![Men with an unidentified unit execute a group of Soviet civilians kneeling by the side of a mass grave](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Men_with_an_unidentified_unit_execute_a_group_of_Soviet_civilians_kneeling_by_the_side_of_a_mass_grave.jpg)
A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out
extrajudicial killing
An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whethe ...
s or
forced disappearance
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a State (polity), state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or po ...
s as part of
political repression,
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
,
ethnic cleansing, or
revolutionary terror
Revolutionary terror, also referred to as revolutionary terrorism or a reign of terror, refers to the institutionalized application of force to counterrevolutionaries, particularly during the French Revolution from the years 1793 to 1795 (see th ...
. Except in rare cases in which they are formed by an
insurgency
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irr ...
, domestic or foreign governments actively participate in, support, or ignore the death squad's activities. Death squads are distinct from
assassination from their permanent organization and the larger number of victims (typically thousands or more) who may not be prominent individuals. Other violence, such as
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...
,
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
,
arson, or
bombings
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanica ...
may be carried out alongside murders. They may comprise a
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of ...
force,
paramilitary militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
groups, government soldiers, policemen, or combinations thereof. They may also be organized as
vigilantes
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a person who ...
,
bounty hunters
A bounty hunter is a private agent working for bail bonds who captures fugitives or criminals for a commission or bounty. The occupation, officially known as bail enforcement agent, or fugitive recovery agent, has traditionally operated outsid ...
,
mercenaries, or
contract killers
Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may ...
. When death squads are not controlled by the state, they may consist of insurgent forces or
organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
, such as the ones used by
cartel
A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...
s.
History
Although the term "death squad" did not rise to notoriety until the activities of such groups became widely known in
Central and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
during the 1970s and 80s, death squads have been employed under different guises throughout history. The term was first used by the
fascist Iron Guard in
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
. It officially installed Iron Guard death squads in 1936 in order to kill political enemies. It was also used during the
Battle of Algiers by
Paul Aussaresses.
Cold War usage
In
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
, death squads first appeared in
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
where a group called ''Esquadrão da Morte'' (literally "Death Squad") emerged in the 1960s; they subsequently spread to
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
in the 1970s, and they were later used in Central America during the 1980s. Argentina used extrajudicial killings as a way of crushing the liberal and communist opposition to the
military junta
A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
during the "
Dirty War
The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 as ...
" of the 1970s. For example,
Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance ( es, Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, links=no, usually known as Triple A or AAA) was an Argentine Peronist political action group operated by a sector of the Federal Police and the Argentine Armed Forces, ...
was a far-right death squad mainly active during the "Dirty War". The Chilean military regime of 1973–1990 also committed such killings. See
Operation Condor
Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of op ...
for examples.
During the
Salvadoran Civil War
The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
The Farabundo Ma ...
, death squads achieved notoriety on 24 March 1980, when a
sniper assassinated Archbishop
Óscar Romero
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop of Santiago ...
as he said
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
inside a convent chapel. In December 1980, three American nuns,
Ita Ford
Sister Ita Ford, M.M. (April 23, 1940 – December 2, 1980) was an American Catholic Maryknoll Sister who served as a missionary in Bolivia, Chile and El Salvador. She worked with the poor and war refugees. On December 2, 1980, she was beaten, r ...
,
Dorothy Kazel, and
Maura Clarke
Maura Clarke (January 13, 1931 – December 2, 1980), was an American Catholic Maryknoll sister who served as a missionary in Nicaragua and El Salvador. She worked with the poor and refugees in Central America from 1959 until her murder in 1980 ...
, and a lay worker,
Jean Donovan
Jean Marie Donovan (April 10, 1953 – December 2, 1980) was an American lay missionary who was beaten, raped, and murdered along with three fellow missionaries—Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel—by members of the military of El Sal ...
, were
gang raped and murdered by a military unit later found to have been acting on specific orders. Death squads were instrumental in killing hundreds of real and suspected Communists. Priests who were spreading
liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". I ...
, such as Father
Rutilio Grande, were often targeted as well. The murderers were found to have been soldiers of the Salvadoran military, which was receiving U.S. funding and
military advisors during the
Carter
Carter(s), or Carter's, Tha Carter, or The Carter(s), may refer to:
Geography United States
* Carter, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Carter, Mississippi, an unincorporated community
* Carter, Montana, a census-designated place
* Carter ...
administration. These events prompted outrage in the U.S. and led to a temporary cutoff in military aid at the end of his presidency. Death Squad activity stretched well into the Reagan years (1981–1989) as well.
Honduras also had death squads active through the 1980s, the most notorious of which was the army unit
Battalion 316. Hundreds of people, teachers, politicians, and union leaders were assassinated by government-backed forces. Battalion 316 received substantial training from the United States
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
.
In
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
, extrajudicial killings were conducted by both sides during the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
.
After being caught dumping the bodies of his victims during the
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the force ...
in
Saigon,
Nguyễn Văn Lém, the commander of a
Viet Cong
,
, war = the Vietnam War
, image = FNL Flag.svg
, caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green.
, active ...
unit tasked with murdering South Vietnamese police officers and their families, was extrajudicially executed on camera by Police General
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan
Major General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (; 11 December 193014 July 1998) was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police.
Loan gained international attention when he summarily executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn ...
on 1 February 1968.
Recent use
, death squads have continued to be active in several locations, including
Chechnya,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
, the
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...
,
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
,
Colombia,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
,
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
,
Sudan,
South Sudan
South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...
,
Syria,
Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
,
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
...
,
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
,
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
,
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
and the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, among others.
During the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...
, Russian soldiers captured by the Ukrainian army stated that Russian death squads have been activated by
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
to kill soldiers that returned after entering Ukraine. When contacting their parents, they learnt that they have started making preparations for the soldier's funeral. As a result, Russian soldiers who decide not to fight chose to surrender rather than desert.
By continent
Africa
Egypt
The
Iron Guard of Egypt was a pro-palace political movement or a secret palace organization of the
Kingdom of Egypt
The Kingdom of Egypt ( ar, المملكة المصرية, Al-Mamlaka Al-Miṣreyya, The Egyptian Kingdom) was the legal form of the Egyptian state during the latter period of the Muhammad Ali dynasty's reign, from the United Kingdom's recog ...
which assassinated
Farouk of Egypt
Farouk I (; ar, فاروق الأول ''Fārūq al-Awwal''; 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965) was the tenth ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1 ...
's enemies or a secret unit with a licence to kill, which was believed to personally take orders from Farouk. It was involved in several deadly incidents.
Ivory Coast
Death squads are reportedly active in this country.
This has been condemned by the US
but appears to be difficult to stop. Moreover, there is no proof as to whom is behind the killings.
In an interview with the Pan-African magazine "Jeune Afrique",
accused one of the opposition leaders,
Alassane Ouattara
Alassane Dramane Ouattara (; ; born 1 January 1942) is an Ivorian politician who has been President of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) since 2010. An economist by profession, Ouattara worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Kenya
In December 2014, Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit officers confessed to '' Al-Jazeera'' that they were responsible for almost 500 of the extrajudicial killing
An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whethe ...
s. The murders reportedly totalled several hundred homicides every year. They included the assassination of Abubaker Shariff Ahmed "Makaburi", an Al-Shabaab associate from Kenya, who was among 21 Islamic extremists allegedly murdered by the Kenyan police force since 2012. According to the agents, they resorted to the killing after the Kenya Police
)
, formedyear = 1906
, formedmonthday =
, preceding1 =
, dissolved =
, superseding =
, employees = approx. 101,000=
, volunteers =
, budget =
, country = Kenya
, ...
could not successfully prosecute terror suspects. In doing so, the officers indicated that they were acting on the direct orders of Kenya's National Security Council, which consisted of the Kenyan President, Deputy President, Chief of the Defence Forces, Inspector General of Police, National Security Intelligence Service Director, Cabinet Secretary of Interior, and Principal Secretary of Interior. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta
Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (born 26 October 1961) is a Kenyan politician who served as the fourth president of Kenya from 2013 to 2022.
Kenyatta was chosen by Daniel Arap Moi as his preferred successor, but Kenyatta was defeated by opposition le ...
and the National Security Council of Kenya members denied operating an extrajudicial assassination program. Additionally, the officers suggested that Western security agencies provided intelligence for the program, including the whereabouts and activities of government targets- alleging that the British government supplied further logistics in the form of equipment and training. One Kenyan officer within the council's General Service Unit also indicated that Israeli instructors taught them how to kill. The head of the International Bar Association
The International Bar Association (IBA), founded in 1947, is a bar association of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. The IBA currently has a membership of more than 80,000 individual lawyers and 190 bar associa ...
, Mark Ellis, cautioned that any such involvement by foreign nations would constitute a breach of international law. The United Kingdom and Israel denied participation in the Kenyan National Security Council's reported death squads, with the UK Foreign Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreig ...
indicating that it had approached the Kenyan authorities over the charges.
South Africa
Beginning in the 1960s, the African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
(ANC) and its ally, the South African Communist Party
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing Na ...
(SACP), and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), began a campaign to topple South Africa's National Party (NP)-controlled Apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
Government. Both the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and South African security forces routinely engaged in bombings and targeted killings, both at home and abroad. Particularly notorious apartheid death squads were the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) and the South African Police
The South African Police (SAP) was the national police force and law enforcement agency in South Africa from 1913 to 1994; it was the ''de facto'' police force in the territory of South West Africa (Namibia) from 1939 to 1981. After South Af ...
's counter-insurgency unit C10, commanded by Colonel Eugene de Kock
Eugene Alexander de Kock (born 29 January 1949) is a former South African Police colonel, torturer, and assassin, active under the apartheid government. Nicknamed "Prime Evil" by the press, De Kock was the commanding officer of C10, a counterin ...
and based at the Vlakplaas farm west of Pretoria
Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa.
Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...
, itself also a center for torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
of prisoners.
After the end of Apartheid, death squad violence conducted by both the National Party and the ANC was investigated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state act ...
.
Uganda
From 1971 to 1979, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern w ...
set up death squads to murder enemies of the state.
Dominican Republic
Rafael Trujillo's Dominican government employed a death squad, known as ''la 42'' and led by Miguel Angel Paulino, that tooled around in a stylish red Packard called the Carro de la Muerte (Death Car). During the 12-year regime of Joaquín Balaguer
Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo (1 September 1906 – 14 July 2002) was a Dominican politician, scholar, writer, and lawyer. He was President of the Dominican Republic serving three non-consecutive terms for that office from 1960 to 196 ...
, the ''Frente Democrático Anticomunista y Antiterrorista'', most known as ''La Banda Colorá'', continued the practices of ''la 42''. He was also known for having the SIM to kill Haitians in the Parsley massacre
The Parsley massacre (Spanish: ''el corte'' "the cutting"; Creole: ''kout kouto-a'' "the stabbing") (french: Massacre du Persil; es, Masacre del Perejil; ht, Masak nan Pèsil) was a mass killing of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's nor ...
.
Haiti
The ''Tonton Macoute
The Tonton Macoute ( ht, Tonton Makout) or simply the Macoute was a special operations unit within the Haitian paramilitary force created in 1959 by dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. In 1970 the militia was renamed the ' (VSN, Voluntee ...
'' was a paramilitary force created in 1959 by Haitian dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier
François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis.
People with the given name
* Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of Letters"
* Francis II of France, King o ...
that murdered 30,000 to 60,000 Haitians.
Mexico
In a way similar to the American Indian Wars
The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were fought by European governments and colonists in North America, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settle ...
, the Centralist Republic of Mexico
The Centralist Republic of Mexico ( es, República Centralista de México), or in the anglophone scholarship, the Central Republic, officially the Mexican Republic ( es, República Mexicana), was a unitary political regime established in Mexico ...
struggled against Apache raids. Between 1835 and 1837, only 15 years after the Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...
and in the midst of the Texan Revolution, the Mexican state governments of Sonora and Chihuahua (that border with the U.S. states of Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
, New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
and Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
) put a bounty on the Apache bands that were in the area. In the case of Chihuahua the bounty attracted "bounty hunters
A bounty hunter is a private agent working for bail bonds who captures fugitives or criminals for a commission or bounty. The occupation, officially known as bail enforcement agent, or fugitive recovery agent, has traditionally operated outsid ...
" from the United States, that were often Anglo Americans, runaway slaves
In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th century to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called free ...
and even from other Indian tribes. It was paid based on Apache scalps, 100 pesos per warrior, 50 pesos per woman, and 25 pesos per child. As historian Donald E. Worcester wrote: "The new policy attracted a diverse group of men, including Anglos, runaway slaves led by Seminole John Horse
John Horse (c. 1812–1882), also known as Juan Caballo, Juan Cavallo, John Cowaya (with spelling variations) and Gopher John, was of mixed ancestry (African and Seminole Indian) who fought alongside the Seminoles in the Second Seminole War in F ...
, and Indians — Kirker used Delawares
The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory includ ...
and Shawnees
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky an ...
; others, such as Terrazas, used Tarahumaras; and Seminole Chief Coacoochee led a band of his own people who had fled from Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...
.".
During Benito Juarez Benito may refer to:
Places
* Benito, Kentucky, United States
* Benito, Manitoba, Canada
* Benito River, a river in Equatorial Guinea
Other uses
* Benito (name)
* ''Benito'' (1993), an Italian film
See also
* '' Benito Cereno'', a novella by ...
's regime and his comeback as president, he used a death squad to kill Maximilian I of Mexico, Tomás Mejía, and Miguel Miramón
Miguel Gregorio de la Luz Atenógenes Miramón y Tarelo, known as Miguel Miramón, (29 September 1831 – 19 June 1867) was a Mexican conservative general who became president of Mexico at the age of twenty seven during the Reform War, serving ...
for treason and reforms Maximilian made and for his support to French emperor Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
. One of the soldiers on the death squad named Aureliano Blanquet Aureliano, equivalent to Aurelian and Aurelianus, is both a given name and a surname which can refer to:
; Given name
* Aureliano Blanquet (1849-1919), general of the Federal Army during the Mexican Civil War
*Aureliano Bolognesi (1930–2018), Ita ...
would then later be sentenced to death by firing squad under Francisco I. Madero
Francisco Ignacio Madero González (; 30 October 1873 – 22 February 1913) was a Mexican businessman, revolutionary, writer and statesman, who became the 37th president of Mexico from 1911 until he was deposed in a coup d'etat in February 1 ...
45 years later in 1912. Francisco was then later executed a few months later in 1913.
=After the Mexican Revolution
=
For more than seven decades following the Mexican Revolution, Mexico was a one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
ruled by the ''Partido Revolucionario Institucional
The Institutional Revolutionary Party ( es, Partido Revolucionario Institucional, ; abbr. PRI) is a political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 and held uninterrupted power in the country for 71 years, from 1929 to 2000, first as the Nati ...
