The culture and politics of state terror and repression in El Salvador

TY - CHAP

T1 - The culture and politics of state terror and repression in El Salvador

AU - Lauria-Santiago, Aldo A.

PY - 2005

Y1 - 2005

N2 - In an attempt to gain an understanding of the phenomenon, the practice of state terror could be seen simply as a result of the confrontation between powerful state-based actors and their opponents-occupying a realm in which the exercise of power by the state's repressive machinery follows a political logic of elimination and suppression. Torture, massacres, beatings, and rapes, then, would all be but side effects of a regime's efforts to remain in power by obliterating its opposition. The practice of state terror, however, also points to the existence of important ideological and cultural dimensions that come to form part of a country's unique political terrain. These cultural, historically structured aspects of the practice of state terror must be examined as part of the causes, contexts, and effects of the phenomenon of state repression. In the context of this volume, the principal idea presented in this chapter holds that explanations of state terror that rely on functional or instrumental arguments alone do not suffice to explain the practice of violent repression, torture, and murder by states and their agents. Until recently, it was these categories that characterized most studies of state terror, violence, and torture in El Salvador. That is, discussions of state terror in the Central American context before the 1990s did not look beyond characterizations of a given regime and the functions of its institutions, considering the state's repressive practices for the most part in the limited context of immediate political conjunctures and confrontations. Although these aspects are necessary elements to recognize in any examination of state violence, they still fail to account for the form that this violence and repression has taken-its national and local, cultural and historical determinants. This chapter will argue that the literature on repression in El Salvador has overlooked important aspects of how the country's history, culture, and local class relations affected the formation of its repressive practices during the early 1980s. This chapter is driven by two motivations. The first is the need to study in comparative perspective one of Latin America's bloodiest campaigns of terror and state-based repression. Second is the need to have a better understanding on its own terms of the origins of this sort of violence, as part of efforts to recover its hidden aspects. 1 We not only need to study the intended goals of official repression but also to contextualize what are often treated as unproblematic, objective, and transparent categories, while making space for the conceptions and ideological constructs of the agents and victims of state-based terror. This endeavor suggests a contextualized definition of terror: state-based repression needs to be interpreted through the definitions, uses, and goals articulated by the terror victims and agents themselves. This approach, similar to that provided by Taylor and Vanden (1982), avoids the formalistic debates of mainstream political science and ascribes greater importance to the local context of the violence. While most considerations by political scientists of state terror and repression get bogged down in definitional, abstract, and circular considerations - with case materials used to test a priori and ahistorical propositions-Taylor and Vanden (1982, 107) propose a contextual approach to the study of state terror and violence: "Instead of addressing the definitional and perceptual problems, we observe the case in its entirety and reserve the right to qualify terrorism on the basis of events." Our challenge is to sketch more clearly than has been the case in the past the cultural-historical formation of the national and regional contexts in which state terror occurs. An emerging literature (initially dominated by political scientists but now also including anthropologists) has begun to provide systematic case-study, comparative, and theoretical examinations of state violence and repression in Latin America. Little in this vein, however, has been published on El Salvador-mostly because before the early 1990s scholars balked at the risks of carrying out field research on repression at the same time that many in El Salvador sought to leave behind the worst aspects of the period of civil war in the 1980s (Sloan, 1984; Taylor and Vanden, 1982; Petras, 1987; Livingstone, 1984; McClintock, 1985; Millet, 1981). The massive state repression that was part of the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala led political scientists to question some of the traditional assumptions about political violence as being instrumental (in part because it was apparent that increased repression, at least under certain conditions, enhanced the ability of rebels and opposition