The Poverty Brokers

Martin Honeywell

The international debt crisis which hit the headlines in September 1982 has underlined the power that is wielded by the International Monetary Fund. As the ultimate source of credit for heavily endebted Third World countries, it can impose onerous conditions on those nations that need its assistance...

Chile: The Pinochet Decade

Phillip O'Brien, Jacqueline Roddick

General Pinochet came to power in Chile in a coup which cost the lives of over 10,000 people. The coup brought to an end the socialist government of President Allende and inaugurated an experiment in monetarist economics which Time Magazine described as 'a model of what can be achieved in restructur...

Falklands/Malvinas

Jenny Pearce, Martin Honeywell

Argentina and Britain have long disputed each other's claims to the Falkland Islands. The issue spilled over into a full-scale war between April and June 1982 in which over 1000 people died. The wave of nationalist fervour fostered by the governments and media of both countries has obsured many of t...

The European Challenge

Jenny Pearce

Europe's economic and political interests in Latin America have been growing steadily in the past decade. The United States remains the largest source of direct investment in the region, but Europe's share is substantial and increasing. Latin America has much to offer Europe as a vast potential mark...

Under The Eagle 2nd Edition

Jenny Pearce

The Caribbean basin is one of the most volatile areas of the world today. Since the last century the United States has maintained its supremacy in the region through direct and indirect military intervention, alliances with local oligarchies and economic domination. The poverty, repression and under...

Bolivia: Coup d'Etat

James Dunkerley

On 17 July 1980 Bolivia suffered the most brutal and bloody military coup in its history. The leader of the coup, General Luis Garcia Meza, thus brought to an end Bolivia's faltering attempts to establish parliamentary democracy. The coup's purpose was not simply to prevent the inauguration of the n...

Unity is Strength

James Dunkerley, Chris Whitehouse

Latin American workers and peasants live in extreme poverty, exploited by a global economic system which concentrates wealth and power in the hands of the multinational corporations and local capitalists at the expense of the mass of working people. In many Latin American countries this system is en...

Paraguay

Since 1954 Paraguay has been ruled by the dictator Alfredo Stroessner, the longest surviving head of state in the world. His regime has been characterized by extreme brutality, corruption and economic stagnation. However, in 1973 Paraguay began to experience dramatic economic and social changes as a...

Europe and Latin America 1980

Underdevelopment, poverty, dictatorship and repression in Latin America are persistent and interrelated problems. Many Latin American governments pursue economic policies which deepen social inequalities and conflict and which are frequently implemented through the violent suppression of civil and p...

Uruguay

Jenny Pearce

Uraguay was once known as 'the Switzerland of Latin America', an apparent model of stability, progress and prosperoty in a turbulent continent. But the illusion began to crumble in the 1950s as declining world prices for Uraguay's exports exposed the vulnerability of its dependent economy. By the la...