The World After WWII MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA & AFRICA

I.Mexico  official party = PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party)  protests against the one-party system in 1968  political reforms under Luís Echeverría and José López Portillo  oil production important; declining prices led to default on foreign debt in 1980s  TODAY  president = Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI)  internal violence related to drug wars  disappearance of 43 students in September 2014  arrest of El Chapo (Joaquín Guzmán Loera)

II.Cuba  the United States & Cuba have a long history  plantations, War of 1898, Guantanamo Bay  in 1959, Fidel Castro seized power from Fulgencio Batista (a U.S. ally)  began to ally himself with the Soviet Union  trade embargo began in Oct. 1960; President Obama has asked Congress to lift the embargo  Bay of Pigs invasion – April 1961  Cuban Missile Crisis – October 1962  TODAY  leader – Raul Castro (brother of Fidel)  President Obama became the 1 st U.S. president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years  U.S. embassy reopened on July 20, 2015

III.Central America  fears of the spread of communism in Central America led to U.S. involvement in the region  sometime, the leaders the U.S. supported were repressive and authoritarian  in 1954, the CIA helped overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz because he had promised land reform  was a covert operation  El Salvador faced a civil war in the late 1970s & 1980s  Nicaragua was ruled by the Somoza family ( )  overthrown by the Sandinistas in 1979, who then allied with the Soviet Union  the American-backed Contras resisted the Sandinistas  origin of the Iran-Contra scandal (1987)

 Panama had declared independence in 1903  the United States maintained control of the Panama Canal until 1999  President Carter had signed a treaty in 1977 that set up the canal’s return to Panama  military dictatorships evolved after 1968  U.S. ousted Gen. Manuel Noriega in 1989; he served a U.S. prison sentence until 2007  was charged with drug crimes  is currently being held in a Panamanian prison for crimes committed while he was dictator

IV.Africa  legacy of European colonialism & imperialism  1 st nation to gain its independence was Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) – 1957  leader: Kwame Nkrumah  see map, p. 922  nearly every African nation gained independence between 1957 and 1965  Leaders  Kenya: Jomo Kenyatta  Democratic Republic of the Congo: Mobutu Sese Seko  Tanzania: Julius Nyerere  influence of Pan-Africanism & the creation of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union)

 South Africa  apartheid: a system of racial segregation where the white minority ruled over the black majority  the white government was led by the Afrikaners (descendants of the Dutch colonizers)  African National Congress (ANC) formed in 1912  Nelson Mandela ( ) -  Truth & Reconciliation Commission  “Mandate: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to investigate gross human rights violations that were perpetrated during the period of the Apartheid regime from 1960 to 1994, including abductions, killings, torture. Its mandate covered both violation by both the state and the liberation movements and allowed the commission to hold special hearings focused on specific sectors, institutions, and individuals. Controversially the TRC was empowered to grant amnesty to perpetrators who confessed their crimes truthfully and completely to the commission.” – U.S. Institute of Peace ( south-Africa) south-Africa  approx. 21,000 victims testified; amnesty was granted in 849 cases