Central America: Poverty, Violence, and Dependency

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Central America Poverty, Violence, and
Dependency

• Political Science 332
• Maxwell A. Cameron

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Poverty
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Poverty

• GDP per capita of US nine times that of Central
  America
• Small minority captures most wealth and income
• Real income of poorer half is between 500 and
  1000 per year - 1/20th US average income - yet
  prices the same
• Source Booth et al. 2006, pp. 16-17.

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Educational Inequality

• Percentage of the population over 25 with no
  schooling c. 2000
• Costa Rica 9
• El Salvador 35
• Guatemala 47
• Honduras 26
• Nicaragua 18

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Income Inequality

• Ratio of incomes of wealthiest 10 to poorest 10
  of population, c. 2000
• Guatemala 63
• El Salvador 47
• Honduras 49
• Nicaragua 56
• Costa Rica 25

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Human Development

• Human Development Index scores of
• select countries
• Chile 0.844
• Costa Rica 0.801
• Uruguay 0.826
• Peru 0.739
• Guatemala 0.642

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Dependency

• Definition a complex political, economic, and
  social phenomenon that retards the human
  development of the majority in certain
  privilege-dominated Third World countries with
  heavily externally oriented economies (Booth et
  al 2006, p. 20).

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Dependency Syndrome

• in order for the dependency syndrome --with all
  of its negative human consequences--to exist, a
  country must have both an externally oriented
  economy (specializing in commodity exporting) and
  a socially irresponsible political elite (Booth
  et al 2006, p. 20).

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Example

• Refusal of wealthy Guatemalans to pay taxes
• Unwillingness of Honduras elites to accept modest
  reforms implemented by Manuel Zelaya
• Low levels of social spending (except in Costa
  Rica)

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US Role in the Dependency Syndrome

• Repeated attempts to thwart socially responsible
  reformist governments
• Intervention in Nicaragua, establishment of
  National Guard
• CIA overthrows democratic government in Guatemala
  in 1954
• US proxy wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador in
  1980s
• Honduras 2009 - same old pattern?

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Violence

• 300,000 deaths during internal conflicts
  (1960s-1990s)
• Peace Accords in Guatemala and El Salvador
• As much violence today in Guatemala, Honduras,
  and El Salvador as there was during the internal
  conflicts
• Today Central America is struggling to come to
  terms with political violence that in some cases
  had genocidal features even as it faces new forms
  of violence

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Roots of Violence

• Augusto Cesar Sandino in Nicaragua waged
  guerrilla campaign against US intervention in
  1930s. US backed Anastasio Somoza, whose family
  ran Nicaragua until 1979
• Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez in El Salvador
  killed between 10,000 and 20,000 people in
  response to peasant rebellion, military rule
  until 1970s.

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Roots of Violence

• October revolution, 1944 wave of protests leads
  dictator Jorge Ubico to resign
• Juan Jose Arevalo elected in 1945, succeeded in
  1950 by election of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz,
  center-left coalition.
• CIA deposes Arbenz after he attempts land reform
  which brings him into conflict with the United
  Fruit Company

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Structural-Historical Roots of Violence

• Waves of expropriation and struggles over land,
  often created by opportunities for
  commercialization of agro-export business (e.g.
  coffee, bananas)
• Banana plantations created enclave economies par
  excellence (SSG p.95)

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Structural-Historical Origins of Central American
Regimes

• Significant Mayan and other indigenous groups
  (except Costa Rica) demographic collapse
• Guatemala was a viceroyalty of Spain gradual
  colonization starting in 1522 settlement in
  1560s, by which point the indigenous populations
  were in decline

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Demographic collapse of Mayan population in
Guatemala
Pre-Conquest population 2,000,000 1650 120,000 1
964 2,000,000 1990 6,000,000
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Structural-Historical Origins of Central American
Regimes

• United Provinces of Central America created at
  Independence Liberal/Conservative cleavage.
• Plantation economies Produced bananas, coffee.
  Conservative rural oligarchs dominant type of
  agricultural production labor intensive, often
  coercive.
• Power of military work closely with rural
  oligarchs.

