Central American State with Anti-imperialist Re

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Army takeover of university in San Salvador The struggles of the last eighteen months in Central America have occupied the attention of imperialists and revolutionaries alike to a degree unprecedented since the Cuban Indeed, one of the principal fears of the White House and the Pentagon is that these struggles will develop into 'another Cuba'.

These fears are not unfounded.

Central America has for over four hundred years been an important key to imperialist control Americas.

Staging post

It was a critical staging. post for the Spanish i their conquest of South America and later for the transport of minerals across "the isthmus from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Spanish hegemony in the area was not, however, unchallenged. The forces of British, French and Dutch mercantile capital made serious inroads from the late fifteenth century onwards.

The British and French managed to gain control of the majority of the Caribbean islands, whilst all three powers moved down the coast of the mainland to scissor up Guyana, and Belize (formerly British Honduras), of course, remains a British colony in all but name.

Imperialist domination remained secure until the early 19th century when the slave uprising in Haiti under Toussaint l'Ouverture wrested independence from republican France.

Civil war

Haiti was followed by the Spanish colonies which belatedly freed themselves from the metropolitan power after the South American and Mexican rebellions of 1809-1825.

The only remaining Spanish colony of any importance was Cuba where Haitian dictator Duvalier the struggle for independence led to a bloody civil war from 1868 to 1878 and a massive popular insurrection in the late 1890s.

This uprising was only brought to an end by the intervention of US troops in 1898.

New phase The arrival of the marines, along with Theodore Roosevelt and his 'Rough Riders', heralded an entirely new phase of imperialist control in this area of critical strategic importance.

The demands of the burgeoning monopoly capitalism of North America were most evident in the annexation of Panama from Colombia in 1903 and the construction of the canal. But control of the entire area was essential to protect this vital trading link.

Puppet regimes abounded but proved incapable of sustaining the political control and public order required by the U.S. for a cheap and reliable supply of primary commodities-sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco, citrus fruits.

While Britain, France and Germany contented themselves with blockading Venezuela when she resisted repaying loans, the U.S., much closer and already becoming the dominant world imperialist power, resorted . to direct military intervention.

Coca Cola The marines invaded Mexico in 1914, occupied Haiti from 1915 to : 1934, Cuba from 1899 to 1909 and 1921 to 1926, Nicaragua from 1909 to 1936, and made incursions into several other states.

Today the occupation continues: Coca Cola, Baseball and Chase Manhattan coexist with widespread starvation, the most massive concentration of wealth (even by South American standards) and the most brutal repression (even by South American standards).

For years the leisured presumption of Wall Street and the Pentagon has been that no major alteration of the system of control in Central America was necessary.

When a local dictator or national bourgeoisie ran into difficulties the marines could be dispatched, as in the Dominican Republic in 1965.

No impact Although Kennedy established the Alliance for Progress as a new 'humane... democratic' system in direct response to the Cuban revolution, it had virtually no impact-and nor could it, since the social relations of production in Central America are so inextricably linked with super-exploitation by the companies of the imperialist power.

Now even the hawks are beginning to blink and toss around alternatives.

Worried by the sugar workers' strike of 1976 and continuing agitation in Guyana; the growing restlessness of the Haitian masses with the corrupt and unscrupulous •dictatorship of the Duvalier family; the nationalist campaign in Panama over the canal; the overtures made by Castro to the l Manley regime in Jamaica; the recent coup in Grenada; and the persistence of guerrilla warfare throughout the area, the State Department began to revise its However, as soon as it had embarked on reversing its policy for the Dominican Republic by supervising the electoral defeat of the Balaguer government that it set up after the 1965 invasion, U.S. imperialism was faced with the outbreak of civil war in Nicaragua, the renewal of worker and peasant mobilisation in Guatemala, and the rapid escalation of guerrilla activity and mass protest in Long tradition In these three countries, the epicentres of the current struggle, there has been a long tradition of anti-imperialist militancy and armed insurrection.

This has hitherto largely taken the form of rural guerrilla warfare or spontaneous peasant uprisings, reflecting the great numerical predominance of agrarian workers.

Whilst the urban proletariat has grown appreciably in the last decades, it continues to be conditioned to a high degree by the deadweight of rural society under capitalism.

The statistics for Guatemala speak for themselves: 1% of the populaShooting during riots in San Salvador Guatamalan Indian peasant tion owns 80% of the land; 70% of the population receives an annual average income of 40; unemployment runs at 20% and underemployment at over 50%; 1.2% of the labour force is unionised; and 63% of the population over seven years is illiterate.

Guatemala has been one of the most turbulent states in the area. In 1944 a coalition of students, labour leaders, petty bourgeois professionals and reformist army officers overthrew the 13-year dictatorship of Gen. Ubico, which had been set up to ensure survival during the world recession when the market for coffee had completely collapsed.

Universal suffrage

The ten years of rule by the reformist wing of the bourgeoisie saw the introduction of universal suffrage (except for illiterate women), basic trade union rights and 'democratic' freedoms.

Agrarian reform

But even the reformists, who were closely supported by the Stalinist PGT (Guatemalan Workers the local CP), were clear that these concessions would not avert major political crisis unless they were backed by a broad agrarian reform. .

The peasants had already carried out extensive seizures of land before the measure was put into effect. The law itself only affected 'unused' land and, naturally, offered compensation.

The United Fruit Company (now known as United Brands), the largest landowner in the country, suffered particularly heavily, since it used only 15% of its lands, claiming the rest was necessary as a reserve 'in case of disease'.