Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces?

Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces? PDF Author: Julie Mazzei
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807898619
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
In an era when the global community is confronted with challenges posed by violent nonstate organizations--from FARC in Colombia to the Taliban in Afghanistan--our understanding of the nature and emergence of these groups takes on heightened importance. Julie Mazzei's timely study offers a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics that facilitate the organization and mobilization of one of the most virulent types of these organizations, paramilitary groups (PMGs). Mazzei reconstructs in rich historical context the organization of PMGs in Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico, identifying the variables that together create a triad of factors enabling paramilitary emergence: ambivalent state officials, powerful military personnel, and privileged members of the economic elite. Nations embroiled in domestic conflicts often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when global demands for human rights contradict internal expectations and demands for political stability. Mazzei elucidates the importance of such circumstances in the emergence of PMGs, exploring the roles played by interests and policies at both the domestic and international levels. By offering an explanatory model of paramilitary emergence, Mazzei provides a framework to facilitate more effective policy making aimed at mitigating and undermining the political potency of these dangerous forces.

Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces?

Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces? PDF Author: Julie Mazzei
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807898619
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
In an era when the global community is confronted with challenges posed by violent nonstate organizations--from FARC in Colombia to the Taliban in Afghanistan--our understanding of the nature and emergence of these groups takes on heightened importance. Julie Mazzei's timely study offers a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics that facilitate the organization and mobilization of one of the most virulent types of these organizations, paramilitary groups (PMGs). Mazzei reconstructs in rich historical context the organization of PMGs in Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico, identifying the variables that together create a triad of factors enabling paramilitary emergence: ambivalent state officials, powerful military personnel, and privileged members of the economic elite. Nations embroiled in domestic conflicts often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when global demands for human rights contradict internal expectations and demands for political stability. Mazzei elucidates the importance of such circumstances in the emergence of PMGs, exploring the roles played by interests and policies at both the domestic and international levels. By offering an explanatory model of paramilitary emergence, Mazzei provides a framework to facilitate more effective policy making aimed at mitigating and undermining the political potency of these dangerous forces.

A History of Political Murder in Latin America

A History of Political Murder in Latin America PDF Author: W. John Green
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438456654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This expansive history depicts Latin America's pan-regional culture of political murder. Unlike typical studies of the region, which often focus on the issues or trends of individual countries, this work focuses thematically on the nature of political murder itself, comparing and contrasting its uses and practices throughout the region. W. John Green examines the entire system of political murder: the methods and justifications the perpetrators employ, the victims, and the consequences for Latin American societies. Green demonstrates that elite and state actors have been responsible for most political murders, assassinating the leaders of popular movements and other messengers of change. Latin American elites have also often targeted the potential audience for these messages through the region's various "dirty wars." In spite of regional differences, elites across the region have displayed considerable uniformity in justifying their use of murder, imagining themselves in a class war with democratic forces. While the United States has often been complicit in such violence, Green notes that this has not been universally true, with US support waxing and waning. A detailed appendix, exploring political murder country by country, provides an additional resource for readers.

The Colombian Civil War

The Colombian Civil War PDF Author: Bert Ruiz
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078645072X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In 2000, the National Police of Colombia reported that 25,660 people met violent deaths in that country. According to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, 170 civilians were killed in the first 18 days of 2001 in massacres and selective homicides related to that country's terrible civil war. By drawing on diverse sources of information, this work brings together the thoughts of historians, journalists, human rights activists, social scientists, military veterans, law enforcement officials, Congressional investigators, financial analysts, lawyers, Roman Catholic priests, peace organization spokespersons and others about the volatile present-day situation in Colombia. It explains the complexities of the drug-financed civil war and details Washington's concern that the Colombian conflict will destabilize the Andean region. Photographs and maps enhance the text.

Death Squad

Death Squad PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Sluka
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812200489
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
"There is real personal danger for anthropologists who dare to speak and write against terror; by doing so, they potentially and sometimes actually bring the terror down on themselves."—Jeffrey A. Sluka, from the Introduction Death Squad is the first work to focus specifically on the anthropology of state terror. It brings together an international group of anthropologists who have done extensive research in areas marked by extreme forms of state violence and who have studied state terror from the perspective of victims and survivors. The book presents eight case studies from seven countries—Spain, India (Punjab and Kashmir), Argentina, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, and the Philippines—to demonstrate the cultural complexities and ambiguities of terror when viewed at the local level and from the participants' point of view. Contributors deal with such topics as the role of Loyalist death squads in the culture of terror in Northern Ireland, the three-tier mechanism of state terror in Indonesia, the complex role of religion in violence by both the state and insurgents in Punjab and Kashmir, and the ways in which "disappearances" are used to destabilize and demoralize opponents of the state in Argentina, Guatemala, and India.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition PDF Author: Gus Martin
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1452266387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 721

