On the 60th anniversary of its publication, Ten Keys To Latin America proves to be as timely and sobering now as it was then. Author Frank Tannenbaum wrote in great depth about all aspects of life in Latin American societies. He discussed at length the corrupt, oppressive political regimes which characterized most Latin American nations, stifling their economic, intellectual, political, and social, development.
While this dismal state of affairs continues to one degree or another in some of these countries today, such as Guatemala, Honduras, Bolivia or Venezuela, the most startling and dangerous parallel now concerns Russia and its supreme dictator Vladimir Putin. He has proven to be more of a threat to world security and stability than any dictator that Tannenbaum described in Ten Keys To Latin America ever was or is now.
Tannenbaum’s extensive knowledge of Latin America may be presented best in chapter eight with his definitive portrait of the dictator or “caudillo.” A ruler of this type must possess absolute power (or as much power as possible) where unfair, fraudulent election processes are par for the course to attain that power and dominance over an entire nation. To maintain this status the caudillo can only operate as a strongman or warlord. This description fits Vladimir Putin perfectly.
Any balance of powers among the executive, judicial or legislative branches that are common in democracies are virtually non-existent in societies controlled by a caudillo. There are no effective political parties, no tolerance of dissenting voices. The caudillo rules by brute force whenever cajoling, pressure and threats fail to deliver what he wants. Constitutions aren’t worth the paper that they’re written on and since there are no effective political parties or other viable candidates to choose – there is only the president, his cronies and his henchmen.
In the caudillo/dictatorship realm they have to at least maintain the front as the be all and the end all – the alpha and the omega. Otherwise, their power will not last. In most cases, the only way the dictator could remain in power in the Latin American regimes was through the intimidation and brutality of secret police or some other paramilitary force – if not the actual armed forces of the country. We can easily believe that this is exactly how Putin keeps Russia in his clutches today.
Regardless of how authoritarian and destructive the rule of Latin American caudillos is, or has been, they were all run-of-the-mill compared to Putin. In the past there were notorious caudillos such as Juan Peron and his controversial and charismatic wife Eva Peron who dominated Argentina during the mid-twentieth century and were noted for their flamboyance. They also damaged Argentina’s standing in the world because of their sympathies for Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during World War Two.
In the early 1960s Fidel Castro was at the heart and height of Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis and for imposing his ruinous communist regime on Cuba for over five decades. During the 1980s Manuel Noriega of Panama became one of the most notoriously corrupt Latin American dictators in history by amassing a huge fortune through drug trafficking and other crimes.
These are but a few of the more publicized dictators out of the many who dominated and drained the lifeblood of most Latin American nations during the previous two centuries. Ten Keys To Latin America details the various causes that had led up to the continuous reigns of the caudillos and dictatorships during this period. Primarily, there was (and still is, in some of these countries) a lack of responsible and effective smaller units of government that gradually led to higher governing levels where there was some balance of power.
Since rules of law and constitutions weren’t taken seriously, stability could not take root. Additionally, too much economic activity and wealth was concentrated in the hands of oligarchies. Lopsided tax structures which did not applicably distribute funding to provinces and other localities also contributed to the overall condition of imbalance and ineffective governing.
However, the despotic rulers who foisted themselves on various Latin American societies were relatively self-contained in the sense that the damage inflicted by them was regional and more of a thorn in the side of the United States and it’s interests rather than a threat to the stability of the entire planet. Now, the situation is different and potentially much more dangerous since Putin is the dictator of a major power and also possesses nuclear weapons.
His invasion of Ukraine creates a more volatile geopolitical situation than any of the Latin American caudillos or dictators discussed in Ten Keys To Latin America were capable of. Putin’s actions have proven that he is more volatile and unpredictable than the despots Tannenbaum had written so perceptively about.
In spite of the current western sanctions against Putin personally and Russia generally, he still has much more economic resources at his disposal to wage war than any other dictator was, or is likely to acquire. For instance, The ill-gotten gains that caudillo Anastasia Somoza pillaged from Nicaragua for decades during the twentieth century through illegal gambling, contraband and other corrupt means was stunning for his era, amassing a breath-taking fortune of some $400 million (in US dollars) by the early 1950s. However, this paltry compared to what Putin has at his disposal.
Along with the plundering of national treasuries, intimidation, abuse, and terror was the order of the day during the reigns of other Latin American dictators such as Alberto Stroessner of Paraguay who was guilty of many appalling human rights abuses. Stroessner had at least 3,000 to 4,000 of his citizens murdered for opposing his regime and imprisoned many more during his long, harsh iron grip on that country from 1954 to 1989.
Since our world is deep into the nuclear age, Putin could take unfathomable actions which would render the crimes against humanity caused by other tyrants as insignificant by comparison. For the time being, the history related in Ten Keys To Latin America continues to repeat itself on an accelerated level and raises the ultimate question of where it will all end.
