(Redirected from Death squads)
A 'death squad' is an armed squad of men that kills civilians. These groups tend to commit
extrajudicial assassinations /
extrajudicial killings and
forced disappearances of persons. These
killings are often in
secrecy. Depending on variable political and social conditions these include groups,
dissidents, suspected sympathizers or members of rebel groups, street children, land reformists, activists, and others.
Death squads are often, but not exclusively, associated with the violent
political repression of
dictatorships,
totalitarian states and similar regimes. They typically have the tacit or express support of the state, as a whole or in part (see
state terrorism). Death squads may comprise a
secret police force,
paramilitary group or official government units with members drawn from the military or the police. They may also be organized as
vigilante groups.
Death squads may be distinguished from
terrorist groups in that their violent actions are used to maintain the power of a local or national
elite, rather than intending to disrupt their existing
authority per se. Foreign powers may aid states where death squads are active, usually without the international criticism that would be involved when supporting states that support terrorism. Some death squads, including those with links with corrupt elites, have been classified as terrorist organizations.
Death squads can go out on patrol willing to kill and looking for trouble or seeking to commit premeditated attacks against political opponents, alleged rebel sympathizers and any other people deemed "dangerous" or simply "undesirable" (e.g.. such as
homeless and
squatters) by authorities or local interest groups. They may also act to remove portions of the civilian populations whose existence is perceived as not serving the purposes of the ruling elite. Death squads have been used in contexts of
politicides.
History
Although the term "death squad" did not rise to notoriety until the activities of such groups in Central and South America during the 1970s and 1980s became widely known, death squads have been employed under different guises throughout history. The term was first used during the
Battle of Algiers by
Paul Aussaresses [1].
Recent use
As of 2006, death squads have continued to be active in several locations. They were on the rise through the 1960s and 1970s. However, they now appear to have been on the decline since about 1981 . Some known recent centers of activity include
Chechnya,
Congo,
Colombia,
Iraq and
Sudan, among others.
Argentina
Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, a far-right death squad mainly active during the "
Dirty War".
Bolivia
In the late 1960s death squads killed several thousand people.
Brazil
In
Brazil, death squads first appeared during the seventies. They were linked to the military police (the most famous one being the infamous "Scuderie LeCoq") or civilian police forces (including ''Mão Branca'' which means the "White Hand"). They targeted criminals who had become famous for their crimes and for evading the police or those involved in the killing of policemen (the most notorious case involved Lúcio Flávio, an infamous criminal known as "fair-haired devil").
Scuderie LeCoq, for instance, took its name from a deceased policeman whose death was connected to
organised crime. A rather surprising (and uncommon) characteristic of both these death squads are their fondness for publicity: LeCoq's members were photographed (or appeared in public) wearing black ski masks and black jackets featuring an emblem composed of a skull, a rose and a revolver. Mão Branca's members used to leave notes detailing the crimes for which the victim had been murdered (the name came from the fact that no fingerprints could ever be found, suggesting that the murderers wore gloves). These death squads were tolerated (if not outright supported) by the military government and were employed to spread fear among the régime's opponents (often likened to common criminals). After the fall of the military regime, they slowly faded into obscurity but sometimes resurfaces, especially LeCoq. However, the phenomenon has become both more widespread and less organised. They still target petty criminals but also anyone homeless, including street children and beggars. While in the past they got their ideological and logistic support from the military, they are now motivated by the corporatism within the police forces and fuelled by corruption (in urban areas, shop owners pay death squads to carry out murders while in rural areas, it is farmers that pay to get rid of the landless). The Brazilian death squads are now more a criminal phenomenon than a type of illegal policing.
Cambodia
Assassinations and mass killings of Vietnamese in the late 1970s. The
Khmer Rouge began employing death squads to purge
Cambodia of non-
communists after taking over the country in 1975 . They rounded up their victims, questioned them and then took them out to killing fields to be shot or beaten to death. More than 1.6 million Cambodians fell victim before the Khmer Rouge were overthrown.
