The US, which carried out a "large-scale attack" against Venezuela, has a long history of military interventions and support for dictatorships in Latin America. Agence France-Presse and BTA recall them in chronological order.
1954: Guatemala
On June 27, 1954, the president of Guatemala, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, was overthrown by mercenaries trained and financed by Washington. The intervention came after an agrarian reform that threatened the interests of the powerful American company United Fruit Corporation (future Chiquita Brands).
In 2003, the United States (USA) recognized the role of the CIA in this coup, which they officially presented as part of the fight against communism.
1961: Cuba
From April 15 to 19, 1961, 1,400 opponents of Fidel Castro's regime, trained and financed by the CIA, attempted a landing at the Bay of Pigs, 250 kilometers from Havana, but failed to overthrow the communist regime. The operation ended with about a hundred deaths on both sides.
1965: Dominican Republic
In 1965, due to the "communist threat" The United States sends marines and paratroopers to Santo Domingo to suppress an uprising in support of Juan Bosch, a leftist president who was overthrown by generals in 1963.
1970s: Support for dictatorships in South America
Washington has supported several military dictatorships, seen as a barrier to armed leftist movements. They actively supported Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet during the September 11, 1973, coup that overthrew leftist President Salvador Allende.
US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supported the Argentine junta in 1976, encouraging it to quickly end the "dirty war", according to declassified US documents from 2003. At least 10,000 Argentine opponents disappeared during the junta in that country.
In the 1970s and 1980s, six dictatorships (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil) joined forces to eliminate leftist opponents under "Plan Condor" with covert support from the United States.
1980s: Civil Wars in Central America
In 1979, the Sandinista rebel group overthrew dictator Anastasio Soa in Nicaragua. US President Ronald Reagan, concerned about Managua's ties to Cuba and the USSR, secretly authorized the CIA to provide $20 million in aid to the Contras (Nicaragua's counter-revolutionaries), partly financed by illegal arms sales to Iran. The Nicaraguan Civil War, which ended in April 1990, claimed the lives of 50,000 people.
Reagan also sent military advisors to El Salvador to quell the rebellion of the "Farabundo Martí" National Liberation Front. (FNLN, far-left) in the civil war (1980-1992), which claimed the lives of 72,000 people.
A participant in the celebrations of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, which overthrew dictator Anastasio Soa, carries a portrait of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. Photo: Miguel Andrés/AP Photo/picture alliance
1983: Grenada
On October 25, 1983, Marines and Rangers intervened on the island of Grenada after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was assassinated by the far-left junta and while Cubans were expanding the airport there, possibly to accommodate military aircraft. Ronald Reagan launched the operation at the request of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to protect a thousand American citizens. The operation, which Reagan called "successful", ended on November 3 with more than 100 dead.
1989: Panama
In 1989, after disputed elections, President George W. Bush decided to intervene militarily in Panama, which led to the surrender of General Manuel Noriega, a former US intelligence officer who was being prosecuted by the US justice system. Some 27,000 US troops participated in Operation Just Cause, which officially resulted in 500 deaths, but according to non-governmental organizations, the number of victims was much higher. Manuel Noriega was sentenced to more than two decades in prison in the United States for drug trafficking, before serving sentences in France and Panama.
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On the subject, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) notes that the School of the Americas was founded in Panama in 1946 - a specialized military school for combating communism, controlled by the United States until 1984, where numerous dictators were trained.