When States Kill
Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror
Since the early twentieth century, technological transfers from the United States to Latin American countries have involved technologies of violence for social control. As the chapters in this book illustrate, these technological transfers have taken various forms, including the training of Latin American military personnel in surveillance and torture and the provision of political and logistic support for campaigns of state terror. The human cost for Latin America has been enormous—thousands of Latin Americans have been murdered, disappeared, or tortured, and whole communities have been terrorized into silence.
Organized by region, the essays in this book address the topic of state-sponsored terrorism in a variety of ways. Most take the perspective that state-directed political violence is a modern development of a regional political structure in which U.S. political interests weigh heavily. Others acknowledge that Latin American states enthusiastically received U.S. support for their campaigns of terror. A few see local culture and history as key factors in the implementation of state campaigns of political violence. Together, all the essays exemplify how technologies of terror have been transferred among various Latin American countries, with particular attention to the role that the United States, as a "strong" state, has played in such transfers.
The combination of a regional framework and original case studies makes this volume an important addition to research on the nature of U.S. involvement in state violence and human rights violations in Latin America.
I have given chapters of this book to our clients—survivors of state-supported terror in Latin America—and watched as they nodded their heads in agreement and then asked variations of the question: 'how can academics understand so well what was going on in our countries?' This book uses the lens of rigorous scholarship to bring out of the shadows the particularities and common patterns that enabled state repression to operate so effectively in the United States' sphere of influence for more than two decades.
There are currently no volumes that do what When States Kill accomplishes. This extraordinarily important volume, edited by two superb scholars, will make an outstanding contribution to many fields.
This extraordinary collection of essays locates Latin American state terror within the context of the distinct and influential role of U.S. foreign and military policy in the region. This is a rare work, a 'must read' for academics from a range of disciplines as well as human rights and refugee advocates and lawyers.
Cecilia Menjívar is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University.
Néstor Rodríguez is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Houston, where he is also Codirector of the Center for Immigration Research.
- Acknowledgments
- Part I. Introduction
- Chapter 1. State Terror in the U.S.-Latin American Interstate Regime by Cecilia Menjívar and Néstor Rodríguez
- Chapter 2. Operation Condor as a Hemispheric "Counterterror" Organization by J. Patrice McSherry
- Part II. Central America and Mexico
- Chapter 3. "The Blood of the People": The Guardia Nacional's Fifty-year War against the People of Nicaragua, 1927-1979 by Richard Grossman
- Chapter 4. The Culture and Politics of State Terror and Repression in El Salvador by Aldo A. Lauria-Santiago
- Chapter 5. Caught in the Crossfire: Militarization, Paramilitarization, and State Violence in Oaxaca, Mexico by Kristin Norget
- Chapter 6. Bloody Deeds/Hechos Sangrientos: Reading Guatemala's Record of Political Violence in Cadaver Reports by M. Gabriela Torres
- Chapter 7. U.S. Militarization of Honduras in the 1980s and the Creation of CIA-backed Death Squads by Joan Kruckewitt
- Chapter 8. "No Hay Rosas Sin Espinas": Statecraft in Costa Rica by Annamarie Oliverio and Pat Lauderdale
- Part III. South America
- Chapter 9. The Colombian Nightmare: Human Rights Abuses and the Contradictory Effects of U.S. Foreign Policy by John C. Dugas
- Chapter 10. The Path of State Terror in Peru by Abderrahman Beggar
- Chapter 11. Turning on Their Masters: State Terrorism and Unlearning Democracy in Uruguay by Jeffrey J. Ryan
- Chapter 12. Producing and Exporting State Terror: The Case of Argentina by Ariel C. Armony
- Part IV. Conclusion
- Chapter 13. New Responses to State Terror by Cecilia Menjívar and Néstor Rodríguez
- About the Contributors
- Index
