Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico,

261 Organization of American States. Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Statement bv the US Representative. Reconvened 17th Meeting of Foreign Ministers. (OEA/Ser.F/II.17/Doc.38/79, 21 June 1979).

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Venezuela, Ecuador and all other states which envisioned

themselves not as obstacles to peace, but as crusaders for

justice and freedom. Moreover, as Costa Rica could very well

attest, the Nicaraguan situation was already an

international problem.

Venezuela, acting as spokesman for the Andean Group,

replied that Latin American brotherhood forced all states to

support the struggle of the Nicaraguan people. Furthermore,

the need to aid Nicaraguans transcended the principle of

non-intervention.262 Venezuela then stated the goals of the

Andean Group regarding Nicaragua. These included the

complete end of the Somoza regime and the establishment of a

provisional government composed of the democratic sectors in

the country. Nicaragua retorted by blaming the present

situation of his country on a coalition of Marxist elements

led by Russia and Cuba and supported by Costa Rica and

Panama. The Nicaraguan representative also wholeheartedly

embraced the Vance Proposal, which of course, only served to

undermine the US plan even more.263 In an incredible display

of gall, the Mexican representative remarked on the OAS'

role regarding the crisis:

262 0rganizaci6n de Estados Americanos. Decimoseptima Reunidn de Consulta de Ministros de Relaciones Exteriores, Acta de la Cuarta Sesi6n Plenaria. (OEA/Ser.F/II.17/Doc.39/79, 21 junio 1979), 12.

263 Ibid., 17. Nicaragua's position was supported by Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala and Paraguay.

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Qu& puede hacer en esas condiciones la OEA? Lo esencial, primero, es lo que ao puede hacer. La OEA no puede, ni legal, ni polltica, ni moralmente intervenir en este asunto puramente interno de Nicaragua.264

These remarks, coming from a state which had violated the

self-imposed Estrada Doctrine and which was in alliance with

a group of states openly violating Nicaragua's sovereignty,

clearly revealed the anti-Somoza bloc's strategy. The states

would continue supplying arms and funds to the GRN, outside

the framework of the OAS. Meanwhile, in the OAS they would

take a defensive position designed to bloc any US attempt to

forge an IAPF.

The central personality in the June 1979 session of the

Meeting of Consultation was definitely Juan Antonio Tack,

the Panamanian delegate. In a clear demonstration of the

erosion of Venezuela's role since the swearing of Herrera,

it was Tack who led the struggle to bloc the US while the

Venezuelan delegate became virtually invisible after the

initial presentation. Tack, an extremely sarcastic

individual, remarked that the US had a hidden agenda in

conjunction with the Somoza regime.265 A man with a flair

261 Ibid., 22.

265 Ibid., 31. Among his many sarcastic barbs at Cyrus Vance and Warren Christopher, Tack suggested to the US delegation that they should read The Sandino Affair, "que es facil de conseguir en la Biblioteca del Congreso". Remarking on the OAS, Tack said that any day it would be capable of making a decision. When the Paraguayan delegate regaled the session with a particularly grandiloquent speech, Tack thanked the delegate and announced that the Panamanian government would print his speech and publish it widely so it would endure forever.

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for the dramatic, Tack officially recognized the GRN as the

legitimate Nicaraguan government in the middle of the first

session. Moreover, at the end of the final session, he gave

away his right to speak in favor of the "special Panamanian

delegate", Miguel D'Escoto.

The next day, the anti-Somoza bloc presented a

resolution for "the definitive exclusion of the Somoza

regime", the holding of free elections as soon as possible

and the establishment in the interim of a government

composed of those elements "seeking to replace the Somoza

regime". Furthermore, the resolution called on all members

to respect the principle of non-intervention, but also

abstaining from engaging in any action in contradiction with

the principles espoused above.266 Clearly outnumbered by the

anti-Somoza bloc, Warren Christopher was reduced to using

the same tactics used by the anti-IAPF bloc in 1965:

requesting lengthy recesses to study resolutions and consult

with his superiors. Christopher also requested all members

to work together in crafting a compromise resolution. Tack

dismissed Christopher by remarking that unanimity was not

266 Organization of American States. Seventeenth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Draft Resolution. (OEA/Ser.F/II.17/Docv.40/79, 22 June 1979). This last clause, of course, would prevent the US from establishing a government of national reconciliation. The resolution was drafted by Barbados, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. While a military dictatorship, Honduras followed a moderate approach during the entire crisis.

