full image - Repost: [MODPOST] Latin America Update for 1954 (from Reddit.com, [MODPOST] Latin America Update for 1954)
Mining:
Exchanges:
Donations:
-Dominican Republic:The 1952 elections resulted in a solid victory for the PRD under President-Elect Juan Bosch against the Conservatives. With a platform around the development of human rights, social welfare, land reform, and economic equality, the Bosch government immediately went to work in the dismantling of the Trujillo regime’s institutions and authoritarian networks. While Bosch’s new government has many allies within the DR and has diplomatic support of the Quito Pact and tacit support from the United States, the broadly leftist program of Bosch has alarmed much of the Dominican landed elite and affluent class of planters and industrialists who were quick to criticize Bosch of being a communist plant. Nevertheless, Bosch did not attempt giving ammunition to the right by keeping his cards close to his chest and the loyalty of the Caribbean Legion under his belt. A new constitution is in the works which includes land reform in the Dominican Republic and reallocating land to the displaced Dominican peasantry and working class, the legalization of labor unions, it declared specific labour rights, and mentioned unions, pregnant women, homeless people, the family, rights for the child and the young, for the farmers, and for illegitimate children as well as confirming secularist principles enshrined into law. Nevertheless the new program was virulently hated by the Church, the landed elite, disloyal elements of the military and industrial magnates, who now openly plot against Bosch to remove him from power. -HaitiIn 1950, President Dumarsais Estime was forced to resign on May 10th, 1950 by the Garde d’Haiti after Estimé fell victim to two of the classic pitfalls of Haitian rule: elite intrigue and personal ambition, alienating much of the Haitian mulatto elite and elements of the military. Subsequently, the power struggle of the ensuing junta led to the rise of an upstart Colonel Paul Magloire to take the office of President. Magloire restored the elite to prominence. The business community and the government of Haiti benefited from favorable economic conditions reaching middle-income status in 1952 with the island reaching a modest development until Hurricane Hazel hit the island in 1954. Haiti improved its infrastructure and industry, renovating Port Au Prince and Gonaives, but most of these were financed largely by foreign loans. By Haitian standards, Magloire's rule was autocratic but somewhat relaxed, he jailed political opponents, including union leader Fignolé, and shut down their communications and press when their protests grew too strident, but he nonetheless allowed unions to operate despite being banned from striking. It was in the arena of corruption, however, that Magloire overstepped traditional bounds reaching enormous levels of embezzlement and corruption exceeding the pomp and wealth of previous Haitian presidents. -Colombia The civil conflict known as “La Violencia” That engulfed the country since 1948 is now approaching its final stages after the amnesty declaration of June 1953 put forwards by the Colombian General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla shortly after his coup d’etat against the Laureano Gomez administration who ruled the country since 1950 following highly manipulated elections by the Colombian Conservative Party as an authoritarian strongman waging war against the Liberals who revolted after the death of charismatic leader Jose Elicier Gaitan. After years of wanton slaughter by Conservative paramilitaries acting on behalf of the Gomez administration, the Liberals launched the Palenquero Offensive from their bases in Antoquia intending to take the Palenquero Air Base and utilize the aircraft inside to bomb Bogota and force the Conservative government into submission. Despite the failure of this operation, the political elite of Bogota including the former president Mariano Ospina, contacted General Rojas to intervene against Gomez to which he obliged in the interest of finding a political solution to the conflict and clamping down on extremism. Gomez fled to New York in exile shortly after the bloodless coup and Rojas consolidated his power with the amnesty declaration despite adopting a moderate conservative line, appointing former ministers of the Ospina administration, he managed to sway the Liberals through his commitment to reforms towards press freedom and political amnesty to the Liberal rebels, prompting most of the guerillas to demobilize. -Paraguay- President Juan Manuel Frutos, under the watchful eye of the Quito Pact Truth committee and the stabilization efforts by the Colorado Party handling the traumatic aftermath of the Second Paraguayan War, has successfully managed to create the institutions necessary to maintain the authority of Frutos’s administration, enough to create the conditions for the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in decades. The 1954 Paraguayan elections resulted in the victory of the Liberal Party and the elevation of President Victor Manuel Urrutia into office. Despite calls from within the Colorados for Frutos to remain in charge, his interest in institutionalization and the rehabilitation of the Liberal Party after the civil war, allowed for the historic reconciliation. Manuel Urrutia pledged to uphold bipartisanship between the Colorados and the Liberals and has agreed to continue the developmentalist economic policies of his predecesor. Immigration from Southern Asia and Argentina has helped in population recovery of Paraguay as well as providing workers to help fuel Paraguay’s economic development, nevertheless this meant that a not insignificant portion of the Paraguayan population is first generation immigrant presenting unique political dilemmas in the following decades.
Social Media Icons