Immortal Technique and Latin American History

Some things in life come full circle.

I first heard Immortal Technique when I was in high school.  His message was radical and his style was confrontational, but his lyrics had a lot of interesting insights.  You could tell from his songs he had a clear grasp of what he was talking about.  When I first listened to his music, I started to question a lot about society in a way that normal sources about politics don't give you the chance to.  Before I had only thought about individual political issues in a very Democrat vs Republican sort of way.  After listening to Tech, thoughts about how society is structured, why we have the policies we do, and who benefits from said structures and policies began to influence the way I analyzed the world.  Peppered throughout these songs are references to historical events, about which I wasn’t educated at the time.

Now, in just under two weeks, I’ll be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in International Studies from UC Irvine.  In our major you have to choose a particular region to specialize in and I chose The Americas, which is essentially Latin America and the Caribbean (as well as Canada).  During my time I’ve learned a lot about Latin American history, particularly during the 20^th Century; to a less comprehensive extent, I’ve learned about other places, as well.

Now when I listen to Immortal Technique, I nod along just like before, but also with a decent understanding of many of the references he makes in his music.  Because I strongly believe education should be free and knowledge should be shared, I want to take a moment to explain some of the historical allusions Immortal Technique makes in the opening lines of the song “Death March” from his album The Third World.

The lines:

Invasion and rampant monetary inflation

That brought us all to the footsteps of this nation

Peruvians, Haitians, Ecuadorians

Nicaraguans, Colombians, Salvadorians

They call us “terrorists” after they ruined our countries

Funding right wing paramilitary monkeys

Tortured the populace, then blamed the communists

Your lies are too obvious, propaganda monotonous

How is that for a bold opening to a song?  Obviously, there is quite a lot to break down in just these eight lines alone.  Essentially what these lines reference is the role of the United States in Latin America during the Cold War.  Here I will give an overview of that time period, and then give a specific example in the geopolitical history of Nicaragua during the 20th Century.

Latin America

Before we get into Latin America during the Cold War, it’s important to give it at least some historical context.  Hopefully, y’all know that the Spanish and Portuguese colonized most of what we now call Latin America, hence all that Spanish and Portuguese speaking.  If not, holy shit!  Please go to wherever you went to high school and demand an apology from your history teachers.

Most countries in Latin America gained independence during 1800s, but it’s important to note what kind of independence they received.  The independence movements during this time were led predominantly by wealthy people of European descent born on Latin American soil, who felt they deserved to be running their own countries instead of being bossed around by the Spanish and Portuguese in Europe.  These independence movements tended either to not reach out to poor and indigenous communities or, if they did, tended to offer a lot of false promises.  Many of these communities didn’t see too many gains during these times of new found independence, if any, and there was plenty of brutal, authoritative rule to go around while leaders tried to consolidate power.

Through the late 1800s and early 1900s, the United States moved into a lot of these countries and set up shop.  They used cheap labor (often coerced through labor drafts by the government of the host country, who felt they’d also benefit from this labor exploitation) for farming and natural resources, such as bananas in Guatemala with the United Fruit Company and the copper mines in Chile with Anaconda and Kennecott.  Meanwhile, policies displaced poor and indigenous communities so that, even if they weren’t “technically” forced to work due to labor drafts, they would still have little options left but to work in poor conditions for poor pay.

To put it mildly, this created a lot of unrest.

Here at United Fruit Company, we grow our bananas with only the freshest of human tears!

During this time, the United States fought in the World Wars and emerged a world superpower.  Shortly thereafter the Cold War swung into effect and “communist” was the worst thing you could be labeled.  This was true not only for those in the United States, but for people, groups, movements, and regimes in Latin America, too, as well as other places around the world.  And oooooh boy, the label communist was thrown around like self-pity and misogyny on an MRA forum.

Marxism had substantial appeal to a lot of populations in Latin America, from peasants to urban workers to students.  In addition, there were a lot of people, groups, movements, and regimes that weren't communists, but advocated/passed leftist policies and were therefore assumed to be communist by the United States.  During this time, the United States CIA was responsible for various actions in the name of stopping communism.

The most notorious among these actions was the funding, arming, and training of right wing militias to either (1)initiate military coups to replace popular governments with military juntas or (2)prevent groups perceived as communist from coming to power.  These plans had varying levels of success, but each managed to wreck lives, communities, and economies.  Other measures taken by the CIA included propaganda campaigns, funding candidates viewed as "favorable", assassination plots (some of which read like hilarious Wile E Coyote plots), and even supporting mildly progressive reforms to appease people.

It's important to note that in addition to the anti-communist fervor, these actions were also taken to protect US fiscal interests.  For instance, the 1954 Operation PBSUCCESS coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatelama was initiated after Ley 900, a bill in 1952 that appropriated unused land from large estates (fun fact: they gave compensation based on claimed values the companies put on their taxes, which many had purposefully undervalued to lower their tax rates) and gave it to peasants.

The United Fruit Company was hit hard by this, and the United States went scorched earth on the Arbenz government.  This ended what is now called the Ten Years of Spring in Guatemala.  This period started with a popular, mostly non-violent revolution in 1944, and ended with the 1954 coup.  This initiated a series of unstable military governments that spiraled into a civil war, which lasted from 1960 all the way until 1996, also known as the year Space Jam was released. 

 

Arguably our nation's most significant cultural milestone.

Now that we've established the over-arching time period Immortal Technique was discussing, lets gets specific here.  Lets talk about Nicaragua.

