[CFE 2021] The American Dream Democracy: Could the United States Be the Real Pirates of the Caribbean?

Oleh: Anggita Andrea Larasati

Growing up as a violinist, I experienced a brief period in my life where I was obsessed with playing the theme of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Although I was never really invested in the movies, being an adolescent, I got curious about the territory where Captain Jack Sparrow is supposed to sail his ark. I gradually nurtured a profound interest in the Caribbean area as a real-life politically sinking boat of the Atlantic. It really is sinking, and some people are deliberately adding more loads to make it descend faster.

Given the current circumstances, it is nearly impossible to imagine the Caribbean region without conflict. Even in four days, the region had seen a president of four years assassinated and a long-reigning regime demanded to step down. More recently, Biden imposed a new sanction against the Cuban government, which is only trying to stand on its own feet after six decades of the economic embargo that has been crippling the lives of mainland Cubans. Janet Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury, stated that the sanctions are a form of support towards the Cuban people in their “quest for democracy and relief from the Cuban regime” (Atwood, Oppmann, & Hansler, 2021).

Although the US has been accusing other governments of unprovable crimes for too long, their role in exacerbating hostility in the Caribbean has gone down in history as controversial (Heraclides & Dialla, 2017). History often speaks for itself, especially in the matter of the US foreign policy towards Latin America. The emerging nations of Cuba, Haiti, Grenada, and the Dominican Republic have experienced considerable political unrest in the last century. To no one’s surprise, most of them involved American military intervention, whether solicited or not.

Plundered, devastated, and rendered helpless

To provide a more comprehensive perspective regarding the above-mentioned countries, all four nations had been occupied or invaded by the United States at least once at a certain point in their history. It all started with Cuba, which suffered from two occupations from 1898 until 1902, and then resumed between 1906 and 1909. Even more than a century later, the US still cannot get its hands off Cuba, proved by the ongoing economic sanctions. Many believe that the crisis happening during the Covid-19 pandemic in Cuba is one of the dire consequences of the prolonged embargo performed by the US to maintain their hegemony over the American continent. The Cuban-American exiles living in Miami are also endorsing military intervention in Cuba to “bring this regime to an end” (Pedroja, 2021).

The soil of the islands of Grenada, on the other hand, experienced an invasion led by the US under Reagan’s administration. Backed up by a coalition of six other Caribbean nations with the helping hand of Grenadian opposition, the US military managed to seize Grenada for four days (History.com Editors, 2009). Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion aimed to topple the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), which unsurprisingly upheld Marxist-Leninist values under the reign of Maurice Bishop. Although it lasted for only four days, the operation succeeded in restoring Grenada’s former government, but also got lambasted by the United Nations General Assembly and labeled as “a flagrant violation of international law” on November 2, 1983.

Things were arguably a little bit more complicated in the case of Haiti. Port-au-Prince is not a stranger to the trampling boots of US troops since their occupation commenced on July 28, 1915. Under the authority of Woodrow Wilson, the US established a military regime in Haiti for 19 years and four days. Around 80 years later, the US intervened to oust the ruler in power and put Jean-Bertrand Aristide back into the picture after the 1991 coup kicked him out (Polgreen & Weiner, 2004). The racial and class antagonism that undermined their sense of nationhood, aggravated by the frightening reality of a “white supremacist capitalist international order,” incarcerated Haiti in the prison of dependence (Bellegarde-Smith et al., 2016). To put it in simpler words, Haiti has been involuntarily rendered a pariah nation.

On another side of the Caribbean archipelago, a series of occupations were carried out by the US military forces in the Dominican Republic. The first occupation lasted for eight years, dating back to May 1916 until December 1924. This act of political and military intervention symbolized the peak of American intervention in Dominican domestic affairs, and their ascendancy remained prominent even after the Marines withdrew and a new Dominican sovereign was democratically elected (Lowenthal, 1970). Half a century later, the first installation’s sequel came out under Lyndon Johnson’s guidance. It was titled “Operation Power Pack” and starred over 40 thousand US soldiers intending to prevent a “communist takeover” (Coleman, 2015).

