League of Nations

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League of Nations

Hoping to counterbalance the growing political and economic power of the United States and the economic dominance of Britain in Latin America, nine Latin American countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru) became charter members of the League of Nations in 1919, followed by several others that joined during the 1920s.

After World War I, Latin America continued to fear the possibility of direct foreign intervention in hemispheric affairs, not having forgotten European attempts, both direct and indirect, to do so during the 1800s and the U.S. buildup in the Caribbean in Theodore Roosevelt's day. The "big stick," the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, and dollar diplomacy had left their mark. In spite of Woodrow Wilson's declaration on 27 October 1913 that the United States would never again seek territory through conquest, and of some goodwill he gained by accepting Latin American leadership in the mediation of the Mexican Revolution, Latin American political leaders sought clarification of the Monroe Doctrine in the international arena. Just as Baron Rio Branco had closely aligned Brazil with unpopular U.S. policies in order to use the prestige of the U.S.-Brazilian alliance to escape British domination while establishing a favorable western boundary, Latin American leaders aligned themselves with the League of Nations.

Unfortunately, the League usually ignored Latin America and proved to be the wrong forum for negotiation, since the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the League's Covenant and the United States thus did not become a member. During the 1920s and 1930s, U.S. manufactured goods flooded Latin American markets while U.S. investments, particularly in Brazil, dominated Latin American economic development.

The League did get involved, however, in two incidents of open fighting in Latin America. In July 1932, the League began to investigate sporadic fighting between Bolivia and Paraguay over an area called the Gran Chaco. Paraguay formally declared war on 10 May 1933. More than 100,000 lives were lost while the League's fact-finding commission, headed by Álvarez del Vayo of Spain, investigated and made its way back to Geneva in December of that year. The League proposed a peace treaty, which both sides rejected, and then an arms embargo. The Chaco War dragged on mainly because, despite U.S. imposition of a separate arms embargo, existing arms contracts to Bolivia for the defense of the oilfield owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey were not affected. The war ended 14 June 1935 when Paraguay ran out of matériel.

The League was even less effective in settling open fighting between Peru and Colombia over Leticia, a small town with a strategic location on the upper Amazon. Both sides ignored League mediation efforts, but the conflict came to an end when Peru's president, Luis Sánchez Cerro, was assassinated in 1933. League commissioners administered the area around Leticia for a year and then returned it to Colombia.

By 1938, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Honduras had dropped out of the League, which they viewed as powerless, and turned to direct negotiations with the United States.