 

Nicaragua

Nicaragua gained its independence in 1821, but instability and harsh leadership were there in abundance.  Starting in 1909, the United States occupied Nicaragua, including stationing marines there in 1912 to protect US interests.  There was a lot of resentment and resistance from the majority of the Nicaraguan population during this occupation.  This included an armed resistance led by Augusto Cesar Sandino, who became a national hero of Nicaragua (and is still considered one to this day).

The occupation lasted until 1933.  At that point the United States withdrew, but established the National Guard, led by Anastasio Somoza Sr and trained by the US so that they would be loyal to US interests.  Soon after, Somoza ordered the assassination of Sandino in 1934 and came to power in a rigged election in 1937.  This launched the beginning of the Somoza Dynasty, which included Anastasio Somoza Sr and his two sons Luis and Anastasio Jr.

Their reign was of a right wing military dictatorship that were responsible for numerous human rights violations.  However, that didn't stop the United States from being extremely close to the Somozas.  In fact, when Anastasio Somoza Sr was shot in 1956, Eisenhower had his own medical staff flown out to treat Somoza.  Aww, besties!

Resistance against the Somoza Dynasty came in many forms, but one particular group was the Frente Sandinista Liberacion Nacional (National Sandinista Liberation Front), also known simply as the Sandinistas.  They were a leftist guerilla group that rebelled against the Somozas, taking inspiration from the name and cause of Augusto Sandino.  Not completely united by ideology (many had different visions for what idea change looked like, as well as how drastic steps toward that vision had to be), they nevertheless agreed the Somozas had to go and a new socialist democracy had to be put in its place.

During the time of the Somoza Dynasty, there were two major events where shit got real, and it drew quite a bit of negative opinion towards Nicaragua's government while gaining sympathy for the Sandinistas.  The first was an earthquake that absolutely devastated the capital, Managua, in 1972.  In the aftermath, Anastacio Jr (who was now in charge) and his peeps siphoned international aide meant for the victims, either keeping it for themselves or selling it to the citizens of Managua at incredibly high prices.

 

Ain't I a scamp? (that was responsible for the entirely preventable pain, health complications, homelessness and even deaths of thousands upon thousands of people whose aide from the international community I stole)

The second event happened in 1978 with the assassination of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro (while newer investigations cast doubt as to whether or not Somoza was actually responsible, at the time Somoza had already been responsible for enough kidnappings and assassinations that most people assumed by default he was responsible). Chamorro was the editor of the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, by far the biggest news source in the country that wasn't afraid to be critical of the Somozas.  Whats important to note about this is that Chamorro wasn't a Sandinista and didn't advocate armed struggle- his resistance was strictly limited to non-violent activism and his newspaper.  When he was killed, it became a tipping point where many Nicaraguans felt that non-violent opposition was no long an option.

The Sandinistas were formed in the 60s, but really began to take off during the 70s, thanks in large part to the above mentioned debacles.  After almost two decades of struggle, the Sandinistas took power in 1979.  Immediately they began healthcare campaigns, literacy campaigns, setting up a democratic electoral system, and other such progressive reforms.  In 1984, elections were had and judged by international observers to be free and fair.  While the Sandinistas weren't perfect, they initiated a democratic system, were bringing much needed reforms, and enjoyed popular support for overthrowing the Somoza Dynasty.  Unfortunately, this wouldn't last.

When the Sandinistas took power, the Carter administrations goal was to at least have a working relationship with Nicaragua.  However, when Reagan came, everything changed.  His hardline anti-communist stance caused him to support the counterrevolutionary forces (Contras) in Nicaragua.  These were right wing terrorists made up mostly of former Somoza folks that were trained and armed by the US CIA, most of which happened in neighboring Honduras.  When Congress banned US support of the Contras in 1983, Reagan obviously decided to heed this ruling and respect the balance of powers- haha, sike!  He sold weapons to Iran and used the profits to continue supporting the Contras (this was known as the Iran-Contra Affair when it was discovered in 1986).

Hi, I'm Ronald Reagan.  Many people inexplicably remember me as being a champion of small government, despite the fact that I blatantly ignored Congressional orders and funded an illegal war.  But hey, I was pretty charming!

As you can imagine, the Contra Wars devastated Nicaragua.  Schools, hospitals, agricultural land, and more were wrecked during the fighting.  Meanwhile, funds that could have gone towards fixing these areas were instead spent on fighting the Contras.  The infrastructure that the Sandinistas had begun to build was crumbling before it even had the chance to prove itself and the government had to enact austerity measures.  Because the United States also tried its best to isolate Nicaragua from the international economy as an addition opposition tactic, mixed with all the aforementioned hardships they were also facing, Nicaragua faced severe economic troubles that included an alarming rate of inflation.

When the elections of 1990 hit, Violetta Chamorro (widow of Pedro Chamorro) won the national election.  Many Nicaraguans believed that the fighting would stop if the Sandinistas were no longer in power, and international observers view this as the primary reason the Sandinistas didn't win reelection.  The United States stepped down support of the Contras, and soon after the Cold War was over.  Of course, the devastating violence and poverty brought on by US intervention didn't disappear along with the Cold War, and many countries are still struggling with these problems today (which have of course been exacerbated by the drug cartels/war on drugs, but that is a topic for another day).

So there you have it.  Regardless of your opinion of Immortal Technique, the man has quite the understanding of history and makes it known through many of his verses.  One could write an entire textbook about all the references he makes in his music.  In the meantime, I hope this starting point gives both an insight into Immortal Technique's historical credentials and insight about Latin America during the Cold War.