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necessary at the moment, especially when it would lead to a

weakening of their foreign policy goals.267 The anti-Somoza

resolution, with minimal changes suggested by the US, was

ultimately approved on June 23 by a vote of 17-2-5.266

Nicaraguan Endgame

After the failure in the attempt to gain approval for a

second IAPF, the US accelerated its efforts to negotiate

Somoza's resignation. At the same time the US still sought a

"moderate” officer who would lead the reformed National

Guard. The US also pursued talks with dissident members from

FAO, who were suspicious of the Sandinistas' true

intentions. Moreover, Carter attempted to gain Torrijos'

support for a peace plan that included the expansion of the

GRN to include more moderates, the selection of a "clean"

Guard commander, a merger of the National Guard and the

Sandinista forces, the end to all arms shipments and

267 Organizacion de Estados Americanos. Decimoseptima Reunion de Consulta de Ministros de relaciones Exteriores, Acta de la Sexta Sesion Plenaria. (OEA/Ser.F/II.17/Doc.42/79, 22 junio 1979), 10-11.

261 Nicaragua and Paraguay voted against. Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Uruguay abstained. Trinidad and Tobago refrained from voting. Warren Christopher attempted to put a positive spin on the disastrous US performance by remarking that: "The resolution adopted represents an extraordinary effort by the nations of the Western Hemisphere to deal with the unique and tragic problem of Nicaragua. As far as I know, Mr. President, there is not precedent for the broadly based and far-reaching resolution adopted today".

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Somoza's resignation and departure.269 Desperate US attempts

to find a moderate "third force" foundered in the face of

the Nicaragua's radicalization. On July 11, the GRN

announced a transition plan by which Somoza would cede power

to Congress which would immediately transfer it to the GRN.

After this action, both Congress and the National Guard

would be dissolved.

Meanwhile, the US had by that time reached an agreement

with Somoza regarding his departure. Somoza was to resign

and invest Francisco Urcuyo, the speaker of the Nicaraguan

Chamber of Deputies, as president. Urcuyo would then meet

with the GRN, where a cease-fire and the fusion of the two

fighting forces would be discussed. Urcuyo was to give up

power to the GRN within 72 hours.170 On the early morning of

July 17, the Nicaraguan Congress accepted Somoza's

resignation, who then proceeded to fly to Florida with his

family and closest military supporters. However, in an

extremely unpleasant surprise to the US, Urcuyo refused to

transfer power, instead demanding that the Sandinistas lay

down their arms.271 Urcuyo's senseless treachery actually

benefitted the Sandinistas, who had an excuse to conquer

Managua by force and to dismantle the Guard. By the morning

of July 19, with the Sandinistas on the verge of conquering

269 Pastor, 163-164.

270 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, 190-198.

271 Ibid., 201-210.

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Managua, Urcuyo and what was left of the high command of the

National Guard fled the country. The Somoza dynasty had come

to an end.

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Recent Developments

In 1985, the Charter of the OAS underwent another

revision and during the 14th Special Session of the General

Assembly held in Cartagena (Colombia), a Protocol of

Amendments was approved. While essentially concerned with

development issues, some of the amendments also dealt with

the issues discussed in this thesis. Article 2 (Rev.), which

spelled out the purposes of the OAS, was amended to include

the following clause: "to promote and consolidate

representative democracy, with due respect to the principle

of nonintervention". Previously, the OAS had intervened in a

state's internal affairs under the guise of protecting

hemispheric peace and security. This article allowed the OAS

to take action for the express purpose of upholding a

democratic system of government. At the time, however, no

clear mechanism was crafted with which to exert this new

authority. Moreover, the question of how to preserve

democracy without violating the strong anti-intervention

prohibitions in the charter was not formally addressed

either. Article 3 (Rev.), stating the principles of the

organization was also altered and a clause was included

declaring that all members have a right to choose their

political, social and economic policies without interference

from other states.