organizations to both recruit for and legitimize their struggles). More recently, however, there have been discussions of how the intense practice of state terror did undermine the long-term ability of rebel organizations to win support in the cities. Nonetheless, the calculus of terror and its impact does belong among the forces and processes that determined the outcome of the revolutionary civil war during the 1980s. In addition, the centrality of state terror to these conflicts has encouraged scholars to question some of the rigid and ahistorical categories commonly relied on in their disciplines. Among political scientists, Brocket (1989) has challenged conventional methods of testing repression as a clearly definable "dependent variable." He argues that traditionally the tendency had been to consider government as a neutral force or, in the words of McCamant (1984, 91), "as an antiseptic process where all is clean and fair." Ironically, after decades of authoritarian rule in much of Latin America and extensive discussions among political scientists about regime type and transitions, the very glue of these regimes-fear, repression, and terror-was long left unexamined. An overview of the literature on the origins and practice of government repression and how it relates to events in El Salvador during the 1970s and 1980s will help us to clarify the problem, while highlighting the more useful aspects of different approaches. The purpose of this review is not to deny the partial validity of these approaches, but to clarify the conceptual space for examining how national and local culture and history might be a necessary part of studying state terror and repression. The literature that provides the foundation for an in-depth examination of state terror in El Salvador can be grouped into five categories. The first group denounces state terror as a violation of human rights as described in international human rights agreements, wartime treaties, and so forth. This literature is fairly straightforward in its orientation and tends to homogenize and dehistoricize the violence itself; its goal has been to end the violations by means of international pressure and/or suspension of the outside support that is held to be morally, politically, or materially responsible for the actions of the Salvadoran government. This literature has usually been written quickly after the occurrence of acts of repression, and it rarely assumes a wide, retrospective sweep. The writings included in this group range from systematic reports on an event or a violator to more participatory narratives of events themselves. They are useful sources when one is seeking deep narratives of the practice and consequences of state repression and terror, but they often do not attempt or are not able to provide contextual information concerning events (America's Watch, 1985; Nairn, 1984; Navarro, 1981; DeYoung, 1981; Hochschild, 1983; Petras, 1980; Guerra, 1979). The most important exceptions to these limitations have been the investigations and reports that resulted from the ending of the civil wars in both Guatemala and El Salvador (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, 2000; Comisión de la Verdad, 1993). These materials provide evidence, numbers, narration, and a human dimension to the practice and results of state terror. However, the narrative, testimonial character of the sources used in this literature tends to foment the assumption that the evidence speaks for itself. Its appeal is based on presumably universal and self-evident moral standards. The second approach examines repression in the context of popular-democratic or revolutionary struggles by various sectors of a population and the local regime's attempts to suppress challenges to its power. Its emphasis is on the conjunctures of the confrontation. Generally functionalist, it attempts to explain violence and repression in terms of the immediate functions of the institutional responses and needs of a threatened regime. This approach assumes a response mechanism, mediated perhaps by other factors, through which repressive agents weigh the need for repression in relation to popular challenges. The violence unleashed by the regime is then seen to be in direct relation to the intensification of the popular challenge. Much of this literature, produced by the Left, activists, and often the victims of repression themselves, glosses over important local and cultural factors in its need to produce a denunciatory-and mobilizing-effect. It is however understandable, for example, why the social and cultural origins of El Mozote as a community were not considered to be of primary importance, when both the Salvadoran and U.S. governments denied the very occurrence of this massacre (Danner, 1994; Binford, 1996; Comisión de la Verdad, 1993). The third group of writings on state terror can be loosely termed "instrumentalist. " Instrumentalist writings purport to uncover the hidden logic and goals of state repression.

