Reagan's Initiatives in Central America

President Reagan increased military and financial aid to many Central and South American states throughout his two terms. Financial aid to Colombia's military and right-wing paramilitary groups skyrocketed in the 1980s, even as Colombia compiled one of the worst human rights records in the hemisphere. A similar situation existed for El Salvador; even as tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered by government and government-allied forces in the early 1980s, Reagan stated that El Salvador was making "progress."

School of the Americas

The C.I.A., U.S. military advisers, and the U.S.-based School of the Americas trained the Latin American Armed Forces in torture and assassination techniques in an effort to combat "radical populism"—or in effect, interrupt the spread of Communism. The School of the Americas has since been criticized concerning the human rights violations performed by a number of its graduates. On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals that were used at the U.S. Army School of the Americas and distributed to thousands of military officers from 11 South and Central American countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, where the U.S. military was heavily involved in counterinsurgency. These manuals advocated targeting civilians, extrajudicial executions, torture, false imprisonment, and extortion.

Official seal of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, also known as the School of the Americas

The C.I.A., U.S. military advisers, and the U.S.-based School of the Americas trained the Latin American Armed Forces in torture and assassination techniques to combat "radical populism".

Guatemala

In 1999, a report on the Guatemalan Civil War from the Commission for Historical Clarification, sponsored by the United Nations, stated that "The United States demonstrated that it was willing to provide support for strong military regimes in its strategic backyard. In the case of Guatemala, military assistance was directed towards reinforcing the national intelligence apparatus and for training the officer corps in counterinsurgency techniques, key factors which had significant bearing on...[the] acts of genocide." According to the Commission, between 1981 and 1983 the Guatemalan security apparatus—financed, armed, trained, and advised by the United States—destroyed 400 Mayan villages and butchered 200,000 people. The majority of the victims were political activists, students, trade unionists, priests, human rights advocates, and poor peasants.

Panama

In Panama, support for anti-Communist regimes was more covert. Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, was on the payroll of the C.I.A. as of 1967. By 1971, his involvement in the drug trade was well known by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); however, he was an important asset of the CIA and so was well-protected. C.I.A. Director George H. W. Bush arranged to give Noriega a raise in 1976 to a six-figure salary. The Carter administration dropped the future dictator from its payroll, but he was reinstated by the Reagan administration; his salary peaked in 1985 at $200,000. Noriega allowed C.I.A. listening stations in his country, provided funding for the Contras in Nicaragua, and protected covert U.S. and U.S.-funded air shipments of supplies to the Contras.

El Salvador

Reagan provided controversial support to the right-wing El Salvador government and all branches of the security apparatus throughout his term; he feared a takeover by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the El Salvador Civil War which had begun in 1979. The war left 75,000 people dead, 8,000 missing, and one million homeless; some one million Salvadorans, fleeing the war and U.S.-backed right-wing armed forces, immigrated to the United States but were denied asylum. Similar to Guatemala, the vast majority of the victims were peasants, trade unionists, teachers, students, human rights advocates, journalist, priests, nuns, and anyone working in the interest of the poor majority.

Granada 

The Invasion of Grenada was a 1983 United States-led military strike against the Caribbean island nation. Five years after Grenada obtained independence from Great Britain, the communist New Jewel Movement seized power in a coup in 1979, executing the elected Prime Minister and instituting a military government led by Hudson Austin. The U.S. stated a number of justifications for the invasion: the request for intervention by Organization of East Caribbean States, the murder of Prime Minister Bishop, the threat of political instability near U.S. borders, and the larger threat of the Soviet-Cuban Militarization of the Caribbean. The invasion, which occurred on October 25, resulted in a U.S. victory within a matter of weeks.

America's invasion of Grenada was criticized as imperialistic and denounced by Great Britain, Canada, and the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In the U.S., public support for the invasion was high, although critics point out that no Americans had ever been at risk.

Nicaragua

On May 1, 1985, President Reagan announced that his administration perceived Nicaragua to be "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States" and declared a "national emergency" and a trade embargo against Nicaragua. One of the primary goals of the United States was to undermine Nicaragua's successful independent development and democratic reforms as a key strategy in containing the spread of Soviet influence. 

The Iran-Contra Scandal 

The Iran–Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November of 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of weapons to Iran, which at the time was the subject of an arms embargo. The U.S. then used the funds from the sales to finance the anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua. 

Contra militants based in Honduras waged a guerilla war to topple the then-Marxist government of Nicaragua. Direct funding by the United States of the Contras insurgency had been made illegal through the Boland Amendment. The Iran-Contra scandal began as an operation to free seven American hostages being held by a group with Iranian ties connected to the Islamic Revolution; however, the plan deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme. Large modifications to the plan were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund Contras in Nicaragua.

Under the direction of the C.I.A., the largest Contra army, the Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense (FDN), attacked farms, cooperatives, schools, health clinics, and other civilian targets. The army murdered, tortured, mutilated, and raped civilians and committed other war crimes, as documented by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In its annual report in 1985, Amnesty International cited accounts that U.S. support encouraged the Contras to carry out "torture and assassinations."

United Nations Involvement

The United Nations (UN) Judges reviewed the C.I.A. manual issued to the Contras and determined: "The United States of America, by producing in 1983 a manual entitled 'Operaciones sicológicas en guerra de guerrillas', and disseminating it to contra forces, has encouraged the commission by them of acts contrary to general principles of humanitarian law."

In an unprecedented decision on June 27, 1986, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in Nicaragua's favor and found the United States guilty of violating international law by training, arming, and financing paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua. These activities included the mining of Nicaragua's harbors as well as attacking a naval base and patrol boats. The UN court held, by 12 votes to 3, that Washington was "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State, not to intervene in its affairs, not to violate its sovereignty and not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce". The ICJ also ruled the U.S. was under an obligation "to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused" by the breaches.

Reagan's Response

The Reagan White House announced that it would ignore the court's verdict, effectively declaring that international law did not apply to the United States. Congress then moved to approve an additional $100 million to escalate the war in Nicaragua, while expressing deep misgivings about the worthiness of the Contras and their ability to accomplish their goal. Nicaragua then took its case to the UN Security Council, which passed a resolution affirming the Court ruling and calling on both states to observe international law; however, the U.S. used its veto to block the resolution. 

While President Reagan was a supporter of the Contra cause, the evidence is disputed as to whether he authorized the diversion of the money raised by the Iranian arms sales to the Contras. Investigating Reagan's role in the affair, the Reagan-appointed Tower commission found no evidence of the president's involvement. However, they deemed Reagan negligent for not monitoring and managing his staff and indicted 14 administration officials, 11 of whom were convicted and later pardoned.

President Reagan address the public, accepting full responsibility for the crisis and maintaining his ignorance of the affair. The Iran-Contra Affair cut Reagan's approval ratings from 67% to 46% in November 1986, "the largest single drop for any U.S. president in history," though this rating had climbed back to 64% by the end of his term, the highest rating ever recorded for a departing President.