heavily criticized for backing anti-communist leaders accused of severe human rights violations, such as Hissène Habré and Efraín Ríos Montt. Montt was the president of Guatemala and the Guatemalan military was accused of genocide for massacres of members of the Ixil people and other indigenous groups. Reagan had said that Montt was getting a "bum rap", and described him as "a man of great personal integrity". Previous human rights violations had prompted the United States to cut off aid to the Guatemalan government, but the Reagan administration unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to restart military aid. However, the administration successfully provided nonmilitary assistance such as the United States Agency for International Development. Central America and the Caribbean The Reagan administration placed a high priority on the Central America and the Caribbean Sea, which it saw as a key front in the Cold War. Reagan and his foreign policy team were particularly concerned about the potential influence of Cuba on countries such as Grenada, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. To counter the influence of Cuba and the Soviet Union, Reagan launched the Caribbean Basin Initiative, an economic program designed to aid countries opposed to Communism. He also authorized covert measures, such as the arming of Nicaragua's Contras, to minimize Cuban and Soviet influence in the region. The administration provided support to right-wing governments throughout Latin America, disregarding humans rights abuses in countries like Argentina and El Salvador. Tensions rose between the left-wing Grenadan government of Maurice Bishop and the U.S because Cuban construction workers were building an airfield on the island. On October 16, 1983, pro-Communist forces of Hudson Austin led a coup against Bishop, who was subsequently arrested and executed. Reagan dispatched approximately 5,000 U.S. soldiers to invade Grenada nine days after. After two days of fighting that resulted in the deaths of nineteen Americans, forty-five Grenadans, and twenty-four Cubans, Austin's government was overthrown. While the invasion enjoyed public support in the United States and Grenada, it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly as "a flagrant violation of international law". Iran–Contra affair In 1979, a group of left-wing rebels in Nicaragua known as the Sandinistas overthrew the president of Nicaragua and installed Daniel Ortega as the country's leader. Fearing that Communists would take over Nicaragua if it remained under the leadership of the Sandinistas, the Reagan administration authorized CIA Director William J. Casey to arm