Central and South America
Death squad activity became widespread in
Guatemala and
El Salvador during the
1980s, where plain-clothes assassins would murder dissidents fingered as "subversives" under the pretext of
counter-insurgency. The Salvadorian death squads typically operated in full cooperation with the splinter elements from the National Armed Forces, most of their targets were suspected members from FMLN, BPR, FAPU and other left wing organisations / members and their sympathizers as well as undermine civilian president
José Napoleón Duarte. In addition to murdering those labelled guerilla sympathizers, death squads were also known to massacre whole villages suspected of harboring guerrillas, especially in Guatemala. One well-known death squad that still operates in Central America is the Salvadoran-based ''
Sombra Negra'' ("Black Shadow" in Spanish), which consists of vigilantes that hunt down suspected criminals and gang members (see
MS-13).
Chile
The
Caravan of Death, an Army death squad, roamed Chile beginning in October 1973, following
Augusto Pinochet's
American backed coup which overthrew the regime of President
Salvador Allende. In particular, members of Chile's Socialist and Communist Parties were targeted, including two infantrymen and several Army officers. Of these included: Brigade General Sergio Arellano Stark; Lieutenant Colonel Sergio Arredondo Gonzalez, later director of the Infantry School; Mayor Pedro Espinoza Bravo, an Army Intelligence officer, later operations chief of the DINA secret police; Captain Marcelo Moren Brito, later commander of Villa Grimaldi, the torture camp; Lieutenant Armando Fernandez Lario, later a DINA operative and mastermind behind the assassination of Orlando Letelier and others. The group traveled from prison to prison in a Puma helicopter, executing political prisoners with small arms and bladed weapons. The victims were then buried in unmarked graves. In June 1999, judge
Juan Guzmán Tapia ordered the arrest of five retired generals.
China
Mao Zedong made use of the
Red Guards to assassinate, imprison, and terrorise millions of suspected political opponents during the
Cultural Revolution of the
1960s and
1970s.
Colombia
In
Colombia, the
United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), as well as previous and later paramilitary groups, have been described as death squads due to aspects of their
modus operandi and the support or tolerance that they have received from members of the Colombian security forces and of society in different circumstances. Links between paramilitaries and members of official security forces continue to exist. Several Colombian paramilitary groups began operating as death squads in the
1980s and later ones have often continued to do so, but there are disagreements among analysts as to the accuracy of such a classification in contemporary times. It has been argued that the AUC and newer groups have developed into more complex and autonomous entities than traditional death squads, partially because the fragmentation of the larger drug cartels (some of which sponsored or co-sponsored paramilitary groups) has allowed them to directly participate in the
illegal drug trade. This has contributed to giving such groups greater degrees of economic, social and political autonomy. Death squad actions would be one part of their overall activities. Separately, private death squads also exist on a local level, unrelated to the AUC/paramilitary framework.
Cuba
Batista in the
1950s maintained
BRAC secret police that conducted death squad activities.
Dominican Republic
Police operated the
La Banda death squad in the mid-1960s.
East Timor
The Indonesian government operated death squads throughout this territory.
El Salvador
:''Main articles:
Ita Ford,
Maura Clarke,
Dorothy Kazel,
Jean Donovan,
Oscar Romero.''
During the
Salvadoran civil war, death squads achieved notoriety when far-right vigilantes assassinated Archbishop
Óscar Romero for his social activism in March 1980 . In December 1980, three American nuns and a lay worker were raped and murdered by a military unit later found to have been acting on specific orders. Death squads were instrumental in killing hundreds of peasants and activists. Because the death squads involved were found to have been soldiers of the Salvadoran military, which was receiving U.S. funding and training from American advisers during the
Carter administration, these events prompted outrage in the U.S. and led to a temporary cutoff in military aid from the
Reagan administration.
France
The French military used death squads during the French-Algerian War from 1954 to 1962.