Reflecting the growing concern about the power of

181

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transnational corporations and the home government's

tendency to come under their influence, an article was added

(Article 35, Rev. II) declaring that TNCs are subject to the

laws, development policies and judicial jurisdiction of the

host government. Article 63 (Rev.), which required that the

PCOAS call a Meeting of Consultation in case of an armed

attack against a member, was amended to add that such a

convocation would not affect the aggrieved party's right to

summon a meeting under the Rio Treaty. Finally, Article 116

(Rev.) was altered to reflect an expansion in the powers of

the Secretary General. The Secretary General was given the

authority to bring any issue which threatened American peace

and security to the attention of the GA or the PCOAS. This

amendment was intended to give more autonomy to the

Secretary General and to allow him to take the initiative in

dealing with crucial issues rather than waiting for member

states to take action. The Cartagena Protocol of Amendments

entered into force in 1988.272

The hemispheric-wide transition to democracy led to an

expansion in the role of the OAS, for the organization

became involved in guaranteeing the integrity of the

electoral process in most of the nascent democracies. By

272 Moreover, the Protocol of Amendments established that Article 8 (Rev.), the clause preventing Belize and Guyana from entering the OAS, would be eliminated on December 1990. In January 1991, both states joined the OAS. Now for the first time all sovereign states in the hemisphere, except Cuba, were full members of the OAS. (Canada had joined the organization in 1990).

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1994, the OAS had supervised elections in Bolivia, Costa

Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti,

Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and

Venezuela.273 The OAS, in collaboration with the UN, also

played a vital role in the demilitarization and repatriation

of the Contras in Nicaragua through the International

Commission for Support and Verification (CIAV-OAS) ,274

Despite the transition to democracy, many of the newly

elected constitutional governments remained weak. By the

early 1990s, most of Latin America's governments had imposed

harsh structural adjustment policies that improved the

country's macroeconomic situation at the price of severely

damaging the living conditions of the working and middle

classes, and of eroding the patronage power of the state.

These measures, combined with frequent charges of state

corruption, drastically reduced the governments' popular

support and left them vulnerable to challenges from

intractable military establishments and populist

politicians. The possibility that the "democratic wave"

would be reversed before it was given time to coalesce,

greatly reduced the American states' traditional resistance

273 Inter-American Dialogue. The Americas in 1994: A Time for Leadership. (Washington, D.C.: The Inter-American Dialogue, 1994), 11. VillagrSn de Le6n, Francisco. The OAS and Democratic Development. (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute for Peace, 1992), 13.

274 Vaky and Munoz, 25.

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to establishing formal mechanisms allowing intervention in

the case of an unconstitutional change of government. Thus

for the first time, the OAS was authorized to function as

pro-democracy alliance with a mandate to reverse a state's

deviation from the democratic path. This entailed the

creation of mechanisms to enforce the directive of Article 2

(Rev.).

The first step was taken in 1990, during the 20th

Regular Session of the General Assembly, held in Asuncion

(Paraguay). The General Assembly authorized the creation of

a Unit for the Promotion of Democracy.275 The unit was given

the duty of developing programs to support democratic

development in those states which requested the unit's

assistance. This program was to include leadership and

network seminars, the establishment of standards for

organizing electoral observer missions and the coordination

with other multinational organization concerned with the

issue. While the unit's scope and resources were limited,

and it was not authorized to act unless a state requested

its assistance, this represented a shaky first step in the

direction of taking action to preserve democracy. Moreover,

with the creation of the unit, the OAS was abandoning its

traditional attitude of reacting to a political crisis with

new one designed to avert crises through preemptive action.

