Death squad

A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign. These killings are often conducted in ways meant to ensure the secrecy of the killers' identities, so as to avoid accountability.
Death squads are often, but not exclusively, associated with the violent political repression under dictatorships, totalitarian states and similar regimes. They typically have the tacit or express support of the state, as a whole or in part (see state terrorism). Death squads may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary group or official government units with members drawn from the military or the police. They may also be organized as vigilante groups.
"Extrajudicial killings" are the illegal killing of leading political, trades union, dissidents, and social figures by either the state government, state authorities like the armed forces and police (as in Liberia under Charles G. Taylor), or criminal outfits such as the Italian Mafia.
Extrajudicial killings and death squads are most common in the Middle East (mostly in Iraq) Central America, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, several nations or regions in Equatorial Africa, Jamaica, Kosovo, many parts of South America, Uzbekistan[citation needed], parts of Thailand and in the Philippines.


History


Although the term "death squad" did not rise to notoriety until the activities of such groups in Central and South America during the 1970s and 1980s became widely known, death squads have been employed under different guises throughout history. The term was first used during the Battle of Algiers by Paul Aussaresses.
One of the earliest cases of extrajudicial killings was in Weimar Germany.

Cold war usage

In Southeast Asia, extrajudicial killings were present in the context of the Vietnam War. Nguyễn Văn Lém (referred to as captain Bay Lop) (died 1 February 1968 in Saigon) was a member of the Viet Cong who was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The picture of his death would became one of many an anti-Vietnam War icons in the Western World.
During the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, death squads were used against the Viet Cong cadre as well as supporters in neighbouring countries (notably Cambodia). See also Phoenix Program (also known as Phung Hoang). The Viet Cong also used death squads of their own against civilians for political reasons.
In Latin America, death squads appeared first in Brazil where a group called Esquadrão da Morte (literally "Death Squad") emerged in the 1960s; then death squads apperead in Argentina, and Chile in the 1970s; and later in Central America in the 1980s. Argentina used extrajudicial killings as way of crushing the liberal and communist opposition to the military junta during the 'Dirty war' of the 1970s. Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, 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 for examples.
During the Salvadoran civil war, death squads achieved notoriety when a sniper assassinated Archbishop Óscar Romero during Mass in March 1980. In December 1980, three American nuns, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Maura Clarke, and a lay worker, Jean Donovan, were raped and murdered by a military unit later found to have been acting on specific orders. Death squads were instrumental in killing hundreds of peasants and activists, including such notable priests as Rutilio Grande. Because the death squads involved were found to have been soldiers of the Salvadoran military, which was receiving U.S. funding and training from American advisors during the Carter administration, these events prompted outrage in the U.S. and led to a temporary cutoff in military aid from the Reagan administration[citation needed], although 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 Battalion 316. 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.

Recent use

As of 2010, death squads have continued to be active in several locations, including Chechnya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Iraq, and Sudan, among others.