Death Squads

Death squads are secretive or clandestine organizations that generally exist outside of formal governmental or military structures and usually are formed on an ad hoc and irregular basis. They are designed to kill people and carry out other violent acts in order to terrorize a civilian population. These acts of violence are all extrajudicial, and though death squads may commit some random acts of terror, their targets are usually quite specific. Significantly, except in the rare case where they are formed by an insurgent or revolutionary group, death squads operate with the support, complicity, or acquiescence of the state, or at least some faction of it. In most cases, individual members of legitimate organs of the state (the army, the police) participate directly in death squads, and their work is usually steered in some way by elements of legitimate authority. Yet at the same time, death squads almost always include private forces and interests, and they develop considerable independence. Death squads are therefore almost always a form of state violence, targeting civilian or insurrectionary elements or actors within a state, and do not occur in the context of war between regular armies of sovereign states. [Page 335]Yet they exist in a liminal position, partway between legitimate state organs and private interests. Key to distinguishing death squads from other forms of state violence and terrorism is their covert nature. This allows elites and the state to maintain “plausible deniability,” by claiming that they are not involved. This is usually a transparent lie, but it is crucial to the existence of death squads. They exist so that the state may plausibly deny complicity in terrorizing its own people.

Death squads must be distinguished from assassins, vigilantes, and terrorists. Death squads kill on a greater scale and make terror their objective in a way that sets them apart from assassins, who typically focus on one or a very small group of victims. The acts of death squads are often claimed to be those of local or community vigilantes, yet death squads are not genuinely spontaneous and are directed by the government (and/or private interests allied to the elites) in most cases. They are also usually more widespread than true communitybased vigilantism. Finally, death squads are an aspect of state terrorism and are used by states or factions within states to terrorize their own people. They are a terrorist tactic, but one used nearly always by states against their own people, and not by insurgent or revolutionary terrorists. While terrorists tend to kill indiscriminately, death squads kill a specifically targeted group of people.

Scope

Death squads have existed in every region of the world. The best-known cases have been in Central and South America, for example, Guatemala and El Salvador, but there have been death squads on every continent and in modern, industrialized states. Death squads are not limited to the third world or any particular region. Important instances of the use of death squads include, but are not limited to, El Salvador 1971–1991, Guatemala 1954–2000, Nicaragua 1981–1995, Argentina 1974–1983, Chile 1973–1990, Brazil 1960s to date, South Africa 1969–1993, Serbia/Bosnia 1992, Spain 1983–1987, Uganda 1971–1979, Zaire 1980s, Algeria 1960–1962 and 1990s, India (Punjab, Jammu, and Kashmir) 1980s and 1990s, Sri Lanka 1970s to date, Indonesia 1980s to date, Philippines late 1980s, and United States 1865–1871. Death squads were first used in the 19th century, though they have become commonplace only since World War II. One reason for this is that the cold war and the expansion of global media both brought increased scrutiny of civil rights violations, making it increasingly important for governments to assert plausible deniability when using violence and terror against their own citizens, for fear of losing legitimacy. This has entailed a growing paradox, for as scrutiny of human rights violations has sharpened, states have increasingly turned to covert violence, making the uncovering of the true culprits and the fate of the victims increasingly difficult. Hence there is a need to find new ways for the resolution of domestic conflicts, such as truth and reconciliation commissions and amnesties for killers who are willing to confess their crimes and provide information on the victims.

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