[2]
Germany
During the 1930s, the leader of
Nazi Germany,
Adolf Hitler made extensive use of death squads, starting with the infamous
Night of the Long Knives and reaching a peak with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 . Following the frontline units, the Nazis brought along four travelling death squads called
Einsatzgruppen (Einsatzgruppe-A through D) to hunt down and kill
Jews,
Communists and other so-called undesirables in the occupied areas. This was the first of the massacres that made up
the Holocaust. Typically, the victims, who included many women and children, were forcibly marched from their homes to open graves or ravines before being shot. Many others suffocated in specially designed poison trucks called gas vans. Between 1941 and 1944 , the
Einsatzgruppen killed about 1.2 million Soviet Jews, as well as tens of thousands of suspected political dissidents,
POWs, and uncounted numbers of
Romany.
Guatemala
Guatemala has had death squads active since the 1950s up through the 1990s.
Haiti
In
Haiti, the paramilitary death squad
SIN was organized in the 1980s to use military force against narcotics smugglers, it became used as a death squad for political goals.
In Haiti the paramilitary death squad
Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), organized in mid-
1993, terrorized the supporters of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide by murder, massacres, public beatings, arson raids on poor neighborhoods and severing limbs by
machete. Its goal was to destroy popular support for Aristide and his
Lavalas political movement through indiscriminate terror. Aristide had been elected in a landslide victory in 1991 , enjoying great popularity among the Haitian poor, but served only eight months before being deposed in a military coup. The junta that ruled from 1991 to 1994 gave free reign to both military and FRAPH repression. Several thousand Haitians either fled to the
Dominican Republic or
Florida, where the U.S. was forced to deal with a severe refugee problem.
During the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign, candidate Bill Clinton had promised to restore democracy to Haiti if elected. Inaugurated in 1993, the administration had to deal with a continuing refugee problem in Florida. Condemning FRAPH and the military regime as nothing more than "armed thugs," the administration cooperated with a multinational force and dispatched 15,000 troops sent and a high-level negotiating team (Jimmy Carter, Sam Nunn, and Colin Powell) to force the military to step down, restoring Aristide to power in August 1994 after international sanctions and pressure had failed to produce any results. Although the presence of U.S. and UN peacekeepers helped restore calm and security, this success, claims researcher Lisa A. McGowan, was undermined by their refusal to disarm the disbanded Haitian military and paramilitaries. As McGowan wrote,
"
USAID is providing funding and technical assistance to strengthen Haiti’s judicial system, yet the U.S. has refused Haïtian government requests to deport FRAPH leader Constant, who was imprisoned in the U.S. and wanted in Haïti on murder charges. Instead, the U.S. Justice Department released him from prison. Furthermore, the Clinton administration refuses to give the Haïtian government uncensored copies of the documents seized from FRAPH headquarters, raising suspicions that the documents contain incriminating information about CIA and other U.S. collaboration with Haïtian paramilitaries. Documents that were obtained revealed, for example, that the CIA knew that Constant was directly implicated in the 1993 murder of Justice Minister Guy Malory, yet kept him on their payroll until the return of Aristide in 1994. [2]"
It subsequently emerged that the US government had in fact played a significant role in establishing and funding FRAPH. The investigative journalist Allan Nairn broke the story in an article published in The Nation in 1994. [3] Nairn based his findings on interviews with military, paramilitary and intelligence officials in Haïti and the United States as well as Green Beret commanders and internal documents from the U.S. and Haïtian armies. Nairn spoke directly with Constant himself, then being held in a Maryland jail, shortly before he was due to be deported to Haïti. According to Constant, he started the group that became FRAPH at the urging of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and that even after the U.S. occupation got under way in September 1994, "other people from my organization were working with the DIA.", aiding in operations directed against "subversive activities". [4] When Nairn tried to follow up (Constant insisted on a face-to-face meeting), the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service denied him access, explaining that Constant had had a change of heart and no longer wanted to talk.[5]
Constant later confirmed in 1995 on CBS's "60 Minutes" that the CIA paid him about $700 a month and that he created FRAPH while on the CIA payroll. According to Constant, the FRAPH had been formed "with encouragement and financial backing from the DIA and the CIA." (Miami New Times, 26 February 2004) [6]
In February 1996, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) announced that it had obtained thousands of pages of newly declassified U.S. documents, which they claim revealed that the U.S. government recognized the brutal nature of FRAPH but denied it in public. Describing the attitude of US government officials, CCR lawyer Michael Ratner said
they were talking out of both sides of their mouth. They were talking about restoring democracy to Haïti, but at the same time, they were undermining democracy in the coup period -- at times supporting a group that committed terrorist acts against the Haïtian people. [7]
According to Ratner, U.S. suspicions of Aristide’s leftist populism prodded them to seek support from even the most brutal anti-Aristide elements. Observers such as Ratner, Nairn and Lisa McGowan have argued that covert assistance to antidemocratic forces such as FRAPH was used to pressure Ariside into abandoning his ambitious program for social reform and adopt harsh economic reforms when the U.S. returned him to power.