'' (PRI). During this era, death squad tactics were routinely used against suspected enemies of the state.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the PRI's founder, President Plutarco Elías Calles
Plutarco Elías Calles (25 September 1877 – 19 October 1945) was a general in the Mexican Revolution and a Sonoran politician, serving as President of Mexico from 1924 to 1928.
The 1924 Calles presidential campaign was the first populist ...
, used death squads against Mexico's Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
majority in the Cristero War
The Cristero War ( es, Guerra Cristera), also known as the Cristero Rebellion or es, La Cristiada, label=none, italics=no , was a widespread struggle in central and western Mexico from 1 August 1926 to 21 June 1929 in response to the implementa ...
. Calles explained his reasons in a private telegram to the Mexican Ambassador to the French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 19 ...
, Alberto J. Pani
Alberto José Pani Arteaga (12 June 1878 – 25 August 1955) was a prominent politician, Mexican civil engineer, and expert in economic policy, who during the post-revolutionary period held various important positions. Among these were Secretary ...
. ''"...Catholic Church in Mexico
, native_name_lang =
, image = Catedral_de_México.jpg
, imagewidth = 250px
, alt =
, caption = The Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.
, abbreviation =
, type = ...
is a political movement, and must be eliminated ... free of religious hypnotism which fools the people... within one year without the sacraments, the people will forget the faith..."''
Calles and his adherents used the Mexican Army
The Mexican Army ( es, Ejército Mexicano) is the combined land and air branch and is the largest part of the Mexican Armed Forces; it is also known as the National Defense Army.
The Army is under the authority of the Secretariat of National ...
and police, as well as paramilitary forces like the Red Shirts, to abduct, torture, and execute priests, nuns, and actively religious laity. Mexican Catholics were also routinely hanged from telegraph poles along the railroad lines. Prominent victims of the Mexican State's campaign against Catholicism include the teenager Jose Sanchez del Rio, the Jesuit priest Father Miguel Pro, and the Christian Pacifist
Christian pacifism is the theological and ethical position according to which pacifism and non-violence have both a scriptural and rational basis for Christians, and affirms that any form of violence is incompatible with the Christian faith. Chri ...
Anacleto González Flores
Anacleto González Flores (July 13, 1888 – April 1, 1927) was a Mexican Catholic layman and lawyer who was tortured and executed during the persecution of the Catholic Church under Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles.
González was beat ...
(see also Saints of the Cristero War
On May 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 25 saints and martyrs who had died in the Mexican Cristero War. The vast majority are Catholic priests who were executed for carrying out their ministry despite the suppression under the ant ...
).
In response, an armed revolt against the Mexican State, the Cristero War
The Cristero War ( es, Guerra Cristera), also known as the Cristero Rebellion or es, La Cristiada, label=none, italics=no , was a widespread struggle in central and western Mexico from 1 August 1926 to 21 June 1929 in response to the implementa ...
, began in 1927. Composed largely of peasant volunteers and commanded by retired General Enrique Gorostieta Velarde, the Cristeros were also responsible for atrocities. Among them were the assassination of former Mexican President Álvaro Obregón
Álvaro Obregón Salido (; 17 February 1880 – 17 July 1928) better known as Álvaro Obregón was a Sonoran-born general in the Mexican Revolution. A pragmatic centrist, natural soldier, and able politician, he became the 46th President of Me ...
, train robberies, and violent attacks against rural teachers. The uprising largely ended after the Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...
and the Mexican State negotiated a compromise agreement. Refusing to lay down his arms despite offers of amnesty
Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...
, General Gorostieta was killed in action by the Mexican Army in Jalisco on 2 June 1929. Following the cessation of hostilities, more than 5,000 Cristeros were summarily executed by Mexican security forces. The events of the Cristero War are depicted in the 2012 film '' For Greater Glory''.
=During the Cold War
=
During the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, death squads continued to be used against anti-PRI activists, both Marxists and social conservatives. One example of this is the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre
On October 2, 1968 in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, the Mexican Armed Forces opened fire on a group of unarmed civilians in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas who were protesting the upcoming 1968 Summer Olympics. The Mexican government and ...
, in which an anti-regime protest rally was attacked by security forces in Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
. After this event, paramilitary groups like " Los Halcones" (The Hawks) and the "Brigada blanca" (White brigade) were used to attack, hunt and exterminate political dissidents.
Allegations have been made by both journalists and American law enforcement of collusion between senior PRI statesmen and the Mexican drug cartel
A drug cartel is any criminal organization with the intention of supplying drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when th ...
s. It has even been alleged that, under PRI rule, no drug traffickers were ever successful without the permission of the Mexican State. If the same drug trafficker fell from favor, however, Mexican law enforcement would be ordered to move against their operation, as happened to Pablo Acosta Villarreal in 1987. Drug lords like Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo
Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo (August 1, 1930), commonly referred to by his alias Don Neto, is a Mexican drug lord and former leader of the Guadalajara Cartel, a defunct criminal group based in Jalisco. He headed the organization alongside Miguel Ánge ...
, Rafael Caro Quintero
Rafael Caro Quintero (born October 24, 1952) is a Mexican drug lord who co-founded the now-disintegrated Guadalajara Cartel with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and other drug traffickers in the late 1970s. He is the brother of fellow drug traffi ...
, and Juan José Esparragoza Moreno
Juan José Esparragoza Moreno (born February 3, 1949), commonly referred to by his alias El Azul ( English: "The Blue One"), was a Mexican drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, a drug trafficking organization. Originally a member of the Dir ...
would use the Dirección Federal de Seguridad
The Dirección Federal de Seguridad (''Federal Security Directorate'', DFS) was a Mexican intelligence agency and secret police. It was created in 1947 under Mexican president Miguel Alemán Valdés with the assistance of U.S. intelligence agen ...
as a death squad to kill Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic en ...
agents and Federal Judicial Police
The Federal Judicial Police ( es, Policía Judicial Federal, the PJF) was the federal police force of Mexico until it was shut down in 2002 due to its own rampant corruption and criminal activity.
The jurisdiction of the Federal Judicial Police en ...
commanders who investigated or destroyed drug plantations in the 1970s and 1980s in Mexico. One example was the murder (after torture) of DEA agent Kiki Camarena
Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar (July 26, 1947 – February 9, 1985) was an American intelligence officer for the United States (DEA). In February 1985 Camarena was kidnapped by drug traffickers hired by Mexican politicians in Guadalajara, Mexic ...
, who was killed in Guadalajara for his part in the Rancho Bufalo raid. The DFS also organized death squads to kill journalists including Manuel Buendía who was killed by orders of DFS chief José-Antonio Zorrilla.
=Regime change and "drug war tactics"
=
By the early 1990s, the PRI started to lose the grip on its absolute political power, however, its corruption became so pervasive that Juárez Cartel
The Juárez Cartel (Spanish: ''Cártel de Juárez''), also known as the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug cartel based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, across the Mexico—U.S. border from El Paso, Texas. The cartel is one of ...
boss Amado Carrillo Fuentes
Amado Carrillo Fuentes (; December 17, 1956 – July 7, 1997) was a Mexican drug lord who seized control of the Juárez Cartel after assassinating his boss Rafael Aguilar Guajardo. Amado Carrillo became known as "''El Señor de Los Cielos''" ...
was even able to purchase a window in Mexico's air defense system. During this period, his airplanes were permitted to smuggle narcotics into the United States without the interference of the Mexican Air Force
The Mexican Air Force (FAM; es, Fuerza Aérea Mexicana) is the primary aerial warfare service branch of the Mexican Armed Forces. It is a component of the Mexican Army and depends on the National Defense Secretariat ( SEDENA). The objective of ...
. As a result, Carillo Fuentes became known as "The Lord of the Skies." During the 1990s drug cartels were on the rise in Mexico and groups like the Gulf Cartel would form death squads like Los Zetas
Los Zetas (, Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate, regarded as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscr ...
to suppress, control, and uproot rival cartel factions.
The PRI also used death squad tactics against the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas (Mexican ), is a far-left political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
Since ...
in the Chiapas conflict
The Chiapas conflict ( Spanish: ''Conflicto de Chiapas'') comprises the 1994 Zapatista uprising, the 1995 Zapatista crisis and ensuing tension between the Mexican state and the indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers of Chiapas from the 1990 ...
. In 1997, forty-five people were killed by a Mexican security forces in Chenalhó
Chenalhó is a town and one of the 119 municipalities of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. It covers an area of 113 km2.
As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 36,111, up from 27,331 as of 2005.
As of 2010, the town of Chenalhó ...
, Chiapas.
In 2000, however, during an internal power struggle between former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari
Carlos Salinas de Gortari CYC DMN (; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and politician who served as 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), earlier in his career he wor ...
and President Zedillo, the PRI was peacefully voted out from power in the 2000 Mexican general election
General elections were held in Mexico on Sunday, 2 July 2000. Voters went to the polls to elect a new president to serve a single six-year term, replacing President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, who was ineligible for re-election under the 1 ...
, until 2013 when they partially regained their influence and power, only to lose again in the 2018 Mexican general election
General elections were held in Mexico on 1 July 2018. Voters elected a new President of Mexico to serve a six-year term, 128 members of the Senate for a period of six years and 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies for a period of three yea ...
.
It is also alleged that, during the time they first lost the presidency, some of the most powerful PRI members were supporting and protecting drug cartels that they used as death squads against their criminal and political rivals, with it being one of the real reasons the National Action Party government accepted to start the Mexican drug war against the Cartels. However, it is also alleged that during this period of time the turmoil of war has been used by the parties in power to exterminate even more political dissidents, activists and their own rivals. An example of this is the case of the 2014 forced disappearance and assassination of 43 activist rural students from the Ayotzinapa Teachers' College, in the hands of police officers colluded with the "Guerreros Unidos" drug cartel. Six years later in 2020, it was confirmed that members from the Mexican Army base in town had worked with police and gang members to kidnap the students. The Sinaloa Cartel
The Sinaloa Cartel ( es, link=no, Cártel de Sinaloa), also known as the CDS, the Guzmán-Loera Organization, the Pacific Cartel, the Federation and the Blood Alliance, is a large, international organized crime syndicate that specializes in il ...
has been known for having enforcer death squads like Gente Nueva
Gente Nueva (English: ''New People''), also known as Los Chapos, in reference to their drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, is a large group of well-trained and experienced gunmen that function as one of the elite armed wings of the Sinaloa Cartel, ...
, Los Ántrax, and enforcers forming their own death squads. From 2009 to 2012,the Jalisco New Generation Cartel
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel ( es, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación) or CJNG, formerly known as ''Los Mata Zetas'', is a semi-militarized Mexican criminal group based in Jalisco which is headed by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes ("El Me ...
under the name Los Matazetas did massacres in the states of Veracruz
Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
and Tamaulipas
Tamaulipas (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tamaulipas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tamaulipas), is a state in the northeast region of Mexico; one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Federal Entiti ...
with their intention to remove the rival Los Zetas Cartel
Los Zetas (, Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate, regarded as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent "shock and awe" tactics such as beheadings, torture, and indiscr ...
. One example was the Boca del Rio massacre in 2011, were 35 corpses were found under a bridge in trucks covered with paper bags. Gente Nueva was accused of collaborating with the organization.
United States
During the California Gold Rush, the state government between 1850 and 1859 financed and organized militia units to hunt down and kill Indigenous Californians
The indigenous peoples of California (known as Native Californians) are the indigenous inhabitants who have lived or currently live in the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after the arrival of Europeans. W ...
. Between 1850 and 1852 the state appropriated almost one million dollars for the activities of these militias, and between 1854 and 1859 the state appropriated another $500,000, almost half of which was reimbursed by the federal government. By one estimate, at least 4,500 Californian Indians were killed in the California genocide
The California genocide was the killing of thousands of indigenous peoples of California by United States government agents and private citizens in the 19th century. It began following the American Conquest of California from Mexico, and the ...
between 1849 and 1870. Contemporary historian Benjamin Madley has documented the numbers of Californian Indians killed between 1846 and 1873; he estimates that during this period at least 9,492 Californian Indians were killed by non-Indians. Most of the deaths took place in what he defined as more than 370 massacres
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
(defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise"). Some scholars contend that the state financing of these militias, as well as the US government's role in other massacres in California, such as the Bloody Island and Yontoket Massacres, in which up to 400 or more natives were killed in each massacre, constitutes acts of genocide against the native people of California.
Beginning in the 1850s, pro-slavery Bushwhacker
Bushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare common during the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, American Civil War and other conflicts in which there were large areas of contested land and few governmental resources to control these tra ...
s and anti-slavery Jayhawker
Jayhawkers and red legs are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs we ...
s waged war against each other in the Kansas Territory. Due to the horrific atrocities committed by both sides against civilians, the territory was dubbed "Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the ...
". After the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
began, the fraternal bloodshed increased.
The most infamous atrocity which was committed in Kansas during the American Civil War was the Lawrence Massacre
The Lawrence Massacre, also known as Quantrill's Raid, was an attack during the American Civil War (186165) by Quantrill's Raiders, a Confederate guerrilla group led by William Quantrill, on the Unionist town of Lawrence, Kansas, killing a ...
. A large force group of Partisan Rangers who were led by William Clarke Quantrill
William Clarke Quantrill (July 31, 1837 – June 6, 1865) was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War.
Having endured a tempestuous childhood before later becoming a schoolteacher, Quantrill joined a group of bandits who ...
and Bloody Bill Anderson
William T. Anderson (c. 1840October 26, 1864), known by the nickname "Bloody Bill" Anderson, was a soldier who was one of the deadliest and most notorious Confederate guerrilla leaders in the American Civil War. Anderson led a band of vol ...
and affiliated with the Confederacy attacked and burned down the pro-Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
town of Lawrence, Kansas in retaliation for the Jayhawkers' earlier destruction of Osceola, Missouri
Osceola is a city in St. Clair County, Missouri, United States. The population was 909 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of St. Clair County. During the American Civil War, Osceola was the site of the Sacking of Osceola.
History
Located ...
. The Bushwhackers shot down nearly 150 unarmed men and boys.
During the Reconstruction era, embittered Confederate veterans supported the Ku Klux Klan and similar vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a person who ...
organizations throughout the American South. The Klan and its counterparts terrorized and lynched
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
African-Americans, northern carpetbaggers, and Southern "scalawag
In United States history, the term scalawag (sometimes spelled scallawag or scallywag) referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War.
