The population of Latin America and the
Caribbean reached 519 million people at the close
of the twentieth century. Yet in twentieth-century
world history Latin America was usually margin-
alised, perhaps because it did not in the first half of
the century play a major role in the global conflicts
of this century, which had their epicentres in
Europe and Asia. Perspectives began to change
only in the 1950s – not because of a belated
recognition that millions of the world’s popula-
tion deserved better, but because of the Cold War.
Before then only Argentina’s flirtation with fas-
cism had aroused wider interest. After the Second
World War the spread of Marxism and the influ-
ence of the Soviet Union aroused Western con-
cern, especially that of the US. Attention focused
on Arbenz’s Guatemala, on Che Guevara’s efforts
to spread communism from Cuba to the main-
land, on Allende’s Chile, on the Sandanistas in
Nicaragua and on the civil wars in El Salvador,
Guatemala and Peru.
With the launching of President Kennedy’s
Alliance for Progress in 1961 the US made an
attempt to address the social, economic and polit-
ical injustices of Latin America. But as the fear of
Marxist revolution grew in the 1970s and 1980s,
positive policies took second place to ensuring the
military defeat of revolutionary movements.
Then, as the 1980s drew to a close, two new
issues attracted world attention to South America.
One was the dangers besetting the global envir-
onment. Life on earth is dependent on carefulbalances, on a shield in space enveloping the
world. The ruthless destruction of Brazil’s huge
rainforest could have incalculable consequences
for the world’s climate. Attention was thus drawn
to the plight of the Indians in Brazil and to the
devastation of large forest areas.
The second problem was drugs – cocaine,
heroin and marijuana. Heroin was trans-shipped
mainly from Asia, where the poppies grew, and
also from Mexico. Marijuana was cultivated in
Mexico, Colombia and Jamaica. The greatest
demand, especially in the US, came to be for
cocaine and its derivative, crack. Drugs posed an
immediate threat to the well-being and lives of
mankind. It was estimated that in 2000 there
were 14.5 million addicts in the US alone, spend-
ing a hundred billion dollars annually. The drug
scourge had a particular hold on the deprived and
unemployed, so it was rife in the poor black
ghettos. But it was by no means confined to the
poor: crack was used by the jaded and hedonistic
of all social classes. Yet the illegal drug trade was
associated with crime and violence on a hitherto
unprecedented scale.
For many peasants in Latin America in the last
decades of the twentieth century the growing of
the coca leaf was their only source of income.
They were paid little for it. Most of the leaves
were grown in Peru and Bolivia, but Colombia,
with its illegal refineries, was the drug centre of
Latin America; here cartels and drug barons reap
colossal rewards.(^1) Chapter 61
THE WORLD OF LATIN AMERICA