According to Bill O'Neil, consultant for the New York-based National Coalition for Haïtian Rights, though the CIA and the Pentagon encouraged FRAPH early on, "within a few weeks or a few months, [U.S. support] was largely jettisoned." O'Neil, though, expressed concern that the U.S.'s reluctance to completely sever relations with FRAPH until 1995 (when Constant was arrested) may have allowed several high-profile figures to go into hiding. [8]
Although Aristide was indeed restored to the presidency through U.S. military intervention in 1994, he was again removed from the presidency, this time through U.S. military intervention in 2004. At this point, the death squads were quickly reconstituted and resumed their usual operations against the organizations of the poor majority.
Honduras
Honduras had death squads active through the 1980s, the most notorious of which was
Battalion 316. Hundreds of people, teachers, politicians, and union bosses were assassinated by government-backed forces. Battalion 316 received substantial support and training from the United States
Central Intelligence Agency.
[3]
Indonesia
Indonesia used death squads to rub out the
PKI the Indonesian Communist Party in the 1960s. The use of death squads continued through the 1980s.
Iran
During the 1950s a relatively moderate regime was put in power through the efforts of the
CIA. Regardless, this regime of the Shah used
SAVAK death squads to kill thousands. After the revolution death squads were used by the new regime. In 1983 the
CIA gave one of the leaders of Iran
Khomeni information on
KGB agents in Iran. This information was probably used.
The Iranian regime later used death squads occasionally throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s however by the 2000s it has appeared to almost entirely if not all cease their operation. This partial
Westernization of the country can be seen paralleling similar events in
Lebanon,
United Arab Emirates, and Northern
Iraq beginning in the late 1990s.
Iraq
Iraq was formed by British partitioning and domination of various tribal land in the early 20th century. The British later departed. They left behind a national government led from
Baghdad that was mostly comprised of
Sunni ethnicity in key positions of power that ruled over an ad-hoc nation splintered by tribal affiliations.
This leadership used death squads and committed massacres in Iraq throughout the 20th century, culuminating in the dictatorship of Saddam Hussien.
[4]
The country has since become increasingly partitioned following the
Iraq War into three zones: a
Kurdish ethnic zone to the north, a Sunni center and the
Shia ethnic zone to the south.
The
secular socialist Baathist leadership were replaced with a provisional and later constitutional government that included leadership roles for the Shia and Kurdish peoples of this nation. This paralleled the development of ethnic militias by the Shia, Sunni, and the Kurdish
Peshmerga.
There were death squads formed by members of every ethnicity.
[5]
In the national capital of Baghdad some members of the now Shia police department and army formed unofficial, unsanctioned, but long tolerated death squads.
[6] They possibly have links to the Interior Ministry and are popularly known as the 'black crows'. These groups operated night or day. They usually arrested people, then either tortured
[7] or killed them.