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Book Description
Six years after publication of the first edition of the best-selling Encyclopedia of Terrorism, much has changed on the national security scene. Despite the dark promises of Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks, the United States has not experienced any major domestic terror incidents. Al-Qaeda itself is believed to be a severely crippled organization. But while U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq--not to mention the arrival of the Obama administration, a new balance of power within Congress, and an increasingly fragile economic picture--have significantly affected the national security picture, the threat of economic chaos and massive loss of life due to terror attacks has not abated. Indeed, in July 2008 analysts pointed out that even a relatively small terrorist organization could present a dire threat, with some experts arguing that a biological, chemical, or even nuclear attack on a major U.S. city is all but inevitable. In this highly charged, rapidly shifting environment, we are pleased to present the The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition, a thoroughly updated and expanded edition of the original, highly regarded reference work. Nearly 100,000 words of new material will be added, along with fully updated original entries, and expanded coverage. New introductory essays will explore the impact of terrorism on economics, public health, religion, and even pop culture. Ethical issues such as the role of torture in interrogations, competing notions of security versus liberty, and the debates over FISA legislation and Guantanamo Bay will also be covered. Two dozen entries on significant recent events—such as the London bombings, Chechen attacks on Russian interests, and the rescue of Ingrid Bettancourt—and some 60 additional new entries will restore the work as an up-to-the-minute, natural first-stop for researchers.

Combatants in African Conflicts

Combatants in African Conflicts PDF Author: Simon David Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351065440
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book focuses on the different types of combatants in conflicts in Africa, exploring the fine lines between what might be classified as a militia in one conflict, a rebel in another, or a terrorist in a third. Drawing on the work of Carl von Clausewitz, this book provides a conceptually stable and analytically sound new typology on combatants. Analysing the relationships between state and society, and drawing on Clausewitz's Trinity of passion, chance, and reason, the book presents a set of five types of armed actors: Professionals, Praetorians, Militias, Insurgents, and Mercenaries. Each type is developed through a close reading of foundational theoretical texts, reviews of contemporary studies, and a historical analysis of their unique characteristics. Unlike a reductionist binary perspective, this typology accounts for the dynamic, complex, and evolving relationships of these actors with the state and society. A typology of combatants in conflicts in Africa can provide avenues for more in-depth analysis of such conflicts and holds implications for Security Sector Reform projects and other peace-building programmes. As such, this book will be an essential reference for scholars and students of African Politics and Military and Security Studies.

Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Revised Edition

Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Revised Edition PDF Author: Cindy C. Combs
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438110197
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
Presents a reference guide to terrorism throughout the world, including history, terrorist groups, and notorious acts of terrorism.

Self-Defense in Mexico

Self-Defense in Mexico PDF Author: Luis Hernández Navarro
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469654547
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
In Mexico and across other parts of Latin America local Indigenous peoples have built community policing groups as a means of protection where the state has limited control over, and even complicity in, crime and violence. Luis Hernandez Navarro, a leading Mexican journalist, offers a riveting investigation of these armed self-defense groups that sprang up around the time of the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. Available in English for the first time, the book spotlights the intense precarity of everyday life in parts of Mexico. Hernandez Navarro shows how the self-defense response, which now includes wealthier rancher and farmer groups, is being transformed by Mexico's expanding role in the multibillion dollar global drug trade, by foreign corporations' extraction of raw minerals in traditionally Indigenous lands, and by the resulting social changes in local communities. But as Hernandez Navarro acknowledges, self-defense is highly controversial. Community policing may provide citizens with increased agency, but for government officials it can be a dangerous threat to the status quo. Leftists and liberals are wary of how the groups may be linked to paramilitary forces and vulnerable to manipulation by drug traffickers and the government alike. This book answers the urgent call to understand the dangerous complexities of government failures and popular solutions.

Understanding Terrorism

Understanding Terrorism PDF Author: Gus Martin
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1452205825
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
With a particular emphasis on terrorist incidents, this fourth edition has been fully updated to provide readers with a wide-ranging and crucial resource on contemporary terrorism.

Drug War American Style

Drug War American Style PDF Author: Jurg Gerber
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135689571
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This collection of scholarly essays discusses the internationalization of American drug policy from a variety of perspectives and features articles on Hong Kong, Britain, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, Latin America, the Netherlands and Switzerland.