In late April, 1965, some 20,000 U.S. marines stormed the beaches of Santo Domingo in a successful attempt to crush a nationalist rebellion. That invasion, in the context of a spreading Indochinese war and a history of U.S. intervention in Latin America, sparked the formation of the North American Congress on Latin America. It also serves as a good lens through which to chart the course of democracy as discourse and practice in Latin America over the past 30 years.
