Editing Death squad (section)

===== Guatemala =====
Throughout the [[Guatemalan Civil War]], 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.<ref>Michael MeClintock, The American Connection, vol. 2, State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala (London: Zed, 1985), pp. 84–85.</ref> 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]] and [[Carlos Arana Osorio]]).<ref>Gabriel Aguilera Peralta, "The Militarization of the State", in Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished History</ref> 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]] and [[Efraín Ríos Montt]], with over 18,000 documented killings in 1982 alone.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ciidh/qr/english/chap4.html |title=Chapter 4: The 1980s |publisher=Shr.aaas.org |date=31 January 1980 |access-date=13 November 2011 |archive-date=5 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130505224859/http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ciidh/qr/english/chap4.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

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."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/14/unholy_trinity/index1.html |title=America's trinity of terrorism |first=Greg |last=Grandin |work=salon.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081013172719/http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/14/unholy_trinity/index1.html |archive-date=13 October 2008 |df=dmy }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs/|title=U.S. POLICY IN GUATEMALA, 1966-1996|work=gwu.edu|access-date=5 November 2011|archive-date=9 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009173122/http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs/|url-status=live}}</ref> 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."<ref>AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, 1981, Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, in: The New York Review of Books, 19 March 1981</ref>

According to a victim's brother, Mirtala Linares "He wouldn't tell us anything; he claimed they hadn't captured [Sergio], 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."<ref>{{cite web|last=Jones|first=Nate|title=Astonishing Discovery of Remains of Guatemalan Death Squad Diary Victims|url=http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/astonishing-discovery-of-remains-of-guatemalan-death-squad-diary-victims/|publisher=NSA Archive|access-date=4 May 2012|date=2011-12-04|archive-date=19 May 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120519212451/http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/astonishing-discovery-of-remains-of-guatemalan-death-squad-diary-victims/|url-status=live}}</ref>