Central American crisis

The Central American crisis began in the late 1970s, when major civil wars and communist revolutions erupted in various countries in Central America, causing it to become the world's most volatile region in terms of socioeconomic change. In particular, the United States feared that victories by communist forces would cause South America to become isolated from the United States if the governments of the Central American countries were overthrown and pro-Soviet communist governments were installed in their place. During these civil wars, the United States pursued its interests by supporting right-wing governments against left-wing guerrillas.^[1]

In the aftermath of the Second World War and continuing into the 1960s and 1970s, Latin America's economic landscape drastically changed.^[2] The United Kingdom and the United States both held political and economic interests in Latin America, whose economy developed based on external dependence.^[3] Rather than solely relying on agricultural exportation, this new system promoted internal development and relied on regional common markets, banking capital, interest rates, taxes, and growing capital at the expense of labor and the peasant class.^[2] The Central American Crisis was, in part, a reaction by the most marginalized members of Latin American society to unjust land tenure, labor coercion, and unequal political representation.^[1] Landed property had taken hold of the economic and political landscape of the region, giving large corporations much influence over the region and thrusting formerly self-sufficient farmers and lower-class workers into hardship.^[1]