GENERAL HUMBERTO BRANCO
President of Brazil
In 1961, Brazilian President Jaao Goulart sought to trade with communist nations, supported the labor movement, and had limited the profits multi-nationals could take out of the country. These policies were clearly unacceptable to the American business interests. In 1964, the US took part in the overthrow of Goulart by General Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, although US government officials have denied involvement. As an example of US support for Branco, just prior to the coup, US officials cabled Washington a request for oil for Branco's soldiers in case Goulart's troops blew up the refineries. Brancos regime was short but brutal. Labor unions were banned, criticism of the President became unlawful, and thousands of suspected communists (including children) were arrested and tortured. As in Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia, land was stolen from native Indians and their culture was destroyed. Drug dealers, many of them government officials, were given protection because they maintained national security interests. Brazil formed ties with the World Anti-communist League and assisted General Videla in his takeover of Argentina. When Branco stepped down in 1967, he left behind a constitution with greatly increased military and executive powers, crippling Brazil's efforts to restore democracy.
RAOUL CEDRAS
General of Haiti
General Cedras seized power in Haiti in 1991 after the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He ruled with the rod of iron associated with Haiti's infamous former dictators, the Duvaliers -- there were at least 4.000 political assassinations and more than 40,000 fled the country in boats for the US. He fled into exile in September 1994 when the US sent an invasion force under the banner of the UN.
Cedras is now in Panama, the only rival to France as the favorite haven for former dictators -- Juan Domingo Peron of Argentina and the Shah of Iran once took refuge there, and Guatemala's Jorge Serrano is a great success as a racehorse owner. Cedras has a penthouse suite in Panama City's wealthy Punta Paitilla area. He is not short of cash -- the US State Department alone pays him $5,000 a month in rent for his properties in Haiti. Panama University Professor Miguel Antonio Bernal complains: 'Our country is being used as a wastebasket for the political toxic waste of the world.'
VINICIO CEREZO
President of Guatemala
According to Amnesty International, arbitrary arrest, torture, disappearance, and political killings were everyday realities for Guatemalans during decades of US financed military dictatorship. In January 1986, Christian Democrat leader Vinicio Cerezo was elected President and said he had "the political will to respect the rights of man", but it didn't take long to find out that his political will was irrelevant in the face of Guatemala's well-oiled military machine. Hopes for change were dashed when Cerezo announced that Guatemala would continue to provide amnesty for all past military offenses committed from General Elrain Rios Montt's coup in 1982 through the 1986 elections. Although Ronald Reagan's State Department asserted "there has not been a single clear-cut case of political killing, within months of Cerezo's inauguration, opposition leaders attributed 56 murders to security forces and death squads, while Americas Watch claimed that "throughout 1986, violent killings were reported in the Guatemalan press at the rate of 100 per month". Altogether, Americas Watch says, tens-of-thousands were killed and 400 rural villages were destroyed by government death squads during Reagan's term in office. Colonel D'Jalma Dominguez, former army spokesman, explains "For convenience sake a civilian government is preferable, such as the one we have now. If anything goes wrong, only the Christian Democrats will get the blame. It's better to remain outside. The real power will not be lost." Today, the real power still resides with the military.
CHIANG KAI-SHEK
President of Taiwan
The Chinese civil war pitted Mao Tse-Tung's Communists against Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists. The US-backed Chiang, but when he couldn't do the job they also supported Japanese troops fighting the Communists, even before WWll had ended. Hated for his wanton cruelty, corruption, and decadence, Chiang did not enjoy the support of the Chinese people; entire divisions of the Nationalist army defected and fled to the island of Formosa (Taiwan). A presidential commission appointed by Harry Truman reported after Chiang's arrival there that his forces "ruthlessly, corruptly, and avariciously imposed their regime on the population. Under Nationalist rule, 85% of the population was disenfranchised, but the onset of the Korean War and the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era led the US to declare that the tiny island represented the real government of China. The US was crucial in keeping mainland China out of the UN until 1971. Chiang gave the World Anti-Communist League (an international organization with links to Nazis, drug smugglers, and the CIA) its first home, permitting WACL members to use a military academy there to train troops for Latin American military coups. President Carter tried to cut US ties to WACL, but Ronald Reagan received campaign funds from the group, and WACL became involved with training and supplying contras in Argentina and Taiwan. Chiang Kai-Shek died in 1975, but many of his policies continue in Taiwan.
