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Introduction to "Shadows of State Terrorism: Impunity in Latin America"
J. PATRICE MCSHERRY (e-mail: [email protected]) and RAUL MOLINA MEJIA are the Guest Editors of this issue.
ON THE CUSP OF THE 21ST CENTURY, THE LONG SHADOWS OF STATE TERRORISM still haunt Latin America. The memory of predator states that turned on their own citizens is still present for millions of people in the region; and for some, as in Colombia today, political violence and state terrorism are still a reality. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives in the dirty wars of the Cold War era -- 200,000 in Guatemala alone -- and tens of thousands more suffered barbaric tortures, disappearance, and other forms of state terror. Yet most of the architects and agents of these crimes walk free today; many remain in positions of power.
In this issue of Social Justice we have assembled the reflections and analyses of some distinguished Latin Americans who lived through recent military dictatorships and who have grappled with their consequences. By listening to their voices, North American readers will understand state terrorism and impunity in new ways.
As E.V. Walter (1969: 9) once argued, states that employ terror "consciously design a pattern of violence to produce the social behavior they demand" -- and their power resides not only in their capacity to alter present behaviors, but also to prevent future behaviors. The Latin American militaries -- trained, financed, and usually supported politically by the United States -- used counterinsurgency strategies deliberately calculated both to eliminate "subversives" and to "change the mentality" of all citizens. Today the legacy of fear remains a deterrent to full political participation and a sense of citizenship in many Latin American countries. Chilean writer Isabel Allende (1999: 27) compares her country to "an abused child that is always expecting the next blow." Impunity for past crimes affects the present and the future, profoundly shaping the limits and possibilities of new democracies. Given that, it is a mistake to assume that the dirty war era is a closed chapter in Latin America.
There is an integral link between state terrorism and impunity. We define impunity as freedom from accountability or punishment for state crimes or abuses of power. Without impunity for its agents, a state's strategies...