As with the term ''carpetb ...
s". This was often done with the unofficial support of the Democratic Party leadership. Historian Bruce B. Campbell has called the KKK, "one of the first proto-death squads". Campbell alleges that the difference between it and modern-day death-squads is the fact that the Ku Klux Klan was composed of members of a defeated regime rather than members of the ruling government. "Otherwise, in its murderous intent, its links to private elite interests, and its covert nature, it very closely resembles modern-day death squads."
President Ulysses S Grant pushed the Ku Klux Klan Act
The Enforcement Act of 1871 (), also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, Third Enforcement Act, Third Ku Klux Klan Act, Civil Rights Act of 1871, or Force Act of 1871, is an Act of the United States Congress which empowered the President to suspend ...
through Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
in 1871 and called on the United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
to help federal officials the arrest and break up of the Klan. 600 Klansmen were convicted and 65 men were sent to prison for as long as five years.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
asserted in a 2019 report that the Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
was backing death squads in the War in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to:
*Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC)
* Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709)
*Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see al ...
. The report alleges that the CIA-supported Afghan Armed Forces
("The land belongs to Allah, the rule belongs to Allah")
, founded = 1997
, current_form =
, branches =
* Afghan Army
* Afghan Air Force
, headquarters = Kabul
, website =
, commander-in-chi ...
committed " summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability" over the course of more than a dozen night raids that took place between 2017 and 2019. The death squads allegedly committed "extrajudicial killings of civilians, forced disappearance
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a State (polity), state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or po ...
s of detainees, and attacks on healthcare facilities that treat insurgents," according to ''Vice'''s reporting on the contents of the Human Rights Watch report. According to the same article, "The forces are recruited, equipped, trained, and deployed under the auspices of the CIA to target insurgents from the Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
, Al Qaeda, and ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
." The article also states these Afghan forces have the ability to call in United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
airstrikes, which have resulted in the deaths of civilians, including children, and have occurred in civilian areas, including at weddings, parks, and schools.
In June 2020, Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Austreberto "Art" Gonzalez filed a claim against the county, claiming that approximately twenty percent of the deputies operating in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States ...
's Compton station belonged to a secret death squad. Gonzales alleges that the group, named " The Executioners", carried out multiple extrajudicial killings over the years and that members followed initiation rituals, including being tattooed with skulls and Nazi imagery.
Central America
= El Salvador
=
During the Salvadoran civil war
The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
The Farabundo Ma ...
, death squads (known in Spanish by the name of Escuadrón de la Muerte, "Squadron of Death") achieved notoriety when a sniper assassinated Archbishop Óscar Romero
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop of Santiago ...
while he was performing Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
in March 1980. In December 1980, three American nuns and a lay worker were gangraped and murdered by a military unit later found to have been acting on specific orders. Death squads were instrumental in killing thousands of peasants and activists. Funding for the squads came primarily from right-wing Salvadoran businessmen and landowners. Because the death squads involved were found to have been soldiers of the Salvadoran Armed Forces, which were receiving U.S. arms, funding, training and advice during the Carter
Carter(s), or Carter's, Tha Carter, or The Carter(s), may refer to:
Geography United States
* Carter, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Carter, Mississippi, an unincorporated community
* Carter, Montana, a census-designated place
* Carter ...
, Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
and George H. W. Bush administrations, these events prompted some outrage in the U.S. Human rights activists criticized U.S. administrations for denying Salvadoran government links to the death squads. Veteran Human Rights Watch researcher Cynthia J. Arnson writes that "particularly during the years 1980–1983 when the killing was at its height (numbers of killings could reach as far as 35,000), assigning responsibility for the violence and human rights abuses was a product of the intense ideological polarization in the United States. The Reagan administration downplayed the scale of abuse as well as the involvement of state actors. Because of the level of denial, as well as the extent of U.S. involvement with the Salvadoran military and security forces, the U.S. role in El Salvador- what was known about death squads, when it was known, and what actions the United States did or did not take to curb their abuses- became an important part of El Salvador's death squad story." Some death squads, such as Sombra Negra
The ''Sombra Negra'' (Spanish for "Black Shadow"), also known as ''El Clan de Planta'' ("The Plant Clan"), are (as of 2014) death squad groups based in El Salvador, allegedly composed mostly of police and military personnel, that target criminal ...
, are still operating in El Salvador.
The Salvadoran Army
The Salvadoran Army (Spanish: ''Ejército Salvadoreño'') is the land branch and largest of the Armed Forces of El Salvador.
Conflicts The Football War
The Football War (also called The Soccer War or 100-hours War) was a term coined by Po ...
's U.S.-trained Atlácatl Battalion
The Atlácatl Battalion ( Spanish: ) was a rapid-response, counter-insurgency battalion of the Salvadoran Army created in 1981. It was implicated in some of the most infamous massacres of the Salvadoran Civil War, and as a result, it was disband ...
was responsible for the El Mozote massacre where more than 800 civilians were murdered, over half of them children, the El Calabozo massacre
The El Calabozo massacre was an incident during the Salvadoran Civil War on 21–22 August 1982, in which more than two hundred people, including children and elderly, were reportedly killed at El Calabozo by the Atlácatl Battalion of the Salv ...
, and the murders of six Jesuits in 1989.
= Honduras
=
Honduras had death squads active through the 1980s, the most notorious of which was Battalion 3–16. Hundreds of people, teachers, politicians, and union bosses were assassinated by government-backed forces. Battalion 316 received substantial support and training from the United States Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
. At least 19 members were School of the Americas
The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense school located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, renamed in the 2001 National Defen ...
graduates. Seven members, including Billy Joya, later played important roles in the administration of President Manuel Zelaya
José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (born 20 September 1952)Encyclopædia BritannicaManuel Zelaya/ref> is a Honduran politician who was President of Honduras from 27 January 2006 until 28 June 2009, and who since January 2022 serves as the first Fir ...
as of mid-2006. Following the 2009 coup d'état, former Battalion 3–16 member Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía
Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía is a Honduran military officer who worked in the controversial Battalion 3-16 and government employee who is currently Director-General of Immigration.
Military career
Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía was one of the at least ...
became Director-General of Immigration and Billy Joya was ''de facto'' President Roberto Micheletti's security advisor. Another former Battalion 3–16 member, Napoleón Nassar Herrera
Napoleón Nazar Herrera (pronounced: Nassar) is a Honduran military officer who worked in the controversial Battalion 3-16 (Honduras), Battalion 3–16 who successively became leader of the General Department of Criminal Investigation (DGIC), high ...
, was high Commissioner of Police for the north-west region under Zelaya and under Micheletti, and also became a Secretary of Security spokesperson "for dialogue" under Micheletti. Zelaya claimed that Joya had reactivated the death squad, with dozens of government opponents having been murdered since the ascent of the Michiletti and Lobo governments.
= Guatemala
=
Throughout the Guatemalan Civil War
The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of ...
, both military and "civilian" governments utilized death squads as a counterinsurgency strategy. The use of "death squads" as a government tactic became particularly widespread after 1966. Throughout 1966 and the first three months of 1967, within the framework of what military commentators referred to as "el-contra terror", government forces killed an estimated 8,000 civilians accused of "subversive" activity. This marked a turning point in the history of the Guatemalan security apparatus, and brought about a new era in which mass murder of both real and suspected subversives by government "death squads" became a common occurrence in the country. A noted Guatemalan sociologist estimated the number of government killings between 1966 and 1974 at approximately 5,250 a year (for a total death toll of approximately 42,000 during the presidencies of Julio César Méndez Montenegro
Julio César Méndez Montenegro (November 23, 1915 – † April 30, 1996) was the Revolutionary Party President of Guatemala from July 1, 1966 to July 1, 1970. Mendez was elected on a platform promising democratic reforms and the curtailment of ...
and Carlos Arana Osorio
Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (July 17, 1918 – December 6, 2003) was President of Guatemala from 1970 to 1974. His government enforced torture, disappearances and killings against political and military adversaries, as well as common criminals.
...
). Killings by both official and unofficial security forces would climax in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the presidencies of Fernando Romeo Lucas García
General Fernando Romeo Lucas García (4 July 1924 – † 27 May 2006) was the 37th President of Guatemala from July 1, 1978 to March 23, 1982. He was elected as Institutional Democratic Party candidate (with the support of the Revolutionary P ...
and Efraín Ríos Montt
José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala in 1982–83. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods i ...
, with over 18,000 documented killings in 1982 alone.
Greg Grandin claims that "Washington, of course, publicly denied its support for paramilitarism, but the practice of political disappearances took a great leap forward in Guatemala in 1966 with the birth of a death squad created, and directly supervised, by U.S. security advisors." An upsurge in rebel activity in Guatemala convinced the US to provide increased counterinsurgency assistance to Guatemala's security apparatus in the mid to late 1960s. Documents released in 1999 details how United States military and police advisers had encouraged and assisted Guatemalan military officials in the use of repressive techniques, including helping establish a "safe house" from within the presidential palace as a location to coordinate counter insurgency activities. In 1981, it was reported by Amnesty International that this same "safe house" was in use by Guatemalan security officials to coordinate counterinsurgency activities involving the use of the "death squads."
According to a victim's brother, Mirtala Linares "He wouldn't tell us anything; he claimed they hadn't captured ergio that he knew nothing of his whereabouts – and that maybe my brother had gone as an illegal alien to the United States! That was how he answered us."
= Nicaragua
=
Throughout the Ortega government, starting in 2006, but escalating with the 2018–2020 Nicaraguan protests, Sandinista National Liberation Front
The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto Cé ...
government has employed death squads also known as "''Turbas''" or militia groups armed and aided by the National Police National Police may refer to the national police forces of several countries:
*Afghanistan: Afghan National Police
*Haiti: Haitian National Police
*Colombia: National Police of Colombia
*Cuba: Cuban National Police
*East Timor: National Police of ...
to attack pro-democracy protesters. The government's crackdown of lethal force was condemned by the international community, the Organization of American States, Human Rights Watch, and the local and international Catholic Church.
South America
Argentina
Amnesty International reports that "the security forces in Argentina first started using "death squads" in late 1973. One example was Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance ( es, Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, links=no, usually known as Triple A or AAA) was an Argentine Peronist political action group operated by a sector of the Federal Police and the Argentine Armed Forces, ...
, a far-right death squad mainly active during the "Dirty War
The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 as ...
". By the time military rule ended in 1983 some 1,500 people had been killed directly by "death squads", and over 9,000 named people and many more undocumented victims had been "disappeared"—kidnapped and murdered secretly—according to the officially appointed National Commission on Disappeared People (CONADEP).[Amnesty International – Getting Away With Murder: Political Killings and Disappearances in the 1990s, 1993,36]
Brazil
The ''Esquadrão da Morte'' ("Death Squad" in Portuguese) was a paramilitary organization that emerged in the late 1960s in the context of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship
The military dictatorship in Brazil ( pt, ditadura militar) was established on 1 April 1964, after a coup d'état by the Brazilian Armed Forces, with support from the United States government, against President João Goulart. The Brazilian dict ...
. It was the first group to have received the name "Death Squad" in Latin America, but its actions resembled traditional vigilantism as most executions were not exclusively politically related. The greater share of the political executions during the 21 years of Military Dictatorship (1964–1985) were carried out by the Brazilian Armed Forces itself. The purpose of the original "Death Squad" was, with the consent of the military government, to persecute, torture and kill suspected criminals (''marginais'') regarded as dangerous to society. It began in the former State of Guanabara led by Detective Mariel Mariscot, one of the "Twelve Golden Men of Rio de Janeiro's Police", and from there it spread throughout Brazil in the 1970s. In general, its members were politicians, members of the judiciary, and police officials. As a rule, these groups were financed by members of the business community.
In the 1970s and 1980s, several other organizations were modeled after the 1960s ''Esquadrão da Morte.'' The most famous such organization is ''Scuderie Detetive Le Cocq'' (English: ''Shield of Detective Le Cocq''), named after deceased Detective Milton Le Cocq. The group was particularly active in the Brazilian Southeastern States of Guanabara and Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
, and remains active in the state of Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo (, , ; ) is a state in southeastern Brazil. Its capital is Vitória, and its largest city is Serra. With an extensive coastline, the state hosts some of the country's main ports, and its beaches are significant tourist attra ...
. In the State of São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...
, Death Squads and individual gunmen called ''justiceiros'' were pervasive and executions almost were exclusively the work of off-duty policemen. In 1983, a police officer nicknamed " Cabo Bruno" was convicted of murdering more than 50 victims.
The "Death Squads" active under the rule of the military dictatorship continue as a cultural legacy of the Brazilian police. In the 2000s, police officers remain linked with death squad-type executions. In 2003, roughly 2,000 extrajudicial murders occurred in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with Amnesty International claiming the numbers are likely far higher. Brazilian politician Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, was accused of having ties to death squads.
Chile
One of the most notorious murder gangs operated by the Chilean Army
The Chilean Army ( es, Ejército de Chile) is the land arm of the Military of Chile. This 80,000-person army (9,200 of which are conscripts) is organized into six divisions, a special operations brigade and an air brigade.
In recent years, and ...
was the Caravan of Death, whose members travelled by helicopter throughout Chile between 30 September and 22 October 1973. During this foray, members of the squad ordered or personally carried out the execution of at least 75 individuals held in Army custody in these garrisons.[Chile priest charged over deaths]
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
, 1 September 2007 According to the NGO ''Memoria y Justicia'', the squad killed 26 in the South and 71 in the North, making a total of 97 victims.
[Caravan of Death]
, ''Memoria y Justicia'' Augusto Pinochet was indicted in December 2002 in this case, but he died four years later without having been convicted. The trial, however, is on-going , other militaries and a former military chaplain having been indicted in this case.
On 28 November 2006, Víctor Montiglio, charged of this case, ordered Pinochet's house arrest According to the Chilean Government's own Truth and Reconciliation (Rettig) report, 2,279 people were killed in the operations of Pinochet's regime. In June 1999, judge
Juan Guzmán Tapia
Juan Salvador Guzmán Tapia (; 22 April 1939 – 22 January 2021) was a Chilean judge. He was the first Chilean judge to lead investigations and prosecute Augusto Pinochet for violations of human rights during his dictatorship between 1973 an ...
ordered the arrest of five retired generals.
Colombia
The
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
supported death squads in Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala during the 1980s.
In 1993,
Amnesty International reported that clandestine military units began covertly operating as death squads in 1978. According to the report, throughout the 1980s political killings rose to a peak of 3,500 in 1988, averaging some 1,500 victims per year since then, and "over 1,500 civilians are also believed to have "disappeared" since 1978."
The
AUC, formed in 1997, was the most prominent paramilitary group.
