Post-Cuban Revolution

A revolution is a deep-seated need that rises from within a nation in reaction to extreme measures. Nations vary in their definitions for these measures, but the worldwide accepted notion is that such measures are mostly exclusive for authoritarian regimes, and it is considerably easier for an authoritarian regime to force unfair restrictions in the name of security and nationalism than it is in a democratic state.

Authoritarianism leaves no place for real opposition, and as a result of the compulsive forced following of the people we can understand the reason why some people revolt against authoritarian regimes. Looking for freedom and for a true meaning of citizenship rights can lead, sometimes, to a revolution against the ruling regime.

Cuba witnessed a military coup d’état that ruled the state for years led by Batista, followed by counter movements and organized guerrilla movements by Castro who took over later.

Furthermore, Venezuela also had been a victim of a military coup which overthrew the dictator in 1958 and led to Betancourt to become the president. In addition, after Betancourt adopted austerity measures, a lot of guerrilla wars by students and splinter groups of national parties took place against him. However, these movements were repressed and had to come to an end by the late 1960s.

Likewise, university students and peasants formed guerrilla movements in other countries of Latin America like Columbia, Peru, and Guatemala, yet, were repressed at some point.

Nevertheless, some of Latin America’s guerrilla movements failed specially in Bolivia, led by the famous Che Guevara as a result of the lack of the peasants support.

However, Paraguay had a long history with authoritarianism and military coups. However, although it was governed by the authoritarian regime led by Alfredo Stroessner who took over in 1954 and who plainly continued its tyrannical past, yet, witnessed no opposition and had no guerrilla

Most of them witnessed an early death, while a few countries witnessed strong insurgencies: Columbia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Peru. As per our cases, on one hand, while Paraguay and Haiti did not witness insurgencies, Columbia’s insurgencies began with the struggles of the peasants during the 1920s and 1930s, then they started to highly arise after the assassination of a populist leader in 1948 which affected the peasants and they organized violent groups as a reaction “La Violencia”, this period was the bloodiest of Columbia’s history, and it resulted in the creation of the National Front after both parties- liberals and conservatives- in Columbia decided ally together to face the inequalities. Those two parties failed later to compromise and the inequality among classes remained which led to the rise of the most important military insurgency in Columbia; FARC. FARC is a very organized movement that was keen to attract everyone to the movement, and they relied on a military strict discipline to avoid any future corruption. (M. MCcarthy,