A more solid step was taken one year later during the

275 VillagrSn, The OAS. 9.

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Santiago (Chile). The General Assembly approved the

"Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the

Inter-American System".276 The "Santiago Commitment"

declared that the OAS would commit itself to the

strengthening of democracy, the defense of human rights

through existing mechanisms, and the struggle against

socioeconomic disparity as a way to consolidate democratic

gains. More importantly, the OAS abandoned rhetorical

posturing by adopting Resolution 1080 on Representative

Democracy.277 This resolutidirected the Secretary General

that in case of any interruption of "democratic political

institutional power" or "the legitimate exercise of power by

the democratically elected government" of a member, he must

immediately convene a meeting of the Permanent Council. The

PCOAS, in turn, must summon a Meeting of Consultation or

call the General Assembly into session within a ten-day

period. The Meeting of Consultation (or the GA) would for

its part, determine collective action measures to be taken

within the boundaries of the OAS Charter. While extremely

cumbersome, (Secretary General summons PCOAS which summons

Meeting of Consultation which takes decision), this

resolution must not be dismissed as empty posturing. It

276 Inter-American Dialogue. Convergence and Community; The Americas in 1993. (Washington, D.C.: The Inter-American Dialogue, 1993), 21.

277 Ibid., 22.

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signaled that the OAS would no longer look upon

unconstitutional changes as merely internal developments

that should not be discussed unless they threatened to spill

over the border and create an international incident.

The final step was taken at the 16th Special Session

of the General Assembly held in Washington one year later.

There, the General Assembly agreed to amend the OAS Charter

to include an article giving to the GA the authority to

suspend any member which had undergone an unconstitutional change of government.m The amendment was approved by a

vote of 31-1-1. Mexico provided the lone dissenting vote,

while Trinidad & Tobago decided to abstain. The amendment

(which would become the new Article 9) is pending

ratification.

flarsh Realities; A Conclusion

The events described above may point to an activist

OAS which has finally found the will to bypass the principle

of non-intervention in order to uphold the democratic system

of the member states. Unfortunately, the reality is that the

OAS remains an ineffective organization whose role has

actually diminished since the end of the Cold War.

The OAS was completely bypassed in the initial stages

of the Central American peace process. Although the 1983

Contadora Group and the 1985 Support Group eventually

m Vaky and Munoz, 23.

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expanded to include the Secretary General of the OAS, by

then the initiative had fallen into the hands of the Central

American states themselves. Moreover, the OAS Secretary

General was brought into the process in conjunction with the

UN Secretary General. With the end of the Cold War, the

Security council was liberated from the crippling veto

confrontations between the liberal democracies and the

communist states, allowing the UN to take a more assertive

role in global affairs. Moreover, the end of the rivalry

with the Soviet Union eliminated the main US reason for

keeping the UN uninvolved in hemispheric affairs. The above

elements, combined with the fact that the UN Secretary

General was a Latin American, inserted the global

organization as a crucial actor in the main political

problems of the hemisphere. This, of course, had been

opposed by the OAS since its inception. The OAS, however,

was forced to accept the partnership with the UN because it

lacked the resources to carry out the tasks necessary to

insure the success of the Central American Peace plan. The

OAS' mission to request Panamanian strongman Manuel

Noriega's resignation after he aborted the presidential

elections was a humiliating fiasco, as the negotiating team

was forced to extend its self-imposed deadline several

times.279 Noriega was finally removed by a US invasion in

279 Wilson, Larman. "The OAS and Promoting Democracy and Resolving Disputes: Reactivation in the 1990s ?". Revista Interamericana de Bibliocrafia. Washington, D.C.: Department

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late 1989.

