Democracy in the Final Quarter of the 20th Century in Latin America Essay

Democracy in the Final Quarter of the 20th coulomb in Latin the States - Essay ExampleThe Latin American region also meant that the struggle was intense and largely supported by the US in an attempt to buttress its hegemony in the region (Bethell, 2009).The seventies saw the emergence of leftist ideas in Latin American nations. The political-military elite of these nations saw the emission of leftist ideas as a threat to the already established systems of governance. In order to protect their nations from leftist ideology, the ruling elite turned to more imperious forms of government such as military dictatorships. The example of Chile, Argentina, Venezuela and many other Latin American countries supports this idea. These regimes often employed brute tactics to weed expose the leftist factions and to avoid an armed struggle against the central governments. Harrowing tales of murder, political assassinations, rape, plundering, confiscation of property and the like are rampant in L atin America at the time. Chiles dictator Auguste Pinochet, for example, is famous for the blatant elimination of his political opponents without any trials. The struggle in Nicaragua that put the Sandinista regime in posture was marked with blood and violence to fortify the seat of power. These actions on the part of these regimes infused a spirit of freedom from oppression in the masses in these nations (Skidmore & Smith, 2005). It is, therefore, no surprise that there were myriad leftist armed struggles in Latin America that were calling for regime change by the final quarter of the twentieth century.The entanglement of these military regimes in armed struggles also meant that the saving had to pay a heavy price. In certain other cases such as Argentina, the economy turned to shambles due to nepotism, mismanagement and usurpation of reality resources (Stein & Hunt, 2007). It was common practice for military regimes to take onto armed adventures in order to divert public attenti on from the state of the economy. For example, the Argentinean military regime was made famous by itsmyopic decision to invade the Falklands that exposed the Argentinean militarys weakness against a formidable British military.