Armies of the Caribbean

Historical Perspectives, Historiographical Trends

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4501045
AutoresLouis A Pérez (0000-0001-9684-4256, autor de correspondencia)
Año1987
Volumen14
Número4
Páginas490-507
Fecha de publicación1987-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLatin American Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0094-582X • E-ISSN: 1552-678X
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0094582x8701400410
OpenAlexW1985980954
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas43

They are different-the armies, guardias, and militaries of Central America and Caribbean. In fact, they are quite unlike all other armed forces of Latin America. They are often portrayed as caricatures of Latin American armies, but worse still, caricatures of themselvesand too often they seem given to emulating caricature. In popular culture, in public imagination, and in professional assessments, commentators past and present have viewed Caribbean armies with a mixture of repugnance and ridicule. On one hand these soldiers and their officers evoke a spectre of malfeasance and malevolence; on other they invite score and satire. The discussion of Caribbean armies has been characterized by a consensus of enduring consistency and content. In impressionistic terms, observers of diverse ideological persuasions from dissimilar professional perspectives, writing over different periods of time, have arrived at substantially conclusions. Control of Cuban army, U.S. military attache reported in 1938, was similar to that practiced by American gang-leaders; that as long as Chief of Staff can obtain certain emollients, financial, political, and military for his Lieutenant Colonels and guarantee their immunity to punishment, he can command their loyalty and obedience as a body (Timberlake, 1938). Why, asked Abraham Lowenthal thirty-five years later, is military involvement in politics of Santo Domingo, Haiti, or Nicaragua so much closer to gang plunder than to institutional exercise of national responsibility? (Lowenthal, 1974: 127). In strikingly terms, Lyle McAlister wrote of the institutionalized gangsterism prevailing in contemporary Dominican Republic (McAlister, 1961: 343). G. Pope

Ideology · Latin Americans · Obedience · Political science · Politics · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · History · Law