AB - In an attempt to gain an understanding of the phenomenon, the practice of state terror could be seen simply as a result of the confrontation between powerful state-based actors and their opponents-occupying a realm in which the exercise of power by the state's repressive machinery follows a political logic of elimination and suppression. Torture, massacres, beatings, and rapes, then, would all be but side effects of a regime's efforts to remain in power by obliterating its opposition. The practice of state terror, however, also points to the existence of important ideological and cultural dimensions that come to form part of a country's unique political terrain. These cultural, historically structured aspects of the practice of state terror must be examined as part of the causes, contexts, and effects of the phenomenon of state repression. In the context of this volume, the principal idea presented in this chapter holds that explanations of state terror that rely on functional or instrumental arguments alone do not suffice to explain the practice of violent repression, torture, and murder by states and their agents. Until recently, it was these categories that characterized most studies of state terror, violence, and torture in El Salvador. That is, discussions of state terror in the Central American context before the 1990s did not look beyond characterizations of a given regime and the functions of its institutions, considering the state's repressive practices for the most part in the limited context of immediate political conjunctures and confrontations. Although these aspects are necessary elements to recognize in any examination of state violence, they still fail to account for the form that this violence and repression has taken-its national and local, cultural and historical determinants. This chapter will argue that the literature on repression in El Salvador has overlooked important aspects of how the country's history, culture, and local class relations affected the formation of its repressive practices during the early 1980s. This chapter is driven by two motivations. The first is the need to study in comparative perspective one of Latin America's bloodiest campaigns of terror and state-based repression. Second is the need to have a better understanding on its own terms of the origins of this sort of violence, as part of efforts to recover its hidden aspects. 1 We not only need to study the intended goals of official repression but also to contextualize what are often treated as unproblematic, objective, and transparent categories, while making space for the conceptions and ideological constructs of the agents and victims of state-based terror. This endeavor suggests a contextualized definition of terror: state-based repression needs to be interpreted through the definitions, uses, and goals articulated by the terror victims and agents themselves. This approach, similar to that provided by Taylor and Vanden (1982), avoids the formalistic debates of mainstream political science and ascribes greater importance to the local context of the violence. While most considerations by political scientists of state terror and repression get bogged down in definitional, abstract, and circular considerations - with case materials used to test a priori and ahistorical propositions-Taylor and Vanden (1982, 107) propose a contextual approach to the study of state terror and violence: "Instead of addressing the definitional and perceptual problems, we observe the case in its entirety and reserve the right to qualify terrorism on the basis of events." Our challenge is to sketch more clearly than has been the case in the past the cultural-historical formation of the national and regional contexts in which state terror occurs. An emerging literature (initially dominated by political scientists but now also including anthropologists) has begun to provide systematic case-study, comparative, and theoretical examinations of state violence and repression in Latin America. Little in this vein, however, has been published on El Salvador-mostly because before the early 1990s scholars balked at the risks of carrying out field research on repression at the same time that many in El Salvador sought to leave behind the worst aspects of the period of civil war in the 1980s (Sloan, 1984; Taylor and Vanden, 1982; Petras, 1987; Livingstone, 1984; McClintock, 1985; Millet, 1981). The massive state repression that was part of the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala led political scientists to question some of the traditional assumptions about political violence as being instrumental (in part because it was apparent that increased repression, at least under certain conditions, enhanced the ability of rebels and opposition organizations to both recruit for and legitimize their struggles). More recently, however, there have been discussions of how the intense practice of state terror did undermine the long-term ability of rebel organizations to win support in the cities. Nonetheless, the calculus of terror and its impact does belong among the forces and processes that determined the outcome of the revolutionary civil war during the 1980s. In addition, the centrality of state terror to these conflicts has encouraged scholars to question some of the rigid and ahistorical categories commonly relied on in their disciplines. Among political scientists, Brocket (1989) has challenged conventional methods of testing repression as a clearly definable "dependent variable." He argues that traditionally the tendency had been to consider government as a neutral force or, in the words of McCamant (1984, 91), "as an antiseptic process where all is clean and fair." Ironically, after decades of authoritarian rule in much of Latin America and extensive discussions among political scientists about regime type and transitions, the very glue of these regimes-fear, repression, and terror-was long left unexamined. An overview of the literature on the origins and practice of government repression and how it relates to events in El Salvador during the 1970s and 1980s will help us to clarify the problem, while highlighting the more useful aspects of different approaches. The purpose of this review is not to deny the partial validity of these approaches, but to clarify the conceptual space for examining how national and local culture and history might be a necessary part of studying state terror and repression. The literature that provides the foundation for an in-depth examination of state terror in El Salvador can be grouped into five categories. The first group denounces state terror as a violation of human rights as described in international human rights agreements, wartime treaties, and so forth. This literature is fairly straightforward in its orientation and tends to homogenize and dehistoricize the violence itself; its goal has been to end the violations by means of international pressure and/or suspension of the outside support that is held to be morally, politically, or materially responsible for the actions of the Salvadoran government. This literature has usually been written quickly after the occurrence of acts of repression, and it rarely assumes a wide, retrospective sweep. The writings included in this group range from systematic reports on an event or a violator to more participatory narratives of events themselves. They are useful sources when one is seeking deep narratives of the practice and consequences of state repression and terror, but they often do not attempt or are not able to provide contextual information concerning events (America's Watch, 1985; Nairn, 1984; Navarro, 1981; DeYoung, 1981; Hochschild, 1983; Petras, 1980; Guerra, 1979). The most important exceptions to these limitations have been the investigations and reports that resulted from the ending of the civil wars in both Guatemala and El Salvador (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, 2000; Comisión de la Verdad, 1993). These materials provide evidence, numbers, narration, and a human dimension to the practice and results of state terror. However, the narrative, testimonial character of the sources used in this literature tends to foment the assumption that the evidence speaks for itself. Its appeal is based on presumably universal and self-evident moral standards. The second approach examines repression in the context of popular-democratic or revolutionary struggles by various sectors of a population and the local regime's attempts to suppress challenges to its power. Its emphasis is on the conjunctures of the confrontation. Generally functionalist, it attempts to explain violence and repression in terms of the immediate functions of the institutional responses and needs of a threatened regime. This approach assumes a response mechanism, mediated perhaps by other factors, through which repressive agents weigh the need for repression in relation to popular challenges. The violence unleashed by the regime is then seen to be in direct relation to the intensification of the popular challenge. Much of this literature, produced by the Left, activists, and often the victims of repression themselves, glosses over important local and cultural factors in its need to produce a denunciatory-and mobilizing-effect. It is however understandable, for example, why the social and cultural origins of El Mozote as a community were not considered to be of primary importance, when both the Salvadoran and U.S. governments denied the very occurrence of this massacre (Danner, 1994; