Human rights and United States policy toward Latin America

432 Pages·1981·40.598 MB·English

by  Lars Schoultz

Human Rights
and
United States
Policy
toward
Latin America
LARS SCHOULTZ
Human Rights and
United States Policy
toward Latin America
Human Rights and
United States Policy
toward Latin America
LARS SCHOULTZ
— PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
J " /•• ' —J
Copyright © 1981 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Pre$$, Princeton, New Jersey
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be
found on the last printed page of this book
This book has been composed in Linotron Goudy
Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books
are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are
chosen for strength and durability
Printed in the United States of America by Princeton
University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
103970
To Jane, Karina, and Nils
CONTENTS
List of Tables ix
Preface xi
List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction 3
Chapter 1 Latin America and U.S. Public Opinion 19
Chapter 2 Interest Groups 48
Chapter 3 Diplomacy and Human Rights 109
Chapter 4 Economic Aid: Participants and Processes 135
Chapter 5 Economic Aid and Human Rights 168
Chapter 6 Military Assistance 211
Chapter 7 Multilateral Economic Assistance 267
Chapter 8 Linkages to the U.S. Private Sector 301
Conclusion 344
Bibliography 381
Index 407
vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table LI Selected List of Human Rights-Related Government
Actions: Chile, 19734976 12
Table 14 Selected List of Human Rights-Related Government
Actions: Uruguay, 19724975 14
Table 14 Are We Spending Too Much, Too Little, or About
the Right Amount on Foreign Aid? 31
Table 44 Appropriation History for Economic Assistance,
FY1948TY1979 147
Table 54 U.S. Economic Aid to Chile, FY1962-FY1978 172
Table 64 Military Assistance to Latin America, FY195CL
FY1978 214
Table 64 Military Assistance to Latin America by Country,
FY1950TY1978 215
Table 64 Administration Military Assistance Requests,
FY19764Y1979 265
Table 74 Comparison of U.S. Bilateral and Multilateral Eco-
nomic Assistance, FY1962'FY1979 269
Table 74 Loans Authorized by IBRD, IDA, and IDB, FY196L
FY1978 269
Table 74 MDB Loan Authorizations to Chile, 19614979 283
Table 74 U.S. “No” Votes and Abstentions on MDB Loans
for Human Rights, 19454980 296
Table 84 OPIC Insurance by Country Receiving Investment,
19744976 317
Table 84 U.S. Commercial Arms Deliveries to Latin America,
FY1968TY1978 321
PREFACE
This is a book about human rights and United States policy toward
Latin America. I have written it for two reasons. First, I hope it will
contribute to an understanding of the process of U.S. foreign policy
making. Despite the existence of a large body of literature that dem-
onstrates how the decision-making process influences—some would
say determines—what is decided, there are few empirical analyses of
exactly how United States policy toward Latin America is created and
implemented. Using the issue of human rights as a focus, this study
attempts to narrow the gap between our knowledge of theory and
practice by describing and analyzing the structure of foreign policy
decision making, the rules and processes that officials have created to
communicate and negotiate with one another, with the public, and
with Latin American governments.
Second, this book examines the values that underlie the structure
of United States policy toward Latin America. I began to write the
proposal to conduct this study in late 1975, when it seemed that U.S.
policy toward the Third World was oriented to support some of the
most repressive governments imaginable. I began to write the con­
cluding chapter on July 17, 1979, the day Anastasio Somoza fled
Nicaragua at the urging of the Nicaraguan people and, in the end,
the United States government. Sandwiched between those two dates
were the human rights years in United States foreign policy, a period
in which humanitarian values openly challenged the prevailing na­
tional security ideology. Rarely has so much data on the conflict of
values in foreign policy been available for public examination, rarely
has a challenge to the traditional value of anticommunism been so
aggressive, and rarely has it been possible to identify with precision
the manner in which values are defended, attacked, promoted, and
compromised in the making of United States foreign policy.
The subject of United States policy toward human rights in Latin
America is a difficult one to investigate dispassionately. Not only have
human rights been frequently and intensively violated by a variety of
Latin American governments during the past two decades, but in sev­
eral cases the United States government created, helped create, en­
couraged, or at least applauded the creation of the physical apparatus
of repression and the ideological climate that encouraged its use. It
would not be difficult for a study of United States policy toward human
rights to become a diatribe. To avoid this I began to work with a
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PREFACE
number of rudimentary assumptions. I took it for granted that, other
things being equal, citizens and their policy makers would prefer not
to support repressive governments. But I also assumed that other things
rarely if ever are equal in foreign policy making, and while with
occasional but notable exceptions foreign policy officials are honorable
