Domino Theory in Latin America Essay

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195-196). The crushing poverty of the region, when combined with sometimes extreme civil rights abuses, led Catholic Church leaders in Latin America to establish Base Christian Communities (CBEs) committed to raising awareness of social injustices (Green, 2006, p. 206-208). As a result, many of the church and CBE leaders died at the hands of the military. These were the conditions in place when the Sandinistas expelled Somoza from power; therefore leftists in the neighboring dictatorships viewed the Sandinista victory as a way forward.

To prevent the domino theory from being realized, newly elected President Reagan created an aggressive anti-leftist Latin American policy (Green, 2006, p. 65-66). The U.S. invaded Grenada and replaced the leftist government with a more 'friendly' one. In Nicaragua and El Salvador the U.S. funded proxy armies to undermine the Sandinistas and the Salvadoran guerillas, respectively.
In Nicaragua, the Contras (proxy army) were able to weaken and eventually remove the Sandinistas from office by forcing scarce economic resources to be diverted to military defense. U.S. efforts in El Salvador were less successful as both sides eventually agreed to peace, which brought the guerillas back into society and removed the military from power.

Despite the efforts of the U.S. government to prevent the domino theory from becoming reality, over the decades since the Nicaraguan Revolution all but two Latin American dictatorships had been removed from power (Green, 2006, p. 61). Military rulers soon found themselves without many friends and in some counties, under house arrest and facing prosecution. In essence, the domino theory has been realized fully......

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"Domino Theory In Latin America", 08 April 2013, Accessed.14 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/domino-theory-latin-america-101718