[8]
The victims of these attacks were predominantly young males who had probably been suspected of being members of the Sunni
insurgency. Agitators such as Abdul Razaq al-Na’as, Dr. Abdullateef al-Mayah, and Dr. Wissam Al-Hashimi have also been killed. These killings are not limited to only men. Women and children have at times have also been arrested and or killed.
[9] Some of these killings have also been simple robberies or other criminal activities.
A feature in a May 2005 issue of the magazine of ''The New York Times'' accused the U.S. military of modelling the "Wolf Brigade", the Iraqi interior ministry police commandos, on the death squads used in the 1980s to crush the
Marxist insurgency in
El Salvador.
[ The Way of the Commandos ]
Western news organizations such as
''Time'' and
''People'' disassembled this by focusing on the aspects such as probable
militia membership, religious ethnicity, as well as uniforms worn by these squads rather than stating the
United States backed Iraqi government had death squads active in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
[10]
Ireland
During the
Irish War of Independence,
Michael Collins mounted one of the most successful guerrilla campaigns in all of history. Using a hand picked crew of gunmen who were dubbed "
The Twelve Apostles," Collins assassinated carefully selected officials of the
Royal Irish Constabulary, the
Dublin Metropolitan Police and
British Intelligence. He referred to these tactics as "Selective Terrorism." After
Bloody Sunday (1920), the British Government was forced to negotiate the
Anglo-Irish Treaty, which guaranteed the independence of the
Irish Free State in 1921.
The use of Guerrilla warfare continued during the
Irish Civil War which followed the signing of the Treaty. Michael Collins,ironically himself remains their most famous victim.
Ivory Coast
Death squads are active in this country.
[11]
This has been condemned by the US
[12] but appears to be difficult to stop.
[13]
Jamaica
There are death squads that have been active in this country.
[14][15]
Japan
During the
Second World War, the
Imperial Japanese Army also employed death squads to scare remainder populations under their occupation into submission.
Korea
Any news reports of the use of death squads in Korea originates around the middle of the 20th century such as the
Jeju Massacre[16] and Taejon.
[17] There was also the multiple deaths that made the news 1980 in
Gwangju.
[18] This was supported by the major supporter of South Korea the
USA.
Mexico
In 1968 the Mexican Army killed hundreds of people in the
Tlatelolco massacre. Through the 1970s and 1980s death squads were used against students, leftists, and activists. One of these squads was the Brigada Blanca. In 1997 about forty-five people were killed by a death squad in Chenalho.
[19]
In the state of
Chihuahua more than four hundred women have been 'disappeared' since 1994.
[20] While a few perpetrators have been found, the majority of the members of the organization committing these 'disappearances' has remained underground. The disappearances continue as of 2007.
Nicaragua
Death squads were active in this country throughout the 1970s and '80s.
During the
1980s, the
Anti-Communist Contra guerillas in
Nicaragua were described as death squads.
[ ][ Lost History: CIA-Contra Plan -- Kill Cubans ]
The Contras were considered
terrorists by the
Marxist Sandinista regime, which alleged that their attacks targeted civilians. The Contras, who received money, training, and arms from the
Argentine junta and then the American
CIA, mounted raids which targeted northern Nicaragua, destroying military bases, bridges, and airstrips. They also attempted to weaken and disrupt the enemy regime by frequently kidnapping and assasinating Sandinista officials. A CIA training manual instructed the Contras, under the heading "Selective Use of Violence", to "neutralise carefully selected and planned targets such as court judges, police or state security officials, etc."
The Sandinista regime also made use of death squads to assassinate their political opponents at home and abroad. The most notable example took place in
1980, when a hand picked squad of assassins under the command of Argentine
Maoist Enrique Gorriarán Merlo fired a
bazooka into the car which was driving former Nicaraguan dictator
Anastasio Somoza Debayle through the streets of
Asunción,
Paraguay.
Peru
During the internal conflict in Peru, several death squads operated in the country. These included the state-sponsored
Rodrigo Franco Command and
Grupo Colina.
