The deeper I get in this article, the better it gets. This essay deserves its own thread.
WARNING: This is graduate-level anthropology and political science reading.
It is also provides a very useful academic insight into state use of terror.
I first posted this on:
George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2459135=========================
Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System.
by J. Patrice McSherry -
http://larc.sdsu.edu/humanrights/rr/PLAarticles/mcsherry.htmlMcSherry, J. Patrice. "Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System." Social Justice, Winter 1999 v26 i4 p144.
*Article used with author's permission. Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Crime and Social Justice Associates
IN THE 10 YEARS SINCE THE COLD WAR'S END, THE WORLD HAS SEEN A GRADUAL
opening up of formerly Secret state archives on both sides of the East-West divide,
as well as truly astonishing developments in human rights and international law.
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon's request for the arrest and extradition of
General Augusto Pinochet in October 1998 was perhaps one of the most
astounding of these developments, not least because this case involved a
former ally of the U.S. government in the Cold War. ..........
The arrest of Pinochet refocused world attention on the dirty wars of the Cold
War era in Latin America. A key focus of Garzon's investigation is Operation
Condor, a shadowy Latin American military network whose key members were
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. Condor represented a
striking new level of coordinated repression among the anticommunist
militaries in the region, and its existence was suspected, but undocumented,
until fairly recently. Condor enabled the Latin American military states to
share intelligence and to hunt down, seize, and execute political opponents in
combined operations across borders. Refugees fleeing military coups and
repression in their own countries who sought safe havens in neighboring
countries were "disappeared" in combined transnational operations. The
militaries defied international law and traditions of political sanctuary to
carry out their shared anticommunist crusade. This article shows that Condor
was a parastatal system that used criminal me thods to eliminate "subversion,"
while avoiding constitutional institutions, ignoring due process, and
violating all manner of human rights. Condor made use of parallel prisons,
secret transport operations, routine assassination and torture, extensive
psychological warfare (PSYWAR, or use of black propaganda, deception, and
disinformation to conquer the "hearts and minds" of the population, often by
making crimes seem as though they were committed by the other side), and
sophisticated technology (such as computerized lists of suspects). ........
The U.S.
government considered the Latin American militaries to be allies in the Cold
War and worked closely with their intelligence organizations. U.S. executive
agencies at least condoned, and sometimes actively assisted, Condor
"countersubversive" operations. Although evidence is still fragmentary, it is
now possible to piece together information from numerous sources to understand
Operation Condor as a clandestine inter-American counterinsurgency system.
This article draws on a wide variety of data: ......
The article first examines the (scanty) literature on Condor and on state
terrorism to situate the discussion in a theoretical context. Condor's
structures and operations are reviewed and briefly compared with the
"stay-behind" projects in Europe, secret programs designed by the West for
guerrilla warfare and covert operations aimed to undermine Communist and
leftist advances. Finally, the article's conclusion reflects upon the
ideologies and doctrines that gave rise to Condor and the question of ends and
means. ............
E.V. Walter's (1969) classic analysis of 19th-century political terrorism is
still one of the best in terms of explaining the objectives of states that use
terrorism. Walter argued that state elites manipulate fear as a means of
controlling society and maintaining power. Terror is used to engineer
compliant behavior not only among victims, but also among target populations.
Walter's differentiation between victims and larger targets is key. While
victims suffer direct consequences, the targets -- larger sectors of society
-- understand the message. The underlying goal of state terrorism, Walter
suggests, is to eliminate potential power contenders and to impose silence and
political paralysis, thereby consolidating existing power relations. The
proximate end is to instill terror in society and the ultimate end is control.
Not only are there methodological obstacles to scholarly investigations of
state terrorism (primarily the difficulty of obtaining credible information),
there are also issues of acute political sensitivity, especially when one
begins to touch upon U.S. policy and operations. "Terrorism" is an acceptable
term when applied to foreign governments, but to apply it to one's own
government borders on taboo. ........