The twentieth century brought Latin America its sharpest swings: from oligarchy to mass politics, from democracy to dictatorship and back. In the 1930s and 1940s populist leaders such as Getúlio Vargas in Brazil and Juan Perón in Argentina won the loyalty of urban workers with labor laws, pensions and nationalist pride, while jailing opponents and controlling the press. Economists at the United Nations commission for Latin America, led by Raúl Prebisch, argued that exporters of raw materials lost out over time, and many governments tried to build their own factories behind tariff walls. Then the Cold War turned local conflicts into proxy battles.

The military regimes

After the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954 and the Cuban Revolution, armies across the region came to see communism at home as the main enemy. Brazil's military seized power in 1964 and ruled until 1985. In Chile, the coup of 11 September 1973 overthrew Salvador Allende, an elected socialist whose government had nationalized copper mines and faced soaring inflation, strikes and fierce opposition. The Nixon administration had worked to undermine him. Allende died during the attack on the presidential palace, and General Augusto Pinochet ruled until 1990. His regime killed or disappeared more than 3,000 people and tortured tens of thousands. In Argentina, a junta that took power in 1976 waged what it called a war against subversion; thousands of people were kidnapped, tortured and secretly killed. Human rights groups estimate up to 30,000 victims. Operation Condor saw military regimes jointly hunting dissidents across borders, even assassinating exiles abroad.

Supporters of these regimes argued that they saved their countries from chaos and communist revolution. Pinochet's free-market economists cut inflation and later helped Chile grow faster than its neighbors, though the early years brought a severe crash and lasting inequality. No economic record, however, can justify torture and murder, and the regimes' own records later showed how deliberate the killing was.

Revolution and war on the left

Repression also came from the left and from wars between left and right. In Nicaragua the Sandinista movement overthrew the Somoza family dictatorship in 1979. The Reagan administration armed the Contra rebels against them, and the war killed tens of thousands. Then, in a rare event, the Sandinistas lost the 1990 election and handed over power to Violeta Chamorro. In Guatemala a civil war ran from 1960 to 1996. A UN-backed truth commission found that the army committed most of the killings of some 200,000 people, many of them Maya villagers, and that some campaigns amounted to genocide. In Peru, the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas killed thousands of peasants, and the state responded with its own abuses. Cuba remained a one-party state throughout.

Transitions

The 1980s brought a debt crisis so severe that it became known as "the lost decade", as incomes fell and inflation soared. Military governments that had promised order now looked incompetent. Argentina's junta collapsed after defeat in the Falklands War of 1982. Its elected successor set up a commission whose report, Nunca Más, "Never Again," was Argentina's report on the disappeared, published in 1984, and in 1985 junta leaders were tried and convicted. Brazil returned to civilian rule in 1985. In Chile, voters in the 1988 plebiscite rejected eight more years of Pinochet, and democracy returned in 1990.

Every new democracy faced the same dilemma: punish the crimes of the past and risk a backlash from armies still armed, or grant amnesty and risk teaching that power means impunity. Countries chose differently, and many changed course later. Meanwhile groups such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women demanding news of disappeared children, who began marching in Buenos Aires in 1977, kept memory alive. Today most of Latin America is governed by elected leaders, though inequality, crime and corruption weaken trust, and some countries, such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, have slid back into authoritarian rule.

Worked example: the "No" campaign in Chile

Pinochet's own constitution called for a yes or no vote in 1988 on whether he would stay in power for eight more years. The regime expected to win: it controlled the army, most media and the memory of chaos before 1973. The opposition, sixteen parties that had long feuded, united behind a single answer, No. Each side got a short nightly slot on television. Instead of dwelling only on torture and exile, the No campaign used a rainbow logo, songs and humor, and a promise that joy was on its way, while still showing mothers holding photographs of the disappeared. Volunteers registered millions of voters and organized their own vote count so the result could not be hidden. On 5 October about 56 percent voted No. When some in the regime hesitated to accept the result, other junta members acknowledged it publicly. The case shows that a peaceful transition needs more than a ballot: it needs unity, hope, careful organization and someone inside the old order willing to accept defeat.