Shining Path, the
Maoist guerrilla organization, also had special groups to carry out "selective annihilations" of both military and civilian targets.
Philippines
Death squads were especially active in this country during the American invasion of the 1950s and the regime in the 1980s. There continue to be activities as of 2005.
New People's Army groups known as "Sparrow Units" were active in the mid-
1980s, killing government officials, police personnel, military members, and anyone targeted for elimination. They were also supposedly part of an NPA operation called "Agaw Armas"(Filipino for "Stealing Weapons"), where they raided government armories as well as stealing weapons from slain military and police personnel.
Also see
Davao death squads‎
Russia
During the
Bolshevik Revolution and the
Russian Civil War,
Vladimir Lenin used the
Cheka to murder members of the
House of Romanov, the
Russian nobility, officers of the
White Army,
Russian Orthodox priests and laity, and officials of the
Russian Provisional Government.
During the late
1930s, the
Soviet government under
Joseph Stalin used death squads in the secret police force, the
NKVD, to hunt down and kill suspected political opponents during the
Great Purge. Mass graves from this era continue to be excavated by
Memorial (society).
The most infamous action of Soviet death squads in the 20th century was the
Katyn massacre of
1940. Several thousand
Polish Army officers were transferred by the
NKVD from the
GULAG and shot to death at Goat Hill and buried in
mass graves inside the forests of
Katyn. The transportation vehicles for this were given the nickname 'Black Ravens' by the local peasantry.
[21] This phrase echoes other nicknames given to other death squads.
In addition, a large number of
Anti-Communists in the West were also targeted for assassination. Two of the most notable victims were
Lev Rebet and
Stefan Bandera,
Ukrainian nationalists who were assassinated by the
KGB in
Munich,
West Germany. Both deaths remained unsolved until the
1961 defection of their murderer,
Bogdan Stashynskyi.
After the invasion of Afghanistan by the Russian military in the late 1970s and through the 1980s they continued to use death squads. The occasional massacre using rifles in a district here,
[22] the use of aerodynamic scatterable land mines (which appeared vaguely toy-like) to kill civilians in another. The use of this strategy to conquer Afghanistan was rendered ineffective through the influence and support of Western Intelligence services such as the
ISI the Pakistani secret service, the
French SDECE,
MI6, and the American
CIA.
The Russian security apparatus continued to exist after the technical dissolution of the
USSR in 1991.
The corruption of the Soviet era caused
Boris Yeltsin's
privatization policies to be manipulated by corrupt Party officials,
black marketeers, and the
Russian Mafia. The resulting looting of State businesses and natural resources has created an
oligarchy wherein politicians, banks, and corporate officials behaved more like drug barons than pillars of the community. These conditions allowed criminal gangs to flourish during the 1990s. The new Russian elites are known to use death squads, and many gruesome murders of mobsters and high ranking politicians took place throughout the
1990s. More recently, however, they have become more subtle.
The
FSB[23] is as of 2006 the primary arm used by the authorities for
wet work in non-war zones.
[24][25][26][27] 'Disappearances' are not unknown in the capital Moscow.
[28][29]
The Russian military continued to use death squads in war zones
[30][31][32] however after the cessation of official hostilities there were be less reports of their activities.
[33][34]
Rwanda
The
Rwandan Genocide of 1994 was carried out by numerous death squads called the "
Interahamwe" (see
History of Rwanda). Members of these killing squads hunted down
Tutsis and moderate
Hutus in many towns and villages. There were less
Tutsis death squads in operation around their single stronghold during this event. The "Interahamwe" typically chopped up their victims with machetes or shot them at close range. Many of these weapons were of
French manufacture.
The Rwandan Hutu armed forces often helped in these massacres, which killed from 650,000 to 800,000 before the
Rwandese Patriotic Front took over the country in July of that year. The
Rwandese Patriotic Front appeared to have stopped a genocide but they are not without guilt as well. In the following years many murderers were imprisoned but the sheer number of perpetrators prevented any fair judicial proceedings from taking place. In most cases most of the perpetrators were only imprisoned for a time or simply allowed their freedom under the principles of 'truth and reconciliation'.