The OAS also demonstrated its ineffectiveness in its

reaction to the self-coup by President Alberto Fujimori of

Peru. While the OAS forcefully "deplored" Fujimori's action,

its attempts to convince Fujimori to return to the status

quo ante were a failure. Fujimori eventually held elections

for a constitutional convention and for local offices, both

observed by OAS electoral missions. By observing the

elections, the OAS indirectly granted legitimacy to

Fujimori's coup and subsequent actions. Ironically, this

action may have encouraged Guatemalan President Jorge

Serrano in his self-coup of 1993. The lenient attitude taken

towards Fujimori after the initial outrage was a reflection

of the fact that most OAS members thought that Peru was in

such a chaotic situation that the coup was actually

necessary. Moreover, the coup was enthusiastically supported

by the majority of the population and by the armed forces.

Neighboring countries feared that strong action against

Fujimori would lead to the total collapse of the country and

therefore suggested a compromise with the Peruvian

President.210 Concerning the Guatemalan self-coup, the OAS

of Cultural Affairs, Organization of American States, vol.XXXIX no. 4, 1989, 488. The mission was composed by the OAS secretary General in conjunction with the foreign ministers of Ecuador, Guatemala and Trinidad & Tobago.

210 Bloomfield, Richard. "Making the Western Hemisphere Safe for Democracy ?". in Carl Kaysen, Robert Pastor and Laura Reed (eds.). Collective Responses to Regional

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has claimed that its opposition to Serrano's action and the

investigative mission by the OAS Secretary General was

crucial in leading to the self-coup's collapse. There is

still not enough evidence to verify this statement. While

the OAS called into action the mechanism specified by

Resolution 1080, the coup collapsed before the Meeting of

Consultation had a chance to convene.

With regards to the military coup against Haitian

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the process established by

Resolution 1080 was fully carried out. The OAS members

refused to recognize the de facto government and established

an economic and oil embargo against Haiti. Moreover, the OAS

was able to send an observer mission to Haiti which

chronicled the human rights abuses of the military regime.

Nonetheless, the embargo was flagrantly violated by the

Dominican Republic, against which no action was taken.

Furthermore, the embargo only covered members of the OAS.

Thus, France and the Netherlands continued to supply oil to

Haiti, considerably minimizing the embargo's effectiveness.

The French and Dutch actions, combined with the

ineffectiveness of the OAS mediation team, led to UN

involvement. Eventually, the UN displaced the OAS in

Problems. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: American Academy for Arts and Sciences, 1994), 18-19. The one notable exception to this lenient attitude was Venezuela. After facing an unsuccessful military coup early in the year, President Carlos Andres Perez was stalwartly opposed to any action that would encourage the military to make another attempt.

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handling the Haitian situation. The OAS has touted the fact

that the embargo and the negotiations to achieve the return

of Aristide were a joint OAS-UN operation. This was merely a

face-saving technicality. In the end, the coup leaders were

ousted by the use of US military pressure, paralleling the

1989 events in Panama.

In the aftermath of the Dominican intervention in 1965,

many Latin American states decided to bypass the OAS and

thereafter to further their goals by using other

multilateral actors like the UN and the Non-Aligned

Movement. After the OAS reaction to the Nicaraguan crisis of

1978-1979, the US took a similar step, thereafter forging

bilateral patron-client relations or acting unilaterally to

achieve its goals. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Caribbean

states had never felt comfortable using the OAS as the arena

in which to discuss political issues. Thus, they have made

use of the OECS, the UN, the Commonwealth and NAM to pursue

their goals. Neglected by most of its members it is no

surprise that the organization has languished ever since.

The contradictory roles of upholding the principle of

non-intervention and maintaining democracy and hemispheric

peace have never really limited the OAS. The often mentioned

anguish felt by members who supposedly want to intervene in

a domestic crisis, but are prevented from doing so by the

OAS Charter is nothing more than an excuse for inaction. The

1959 Cuban-Venezuelan operations against Trujillo, the 1965

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landing of US troops in the Dominican Republic, the 1978-

1979 material and moral support of the Sandinistas by the

Latin American states opposed to Somoza, and the 1983

invasion of Grenada serve as proof that all OAS members are

willing to violate the principle of non-intervention in

order to further their national interests. Moreover, the

imposition of sanctions against the Trujillo regime, the

creation of the IAPF by a Meeting of consultation called

under the OAS Charter and the 1979 resolution calling for

the end of the Somoza government serve as clear proof that

when members want the organization to bypass the principle

of non-intervention they will not be stopped by legal

technicalities or cherished principles.