According to a 2014 report published by
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
(HRW) on
Buenaventura, a port town in Colombia, "entire neighborhoods were dominated by powerful paramilitary successor groups" HRW reports that the groups "restrict residents' movements, recruit their children, extort businesses, and routinely engage in horrific acts of violence against anyone who defies their will." It is reported that scores of people have been "disappeared" from the town over the years. Bodies are dismembered before they are disposed of and residents have reported the existence of ''casas de pique'', "chop-up houses" where people are slaughtered. Many residents have fled and are considered to have been "forcibly displaced": 22,028 residents fled in 2011, 15,191 in 2012, and 13,468 between January and October 2013.
In Colombia, the terms "death squads", "
paramilitaries
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
" or "
self-defense
Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force ...
groups" have been used interchangeably and otherwise, referring to either a single phenomenon, also known as
paramilitarism
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
, or to different but related aspects of the same. There are reports that
Los Pepes
Los Pepes, a name derived from the Spanish phrase "Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar" ("Persecuted by Pablo Escobar"), was a vigilante group composed of enemies of Pablo Escobar. They waged a small-scale war against the Medellín Cartel in 1993, whic ...
, the death squad led by brothers
Fidel
Fidel most commonly refers to:
* Fidel Castro (1926–2016), Cuban communist revolutionary and politician
* Fidel Ramos (1928–2022), Filipino politician and former president
Fidel may also refer to:
Other persons
* Fidel (given name)
Film
* ...
and
Carlos Castaño, had ties to some members of the
Colombian National Police
The National Police of Colombia (Spanish: ''Policía Nacional de Colombia'') is the national police force of the Republic of Colombia. Although the National Police is not part of the Military Forces of Colombia (Army, Navy, and Air Force), it ...
, especially the
Search Bloc
The Search Bloc ( es, Bloque de Búsqueda) is the name of three different ad hoc special operations units of the National Police of Colombia (Policía Nacional de Colombia). They were originally organized with a focus on capturing or killing h ...
(Bloque de Búsqueda) unit.
A report from the country's public prosecutors office at the end of 2009 reported the number of 28,000 disappeared by paramilitary and guerrilla groups. only 300 corpses were identified and 600 in 2009. According to the prosecutor's office, it will take many more years before all the bodies recovered can be identified.
At least 40% of the national legislature are said to have ties to paramilitary groups.
In August 2018, prosecutors in Colombia charged 13
Chiquita
Chiquita Brands International Sàrl (), formerly known as Chiquita Brands International Inc. and United Fruit Co., is a Swiss-domiciled American producer and distributor of bananas and other produce. The company operates under a number of ...
brands with supporting the right wing death squad that killed hundreds in the
Urabá Antioquia
Urabá Antioquia is a subregion in the Colombian Department of Antioquia that consists of two enclaves, one forming the northwest corner of the department the other, the west, both are along the Atrato River and are separated by the El Carmen ...
region between 1996 and 2004.
Salvatore Mancuso
Salvatore Mancuso Gómez, also known as "el Mono Mancuso", "Santander Lozada" or "Triple Cero" (i.e. "Triple Zero", or, "000"), among other names (born August 17, 1964 in Montería, Córdoba) is a Colombian paramilitary leader, once second in ...
, a jailed paramilitary leader, has accused
Del Monte,
Dole
Dole may refer to:
Places
* Dole, Ceredigion, Wales
* Dole, Idrija, Slovenia
* Dole, Jura, France
** Arrondissement of Dole
* Dole (Kladanj), a village at the entity line of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina-Republika Srpska
* Dole, Ljubušk ...
and Chiquita of funding right wing death squads. Chiquita was fined $25 million after admitting they had paid $1.7 million to paramilitaries over six years; the reason for the payments remains a matter of dispute, with Chiquita claiming the money was routine extortion money paid to paramilitary groups to protect workers. Activists, on the other hand, insist that a portion of the money paid by Chiquita was used to finance political assassinations.
Peru
Peruvian government
, border = Central
, image =
, caption = Logo of the Government of Peru
, date = 1990
, state = Peru
, address = Government Palace
, leader_title = President of PeruWhile there is ...
death squads carried out massacres against radicals and civilians in their fight against
Shining Path
The Shining Path ( es, Sendero Luminoso), officially the Communist Party of Peru (, abbr. PCP), is a communist guerrilla group in Peru following Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and Gonzalo Thought. Academics often refer to the group as the Commun ...
and
Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
The Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement ( es, Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru, abbreviated MRTA) was a Peruvian Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group which started in the early 1980s. Their self-declared goal was to demonstrate to leftist g ...
.
Venezuela
In its 2002 and 2003 world reports,
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
reported the existence of death squads in several
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
n states, involving members of the local police, the
DISIP and the
National Guard
National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards.
Nat ...
. These groups were responsible for the extrajudicial killings of civilians and wanted or alleged criminals, including street criminals, looters and drug users.
In 2019, amid the
Crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela
The crisis in Venezuela is an ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis that began in Venezuela during the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has worsened in Nicolás Maduro's presidency. It has been marked by hyperinflation, escalating starvati ...
, the government of
Nicolás Maduro was accused by a UN human rights report of using death squads to conduct thousands of extrajudicial executions. The report relayed a multitude of eyewitness accounts, describing the government's
Special Action Forces (FAES) frequently arriving at homes in unmarked vehicles, executing male suspects on the spot, then planting drugs or weapons on the corpse to make it appear the victim died resisting arrest. According to the report, the executions were part of a campaign aimed at "neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government". The Maduro government condemned the report as "openly biased".
Asia
Bangladesh
In contemporary times, the Bangladeshi "Rapid Action Battalion" has been criticized by rights groups for its use of
extrajudicial killings
An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...
. In addition, there have been many reports of torture in connection with the battalion's activities. Several battalion members have been accused of murder and obstruction of justice during the
Narayanganj Seven murder
Narayanganj Seven Murder was the enforced disappearance and murder of seven people including a panel-mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation and a lawyer in April 2014. 27 Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members, including three top RAB 11 officials, w ...
.
They've been known to kill civilian suspects for the explicit purpose of avoiding trials. They have also been accused of carrying out a campaign of
forced disappearances
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...
.
Cambodia
The
Khmer Rouge began employing death squads to purge Cambodia of non-communists after taking over the country in 1975. They rounded up their victims, questioned them and then took them out to killing fields.
India
The secret killings of Assam (1998–2001) was probably the darkest chapter in Assam's political history when relatives, friends, sympathisers of
United Liberation Front of Asom insurgents were systematically killed by unknown assailants. These extrajudicial murders happened in Assam between 1998 and 2001. These extrajudicial killings were conducted by the
Government of Assam
The Government of Assam is the subnational government of Assam, a state of India. It consists of the Governor appointed by the President of India as the head of the state, currently Jagdish Mukhi. The head of government is the Chief Minister, ...
using
SULFA members and the security forces in the name of counter-insurgency operations. The victims of these killings were relatives, friends and colleagues of ULFA militants. The most apparent justification for the whole exercise was that it was a tit-for-tat response to the ULFA-sponsored terrorism, specially the killings of their old comrades—the SULFAs.
Indonesia
During the
transition to the New Order
Indonesia's transition to the New Order in the mid-1960s ousted the country's first president, Sukarno, after 22 years in the position. One of the most tumultuous periods in the country's modern history, it was the commencement of Suharto's ...
in 1965–1966, with the backing of the United States government and its Western allies, the
Indonesian National Armed Forces and right-wing paramilitary death squads massacred hundreds of thousands of leftists and those believed tied to the
Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) after a failed coup attempt which was blamed on the Communists. At least 400,000 to 500,000 people, perhaps as many as 3 million, were killed over a period of several months, with thousands more being interred in prisons and concentration camps under extremely inhumane conditions. The violence culminated in the fall of the
"guided democracy" regime under President
Sukarno and the commencement of
Suharto's
thirty-year authoritarian reign.
Iran
Under the reign of Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941–1979) the
SAVAK (Security and Intelligence Service) was founded. During the 1960s and 70s, it was accused of using death squads. After the
Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah,
Amnesty International continued to complain of
human rights abuses in Iran
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...
. Suspected foes of the
Ayatollah Khomeini, were imprisoned, tortured, tried by
kangaroo court
A kangaroo court is a court that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc. A kangaroo court may ignore due process and come ...
s, and executed. The most famous victim of the era's death squad violence remains
Amir-Abbas Hoveida
Amir-Abbas Hoveyda ( fa, امیرعباس هویدا, Amīr 'Abbās Hoveyda; 18 February 1919 – 7 April 1979) was an Iranian economist and politician who served as Prime Minister of Iran from 27 January 1965 to 7 August 1977. He was the lo ...
, a Prime Minister of Iran under the Shah. However, the same treatment was also meted out to senior officers in the Iranian military. Other cases exist of
Iranian dissidents
Iranian dissidents are composed of scattered groups that reject the current government and by extension the previous regime, and instead seek the establishment of democratic institutions.
Notable dissidents
* Shapour Bakhtiar - the leader of the ...
opposed to the Islamic Republic who have been tracked down and murdered abroad. One of the most notorious examples of this remains the 1992
Mykonos restaurant assassinations
In the Mykonos restaurant assassinations ( fa, ترور رستوران میکونوس; also the "Mykonos Incident"), Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders Sadegh Sharafkandi, Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their translator Nouri Dehkordi, wer ...
in
Berlin, Germany.
The Iranian government's victims include civilians who have been killed by "death squads" that operate under the control of government agents but these killing operations have been denied by the Iranian government. This was particularly the case during the 1990s when more than 80 writers, translators, poets, political activists, and ordinary citizens who had been critical of the government in some way,
disappeared or were found murdered. In 1983 the American
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) gave one of the leaders of Iran
Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...
information on Communist
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
agents in Iran. This information was almost certainly used. Later, The Iranian regime occasionally used death squads throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. However, by the 2000s, it seems to have almost if not entirely ceased its operations. This partial
Westernization
Westernization (or Westernisation), also Europeanisation or occidentalization (from the ''Occident''), is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in areas such as industry, technology, science, education, politics, econo ...
of the country can be seen as paralleling similar events in
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
, the
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...
, and
Northern Iraq beginning in the late 1990s.
Iraq
Iraq was formed by the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
from three provinces of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
following the
empire's breakup after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Its population is overwhelmingly
Muslim but is divided into
Shiites
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most n ...
and
Sunnis, with a
Kurdish minority in the north. The new state leadership in the capital of
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
was formerly composed of, for the most part, the old
Sunni Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
elite.
After
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
was overthrown by the
US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the secular socialist
Baathist leadership were replaced with a provisional and later constitutional government that included leadership roles for the Shia and Kurds. This paralleled the development of ethnic militias by the Shia, Sunni, and the Kurdish
Peshmerga
The Peshmerga ( ku, پێشمەرگه, Pêşmerge, lit=those who face death) is the Kurdish military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Peshmerga, along with their security subsidiaries, ...
.
During the course of the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
the country has increasingly become divided into three zones: a
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
ethnic zone to the north, a Sunni center and the
Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mo ...
ethnic zone to the south.
While all three groups have operated death squads,
in the national capital of
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
some members of the now Shia
Iraqi Police
The Iraqi Police (IP) is the uniformed police force responsible for the enforcement of civil law in Iraq. Its organisation, structure and recruitment were guided by the Coalition Provisional Authority after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and it is ...
and
Iraqi Army formed unofficial, unsanctioned, but long tolerated death squads.
They possibly have links to the
Interior Ministry and are popularly known as the 'black crows'. These groups operated either by night or by day. They usually arrested people, then either tortured
or killed them.
The victims of these attacks were predominantly young males who had probably been suspected of being members of the
Sunni insurgency. Agitators such as Abdul Razaq al-Na'as, Dr. Abdullateef al-Mayah, and Dr. Wissam Al-Hashimi have also been killed. Women and children have also been arrested or killed.
Some of these killings have also been simple robberies or other criminal activities.
A feature in a May 2005 issue of the magazine of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' accused the U.S. military of modelling the "Wolf Brigade", the Iraqi interior ministry police commandos, on the death squads that were used in the 1980s to crush the
Marxist insurgency in El Salvador.
In 2004, the US dispatched
James Steele as an envoy and special training adviser to the Iraqi
Special Police Commandos who were later accused of torture and death squad activities. Steele had served in El Salvador in the 1980s, where he helped train government units involved in human rights violations death squads in their war against the
FMLNF.
Lebanon
Death squads were active during the
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
from 1975 to 1990. The number of people who disappeared during the conflict is put around 17,000. Groups like
Hezbollah have used death squads and elite wings to terrorize opponents and
ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
members.
Philippines
![Rodrigo Duterte warns government officials engaged in corrupt practices in a news conference 30 September 2016](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Rodrigo_Duterte_warns_government_officials_engaged_in_corrupt_practices_in_a_news_conference_30_September_2016.jpg)
There are certain vigilante death squads that are active in the Philippines, especially in
Davao City
Davao City, officially the City of Davao ( ceb, Dakbayan sa Dabaw; ), is a first class highly urbanized city in the Davao Region, Philippines. The city has a total land area of , making it the largest city in the Philippines in terms of lan ...
where
local death squads roam around the city to hunt criminals.
After winning the Presidency in June 2016,
Rodrigo Duterte had urged, "If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful." By March 2017, the death toll for the
Philippine Drug War
The Philippine drug war, known as the War on Drugs, is the intensified anti-drug campaign of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, who served office from June 30, 2016 to June 30, 2022. The campaign reduced drug proliferation in th ...
passed 8,000 people.
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
News reports on the use of death squads in Korea originated around the middle of the 20th century such as the
Jeju Massacre and Daejeon. There were also the multiple deaths that made the news in 1980 in
Gwangju.
Thailand
During the
Cold War, in the short period of democracy in Thailand after the
1973 Thai popular uprising
The popular uprising of 14 October 1973 ( th, เหตุการณ์ 14 ตุลา, , ; also , , ) was a watershed event in Thailand's history. The uprising resulted in the end of the ruling military dictatorship of anti-communist Thanom ...
(1973–1976), three right-wing paramilitary groups,
Nawaphon
The Nawaphon organization ( th, ขบวนการนวพล, alternatively transcribed as ''Navapol'', ''Nawapol'', ''Nawaphol'', translated variously as 'new force', 'ninth force',) or 'nine new forces' was a Thai extreme right-wing, patri ...
,
Red Gaurs
The Red Gaurs ( th, กระทิงแดง, ''Krathing Daeng'') were an extreme right-wing paramilitary organization active in Thailand during the 1970s. The Red Gaurs played a key role in the 6 October 1976 massacre of students and activ ...