South Africa
Death squads were also used by the preceding
Apartheid governments against Black Africans. Agents of these groups were known as 'Vultures'. During the
1980s, the
South African Bureau of State Security also possessed very close ties to the Loyalist death squads in
Northern Ireland, supplying them with a large number of clandestine arms shipments (see
Ulster Defence Association,
Ulster Volunteer Force).
On the other end of the struggle,
Nelson Mandela's
African National Congress and the
South African Communist Party oversaw a campaign of
terrorism and
assassination directed against the Apartheid regime. This branch of the ANC was known as
Umkhonto we Sizwe ("The Spear of the Nation").
Spain
Prior to
World War II, Nazi
Germany and the
Soviet Union fought a war by proxy during the
Spanish Civil War. There were death squads used by both the
Falangists and Loyalists during this conflict. Probably the most famous victim of
Franco's death squads was the
homosexual Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who was shot twice in the posterior.
The Loyalist death squads were heavily staffed by members of
Stalin's
OGPU and targeted members of the
Catholic clergy and the
Spanish nobility for assassination (see
Red Terror (Spain)). The ranks of the Loyalist secret police included
Erich Mielke, the future head of the
East German Ministry of State Security.
Ernest Hemingway would later heavily romanticize the Loyalist side of the conflict in his novel
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
In the modern era, G.A.L.(
Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación) terrorist group were death squads illegally set up by officials within the Spanish government to fight
ETA. They were active from 1983 until 1987, under
PSOE's cabinets.
Syria
Syrian death squads were active during its occupation of Lebanon during the civil war from 1975 to 1990. The number of the 'disappeared' is put around 17,000.
[35][36]
The Syrian death squads causing 'disappearances' in Lebanon continued after the end of the civil war into at least the mid-1990s.
[37]
As recently as of 2005 there have been reports
[38] of death squad activity in Syria. The death squads exist even while the number of their executions are apparently far less than their counter-parts in
Iraq.
Thailand
During the
1970s, the
Krathin Daeng or
Red Guard was one of the more well known death squads active in this country. Assassination of political and economic opponents took place including massacres.
Turkey
Death squads were used by the
Ottoman Turks against ethnic
Armenians and
Greeks before, during and after the
Armenian Genocide. They have allegedly also been used against the
Kurds.
Uruguay
The
DII has been used as a cover by death squads in this country since the late 1970s.
United Kingdom
During the
Hundred Years War, the English occasionally ordered the assassinations of
French knights and military commanders who were seen as a threat. The
Welsh soldier of Fortune Owain Lawgoch remains one of their most famous victims.
During the
Irish war of independence in 1916-21, the British government organised several secret assassination squads composed of drunken and trigger happy veterans of the
First World War. These were dubbed the "
Black and Tans" and the
Auxiliary Division. In 1920 alone, British security forces murdered
Tomás Mac Curtain, the
Lord Mayor of
Cork, as well as his counterpart in
Limerick. In Limerick, the replacement mayor was also murdered, while in Cork, the new mayor,
Terence McSwiney, died after a 74 day hunger strike.
During the 30 years of the
The Troubles in Northern Ireland, both the
IRA and Loyalist paramilitary groups organised assassination squads.
Members of the
Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Intelligence have been accused of secretly colluding with Loyalist death squads. Notable cases include
Brian Nelson (terrorist), an
Ulster Defence Association member and British Intelligence officer who was convicted of several sectarian murders.
United States of America
From 1865 until about the 1960s and 1970s the
Ku Klux Klan carried out '
lynchings' of African-American leaders and civil rights proponents. This was often with the unofficial support of some local and state level leaders in the American south.