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Social Pyramid
Penninsulares
Criollos
Ladinos
Indigenous and black slaves
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Is Structure Destiny?

• Guatemala had October revolution in 1944
• Costa Rica had brief civil war in late 1940s
• Since then, they have evolved in opposite
  directions
• Today both are polyarchies, but very different
  ones

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Guatemala Today

• Democracy is not just elections
• A means of living together without killing one
  another
• Yet violence remains as great today as during the
  guerrilla war
• Existing democratic institutions appear unable to
  process conflicts

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• Luchas territoriales, Estado, y Convenio 169,
  AVANCSO, 29/10/2009

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• Luchas territoriales, Estado, y Convenio 169,
  AVANCSO, 29/10/2009

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• Luchas territoriales, Estado, y Convenio 169,
  AVANCSO, 29/10/2009

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• Luchas territoriales, Estado, y Convenio 169,
  AVANCSO, 29/10/2009

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http//www.rightsaction.org/video/elestor/eviction
.mov
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Conclusion

• In beginning of 1980s, only Costa Rica was an
  electoral democracy
• Few of the major political forces made democracy
  their objective.
• Today, all five Central American nations are
  polyarchies electoral democracies with civilian
  presidents.

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Conclusion

• Yet, they are unlikely to evolve toward high
  quality democracies they combine authoritarian
  elements (repression, the power of the military,
  climate of fear) with polyarchy (free and regular
  elections).
• They cannot regulate social conflicts.

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Guatemala - Basic Facts

• GDP per capita 3,900
• Largest country (9.8 million) very
  heterogeneous 56 Ladino, 44 Indian.
• Adult literacy 67. Major literacy campaign
  today.
• Democratization in 1984, brings Christian
  Democrats to power, then Jorge Serranos Movement
  of Solidarity Action (MAS) in 1990.
• Peace accords signed in 1996.
• Serranazo 1993 an attempted autogolpe styled
  after the Fujimori self-coup in 1992
• Current government

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Costa Rica - Basic Facts

• GDP per capita 5,900
• Exceptionalism? More egalitarian, large class of
  small farmers small (3.2 million) socially and
  racially homogeneous country.
• 96 white, 2 black, 1 Indian, 1 Chinese.
• Adult literacy rate 95. Major investments in
  education during the 20th Century.
• Social consensus and constitutional politics.
• Civil war 1948-52 leads to a pact.
• Continuation of peaceful, democratic transfers of
  power in Costa Rica.

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Nicaragua - Basic Facts

• GDP per capita 1,800
• A small (3.9 million) country 69
• mestizo, 17 white, 9 black, 5 Indian.
  
• Adult literacy 63.
• Run like a plantation by Somoza dynasty
  (1934-1979).
• Sandinista revolution 1979-1990.
• UNO victory in 1990 the first peaceful transfer
  of power from governing to opposition forces
  since republic formed 150 years earlier.
• Ortega elected in 2006

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El Salvador- Basic Facts

• GDP per capita 4,400
• Large size (5.6 million) 89 mestizo, 10
  Indian, 1 black.
• 77 adult literacy.
• Radical church has major impact (Romero, Vatican
  II).
• 1972 Duarte denied power by fraud October 1979
  reformist military coup.
• Duarte in power 1980-1989. Military stalemate
  developed.
• 1989 first democratic transfer of power since
  1931 (ARENA comes to power with Cristiani). UN
  sponsored peace accords (1992) between FMLN and
  government led to internationally supervised
  elections in March 1994.
• FMLNs Mauricio Funes elected president in 2009.

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Other Resources

• John A. Booth, Christine J. Wade, and Thomas W.
  Walker, Understanding Central America Global
  Forces, Rebellion, and Change. Westview 2006.
• Deborah Yashar, Demanding Democracy Reform and
  Reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala,
  1870s-1950s. Stanford UP, 1997.
• Luchas territoriales, Estado, y Convenio 169,
  AVANCSO, 29/10/2009 (on course blog).
• Romero the movie, played by Raul Julia.