BY LISA HAUGAARD
On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released to the public seven manuals prepared by the US military and used between 1987 and 1991 for intelligence training in Latin America and at the School of the Americas.
From start to finish, six of the seven army manuals are how-to-guides on repressive techniques. There are few mentions of democracy, human rights or the rule of law. Instead, there are detailed techniques for infiltrating social movements, interrogating suspects, surveillance, maintaining military secrecy, recruiting and retaining spies, and controlling the population.
In the name of defending democracy, the manuals advocate profoundly undemocratic methods. The methods they advocate disregard the differences between armed insurgencies and lawful political and civic opposition — an attitude that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Latin American civilians.
The counter-intelligence manual, for example, defines as potential counter-intelligence targets "local or national political party teams, or parties that have goals, beliefs or ideologies contrary or in opposition to the National Government", or "teams of hostile organisations whose objective is to create dissention or cause restlessness among civilian population in the area of operations".
Throughout, the manuals highlight refugees and displaced persons as possible subversives to be monitored. They describe universities as breeding grounds for terrorists, and identify priests and nuns as terrorists. They advise militaries to infiltrate youth groups, student groups, labour unions, political parties and community organisations.
Even electoral activity is suspect: The insurgents "can resort to subverting the government by means of elections in which the insurgents cause the replacement of an unfriendly government official to one favourable to their cause". "Insurgent activity" can include funding campaigns and participating in political races as candidates.
One of the most pernicious passages in Combat Intelligence lists ways to identify guerilla presence.
"Indicators of an imminent attack by guerillas" include demonstrations by minority groups, reluctance by civilians including children to associate with US or local troops, celebrations of national or religious festivals, or the presence of strangers.
"Indicators of control by guerillas" over a certain civilian population include the refusal to provide intelligence to government forces or the construction of new houses.
Indications that insurgents are conducting "psychological operations" include accusations of government corruption, circulating petitions, attempts to discredit the government or armed forces, calling government leaders US puppets, urging youth to avoid the draft, demonstrations or strikes, or accusations of police or army brutality.
That these manuals were used until the mid-1990s in this hemisphere is hardly shocking. They merely confirm what many long knew about US support for repressive militaries in Latin America. They prove that the United States not only provided guns and the money for repression; the US also supplied the textbooks.
[Abridged from Declassified Army and CIA Manuals Used in Latin America from the Latin America Working Group.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 5, 2001.
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