All these dangerous acts executed by the US do not fall too far from its ideological superiority complex during the Cold War. Although during the 1940s to 1960s in Latin America that used to be just one of the many aspects of US foreign policy towards the region, things changed dramatically after the consolidation and eventual victory of the revolutionary Cuban government (Domínguez, 1999). The US was — and still is — scared of red (plus anything that does not conform to their elitist vision of good governance); it chose to pillage developing countries in the name of “democracy.”

Democracy or Demonocracy?

The United States has survived centuries calling itself the epitome of “democracy.” However, they often use it as a means to meddle in other country’s undertaking in upholding their version of democracy. The Caribbean is just a tiny piece of evidence attesting to the American conquest of the Global South, the other renowned example being the Middle East. It is shown beyond doubt that the US is forcing its dreams on those who cannot even fall asleep in peace at night.

Holding onto the narcissistic presumption that the American democracy is indeed democracy in its purest form, the US tends to impose its political ideals on other nations that do not even wish to abide or do not find the principles relevant. The American “Dream Democracy” has been demonstrating its true nature as a mighty instrument to decry the legitimacy of powers abroad and propagate the American political framework, accompanied by its way of life (Hernández, 2021).

Residing in Indonesia for my whole life, democracy has always been portrayed as one of the “saints” of political ideologies — the other being Pancasila, of course. It has been dictated as the ideal form of government where, inter alia, governing legislators represent the interests of the broader population to rule in their favor. Nevertheless, is it really the desire of the 328 million Americans to ravage smaller, less powerful countries for the sake of an ideology and an economy based on exploitation — or is it just the thirst for power that turn “democratic” rulers into destroyers, even worse than the “dictators” they condemn to die?

By its literal meaning, the United States could be the real-life “pirates” of the Caribbean. Not only did they ravage, pillage, and destroy, but they also robbed the self-determination of countries that are only trying to live by their own system of beliefs. Unlike real pirates, the US still persevere the “holier-than-thou” mentality, making it even more difficult to stop them from wreaking another havoc in the Caribbean in the near future.

Author Profile

Anggita Andrea Larasati is a law student currently pursuing education at Universitas Indonesia and will soon enter her penultimate year. Andrea recently found her love in writing, using it as a method of self-healing. Andrea is currently serving the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia Chapter Universitas Indonesia as the Vice Manager of Opportunity and Development Division while expressing her passion for arts and culture in Badan Eksekutif Mahasiswa Fakultas Hukum Universitas Indonesia. Andrea can be found on Instagram under the username @andylarasati.

References

Atwood, K., Oppmann, P., & Hansler, J. (2021, July 23). Biden administration sanctions Cuban regime in wake of protests. Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/biden-cuba-sanctions/index.html

Bellegarde-Smith, P., Dupuy, A., Fatton, R., Renda, M., St. Jacques, E., & Sommers, J. (2015). Haiti and Its Occupation by the United States in 1915: Antecedents and Outcomes. Journal of Haitian Studies, 21(2), 10–43. Retrieved July 23, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43741120

Coleman, D. (Ed.). (2015). LBJ regretted Ordering U.S. troops INTO Dominican Republic in 1965, White House Tapes Confirm; yet he insisted, “I’d do the same thing right this second.” Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB513/

Dominguez, Jorge I. (1999). US-Latin American Relations During the Cold War and Its Aftermath. Working Paper 99(01), 33–50. Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/us-latin-american-relations-during-cold-war-and-its-aftermath

Polgreen, L., & Weiner, T. (2004, February 29). Haiti’s President Forced out; Marines sent to keep order. Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/international/americas/haitis-president-forced-out-marines-sent-to-keep.html

Heraclides, A., & Dialla, A. (2015). The US and Cuba, 1895–98. In Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century: Setting the Precedent (pp. 197–222). Manchester: Manchester University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1mf71b8.15

Hernández, Jose Aponte. (2021, July 18). Devaluing American democracy. Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/563579-devaluing-american-democracy?rl=1

History.com Editors. United States invades Grenada. (2009, November 13). Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-invades-grenada

Lowenthal, A. (1970). The United States and the Dominican Republic to 1965: Background to Intervention. Caribbean Studies, 10(2), 30–55. Retrieved July 23, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25612211

Pedroja, C. (2021, July 13). Cuban exiles URGE Biden to back “freedom fighters,” avoid Bay of PIGS MISTAKES. Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://www.newsweek.com/cuban-exiles-urge-biden-back-freedom-fighters-avoid-bay-pigs-mistakes-1609040.