Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability PDF
Preview Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability
Death Squads in Global Perspective This page intentionally left blank Death Squads in Global Perspective Murder with Deniability Edited by Bruce B. Campbell and Arthur D. Brenner palgrave macmillan * DEATH SQUADS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Copyright© Bruce B. Campbell and Arthur D. Brenner, 2000. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published by PALGRAVE MACMILLANTM in 2002. 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-4039-6094-8 ISBN 978-0-230-10814-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230108141 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Campbell, Bruce, 1955- Death squads in global perspective : murder with deniability I Bruce B. Campbell and Arthur D. Brenner. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-21365-4 (cl) 978-1-4039-6094-1 (pbk) 1. Death Squads. 2. Brenner, Arthur David. II. Title. HV6322.C36 2000 303.6'25-dc21 00-021797 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First Publishedby Palgrave Macmillian: October 2002 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Preface vii 1. Death Squads: Definition, Problems, and Historical Context 1 Bruce B. Campbell 1 HISTORICCAALS ES 2. "To Induce a Sense of Terror": Caudillo Politics and Political Violence in Northern Nicaragua, 1926-34 and 1981-95 2 7 Michael J. Schroeder 3. Feme Murder: Paramilitary "Self-Justice" in Weimar Germany 57 Arthur D. Brenner I1 DEMOCRARTEICG IMET RANSITIONS 4. Window on the Past: A Declassified History of Death Squads in El Salvador Cynthia J. Amson 5. State of Siege: Political Violence and Vigilante Mobilization in the Philippines Eva-Lotta Hedmarz 111 SOCIALC ONTROL 6. State Terrorism and Death Squads in Uganda (1971-79) Edtuard Kannyo 7. From Petrus to Ninja: Death Squads in Indonesia Robert Cribb 8. Modernity and Devolution: The Making of Police Death Squads in Modern Brazil Martha K. Huggins n' NA~IONAELT,H NICA, ND RELIGIOUIDSE NTITYC ONFLICT 9. The Rise and Fall of Apartheid's Death Squads, 1969-93 Keith Gottschalk 10. India's Secret Armies Patricia Gossman 11. Territoriality and Plausible Deniability: Serbian Paramilitaries in the Bosnian War James Ron Appendix: Death Squad Cases: A Short Summary 313 Bibliography 325 About the Contributors 349 Index 353 WHILED OING HIS DOCTORAL RESEARCH IN THE LATE 1980s for a biog- raphy of the Weimar German pacifist and professor Emil J. Gumbel, the leading chronicler of political violence in Weimar Germany, Arthur D. Brenner was struck by the parallels between the paramil- itary organizations of the 1920s and the Latin American death squads that were much in the U.S. news at the time. Some biblio- graphic searching, however, revealed no comparative studies of death squads, and by the time he completed his Ph.D. in 1993, he had determined to compile a collection of scholarly essays on death squads around the world. Early the following year, the editors met at an academic conference and discussed the idea, which led shortly thereafter to an agreement to collaborate on this book. Bruce B. Campbell had already been working on German paramilitary groups for some time, and was trying to work out a larger explana- tion of why paramilitary organizations exist and what purpose they serve. This research proved very useful in looking at death squads in a new way and blended well into the project. Once we had the basic idea of editing a comparative study of death squads, we began the challenging task of finding likely con- tributors. This was a long process with many difficulties. We are, after all, both specialists in the history of Germany in the twentieth century. While it was not too difficult to identify scholars working on the well-known death squads of Central and South America, other parts of the world proved more difficult. Some specialists were accustomed to conceptualizing the objects of their study in frameworks that did not include the concept of "death squads." This left us not only trying to find the right people and the right channels of communication in fields well outside our expertise, but also attempting to persuade some colleagues to think about their subjects in new ways. The search was exciting, and the contacts we had with our contributors and a host of others along the way proved very enriching. There were, of course, the usual difficulties involved with bringing a book to press, but some were not so usual. We deeply regret the untimely death of Prof. Gregory Gugel, who was engaged in preparing a chapter for this book on South African death squads in Namibia at the time of his passing. We sorely miss the ebullient personality that shone through his letters and e-mail messages. If