William Clinton

Born in the U.S.A. in 1946.

Born in Arkansas in 1946, he was the president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. At first, many felt that Clinton’s administration would bring a change to relations between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean, a shift from the policies of pressure, intervention, support for military and paramilitary forces and dirty war which characterized Reaganism and its continuation under George H. W. Bush’s administration. The defense of human rights, transparency and accountability in hemispheric relations and a new window of opportunity for integration were on everyone’s lips.

However, as Noam Chomsky observed, what actually happening behind the scenes were the same old attempts by U.S. power circles to curtail social movements and the rights of people to fashion their own economic, political and social systems. In line with its Republican predecessor, the Clinton administration ratified and redoubled anti-Cuban measures that included the economic blockade, biological warfare efforts and subversive activities.

The United States supported the bloody repression of subversive forces perpetrated by the governments, military and paramilitary forces of Colombia, Guatemala and Peru; campaigns in which individuals “disappeared,” or were murdered, tortured or displaced. The White House was also slow in finding an adequate solution to the serious situation in Haiti.

Under Clinton, the United States once again became a hemispheric cop. Particularly suspect were the so-called “non-traditional missions” undertaken between 1996 and 1998, some of which invoked the pretext of a war on drug-trafficking. During these years, the South Command moved its general staff to Florida, began to station its main units in Puerto Rico, commenced the strengthening or creation of bases in Saint Lucia, Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, Aruba and Curacao and attempted to extend U.S. military presence in Panama.

Sources:

• Suarez, Luis. Madre America. Un siglo de violencia y dolor (1898-1998) (Mother America, A century of violence and pain). Ed. Ciencias Sociales. La Habana, 2002