IB Historical Investigation

Historical Investigation

Alliance for Progress in Colombia

Yuan (Julie) Gu

Mr. Engel

Fifth Period

PLAN OF INVESTIGATION

The aim of the research was to prove that the Alliance for Progress established by President John F. Kennedy was able to successfully implement economic and social reforms in Colombia which allowed the nation to avoid the installment of a Communist regime. This foreign aid program was primarily launched in Colombia to improve the overall condition of the country which could be beneficial in resisting Communism. I am planning to compare the economy of Colombia before and after the formation of the Alliance for Progress by analyzing the information from Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy. This investigation also involved exploring the specific reforms applied to Colombia which can be found in Democracy in Colombia. Furthermore, I will be examining the political upheavals in Colombia and how the reforms were able to assist in defeating the Communist rebels by studying the events recorded in The Colombian Civil War.

SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE

Problems in Colombia before the Alliance for Progress

Colombia had gained a depressing status of having economic instabilities with eight consecutive civil unrests occurred during the 1800s. President of the United States John F. Kennedy implemented the Alliance for Progress in hope of controlling the spread of Communism from Cuba into the regions of Latin America, and Colombia became one of the major receivers of the foreign aid. International illicit drug exports had caused dilemmas in the economy of Colombia before the application of the Alliance for Progress. The country had lapsed into a horrific state with 100% inflation, largely depressed rural areas with polluted drinking water, and villages without sewers or electricity. Since the economy of Colombia during the late 1950’s was chiefly based on agriculture with rural agricultural farming as the country’s economic focus, farmers confronted severe pressure placed by the government as quotas in production increased with the public demand. This hardship led to many farmers called campesionos as well as immigrants to Colombia to be forced to live in miserable villages on the outskirts of the cities. By the year of 1962, Colombian government reported an estimation of about 150,000 families without land, and the number was arising at a constant rate of 10% annually. To worsen the national circumstance was that the imbalanced ownerships of land had produced massive discontent in the society. Approximately 1.3% of the agriculturists in Colombia, or the rural oligarchy, controlled 50% of the land in vast estates otherwise called latifundias.

Reforms in Colombia as a Result of the Alliance for Progress

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Reforms in Colombia as a Result of the Alliance for Progress

The Alliance for Progress had initially executed several fundamental reforms in Colombia which included the constructions of houses with high visibility and school buildings. Since the implementation of the foreign aid, Colombia found that the number of illiterates in the country had decreased from six million citizens to four millions as a result of the vast constructions of primitive schools which had succeeded in keeping up with the exponential rise in the national population. Economically the Alliance for Progress was able to increase the country’s per capita gross of national products from $276 to $326 which had confirmed to be far surpassing the program’s original goal of 2.5%. Because coffee had been a major exporting product in Colombia, the United States assisted the Latin American country by importing over 20% of the exported coffee from Colombia into the American economy which led to an expansion in commerce of coffee. One of the social reforms created by the Alliance for Progress was the rights of the laborers in Colombia, and a maximum working limit of eight hours per days, and six days per week was established. Aside from economic and social improvements, the United States was able to aid the military force of Colombia by providing the government of Colombia with direct finance to advance machineries utilized in wars.

Political Upheavals and Defeat of Rebels in Colombia

In Colombia during the implementing period of the Alliance for Progress, labor unions organized workers to declare strikes which demanded better working conditions, and violence was often employed and had been perceived as acceptable to achieve the mean. Socialism had also been developed in the country sponsored by the Workers Central Union which later led to the formation of the Colombian Socialist Party and the establishment of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The era of La Violencia in Colombia was launched by the Banana Workers Massacre where a renowned Colombian communist named Raúl Eduardo Mahecha led a group of plantation workers in a strike that ended with violence. The strike was appeased when a maximum working hour was established along with securing the rights of the laborers. During El Bogotazo in 1948, the conservatives blocked several bridges to prevent the food supply aided by the United States to be delivered into the city of Bogotá. The United States was forced to install and fund an armed force in Colombia in order to defeat the rebels.

EVALUATION OF SOURCES

The printed reference of Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy: The Alliance for Progress in Latin America consisted analyses of John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress examined by Jeffrey F. Taffet who was the Assistant Professor of History in the Department of Humanities at the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. The source aimed to discuss the successes and failures of the Alliance for Progress which promoted growth in economy and reforms in politics with a subtle goal of combating Communism in Latin America. The reference was valuable in that the work included detailed evidences of the specific economic and social reforms launched by the foreign aid program in Colombia which were from data recorded by the Alliance for Progress. Jeffrey F. Taffet also compared the before and after conditions of Colombia following the establishment of the foreign aid program. Yet the book was limited in validity because the reference is a secondary source which signified that all of the evidences came from other scholarly papers. The source also consisted of unconfirmed and biased opinions such as, “The Alliance for Progress in Colombia under Valencia seemed to be a roller coaster of ups and downs.”

The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America is also a printed reference authored by Stephen G. Rabe who was a Professor of History at the University of Texas whose field of research focused on the foreign relations between the United States and Latin America. The purpose of the book was “to explain why Kennedy’s plan for Latin America was proved to be such a critical policy in assisted countries.” The reference comprised of numerical data collected periodically after the implementation of the Alliance for Progress. Similar to Jeffrey F. Taffet, Stephen G. Rabe also did a comparative study on the economic and social conditions of Colombia before the Alliance for Progress and the physical outcomes of the foreign aid program. Although the reference was a secondary source which diminished the validity of the book, all of the evidences were supported by qualified sources, and the author never made any biased opinions. However, most of the sources that the book was based upon were also secondary sources authored by American scholars whose works were solely based on data collected by the United States. The chance of forgery by the Colombia officials increased with the data being recorded only by the United States for the United States could probably only perceive what was on the surface.

SOURCES

Crandall, Russell. Driven by Drugs: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne

Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2002.

Livingstone, Grace. Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy, and War. New Brunswick, New

Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004.

Osterling, Jorge Pablo. Democracy in Colombia. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction

Books, 1989.

Rabe, Stephen G. The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts

Communist Revolution in Latin America. North Carolina: The University of North

Carolina Press, 1999.

Ruiz, Bert. The Colombian Civil War. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.,

2001.

Taffet, Jeffrey. Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy. New York City: Taylor & Francis Group, 2007.

Taffet, Jeffrey, Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy (New York City: Taylor & Francis Group, 2007), 150.

Ibid., 15.

Crandall, Russell, Driven by Drugs: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2002), 52.

Osterling, Jorge Pablo, Democracy in Colombia (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1989), 80.

Taffet, Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy, 151.

Rabe, Stephen G., The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America (North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 24.

Osterling, Democracy in Colombia, 73.

Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area in the World, 25.

Ibid., 156.

Taffet, Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy, 157.

Ibid., 199.

Osterling, Democracy in Colombia, 199.

Ibid., 63.

Taffet, Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy, 157.

Ruiz, Bert, The Colombian Civil War (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2001), 11.

Ibid., 28.

Livingstone, Grace, Inside Colombia: Drgus, Democracy, and War (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 38.

Ibid., 44.