The book When States Kill: Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror, despite its sensational title, is a collection
of exhaustive academic essays, edited by Cecilia Menjívar and Néstor Rodríguez, analyzing the horrific
counterinsurgency programs which had, and continue to have an effect, on the majority of Latin America. The essays make clear that they are by no means blaming the United States, but they often analyze the decisive role that the U.S. plays in implementing “technologies of terror”. The book touches on all of Latin America, from Operation Condor, South America’s oppressive international counterinsurgency program, to individual countries that continue to be plagued by the state’s decision to kill, disappear, torture, or imprison without due process. Despite the fact that each of the essays is by a unique author, writing about a single country, a definite pattern emerges. U.S.
militarization of Latin American states, first for the purposes of anti-communism, then counter narcotics operations, and most recently the war on terror, often places the machinery of brutal repression in the hands of an already oppressive aristocracy. Even more frightening, are the counterinsurgency techniques taught to the thousands of Latin American military officers through U.S. training in the infamous School of the Americas, as well as elsewhere. Interrogation methods, such as the application of electrical shocks, appear time and time and again in rare instances of exposure in Latin America, even, most notoriously, half way around the world in Abu Ghraib. The first section of the book takes it upon itself to describe certain aspects of state terror in Mexico and Central America. The most obvious cases of repression occurred in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, where intervention by the United States is well documented, and the empowered regimes had hundreds of thousands of violent deaths on their hands. In Honduras, a relatively peaceful country, militarization for the purposes of combating leftist Nicaraguan Sandanistas, shifted the power balance over to the military and repression became the norm rather than the exception for a period of time. Costa Rica, another relatively peaceful country, faced similar outbreaks of repression during the same Reagan administration for the same reasons. During the Chiapas rebellion in southern Mexico (a fascinating rebellion for anyone that’s interested) officials were trained by the U.S., and U.S. anti-narcotics funds were channeled into the militarization of the region by Clinton, again resulting in deaths, disappearances, and incarcerations without due process. The most fascinating piece on Central America has to do with cadaver reports in Guatemala. Guatemala didn’t have a free press under dictatorial rule, but pictures of mutilated and tortured cadavers were often published, usually nameless, functioning to give them greater representation and instill terror among the populous. For the pieces on South America, the numbers regarding the people affected are greater, just by virtue of the differences in population, and the repression was much more organized. Operation Condor was a counterinsurgency program, set-up, funded, and supported by the United States, that various states used to chase political opponents across borders. Argentina was among the most brutal of states, often exporting terror outside of its borders. When states like Uruguay, who preferred to imprison its opponents, wanted someone murdered, it would often be done in Argentina. The most frightening recounting is of Columbia’s violence, where paramilitaries and guerrilla groups resulted in thousands of deaths. I personally know that’s getting a little better now though. These essays paint a frightening, though incomplete, picture of repression in Latin America. Though it is often within existing frameworks of extreme inequality, almost every outbreak of repression can be traced to increased militarization by the United States. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement in Latin America is also rampant, the best case scenario being that the CIA is fully aware of the decisions involving repression. Yet, it is usually through the tools that they provide, whether it be training, funds, or the little electric needles used to shock political prisoners, that the repression is carried out. The most interesting passage that I read in the conclusion of the book is this one: “the largest flows of Latin American migration to the United State originate in countries that experience the largest or longest U.S. intervention” (When States Kill 2005: 343). That’s something to think about during all the anti-immigration talk that floods the airwaves right now. Building a wall only masks the problems. If the U.S. wants to stop immigration, the best way is to the fix the problems that make people want to leave.