, and
Village Scouts
Village Scouts ( th, ลูกเสือชาวบ้าน, ) is the common name of a right-wing, ultranationalist social movement and paramilitary militia of volunteers from rural Thailand. It is a countrywide organization that the King and ...
were founded and supported by
Internal Security Operations Command ('Conquer evil by the power of good')
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and
Border Patrol Police
The Border Patrol Police ( th, ตำรวจตระเวนชายแดน); (BPP) is a Thai paramilitary police under the jurisdiction of the Royal Thai Police, responsible for border security and counterinsurgency.
History
The Thai Bo ...
to promote national unity, loyalty to
Thai royal family
The Chakri dynasty ( th, ราชวงศ์ จักรี, , , ) is the current reigning dynasty of the Kingdom of Thailand, the head of the house is the king, who is head of state. The family has ruled Thailand since the founding of the ...
, and
anti-communism
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
. They were also heavily funded and backed by the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
government, and were under the patronage of the royal family themselves. Among their ranks were former soldiers, veterans of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
, former mercenaries in Laos, and violent vocational students.
These groups were first employed to counter protests of the pro-democracy and left-wing students movement, attacking them with firearms and grenades. When the ideological conflict escalated, they started assassinating labor and peasants union officials and progressive politicians, the most famous was Dr.
Boonsanong Punyodyana, the general secretary of the
Socialist Party of Thailand. The conflict reached its peak with the
Thammasat University massacre
The 6 October 1976 massacre, or the 6 October event ( th, เหตุการณ์ 6 ตุลา ) as it is known in Thailand, was a violent crackdown by Thai police and lynching by right-wing paramilitaries and bystanders against leftist ...
in 1976, which the
Royal Thai Armed Forces
The Royal Thai Armed Forces (RTARF) ( th, กองทัพไทย; ) are the armed forces of the Kingdom of Thailand.
The nominal head of the Thai Armed Forces (จอมทัพไทย; ) is the King of Thailand. The armed forces are ...
and
Royal Thai Police
The Royal Thai Police (RTP) ( th, สำนักงานตำรวจแห่งชาติ; ) is the national police force of Thailand. The RTP employs between 210,700 and 230,000 officers, roughly 17 percent of all civil servants (excludi ...
, supported by the three aforementioned paramilitary groups, stormed
Thammasat University
Thammasat University ( Abrv: TU th, มธ.; th, มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์, , ) is a public research university in Thailand with campuses in Tha Phra Chan area of Phra Nakhon District near the Grand Pala ...
and
shot mostly unarmed student protesters indiscriminately, resulting in at least 46 deaths. A military coup was staged later in the same day. During the military rule, the paramilitary groups' popularity diminished.
In contemporary Thailand, many
extrajudicial killings occurred during the 2003 anti-drug effort of Thailand's prime minister
Thaksin Shinawatra
Thaksin Shinawatra ( th, ทักษิณ ชินวัตร; ; ; Chinese: 丘達新; cnr, Taksin Šinavatra; born 26 July 1949), is a Thai businessman, politician and visiting professor. He served in the Thai Police from 1973 to 1987, ...
were attributed to government-sponsored death squads. Rumors still persist that there is collusion between the government, rogue military officers and radical right wing/anti-drugs death squads
siamexpats.comThailand: "The Corrupt Media Mogul v. The Crusading Journalist"
Cannabis Culture Magazine Thailand_War_on_Drugs_Turns_Murderous,_600_Killed_This_Month_--_Human_Rights_Groups_Denounce_Death_Squads,_ExecutionsThailand War on Drugs Turns Murderous, 600 Killed This Month -- Human Rights Groups Denounce Death Squads, Executions StoptheDrugWar.org">Southeast Asia: Probe into Thai Drug War Killings Getting Underway , StoptheDrugWar.org
with both Muslim and was established by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş in the 1960s, it was the main Turkish nationalism, Turkish nationalist force during the Political violence in Turkey (1976–80), political violence in 1976–80 in Turkey. During this period, the organization became a "death squad" engaged in " street killings and gunbattles". According to authorities, 220 of its members carried out 694 murders of left-wing and liberal activists and intellectuals. Attacks on university students were commonplace. They killed hundreds of Alevis
Alevism or Anatolian Alevism (; tr, Alevilik, ''Anadolu Aleviliği'' or ''Kızılbaşlık''; ; az, Ələvilik) is a local Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Alevi Islamic ( ''bāṭenī'') teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, ...
in the Maraş massacre
Maras or Maraş (pronounced Marash) may refer to:
Places
*Maraş, Turkey, previous name until 1973 of Kahramanmaraş, a city in the Mediterranean Region, Turkey and the administrative center of Kahramanmaraş Province
* Maras, Iran (disambiguation ...
of 1978 and are alleged to have been behind the Taksim Square massacre
The Taksim Square massacre ( tr, Kanlı 1 Mayıs, or the Bloody First of May) was an attack on leftist demonstrators on 1 May 1977 (International Workers' Day) in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey. Casualty figures vary between 34 and 42 persons kil ...
of 1977. The masterminds behind the attempt on Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
's life in 1981 by Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca
Mehmet Ali Ağca (; born 9 January 1958) is a Turkish assassin who murdered left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi on 1 February 1979, and later shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981, after escaping from a Turkish prison. After serving ...
were not identified and the organization's role remains unclear.
=Ottoman Empire
=
During the Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...
, the Special Organization functioned as a death squad.
Australia
Australia has a long history of the use of death squads dating back to the earliest days of European colonisation.
In the Colony of New South Wales on December 1790, Governor Arthur Phillip ordered that "A party, consisting of two captains, two subalterns, and forty privates, with a proper number of non-commissioned officers from the garrison, with three days provisions, etc. are to be ready to march to-morrow morning at day-light, in order to bring in six of those natives who reside near the head of Botany Bay
Botany Bay (Dharawal: ''Kamay''), an open oceanic embayment, is located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point and the Cook ...
; or, if that should be found impracticable, to put that number to death." and "That we were to cut off and bring in the heads of the slain; for which purpose hatchets and bags would be furnished." Originally Phillip had settled on a dozen as an appropriate number. General Watkin Tench
Lieutenant General Watkin Tench (6 October 1758 – 7 May 1833) was a British marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first European settlement in Australia in ...
wrote that "we were, if practicable, to bring away two natives as prisoners; and to put to death ten." Phillip's purpose for this mission, as described by Tench, was "to strike a decisive blow, in order, at once to convince them of our superiority and to infuse an universal terror..."
In May 1795, Governor Peterson ordered a "party of corps to be sent from Parramatta
Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...
, with instructions to destroy as many as they could meet with of the wood tribe ('Be-dia-gal'); and, in hope of striking terror, to erect gibbets
A gibbet is any instrument of public execution (including guillotine, executioner's block, impalement stake, hanging gallows, or related scaffold). Gibbeting is the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of crimi ...
in different places, whereupon the bodies of all they might kill were to be hung." Seven or eight Indigenous people were thought to have been killed, although no bodies were hung on gibbets, and several captives were taken including "one man, (apparently a cripple) five women and some children." One woman and her baby had both been shot though not killed. The child subsequently died. Another pregnant woman delivered her baby son who also died. Gapps writes "The fact that women and children were shot and captured certainly suggests the action was an indiscriminate surprise assault on a campsite at night, with all the hallmarks of a massacre."
In December 1795, Collins recorded that another 'armed party' was sent out. "They promptly killed four men and one woman, badly wounded a child, and took four men prisoners." Gapps writes "Once more, the shooting of women and children suggests a surprise attack on a camp, ending in a massacre."
In early 1796, Governor John Hunter gave settlers in the outlying Hawkesbury settlement militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
status. At this point the Hawkesbury was effectively beyond the reach of the New South Wales Corps
The New South Wales Corps (sometimes called The Rum Corps) was formed in England in 1789 as a permanent regiment of the British Army to relieve the New South Wales Marine Corps, who had accompanied the First Fleet to Australia, in fortifying th ...
who had limited manpower. Hunter was at pains to state that settlers were "not to wantonly fire at, or take the lives of natives, as such act would be considered a deliberate murder." Settlers who withdrew or kept back their assistance to the militia were to be "proceeded against as persons disobeying the rules and orders of the settlement."
In 1799, Lieutenant Thomas Hobby of the New South Wales Corps led a party of soldiers and settler against Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...
in the Hawkesbury area on the understanding that his orders were to destroy Aboriginal people "wherever they were met with", with the exception of "native children who were domesticated among the settlers." Non 'domesticated' Aboriginal children were fair game.
In May 1801, Governor King went further issuing 'shoot on sight' orders. declaring that anyone in three districts around Sydney could fire at any "bodies of natives".
In the Colony of Tasmania
The Colony of Tasmania (more commonly referred to simply as "Tasmania") was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealt ...
death squads took a number of forms. Private individuals, convicts and settlers formed vigilante squads. In 1827, Near Hadspen on the property of Thomas Beams, Aboriginal Tasmanians
The Aboriginal Tasmanians ( Palawa kani: ''Palawa'' or ''Pakana'') are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, an ...
surrounded his hut. In response to his firing at the Aboriginal people Beams' neighbours arrived on foot and horseback. A "war party" was organised and a search conducted. At 10 o'clock at night the glow of a fire was seen and the war party surrounded the Aboriginal encampment. At 3 am fourteen muskets opened fire, the camp was rushed and eleven Aboriginal people were killed. Only one escaped.
'Roving parties' were authorised by Governor Arthur. These parties were either military patrols made up of soldiers and convict police or civilian parties made up of convicts and led by men who provided their services in return for promises of grants of land. While they were mostly ineffective, or indeed counterproductive, they did kill Aboriginal people. In one such instance in 1829, a roving party led by John Batman, using Aboriginal trackers brought from the Sydney colony, came across a large Aboriginal camp of men, women and children at night. Their approach was disturbed by the camp dogs whereupon they opened fire and rushed the camp. They captured a woman and a child but the rest fled into the darkness. The next morning Batman's party found two badly wounded men and many blood trails. The wounded men informed them that ten others had been seriously wounded and were dead or dying and that two women had also been severely wounded and had crawled away. The wounded Aboriginal men were subsequently executed by Batman.
Military units carried out attacks upon sleeping Aboriginal groups. On 6 December 1828 elements of the 40th Regiment together with two constables, Danvers and Holmes, surrounded a group of Aboriginal people during the night at Tooms Lake
Tooms Lake is a rural locality and a lake in the local government areas (LGA) of Northern Midlands, Southern Midlands, and Glamorgan-Spring Bay in the Central and South-east LGA regions of Tasmania. The locality is about north of the town o ...
. In a dawn attack they killed a number of Aboriginal people variously described as 'several' or ten or sixteen. The bodies were then placed in a pile and burned.
In the northwest of Tasmania a private corporation, the Van Diemen's Land Company
The Van Diemen's Land Company (also known as Van Dieman Land Company) is a farming corporation in the Australian state of Tasmania. It was founded in 1825 and received a royal charter the same year, and was granted 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) ...
, modelled on the East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
, what Adam Smith described as a "government of an exclusive company of merchants,... perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever." became a law unto itself. The company's Chief Agent, Edward Curr
Edward Curr (1 July 1798 – 16 November 1850)
was an Australian settler and politician. Curr was born in Sheffield, England. He travelled to Hobart Town, arriving in February 1820. In 1823 he returned to England. In 1824 he was appointed ma ...
, was also appointed the government magistrate, making him the sole arbiter of law for 200 kilometers in any direction. Curr described his belief that "a war of extermination" was underway, and later wrote that "My whole object was to kill them, and this because my full conviction was and is that the laws of nature and God and this country all conspired to render this my duty..."
In 1828, Curr sent four shepherds along with the captain of the cutter ''Fanny'' and its crew to carry out a massacre in response to the spearing of some sheep. A resident of Curr's homestead, Rosalie Hare, described in her journal "...while we remained at Circular Head there were several accounts of considerable amounts of Natives having been shot by them (the Company's men), they wishing to extirpate them entirely, if possible. The master of the Company's cutter ''Fanny,'' assisted by four shepherds and his crew, surprised a party and killed 12". This was quickly followed by the Cape Grim Massacre where Aboriginal people collecting shellfish on the beach at the base of a cliff were shot from the high ground by the company's servants. The company also employed booby traps such as spring loaded guns and steel jawed man traps, sometimes hidden in barrels of flour.
The culmination of these death squads was 'the Black Line', a 300 kilometre wide sweep which employed more than 2000 men over almost a two-month period from the 7th of October 1830 to the 26th of November. The strategy was designed as a battue to drive the remaining Aboriginal inhabitants into a cordon where they could be captured or killed. While Governor Arthur maintained that capture was the goal, those who participated and the press had no doubt that the only realistic recourse was to kill the remaining Aboriginal people. The former Attorney General wrote publicly that they were "about to enter upon a war of extermination, for such I apprehend is the intended object of the present operations." The serving Solicitor General concurred writing "If you cannot capture them...I say boldly and broadly, exterminate."
While the Black Line was an abject failure, manned by unmotivated conscript troops and convicts, hamstrung by incompetence, lack of supplies, bad weather and poor intelligence, ultimately, it failed because there simply was no enemy to kill. A year later, when George Augustus Robinson negotiated the final surrender of the eastern tribes and led them into Hobart Town all that remained was 19 men, nine women and one child. Within a few years they too would mostly be dead, killed by white man's diseases on their Flinders Island internment camp. The more than dozen tribes of the north west suffered a similar fate, having been virtually wiped out by the Van Diemen's Land Company by 1834, and of those tribes in the north east, by 1830 there were only 74 human beings left alive. Robinson wrote that "at every boat harbour along the whole line of the coast the bones of the murdered aborigines are strewed over the face of the earth and bleaching in the sun..." By 1835 the Aboriginal Peoples of Tasmania were virtually extinct. The extirpation of each tribe a completed genocide. Today, those Tasmanians who are of Aboriginal ancestry are almost exclusively the descendants of Aboriginal women and girls taken as slaves by sealers in Bass Strait.
As the frontier in New South Wales continued to expand the Crown sought to limit the unregulated spread of settlement. In 1929, the area of land that could be legally settled was expanded to nineteen counties stretching from the Bateman's Bay in the south to Taree
Taree is a town on the Mid North Coast, New South Wales, Australia. Taree and nearby Cundletown were settled in 1831 by William Wynter. Since then Taree has grown to a population of 26,381, and is the centre of a significant agricultural distr ...
in the north to Bathurst and Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
in the west. Squatters simply ran their stock well beyond the settled counties. In 1836 Governor Richard Bourke legalised this illegal fait accompli.by acknowledging squatter's rights to occupation if they paid ten pounds in annual rent. Skinner remarks that “The resulting Act (7 Wm. IV. No. 4) ''to restrain the unauthorized occupation of Crown Lands'' was equally a law to recognize and encourage legitimate grazing." Bourke mused that failing to take this land would be "a perverse rejection of the Bounty of Providence." This Bounty of Providence was, of course, Aboriginal land, and taking it necessitated violence.