ROBERTO SUAZO CORDOVA
President of Honduras
Honduras was the original "Banana Republic" -- its history inextricably intertwined with that of the US-based United Fruit Company, but in 1979, when Anastasio Somoza was overthrown in Nicaragua, Honduras got a new nickname -- "The Pentagon Republic". In 1978 Honduras received $16.2 million in US aid. By 1985, it was getting $231 million, primarily because President Suazo Cordova, working with the US Ambassador and the Honduran military, allowed Honduras to become a training center for U.S. funded Nicaraguan contras. General Alvarez assisted in training programs and founded a special "hit squad", the Cobras. Victims of the Cobras were stripped, bound, thrown into pits, and tortured. The Reagan Administration claimed ignorance of these human rights violations, but US advisors have admitted knowledge. Alvarez who made enemies among his troops because he pocketed U.S. aid and because he belonged to the "Moonies", a far-right South Korean religious cult, was overthrown by the military in 1984. Suazo's ties to Alvarez cost him his bid in the next election, but death squad activity and US aid to Honduras continued. Many high ranking government and military personnel during and after Suazo's term were drug traffickers, and although the US government denies knowledge of this, there is evidence to the contrary. In fact, the US embassy was renting space from known drug dealers.
ALFREDO CRISTIANI
President of El Salvador
General Hernandez Martinez's 1932 anti-communist purge, was carried out on behalf of El Salvador's rich coffee oligarchy, the so-called "Fourteen Families". New president Alfredo Cristiani is a member of those same " Fourteen Families", and his ARENA party is linked to brutalities surpassing Hernandez Martinez's. Cristiani is moderate-sounding, schooled in Washington D. C., and indebted to the military for power. As puppet - president, he yielded to ARENA founder Roberto D'Aubuisson, whom a former US Ambassador called a "pathological killer". D'Aubuisson, a former Army Major with ties to Jesse Helms and the US right, studied unconventional warfare in the U S and Taiwan. According to D'Aubuisson, "the Christian Democrats (Ex-President Jose Napoleon Duarte's party) are communists, but Jesuit priests are "the worst scum of all". US State Department cables indicate D'Aubuisson "planned and ordered the assassination of the late Archbishop Oscar Amulfoo Romero". It's believed he was behind the White Warriors Union (UGB), whose slogan was "Be patriotic-kill a priest". In 1989 six priests were slain and Cristiani soon admitted his US trained soldiers had committed the murders. Yet, although assassinations of priests are notable, 70,000 other civilians were killed by the Salvadoran military and the death squads since 1980.
NGO DINH DIEM
President of South Vietnam
Ngo Dinh Diem oppressed the Vietnamese people so badly that many of them turned to the communists for protection from his ruthless rule. Even President Eisenhower admitted that "had elections been held, possibly 80% of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader". Yet Diem, who had once lived in the US, had connections, in Washington, who liked his anti-communism. He founded the Can Lao Party (CLP), a secret police force overseen by his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu. The three were notorious for their ineptitude and cruelty. The CLP was not even their idea, it was originally promoted by the US State Department to rid the country of communists. Diem alienated urban professionals by suppressing all opposition to his regime. He alienated peasants by canceling their age-old local elections, forcing them off their land, and moving them into "agrovilles" surrounded by barbed wire, which even US officials conceded bore a striking resemblance to concentration camps. Ultimately, he angered his own military officers because he promoted on the basis of loyalty, not merit. In an effort to keep Diem in power, the US tried to persuade him to make political reforms. He refused, so they persuaded him to make military reforms. But when Diem was finally overthrown and assassinated in 1963, none of his generals rose to defend him. Nor did the US, which, after 8 years, had finally realized that Diem wasn't popular.
GENERAL SAMUEL DOE
President of Liberia
Samuel Doe came to power in a bloody 1980 coup, a Master Sergeant in military gear. Today, he is a self-made General in a suit, living on US aid and corporate kickbacks. But while Doe and his cronies live in luxury, the rest of Liberia dwells in squalor. Under his regime, the gross domestic product has decreased by 13%, the country's health statistics are among the world's worst, 80% of the population is illiterate, all opposition parties but one were forbidden to participate in the 1985 national elections, and those who protest these inequities are jailed or killed. Doe, a pro-American anti-communist, received $500 million in U.S. aid between 1980 and 1985. When Congress threatened to cut off funds because of Liberia's human rights abuses, Doe requested "American financial advice" as a show of good will. The U.S. sent 17 accountants, bank examiners, and economists to help Doe balance his budget, but they realized a difficult task lay ahead when they learned that Doe had purchased over sixty $60,000 Mercedes Benz cars for his government ministers and had given the Liberian soccer team $1 million for winning a match against rival Ghana. Ultimately Doe refused to allow access to records concerning 40% of Liberia's funds, for this "second budget", revenues from gasoline and lodging taxes, goes directly into the President's bank account. The American advisors returned home in 1989, mission not accomplished, and Samuel Doe remains in office, despite early 1990 rumblings of rebel plots against him.