we have other regrets, they are in the nature of "the one that got away." We wanted to include more case studies from Africa and Europe and tried in vain to arrange for a study of the early Ku Klux Klan in the United States. As with historical cases from before the 1950s, a variety of circumstances conspired to negate these plans. Per- sonal and professional commitments prevented several scholars who had expressed an interest in contributing to the book from doing so. As we began to research death squads more and more, we were rapidly confirmed in our initial belief that death squads are a major problem worldwide. We also discovered that they are not simply a product of the Cold War but have, in fact, been active for much longer than we had at first expected (see the chapter by Bruce B. Campbell, below, for more on the subject of chronology). The book begins with a theoretical essay (Chapter 1) by Bruce B. Campbell. It prepares the way for the case studies that make up the rest of the book by presenting a working definition of death squads and a review of the literature. Beyond this, it points out sev- eral problems in current understanding of how and why death squads exist and proposes a historical framework for considering them that should help resolve some difficulties in how death squads have been defined and conceived to date. He links the appearance of death squads to a crisis of the modern state and considers them as one instance of a much wider process of "subcontracting" that char- acterizes nearly all states in the twentieth century. The case studies are divided into four sections. The first covers two historical cases that demonstrate the existence of death squads well before World War 11. Michael J. Schroeder's essay, "'To Induce a Sense of Terror': Caudillo Politics and Political Violence in North- ern Nicaragua, 1926-34 and 1981 -95" (Chapter 2), examines po- litical gang violence and death squad activity in the mountainous Segovias of north-central Nicaragua during two non-contiguous pe- riods of state crisis: the aftermath of the 1926-27 civil war and the Sandino rebellion that followed (1927-34), and the Contra war of the 1980s and its aftermath in the 1990s. He situates the origins and characteristics of the violence within the broader contexts of state formation and crisis, patron-client relations, local-regional caudil- lismo, and imperialist intervention. Schroeder argues that collective action and organized political violence that can be characterized as death squad activity form an integral part of modern Nicaraguan history and that any effort to better understand that history must pay such practices close and abiding attention. Following this is Arthur D. Brenner's essay, "Feme Murder: Paramilitary 'Self-Justice' in Weimar Germany" (Chapter 3). It con- cerns the murderous "self-justice" practiced by illegal paramilitary units between 1920 and 1923 in order to protect the clandestinity of military activity that contravened the Versailles Peace Treaty. The narrow subculture in which the death squads were active and the limited scope of "crimes" for which they meted out punishment helps account for the relatively low number of victims they claimed. The author argues that a central characteristic of the modern state- its division of vast responsibility horizontally, across many agencies at any given level, and vertically, into national and regional author- ities with considerable responsibility and autonomy within their spheres-was a crucial factor in facilitating the emergence of death squads and in giving the state the impunity it desires when it creates or tolerates these forces. The second section looks at cases in which death squads were used by ostensibly democratic regimes undergoing periods of transition. These chapters suggest conditions that make the appearance of death squads likely in other places in the future. Chapter 4, by Cynthia J. Arnson, discusses one of the best-known and representative appear- ances of death squads. "Window on the Past: A Declassified History of Death Squads in El Salvador" reexamines the internal conflict in El Salvador from 1979 to 1991 in light of important information recently declassified by the United States government. This new information provides valuable information about the origins, structure, financing, practices, and personnel involved in death squad activity there. The ar- ticle documents how death squads operated out of officially consti- tuted security bodies, including the police, National Guard, army, and air force, and how privately organized and financed groups main- tained close connections to official forces. The article also evaluates the role of the U.S. government in reporting on and attempting to curb death squad activity.
The list of books you might like