The US has been accused of training Death Squads for use in South and Central American countries. The
School of the Americas, run by the US Army in Georgia has been accused by the UN of having trained "500 of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere"
[39]
Yugoslavia
In the late
1990s, the alleged use of paramilitary death squads by
Serb forces and
President Slobodan Milošević against ethnic
Albanians in
Kosovo was cited by the Clinton administration as part of its rationale for its bombing campaign against Serbia. However the use of death squads by all sides in this conflict did take place. Only token highly placed perpetrators have ever been charged, and of all of the national leaders suspected of involvement, only
Slobodan Milošević has ever been brought to trial.
Venezuela
In its 2003 and 2002 world reports,
Human Rights Watch reported the existence of death squads in several Venezuelan states, involving members of the local police, the DISIP and the National Guard. These groups were responsible for the extrajudicial killings of civilians and wanted or alleged criminals, including street criminals, looters and drug users.
[40][41]
Vietnam
During the 1960s throughout the 1970s the
United States and
South Vietnamese governments used kidnapping, assassination, and infiltration tactics against the
Marxist Viet Cong cadre as well as suspected
Communist supporters in neighbouring countries, notably
Cambodia and
Laos (See
Phoenix Program).
The
Viet Cong and their
North Vietnamese masters also used death squads of their own to murder thousands of village chiefs, in addition to South Vietnamese military officers, policemen, and civil servants, as well as civilians suspected of supporting the Saigon regime. Father Nguyen
Bá»u Äồng, a Roman Catholic priest, remains one of their most famous victims.
In popular culture
★
Gunslinger Girl
References
1. Interview of Paul Aussaresses by Marie-Monique Robin in ''Escadrons de la mort - l'école française'' ([See here, starting at 8min38)
2.
3. http://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-negroponte1a,0,1240201.story??track=sto-relcon
4. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/13/14133/1410/
5.
6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1869439,00.html
7. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120300881.html
8. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060914/ts_nm/iraq_dc
9.
10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4719252.stm
11. http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30001/story.htm
12. http://www.genocidewatch.org/IVORYCOAST2003Page.htm
13. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45644-2005Jan28.html
14. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20040307T040000-0500_56740_OBS_LOUIS_JODEL_CHAMBLAIN_.asp
15. http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,12592,1659296,00.html] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61549-2004Mar15
16. http://www.brianwillson.com/awoltruthkor.html
17. http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/titfortat4.html
18.
19. http://www.cpt.org/archives/1997/dec97/0024.html
20. http://www.laneta.apc.org/cmdpdh/informes/English_Summary_Torture_03_05.pdf
21. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/katyn_wood_massacre.htm
22. http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/kakar-soviet-invasion/
23. http://www.agentura.ru/english/press/about/jointprojects/mn/fsbreform/
24. http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=396&issue_id=2971&article_id=236795
25. http://billroggio.com/archives/2006/07/chechen_terrorist_sh.php
26. http://www.agrnews.org/issues/170/worldnews.html
27. http://www.well.com/~sisu/starov.html
28. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031013/bivins
29. http://english.pravda.ru/world/ussr/22-11-2002/1577-journalist-0
30. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/07/28/002.html
31. http://www.hrvc.net/news2-03/18-2-2003.htm
32. http://www.hrvc.net/main.htm
33. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/08/04/chechnyadis.shtml
34. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5588684
35. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2000/04/13/lebano491.htm
36. http://hrw.org/english/docs/1999/11/09/lebano1962.htm
37. http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/syria/
38.
39. Gareau, Frederick H., "State Terrorism and the United States", Zed Books, 2004
40.
41.
Further reading
★
Haiti under the Gun,
1996 article by
Allan Nairn, first published in
The Nation
★
CIA linked to FRAPH, coup — from Green Left Weekly
★
CIA Support of Death Squads, by
Ralph McGehee, ex-CIA
External links
★
Haiti under the Gun,
1996 article by
Allan Nairn, first published in
The Nation
★
CIA linked to FRAPH, coup — from Green Left Weekly
★
CIA Support of Death Squads, by
Ralph McGehee, ex-CIA
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