The Terror

    Latin America during the 60’s was a proxy for the Cold War. Although not directly involved in the conflict, the world witnessed the rise in leftist views in the region, which immediately made it a key factor in Latin American politics. Many countries that were somehow linked to the US found their governments overthrown, and placed in the hands of American puppets.

            This reading gives us a timeline of coup d’états, and other tactics used in overthrowing governments as well as government tactics to avoid being overthrown. This timeline manages to span from as early as 1950’s when leftist propaganda began to take root in Latin America, to as late as 1992 when the Peruvian President Fujimori assumed office. The rise in military dictatorships within the region leads to this rise in terror within the state, in which civilians were caught in a war between terrorists (guerilla groups) and the terror state. In the process of this division, we have the romaticization of leftist figures, into heroic figures oppressed by the right wing dictatorship.

            It is also through these dirty wars, that we begin to see the extent to which government oppression had truly taken root in Latin America. The introduction of government issued disappearances presented a new wave of suppression in the region. There seemed to be no pattern behind the disappearances, as anyone could easily be painted as an enemy of the state, and as a result, be taken by the military for elongated periods of time. Examples of such can be found in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, and Peru, just a few of the nations that record some of the highest numbers of mass forms of repression under their dictatorial governments.

            In Chile alone, it is estimated that 30,000 prisoners passed through the National Stadium, 2000 of which were executed shortly after their release, and 1300 still missing. In Argentina, around 400 of those kidnapped spent between 7 to 9 years one of the nations 340 concentration camps. It is from these numbers that we begin to actualize the extent of the terror brought forth by the government. We also are able to see the extent of the terror reign on the parts of the guerilla movements, as the Sendero’s of Peru were deemed responsible for the murders of at least 70,000 individuals during the nations civil war.

            This chapter allows us to get a better understanding of this new fear that terrorized the continent, and how different factions of society played into it. It also allows us to not view the issue of revolution as simply a black and white matter in which good was fighting evil. Whereas a majority of the leftist groups aimed to shift power from the bourgeois and western influenced majority, they ended up committing atrocities against civilians.