Conflict came in the form of arbitrary killings, ad hoc death squads and the establishment of the Mounted Police
Mounted police are police who patrol on horseback or camelback. Their day-to-day function is typically picturesque or ceremonial, but they are also employed in crowd control because of their mobile mass and height advantage and increasingly in t ...
and later the Native Police
Australian native police units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command (usually) of at least one white officer, existed in various forms in all Australian mainland colonies during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentie ...
. At separation in 1859 the Native Police would become the Queensland Native Mounted Police, which would field death squads across the entire state for to following half century.
The Mounted Police were thought to have killed around 100 Aboriginal people in 1836 and another 65 in 1838. Richards writes that "...the Mounted Police exerted the Crown's monopoly over armed force on the frontier while maintaining the appearance of law. In other words, while described as a police force upholding the rule of law, the force actually resembled an army unit actively engaged with an enemy."
On 26 January 1838, on the newly expanded frontier, the New South Wales Mounted Police
The New South Wales Mounted Police Unit is a mounted section of the New South Wales Police Force. Founded by Governor Thomas Brisbane, on 7 September 1825, the Mounted Police were recruited from a British military regiment stationed in NSW at th ...
under Major James Nunn perpetrated a massacre of Aboriginal people south west of Moree at Waterloo Creek. This was the culmination of a two month long campaign to suppress Aboriginal resistance. At least fifty Aboriginal people were murdered. At the time the government funded missionary Lancelot Threlkeld published a report naming Nunn as a mass murdered responsible for the deaths of 200-300 Aboriginal people on the Gwydir and its tributaries.
This was followed on 10 June 1838 by the Myall Creek Massacre
The Myall Creek massacre was the killing of at least twenty-eight unarmed Indigenous Australians by twelve colonists on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek near the Gwydir River, in northern New South Wales. After two trials, seven of the twelve c ...
east of Moree, perpetrated by an ad hoc death squad composed of squatters and their stockmen. At least 28 Aboriginal people, women, children and the elderly, were shot, beheaded and dismembered before their bodies were burnt on a fire. The death squad then proceeded to another property near Inverell perpetrating a second massacre before returning to Myall Creek.
The Myall Creek Massacre became the only instance where white colonists were held accountable for mass murder. There were two trials. In the first an all white jury found them not guilty. Subsequently, seven of the original eleven defendants were re-tried on the charge of killing a child, found guilty and executed.
The Myall Creek Massacre trial was only made possible because the perpetrators had made a public resolution "to exterminate the whole race of blacks in that quarter" and some of their fellow settlers disagreed with the sentiment and informed the authorities.
In 1839, Governor George Gipps
Sir George Gipps (23 December 1790 – 28 February 1847) was the Governor of the British colony of New South Wales for eight years, between 1838 and 1846. His governorship oversaw a tumultuous period where the rights to land were bitterly conte ...
, in an attempt to rein in atrocities being committed in the colony, issued a strongly worded public proclamation pointing out the illegality of waging war against Aboriginal Peoples "As human beings partaking of our common nature -as the Aboriginal possessors of the soil from which the wealth of the country has been principally derived - and as subjects of the Queen, whose authority extends over every part of New Holland - the natives of the Colony have an equal right with the people of European origin to the protection and 'assistance of the law of England
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
." ·
"To allow either to injure or oppress the other, or to permit the stronger to regard the weaker party as aliens with whom a war can exist, and against whom they may exercise belligerent rights, is not less inconsistent with the spirit of that Law, than it is at variance with the dictates of justice and humanity."
In response to the massacres and general lawlessness of the frontier Governor Gipps also introduced the Border Police Act "An Act further to restrain the unauthorised occupation of Crown Lands, and to provide the means of defraying the expense of the Border Police" and in 1841 a subsequent Act extended the force for another 5 years. While the Border Police, made up primarily of military convicts, proved relatively inconsequential for dealing with frontier violence, it laid the foundation for the establishment of the permanent Native Police in 1848.
In 1847/48, James Marks, a squatter whose son had been killed by Aboriginal people, possibly in response to Marks' "ruthless shooting of Aborigines" and the murder of an Aboriginal boy working for a neighbouring squatter, recruited white settlers to form a death squad. They were joined by two Constables, McGee and Hancock, on the orders of the Warialda Bench of Magistrates. Their killing spree centered on 'station blacks', Aboriginal people working for local squatters and the victims were almost exclusively women. The total number of victims is unknown but at least 47 were recorded to have been murdered.
Commissioner John Bligh wrote to the Colonial Secretary on 16 September 1848 stating that death squads were still carrying out murders. He wrote of theses fresh murders "It would seem that seven persons were concerned in these murders and the audacity of these people may be imagined from the circumstances of these attacks having taken place almost immediately on my leaving the Macintyre where I had been engaged for a fortnight in investigating the former murders at Mr Jonathan Young's and almost at the moment after my seizing one of the person's concerned in that business and issuing warrants for the arrest of the remainder.... These atrocious outrages appear to me to have been instigated partly by wanton brutality and desire of excitement and partly by a feeling of animosity against the Natives and those who employ them arising from the idea that the rate of wages is lowered by their unpaid services...(slavery)...From the statements of the Natives and the evidence now before me I cannot entertain a doubt of the guilt of the persons now in custody though I feel convinced that they will be regarded as martyrs by their fellows and that every effort will be used to protect them by false evidence from the consequences of their crime."
Despite a warrant being issued for Marks he was never arrested nor were any of the murderers successfully prosecuted. Frederick Walker wrote the Native Mounted Police was established because of Marks "an individual whose atrocities on the Macintyre first induced His Excellence to command me to raise the Native Police."
On 17 August 1848, Frederick 'Filibuster' Walker was duly appointed the first Commandant of the Native Police on the recommendation of William Charles Wentworth and Augustus Morris of the New South Wales Legislative Council. Walker had been the manager of Morris' property, where he had proven himself by violently putting down Aboriginal people, and both had worked for Wentworth on the Murrumbidgee. It was on Morris' property, Callandoon, that Walker would initially establish the Mounted Police headquarters.
Copeland says that "his 'Callandoon Experiment' was a success for the squatters and a disaster for the local Bigambul people." By the time his 'experiment' was over only 100 Bigambul were left alive.
Walker's and the NMP's first engagement with Aboriginal people was on the Macintyre River. William Butler Tooth- who later was accused of slavery, "running an enforced black labour camp which compromised a number of inoffensive Manumbar natives" on his Widgee Widgee run- testified before the 1858 Select Committee "The blacks were so completely put down on that occasion and terrified at the power of the Police." Walker followed this up on the Severn River where he ambushed Aboriginal people and pursued them into thick scrub. A witness stated that "the number that they killed no one but their Commandant and themselves ever know." In June on the Condamine two further 'clashes' occurred. An unknown number of Aboriginal people were killed in the first engagement. Walker wrote that "they suffered so severely that they returned to their own country, a distance of eighty miles."
Near Carbucky on 1 July 1849, Walker and his troopers, together with squatters, surrounded and attacked local Aboriginal people. Walker wrote to the Colonial Secretary "I much regretted not having one hour more fdaylight and I would have annihilated the lot,…" In this one engagement 100 Bigambul were killed.
Even at these early stages Walker's and the NMP's aggressive tactics provoked the Colonial Secretary to caution Walker "not to commit acts of aggressive warfare against the Aborigines and pointing out that the command of the Native Police Force had been entrusted to him for the maintenance of peace and not for the purpose of carrying war into the Aborigine's country.".
Walker, on a number of occasions, sought clarification of the legality of what he had been tasked to do. No such clarification was ever forthcoming. In 1839 Governor Gipps had insisted that all Aboriginal deaths resulting from clashes with Europeans must be subject to an inquiry. In 1850, the Colonial Secretary reiterated that Aboriginal deaths should be investigated, but now, by the officers commanding, the same officers who participated in the attacks. Attorney General Plunket refused to offer an opinion. Essentially, what happened in the field was to stay in the field.
When questioned by the Colonial Secretary about Marshall's shooting of Aboriginal people Walker responded that Marshall had only fired on them seven times in nine months and that these shooting had not been against one tribe in one area but against six different tribes, from 50 to 200 miles apart. These shootings may have been on a relatively small scale compared to other massacres but the numbers still add up to significant deaths and widespread terror. March 1850 on the Lower Condamine, 'killed a number'; July 1850, an Aboriginal man chased and killed; 8 August on the Severn, an Aboriginal man killed; April 1851, Marshall shot two men in the Mary River; Walker's patrol killed another near the Grafton Range; September 1851, two or three were killed; November, one shot; 2 October 1851, two shot, 7 October, two shot. These ones, twos and 'several' soon became dozens then hundreds then thousands.
By 1850/51, three troops of Native Mounted Police were in the Wide Bay area carrying out attacks on Aboriginal people at Widgee and Kilkivan with the participation of local squatters, Corfield, McTaggart and John Murray, who, in 1852, would become the fourth officer of the NMP, a career that would last 19 years and see Murray slaughter Aboriginal people across the state. Murray subsequently described the shooting in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald. He wrote that on 14 December, he participated in attacks led by Marshall and his troopers upon the Aboriginal owners of Widgee and Kilkivan. At the conclusion of the attacks, one lasting more than an hour, Murray stated that "the blacks suffered severely" and that they had been "taught a lesson which will show them their inferiority in war". The number of Aboriginal people killed is unknown.
Despite the Colonial Secretary's official remonstration against waging warfare, Christmas Eve 1851 saw the NMP field three troops under Walker, Marshall and Sgt Dolan together with squatters, storekeepers and the crew of the cutter ''Margaret and Mary'', all sworn in as 'special constables' in a military style campaign against the Aboriginal Peoples of Fraser Island. The campaign lasted ten days and almost no details were released, Walker claimed that on the final assault he had stayed at camp because he was footsore. Local papers reported "...that the natives were driven into the sea, and kept there as long as daylight or life lasted..." and that subsequently the Aboriginal people of Fraser who had hitherto been friendly to shipwreck survivors had then become hostile.
It seems that the repeated missives from the Colonial Secretary had finally been heard. From this point on indiscretion on the part of his officers would invite the ire and sanction of Walker, but mass murder would not. To this end Walker introduced a rule- the first rule of the NMP- that no white man could accompany the NMP in the field unless they were sworn in as constables, and despite the Crown having enabled unsworn testimony to be accept in courts, it would not be until be until 1876 that the testimony of Aboriginal people would be admitted in law.
It is around this time that Frederick Walker and the NMP became victims of their own success. Walker, unlike many who would follow him, viewed the violence of the NMP as a means to an end, not an end in itself. As the genocidal slaughter on the Macintyre showed, Walker was completely comfortable waging war of aggression against the owners of the soil, but his war had a social and economic agenda.
As the frontier expanded and European pastoralists- and later miners- grabbed more and more land, Aboriginal Peoples were obviously going to resist. Walker, like a paternalistic slave owner, believed that resistance must be crushed swiftly and decisively but that once that was achieved Aboriginal peoples would then become a vitally important economic asset. Once the resistance was broken and Aboriginal People enslaved their free labour could provide a boon to pastoralists. To this end he repeatedly encouraged squatters to allow Aboriginal people onto their runs, something that many had refused to do before the presence of the NMP. He wrote of the success of this policy on the Macintyre, "a run which would not have fetched £100 in May, 1849, was disposed of in January, 1850, for £500, so much had property risen in value by the increased security of life and property."
One of the first beneficiaries of this strategy was Augustus Morris, Walker's friend, colleague and sponsor for the position of Commandant, who owned Callandoon station where the strategy had first been trialled. As a result of the success of the trial on Callandoon, Morris "used only Aboriginals as stockmen and Chinese as hut-keepers."
Unfortunately for Walker the success of his brutality on the Macintyre- and the brutality of Marks, the squatters and Europeans who felt displaced by free Aboriginal labour- had both raised the expectations of the squatters and the ire of the Colonial administration, Christians, and those favourably disposed towards Aboriginal Peoples. Cautions from the Colonial administration about ensuring that the activities of the NMP remained within the vague field of vision of the letter of the law now served as a brake upon wholesale slaughter, while the squatters demanded that the NMP be everywhere at once and then grew angry that Walker would not simply repeat the Macintyre solution in their district. The same squatters in the Wide Bay who had lauded his achievements in 1850 were condemning him and demanding the NMP be replaced by an outright military response in 1852.
While much is made of Walker's insobriety and financial irregularities (which were a product of his location beyond the metropolis and the incompetence of the Colonial administration as much as his own failings), his clashes with a local magistrates, disagreements with squatters, the small size of his force, rugged terrain and vast distances and conflicting expectations all contributed to his sacking. Turning up at the Board of Inquiry into his behaviour drunk as a skunk surrounded by a phalanx of armed NMP troopers probably didn't help, although the Board seemed to read the subtext as the inquiry was adjourned and never resumed.
Europe
Croatia
The Ustaše was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist
Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its sp ...
organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement ( hr, Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret). Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
, Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, and Roma as well as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during World War II
World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the US ...
.
France
The French Armed Forces used death squads during the Algerian War (1954–1962).
Germany
= Weimar Republic
=
Death squads first appeared in Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
following the end of the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the overthrow of the House of Hohenzollern
The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenbu ...
. In order to prevent a coup d'etat by the Soviet-backed Communist Party of Germany, the Majority Social Democratic-dominated government of the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...
declared a state of emergency and ordered the recruitment of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
veterans into militias called the Freikorps
(, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, rega ...
. Although officially answering to Defense Minister Gustav Noske
Gustav Noske (9 July 1868 – 30 November 1946) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served as the first Minister of Defence (''Reichswehrminister'') of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1920. Noske has been a cont ...
, the Freikorps tended to be drunken, trigger happy, and loyal only to their own commanders. However, they were instrumental in the defeat of the 1919 Spartacist Uprising
The Spartacist uprising (German: ), also known as the January uprising (), was a general strike and the accompanying armed struggles that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the November Revolutio ...
and the annexation of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic
The Bavarian Soviet Republic, or Munich Soviet Republic (german: Räterepublik Baiern, Münchner Räterepublik),Hollander, Neil (2013) ''Elusive Dove: The Search for Peace During World War I''. McFarland. p.283, note 269. was a short-lived unre ...
. The most famous victims of the Freikorps were the Communist leaders Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag fro ...
and Rosa Luxemburg, who were captured after the suppression of the Spartacist Uprising and shot without trial. After the Freikorps units turned against the Republic in the monarchist
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...
Kapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo th ...
, many of the leaders were forced to flee abroad and the units were largely disbanded.
Some Freikorps veterans drifted into the ultra-nationalist
Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its sp ...
Organisation Consul
Organisation Consul (O.C.) was an ultra-nationalist and anti-Semitic terrorist organization that operated in the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1922. It was formed by members of the disbanded Freikorps group Marine Brigade Ehrhardt and was respons ...
, which regarded the 1918 Armistice and the Versailles Treaty
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 19 ...
as treasonous and assassinated politicians who were associated with them. Among their victims were Matthias Erzberger
Matthias Erzberger (20 September 1875 – 26 August 1921) was a German writer and politician (Centre Party), the minister of Finance from 1919 to 1920.
Prominent in the Catholic Centre Party, he spoke out against World War I from 1917 and as a ...
and Walter Rathenau
Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and liberal politician.
During the First World War of 1914–1918 he was involved in the organization of the German war economy. After the war, Rathenau s ...
, both of whom were cabinet ministers in the Weimar regime.
In addition, the city of Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
remained a headquarters of Russian White émigré
White Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik commun ...
hit teams, which targeted those who were believed to have betrayed the Tsar. Their most infamous operation remains the 1922 attempt on the life of Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government ( rus, Временное правительство России, Vremennoye pravitel'stvo Rossii) was a provisional government of the Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately ...
statesman Pavel Miliukov
Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov ( rus, Па́вел Никола́евич Милюко́в, p=mʲɪlʲʊˈkof; 31 March 1943) was a Russian historian and liberal politician. Milyukov was the founder, leader, and the most prominent member of the C ...
in Berlin. When newspaper publisher Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov
Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (russian: Влади́мир Дми́триевич Набо́ков; 21 July Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._8_July.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O.S._8_July">Old_Style_an ...
attempted to shield the intended victim, he was fatally shot by assassin Piotr Shabelsky-Bork.
During the same era, the Communist Party of Germany also operated its own assassination squads. Titled, the Rotfrontkämpferbund they carried out assassinations of carefully selected individuals from the Weimar regime as well as assassinations of members of rival political parties. The most infamous operations of Weimar-era Communist death squads remain the 1931 slayings of Berlin Police captains Paul Anlauf
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
* Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
and Franz Lenck Franz may refer to:
People
* Franz (given name)
* Franz (surname)
Places
* Franz (crater), a lunar crater
* Franz, Ontario, a railway junction and unorganized town in Canada
* Franz Lake, in the state of Washington, United States – see ...
. Those involved in the ambush either fled to the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
or were arrested and prosecuted. Among those to receive the death penalty was Max Matern Max Matern (19 January 1902 – 22 May 1935) was a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) who was convicted of murder and executed for his role in the assassinations of Police Captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. The murders took plac ...
, who was later glorified as a martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
by the East German
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
State. The last surviving conspirator, former East German secret police head Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (''Ministerium für Staatsicherheit'' – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 u ...
, was belatedly tried and convicted for the murders in 1993. The evidence needed to successfully prosecute him had been found in his personal safe after German reunification.
= Nazi Germany
=
Between 1933 and 1945, Germany was a one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
ruled by the fascist Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
and its leader, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
. During this period, the Nazis made extensive use of death squads and targeted killings.
In 1934, Hitler ordered the extrajudicial killings of Ernst Röhm and all members of the Sturmabteilung who remained loyal to him. Simultaneously, Hitler also ordered a mass purge of the German Reichswehr
''Reichswehr'' () was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshape ...
, targeting officers who, like General Kurt von Schleicher
Kurt Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann von Schleicher (; 7 April 1882 – 30 June 1934) was a German general and the last chancellor of Germany (before Adolf Hitler) during the Weimar Republic. A rival for power with Hitler, Schleicher was murdered by ...
, had opposed his drive for absolute power. These massacres have gone down in history as, "The Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Ad ...
."
Following the Operation Barbarossa, invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the German Wehrmacht was followed by four travelling death squads called ''Einsatzgruppen'' to hunt down and murder Jews, Communists and other so-called undesirables in the occupied areas. This was the first of the massacres which comprised the Holocaust. Typically, the victims, who included women and children, were forcibly marched from their homes to open graves or ravines before being shot. Many others suffocated in specially designed poison trucks called Nazi gas van, gas vans. Between 1941 and 1944, the ''Einsatzgruppen'' murdered some 7,4 million Soviet civilians, 1.3 million Jews, as well as tens of thousands of suspected political dissidents, most of the Intelligenzaktion, Polish upper class and intelligentsia, POWs, and uncounted numbers of Romani people, Romany. These tactics ended only with the End of World War II in Europe, defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
= East Germany
=
Between the end of World War II and 1989, Germany was divided into the democratic and capitalist West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany and the Communist East Germany, German Democratic Republic, a one-party state under the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Socialist Unity Party and its secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of ...
, the Stasi. During these years, kangaroo courts and cavalier use of the death penalty were routinely used against suspected enemies of the State. In order to prevent East German citizens from defecting to the West, orders were issued to border guards to Schießbefehl, shoot suspected defectors on sight. During the 1980s, the Stasi carried out a mission to hunt down and assassinate West Germans who were suspected of smuggling East Germans.
On the orders of the Party leadership and Stasi chief Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (''Ministerium für Staatsicherheit'' – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 u ...
, the East German Government financed, armed, and trained, "urban guerrillas," from numerous countries. According to ex-Stasi Colonel Rainer Wiegand, ties to terrorist organizations were overseen by Markus Wolf and Department Three of the Stasi's foreign intelligence wing. Members of the West German ''Rote Armee Fraktion'', the Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
an ''Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front'', and the South Africa under Apartheid, South African '' Umkhonto we Sizwe'' were brought to East Germany for training in the use of military hardware and, "the leadership role of the Party." Similar treatment was meted out to Palestinian terrorists from the ''Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine'', ''Abu Nidal'', and ''Black September (group), Black September''.
Other Stasi agents worked as military advisers to African Marxist guerrillas and the governments they later formed. They included the Namibian ''SWAPO'' and the Angolan ''MPLA'' during the South African Border War, the ''FRELIMO'' during the Mozambican War of Independence and Mozambican Civil War, civil war, and Robert Mugabe's ''ZANLA'' during the Rhodesian Bush War.
Colonel Wiegand revealed that Mielke and Wolf provided bodyguards from the Stasi's counter-terrorism division for Senior PLO terrorist Carlos the Jackal and ''Black September'' leader Abu Daoud during their visits to the GDR. Col. Wiegand had been sickened by the 1972 Munich massacre and was horrified that the GDR would treat the man who ordered it as an honored guest. When he protested, Wiegand was told that Abu Daoud was, "a friend of our country, a high-ranking political functionary," and that there was no proof that he was a terrorist.
During the 1980s, Wiegand secretly recruited a Libyan diplomat into spying on his colleagues. Wiegand's informant told him that the La Belle bombing and other terrorist attacks against western citizens were being planned at the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin. When Wiegand showed him a detailed report, Mielke informed the SED's Politburo, which ordered the Colonel to continue surveillance but not interfere with the plans of the Libyans.
Shortly before German Reunification, West Germany's Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, Federal Constitutional Court indicted former Stasi chief Erich Mielke for collusion with two Red Army Faction terrorist attacks against U.S. military personnel. The first was the car bomb attack at Ramstein Air Base on 31 August 1981. The second was the attempted murder of United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
General Frederick Kroesen at Heidelberg on 15 September 1981. The latter attack, which was carried out by RAF members Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar, involved firing an RPG-7 anti-tank rocket into the General's armored Mercedes. Due to reasons of senile dementia, Mielke was never placed on trial for either attack.
= Federal Republic of Germany
=
Following German reunification, death squads linked to foreign intelligence services have continued to operate in Germany. The most infamous example of this remains the 1992 Mykonos restaurant assassinations
In the Mykonos restaurant assassinations ( fa, ترور رستوران میکونوس; also the "Mykonos Incident"), Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders Sadegh Sharafkandi, Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their translator Nouri Dehkordi, wer ...
, in which a group of anti-Islamist Iranians were fatally machine-gunned in a Greek restaurant in Berlin. A German court ultimately convicted the assassins and exposed the involvement of intelligence services of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The murder and subsequent trial has been publicized in the nonfiction bestseller ''The Assassins of the Turquois Palace'' by Roya Hakakian.
Hungary
For most of World War II, Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany. However, the Regency Council of Admiral Miklós Horthy refused to permit the deportation of History of the Jews in Hungary, Hungarian Jews to Extermination camp, Nazi death camps.
Then, in October 1944, Horthy announced a cease-fire with the Allies of World War II, Allied powers and ordered the Royal Hungarian Army to lay down their arms. In response, Nazi Germany launched Operation Panzerfaust, a covert operation which forced Horthy to abdicate in favour of the Fascist and militantly racist Arrow Cross Party, which was led by Ferenc Szálasi. This was followed by an Arrow Cross coup in Budapest on the same day. Szálasi was declared "Leader of the Nation" and prime minister of a "Government of National Unity (Hungary), Government of National Unity".
Arrow Cross rule, despite lasting only three months, was brutal. Death squads killed as many as 38,000 Hungarians. Arrow Cross officers helped Adolf Eichmann re-activate the deportation proceedings from which the Jews of Budapest had previously been spared, sending some 80,000 Jews out of the city on slave labor details and many more straight to death camps. Many Jewish males of conscription age were already serving as slave labor for the Hungarian Army's Labour service (Hungary), Forced Labor Battalions. Most of them died, including many who were murdered outright after the end of the fighting as they were returning home. Quickly formed battalions raided the Yellow-star house, Yellow Star Houses and combed the streets, hunting down Jews claimed to be partisans and saboteurs since Jews attacked Arrow Cross squads at least six to eight times with gunfire. These approximately 200 Jews were taken to the bridges crossing the Danube, where they were shot and their bodies borne away by the waters of the river because many were attached to weights while they were handcuffed to each other in pairs.
Red Army troops reached the outskirts of the city in December 1944, and the Battle of Budapest began, although it has often been claimed that there is no proof that the Arrow Cross members and the Germans conspired to destroy the Budapest Ghetto. Days before he fled the city, Arrow Cross Interior Minister Gábor Vajta commanded that streets and squares named after Jews be renamed.
As control of the city's institutions began to decay, the Arrow Cross trained their guns on the most helpless possible targets: patients in the beds of the city's two Jewish hospitals on Maros Street and Bethlen Square, and residents in the Jewish poorhouse on Alma Road. Arrow Cross members continually sought to raid the ghettos and Jewish concentration buildings; the majority of Budapest's Jews were saved only by a handful of Jewish leaders and foreign diplomats, most famously the Swedish Raoul Wallenberg, the Papal Nuncio Monsignor Angelo Rotta, Swiss Consul Carl Lutz and Francoist Spain's consul general, Giorgio Perlasca. Szálasi knew that the documents used by these diplomats to save Jews were invalid according to international law, but ordered that they be respected.
The Arrow Cross government effectively fell at the end of January 1945, when the Soviet Army took Pest and their enemies forces retreated across the Danube to Buda. Szálasi had escaped from Budapest on 11 December 1944, taking with him the Holy Crown of Hungary, Hungarian royal crown, while Arrow Cross members and German forces continued to fight a rear-guard action in the far west of Hungary until the end of the war in April 1945.
After the war, many of the Arrow Cross leaders were captured and tried for war crimes. Many were executed, including Ferenc Szálasi. Fr. András Kun, a Roman Catholic priest who commanded an Arrow Cross death squad while dressed in his cassock, was also convicted and hanged after the war. Fr. Kun's cassock remains on permanent display at the House of Terror in Budapest.
Ireland
= Irish War of Independence
=
During the Irish War of Independence, the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army under Michael Collins (Irish leader), Michael Collins made use of death squads and targeted killings. At the beginning of the conflict, Collins recruited a group of men from the IRA's Dublin Brigade, who were dubbed "The Squad (IRA unit), The Twelve Apostles". At Collins' orders, the Twelve Apostles strategically assassinated members of Crown security forces, British intelligence spymasters, and Mole (espionage), moles within IRA ranks. Collins was assisted in this by IRA moles within Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Furthermore, several secretaries working for the British Army High Command in Dublin were also working as spies for Collins.
As British authority in Ireland began to disintegrate, Prime Minister David Lloyd George declared a state of emergency. In order to defeat the IRA, Winston Churchill, the Secretary of State for War, suggested the recruitment of First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
veterans into a paramilitary law enforcement group which would be integrated into the RIC. Lloyd George agreed to the proposal, and advertisements were filed in British newspapers. Groups of formerly enlisted men were formed into the Black and Tans, so called because of the mixture of surplus military and RIC uniforms they were given. Veterans who had held officers rank were formed into the Auxiliary Division of the RIC, the members of which were higher paid and received better supplies. Members of both units, however, were despised by the Irish public, against whom the "Tans" and "Auxies" routinely retaliated against for IRA raids and assassinations.
Members of the Government of the United Kingdom, the British rule in Ireland, British administration in Ireland, and senior officers in the RIC tacitly supported reprisals as a way of scaring the Irish into rejecting the IRA. In December 1920, the British government officially approved certain reprisals against property. There were an estimated 150 official reprisals over the next six months. This further eroded support for British rule among the Irish populace.
On 20 March 1920, Tomás Mac Curtain, the nationalist Lord Mayor of Cork (city), Cork, was shot dead in front of his wife and son by a group of RIC officers with blackened faces.
Enraged, Collins ordered the Twelve Apostles to hunt down and assassinate every one of the RIC officers involved in Mac Curtain's murder. On 22 August 1920, RIC District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, who had ordered the assassination, was shot dead with Mac Curtain's revolver while leaving a Protestantism in Ireland, Protestant church service in Lisburn, County Antrim. This sparked a "pogrom" against the Catholic Church in Ireland, Catholic residents of the town.
On Bloody Sunday (1920), Bloody Sunday, Collins' men set out to assassinate members of a British intelligence agencies, British intelligence group known as the Cairo Gang, killing or fatally wounding fifteen men, some of whom were unconnected to the Gang. In one incident, the IRA group was heard to scream, "May the Lord have mercy on your souls", before opening fire.
Collins later said of the incident,
My one intention was the destruction of the undesirables who continued to make miserable the lives of ordinary decent citizens. I have proof enough to assure myself of the atrocities which this gang of spies and informers have committed. If I had a second motive it was no more than a feeling such as I would have for a dangerous reptile. By their destruction the very air is made sweeter. For myself, my conscience is clear. There is no crime in detecting in wartime the spy and the informer. They have destroyed without trial. I have paid them back in their own coin.