people, these officials frequently find it impossible to pursue simul­
taneously humanitarian concerns and the host of other values they
hold in common with the citizens and the interests they represent.
I repeatedly note these competing values, but I leave to the reader
the task of deciding whether his or her values are congruent with those
of United States policy. I have attempted to present the data so that
informed decisions can be made. While the reader will have no dif­
ficulty determining my views, the elaboration and defense of these
views is not the purpose of this book. With the exception of the final
pages of the conclusion, my purpose is to describe and analyze United
States policy as it was and as it is, not as I would wish it to be.
This study is based upon interviews conducted during 1975, 1977
to 1978, 1979, and 1980 with officials of interest groups, the executive
branch, and Congress. Although references are made to interviews
as early as November 1975 and as late as April 1980, the bulk of the
data was collected between December 1977 and December 1978. Dur­
ing that year I began by interviewing at least one representative of
every interest group concerned with the issue of human rights and
United States policy toward Latin America—sixty-three employees
of business lobbies, Latin American governments, and a broad variety
of nongovernmental organizations. I then turned to Congress and the
executive branch, interviewing forty-seven executive branch officials
at the assistant secretary level and lower who were charged with for­
mulating and implementing United States policy toward human rights
in Latin America and twenty-eight persons with similar responsibilities
in Congress. Only four of the latter group were members of Congress.
The others were evenly divided between legislative aides to individual
members and staff personnel of foreign affairs and appropriations com­
mittees.
After it became clear that respondents were bored by the standard­
ized questionnaire I had laboriously constructed, I began to tailor each
interview to the interests and responsibilities of the respondent. I
asked respondents what they did, how they did it, and why. I asked
which tasks were emphasized and which were avoided; which bureau­
cratic actors were their friends and which their enemies; why some
rules were obeyed and others ignored. Some of these interviews were
short—the record was six minutes—but most lasted about an hour.
A number of respondents were interviewed repeatedly, a few as many
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PREFACE
as a dozen times over the course of 1975 to 1980. Many have taken
the time to read and criticize preliminary drafts of several chapters.
Despite the fact that none of these officials was obligated to speak
with me, none refused my request for an interview and only a very
few evidenced any impatience with my intrusions. Although in many
cases a promise of anonymity prevents the identification of individual
respondents, this volume is basically their story.
The money to support my research was provided by a postdoctoral
research award from the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies
of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council
of Learned Societies. To that benevolent committee and its two parent
organizations, and to Louis Wolf Goodman, then of the SSRC, I am
truly grateful. Other funds were generously supplied by the Public
Concern Foundation, by Miami University’s Faculty Research Com­
mittee and its Alumni Travel Fund, and by the University of Florida’s
Graduate School and its Center for Latin American Studies.
I am indebted to colleagues at three institutions for their support.
The Dean of the College of Arts and Science at Miami University,
C. K. Williamson, and the faculty of the Department of Political
Science and its chairperson, Herbert Waltzer, encouraged my work
at a time when other university officials would have preferred that I
drop the subject of human rights. The faculty of the Department of
Political Science at the University of Florida graciously permitted me
to accept an unusual opportunity and begin a year’s leave of absence
less than four months after my initial appointment. And the Depart­
ment of Political Science, the Institute of Latin American Studies,
and the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill provided substantial assistance in man­
uscript preparation. Over the four years between the time I wrote my
research proposal and the time I completed the conclusion, I received
able editorial and typing assistance from Louisa Allen, Doris Atwater,
Lydia Gonzalez, C. L. Lassiter, Dotty Pearson, Debralee Poe, Hazel
Pridgen, Betsy Roberts, Kathleen Stipek, Betsy Taylor, and Jean West.
My debt to a variety of Washingtonians is difficult to communicate.
There are dozens of individuals who spent hours of their time answering
my questions, introducing me to appropriate officials and sources of
data, and then reading and criticizing the initial drafts of this volume.
Within the U.S. government, Richard Feinberg, George Lister, and
John Salzberg were extremely cooperative. At the Hispanic Division
of the Library of Congress I was befriended and assisted by Georgette
Dorn, John Hebert, Mary Ellis Kahler, Everett Larson, and Dolores
Martin. Although one hesitates to publicize the location of a treasure,
I must add my name to the list of the Hispanic Division’s patrons who
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