The OAS has not taken a more active role in the defense

of democracy and human rights because most of its members do

not want it to do so. Essentially, they fear that if the OAS

is given a mandate to take action against a state due to its

despicable domestic policies or because it is on the verge

of institutional collapse, the precedent may be used against

them at a future time. Thus, they prefer to uphold the

principle of non-intervention within the OAS, while taking

interventionist actions outside the framework of the

organization. Moreover, there is a certain hypocrisy in the

Latin American vociferous defense of the principle of non­

intervention. While often berating the US as a giant acting

unilaterally, in reality many Latin American states (under

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different circumstances) want the US to act by itself. The

defense of the non-intervention principle serves as an

excuse by Latin America to avoid investing its fair share in

the defense of hemispheric peace and democracy.2*1

In 1993 OAS Secretary General Joao Baena Soares

declared that:

Cooperation between the OAS and the United Nations cannot be based on principles of hierarchy, for neither is dependent on or subordinate on the other.2*2

Despite these brave words, there is no doubt that since the

late 1980s, the OAS has played a subordinate role vis-a-vis

the UN. The original reason for the existence of the OAS was

to keep extra-hemispheric influences at bay and to uphold

the uniqueness of the Pan American experience and values. In

an increasingly interdependent world, however, this raison

d'etre is no longer valid and the OAS risks becoming

irrelevant. The revolution in the modes of transportation

and communication since the end of the Second World War has

meant the end of the Americas as a self-contained unit which

could largely maintain extra-hemispheric actors and trends

at bay. The slow, consistent erosion of these barriers was

2,1 The activism of Rdmulo Betancourt and Jos6 Figueres are certainly exceptions to this pattern. In the late 1980s a similar attitude was displayed by Carlos Andres Perez and by Argentina's President Carlos Menem. In the Nicaraguan crisis, however, the anti-Somoza bloc began their substantial material support to the FSLN only after Carter rejected numerous pleas by P§rez and Torrijos to orchestrate Somoza's departure form power.

242 Vaky and Mufioz, 36.

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dramatically accelerated with the end of the cold War, which

heralded UN involvement in the OAS' sphere of influence. As

demonstrated by the ineffectiveness of the OAS sanctions

against Haiti, the organization's mechanism for dealing with

unconstitutional changes of government has become too

limited for an interdependent world.

The OAS may attempt more reforms such as the

strengthening of its mechanism for documenting human rights

violations and the granting of more authority to the

Secretary General to act as mediator during domestic crises.

It may also expand the range of services provided by the

Unit for the Preservation of Democracy and enact mechanisms

that would punish members who violate decisions by the

Meetings of Consultation. If the OAS seeks to regain its

credibility, however, it will be forced to approve the

establishment of peacekeeping and peaceenforcing elements.

Clearly, use of these elements to diffuse domestic crises

would be contrary to a strict interpretation of the Charter.

Nonetheless, as has been demonstrated by the two case

studies, members have disregarded the principles and the

mechanisms of the Charter whenever it is convenient.

Moreover, the Charter can be amended. Member states have a

tendency to criticize the OAS as an institution. They forget

that the OAS would only be as strong as its members allow it

to be. If member states continue to bypass the OAS and

refuse to give the organization the necessary tools to deal

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effectively with security issues in the hemisphere, then the

organization will become an irrelevant anachronism

maintained in order to celebrate a series of ideals that its

members were never willing to implement.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acevedo, Domingo E. "The Right of Members of the Organization of American States to Refer their 'Local' Disputes Directly to the United Nations Security Council". The American University Journal of International Law and Policy, vol.4, num.25, 1989.

Atkins, G. Pope. Latin America in the International Political System. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1989.

Ball, M. Margaret. The OAS in Transition. Durham: Duke University Press, 1969.

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