That afternoon, the Auxiliary Division opened fire into the crowd during a Gaelic football match at Croke Park in retaliation, killing 14 and wounding 68 players and spectators.
The hostilities ended in 1921 with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which guaranteed the independence of the Irish Free State.
= Irish Civil War
=
After independence, Irish nationalist movement divided over the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which granted a partitioned Ireland Dominion status within the British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
. Furthermore, all officials of the new Irish Free State were required to take an oath of allegiance to George V, King George V.
As a result, the Irish Civil War was fought between those Irish nationalism, Irish nationalists who accepted the Treaty and those who considered it treasonous. Although fought between men who had recently served together against the British, the fighting was often without quarter and brutal atrocities were committed by both sides.
In IRA communications, the Irish State was referred to as, "The Imperial Gang", the "Murder Government", and as "a British-imposed Dáil". Therefore, Irish men and women who supported the Free State were regarded as traitors. At the orders of IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch (Irish republican), Liam Lynch, Irish Republican Army (1922–1969), Anti-Treaty IRA began raising money for their cause via armed robbery of banks and post offices. On 30 November 1922, Liam Lynch issued what were dubbed the "orders of frightfulness", in which he ordered IRA members to assassinate members of the Irish Parliament, or Dáil Éireann, and Senators whenever possible. This General Order sanctioned the assassination of certain judges and newspaper editors. The IRA also launched a concerted arson campaign against the homes of members of the Dáil, or TDs. Among these attacks were the burning of the house of TD James McGarry, resulting in the death of his seven-year-old son and the murder of Free state minister Kevin O'Higgins elderly father and burning of his family home at Stradbally in early 1923.
After TD Sean Hales was assassinated, the Dáil began to treat the civil war as a state of emergency. They voted to retaliate by Summary execution, summarily executing four captured members of IRA Executive -- Rory O'Connor (Irish republican), Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Richard Barrett (Irish republican), Richard Barrett and Joe McKelvey. After the motion passed, all four men were executed by firing squad on 8 December 1922. During the conflict, at least 73 other captured IRA men were treated in the same fashion—some following court martial, others without trial. There are no conclusive figures for the number of unofficial executions of captured IRA insurgents, but Republican officer Todd Andrews estimated 153. (see Executions during the Irish Civil War).
At the beginning of the Civil War, the Irish State formed a special counter-terrorism police, which was called the Criminal Investigation Department (Ireland), Criminal Investigation Department. Based in Dublin's Oriel House, the CID were despised by the Anti-Treaty IRA, which referred to them as "The Murder Gang". During the Battle of Dublin, the CID is known to have shot 25 Anti-Treaty militants, officially while, "resisting arrest." Ultimately, the Irish State disbanded CID upon the cessation of hostilities in 1923.
Despite the best efforts of the Anti-Treaty forces, both the Irish Army and the CID proved highly effective in both combat and intelligence work. One tactic involved placing IRA message couriers under surveillance, which routinely led the Irish security forces to senior members of the insurgency.
According to historian Tom Mahon, the Irish Civil War "effectively ended" on 10 April 1923, when the Irish Army tracked down and mortally wounded Liam Lynch during a skirmish in the Knockmealdown Mountains of County Tipperary. Twenty days later, Lynch's successor, Frank Aiken, gave the order to "Surrender and dump arms."
Russia
= Russian Empire
=
The first organized use of death squad violence in Russia dates from the 16th century reign of Ivan the Terrible, the first Russian monarch to claim the title of Tsar. Named the Oprichniki, they wore quivers which contained brooms, symbolizing their mission to ferret the enemies of the Tsar. They dressed in black garb, which was similar to a Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox monastic habit, and bore the insignia of a severed dog's head (to sniff out treason and the enemies of the Tsar) and a broom (to sweep them away). The dog's head was also symbolic of their "nipping at the heels of the Tsar's enemies." They were sometimes called the "Tsar's Dogs" on account of their loyalty to him. They also rode black horses in order to inspire a greater level of terror.
Their oath of allegiance was:
''I swear to be true to the Lord, Grand Prince, and his realm, to the young Grand Princes, and to the Grand Princess, and not to maintain silence about any evil that I may know or have heard or may hear which is being contemplated against the Tsar, his realms, the young princes or the Tsaritsa. I swear also not to eat or drink with the zemshchina, and not to have anything in common with them. On this I kiss the cross.''
Led by Malyuta Skuratov, the Oprichniki routinely tortured and executed whomever the Tsar suspected of treason, including boyars, merchants, clergymen, commoners, and even entire cities. The memoirs of Heinrich von Staden (author), Heinrich von Staden, provide a detailed description of both the Tsar's motivations and the inner workings of the Oprichniki.
The most famous victims of the Oprichniki remains Kyr Philip II, Metropolitan of Moscow, Philip Kolychev, the Metropolitan bishop of Moscow. The Metropolitan gave a sermon in the Tsar's presence in which he rebuked Ivan for terrorizing and murdering large numbers of innocent people and their families. Enraged, Tsar Ivan convened a Church council which declared Metropolitan Philip defrocked and imprisoned in a monastery for delinquent clergy. Years later, Tsar Ivan sent an emissary demanding Metropolitan Philip's blessing on his plans for the Novgorod massacre. Metropolitan Philip said, "Only the good are blessed."
Enraged, Tsar Ivan sent Skuratov to personally strangle the Metropolitan in his monastic cell. Metropolitan Philip was subsequently glorified as a Saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.
In later centuries, Russian Tsars would declare a state of emergency and use death squad tactics in order to suppress domestic uprisings like Pugachev's Rebellion and the Russian Revolution of 1905. During the latter, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia ordered the Imperial Russian Army to ally itself with the Black Hundreds, an ultra-nationalist paramilitary group. Those captured in arms against the Tsar's forces were tried by military tribunals before being hanged or shot. According to Simon Sebag Montefiore, being caught wearing similar clothing to Anti-Tsarist militias was often enough for court martial followed by execution. These tactics were continued by the anti-communist White Movement during the Russian Civil War (1917-1920).
Opponents of the House of Romanov also carried out targeted killings of those deemed as enemies of Socialism, which was referred to as individual terror. Among them were the People's Will, the Bolshevik Battle Squad, and the Combat Brigade of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Among the victims of Marxist death squads were Tsar Alexander II of Russia, the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, and the Georgian language poet and publisher Ilia Chavchavadze. These tactics were drastically accelerated following the October Revolution.
= Soviet Union
=
Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the former Russian Empire spent 73 years as the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, a one party state ruled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Especially between 1917 and 1953, the CPSU routinely ordered the abduction, torture, and execution of massive numbers of real and suspected anti-communists. Those with upper class origins were routinely targeted in this way during the early years of the Soviet Union.
Most of the repression was committed by the regular forces of the state, like the army and the police, but there were also many cases of clandestine and covert operations.
During the interwar period, the NKVD routinely targeted anti-Stalinists in the West for abduction or murder. Among them were the CPSU's former Commissar of War, Leon Trotsky, who was assassinated in Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
on 21 August 1940 by NKVD officer Ramon Mercador. Furthermore, former White Army Generals Alexander Kutepov and Evgeny Miller were abducted in Paris by the NKVD. Kutepov is alleged to have had a Myocardial infarction, heart attack before he could be smuggled back to Moscow, and shot. General Miller was not so fortunate and died in Moscow's Lubyanka Building, Lubianka Prison. Yevhen Konovalets, the founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, was blown to bits by NKVD officer Pavel Sudoplatov in Rotterdam on 23 May 1938.
In the post-war period, the Russian Orthodox Church collaborated with the Soviet State in a campaign to eliminate Eastern Rite Catholicism in the newly annexed regions of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Priests and laity who refused to convert to Orthodoxy were either assassinated or deported to the Gulag, GULAGs in Karaganda. On 27 October 1947, the NKVD staged a car accident in order to assassinate the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishop Theodore Romzha of Mukachevo. When the "accident" failed to kill the Bishop, the NKVD poisoned him in his hospital bed on 1 November 1947.
Even in the post-Stalin era, the Soviet secret police continued to assassinate Anti-communism, anti-communists in the West. Two of the most notable victims were Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian nationalism, Ukrainian nationalists who were assassinated by the KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
in Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
, West Germany. Both deaths were believed to be accidental until 1961, when their murderer, Bohdan Stashynsky, defected to the West with his wife and voluntarily surrendered to West Germany, West German authorities.
= Russian Federation
=
The Russian Armed Forces has been accused of using death squads against Caucasian Front (Chechen War), Chechen insurgents. After defecting to the United States in October, 2000, Sergei Tretyakov (intelligence officer), Sergei Tretyakov, an Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia), SVR agent, accused the Government of Russia, Government of the Russian Federation of following Soviet-era practices by routinely assassinating its critics abroad.
Spain
Prior to World War II, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union fought a war by proxy during the Spanish Civil War. There were death squads used by both the Falangists and Republicans during this conflict. Prominent victims of the era's death squad violence include the poet Federico García Lorca, José Robles, and journalist Ramiro Ledesma Ramos. (see also Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War).
The Republican death squads were heavily staffed by members of Joseph Stalin's OGPU and targeted members of the Catholic Church in Spain, Catholic clergy and the Spanish nobility for assassination (see Red Terror (Spain), Red Terror).
According to author Donald Rayfield,
Stalin, Nikolai Yezhov, Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria, Beria distrusted Soviet participants in the Spanish war. Military advisors like Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, journalists like Mikhail Koltsov, Koltsov were open to infection by the heresies, especially Leon Trotsky, Trotsky's, prevalent among the Republic's supporters. NKVD agents sent to Spain were therefore keener on abducting and murdering anti-Stalinists among Republican leaders and International Brigade commanders than on fighting Francisco Franco, Franco. The defeat of the Republic, in Stalin's eyes, was caused not by the NKVD's diversionary efforts, but by the treachery of the heretics.
John Dos Passos later wrote,
I have come to think, especially since my trip to Spain, that civil liberties must be protected at every stage. In Spain I am sure that the introduction of State Political Directorate, GPU methods by the Communists did as much harm as their tank men, pilots and experienced military men did good. The trouble with an all powerful secret police in the hands of fanatics, or of anybody, is that once it gets started there's no stopping it until it has corrupted the whole body politic.
The ranks of the Republican assassination squads included Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (''Ministerium für Staatsicherheit'' – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 u ...
, the future head of the East German Stasi, Ministry of State Security. Walter Janka, a veteran of the Republican forces who remembers him described Mielke's career as follows,
While I was fighting at the front, shooting at the Fascists, Mielke served in the rear, shooting Trotskyites and Anarchists.
In the modern era, death squads, including the Batallón Vasco Español, Triple A (Spain), Triple A, Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL) were illegally set up by officials within the Spanish government to fight ETA (separatist group), ETA. They were active from 1975 until 1987, operating under Spanish Socialist Workers' Party cabinets from 1982.
United Kingdom
During the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland which lasted from the 1960's until the 1990's, numerous accusations of collusion between the British state and Ulster loyalism, Loyalist paramilitaries were made. The Military Reaction Force (MRF), a disbanded British Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom), Intelligence Corps unit which operated undercover in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, was described by a former member as a "legalised death squad". In an interview, another former MRF member stated that "If you had a player who was a well-known shooter who carried out quite a lot of assassinations... then he had to be taken out. [They were] killers themselves, and they had no mercy for anybody."
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), an Irish republican paramilitary organisation, was also accused of operating death squads in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Historians have described the IRA's Internal Security Unit as a death squad, which targeted suspected informers by conducting investigations, interrogating suspects and executing those the IRA thought were guilty of passing on information to British security forces. Prior to any execution carried out by the Internal Security Unit, an ''ad hoc'' court-martial of the suspected informer would take place, and any death sentence passed would need to be ratified by the IRA Army Council in advance.
Yugoslavia
The Srebrenica Massacre, also known as the Srebrenica Genocide, was the July 1995 killing of an estimated 8,000 Bosniaks, Bosniak men and boys, as well as the ethnic cleansing of 1,000–2,000 refugees in the area of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) command responsibility, under the command of General Ratko Mladić during the Bosnian War. In addition to the VRS, a paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions (paramilitary), Scorpions participated in the massacre.
In Potočari, some of the executions were carried out at night under arc lights, and industrial bulldozers then pushed the bodies into mass graves.[Graham Jones]
Srebrenica: A Triumph of Evil
CNN 3 May 2006 According to evidence collected from Bosniaks by French policeman Jean-René Ruez, some were buried alive; he also heard testimony describing Serb forces killing and torturing refugees at will, streets littered with corpses, people committing suicide to avoid having their noses, lips and ears chopped off, and adults being forced to watch the soldiers kill their children.
In 2004, in a unanimous ruling on the "Prosecutor v. Krstić" case, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) located in The Hague ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
.
Human rights groups
Many human rights organisations like Amnesty International are campaigning against extrajudicial punishment along with the United Nations, UN.
See also
*Arbitrary arrest and detention
*Manhunt (military)
*Midnight Man (TV serial), ''Midnight Man'' (TV serial)
*Outlaw
*Salvador Option
*Assassination
*Vigilante
Agencies
*Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar, DIM of Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
*Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, DINA of Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
*''Einsatzgruppen'' of Nazi Germany
*PIDE of Portugal
*Securitate of the Socialist Republic of Romania
*Secretariat of Intelligence, SIDE of Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
*Stasi of East Germany
*National Information Service (Brazil), National Information Service of Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
* SULFA
*ZOMO of the Polish People's Republic
References
Sources
*
Further reading
Death squad: The anthropology of state terror
Jeffrey Sluka (ed), University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999
Death squads in global perspective: Murder with deniability
Bruce Campbell and Arthur Brenner (eds), Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
The political economy of death squads: Toward a theory of the impact of state-sanctioned terror
T David Mason and Dale A Krane, International Studies Quarterly (33: 2), 1989, pp. 175–198
Jallad: Death squads and state terror in South Asia
Tasneem Khalil, Pluto Press, 2015
Secret killings of Assam: The Horror Tales from the Land of Red River and Blue Hills
Mrinal Talukdar, Utpal Borpujari, Kaushik Deka, Nanda Talukdar Foundation, 2009
External links
Escadrons de la mort, l'école française (Death Squads, the French School – video in French, with Spanish subtitles)
Astonishing Discovery of Remains of Guatemalan Death Squad Diary Victims
{{Authority control
Extrajudicial killings by type
Law enforcement units
National security
Political repression
Secret police
Counterterrorism
Paramilitary organizations
Terrorism tactics
Human rights abuses
War crimes by type
Dirty wars
Politicides
Enforced disappearance
State-sponsored terrorism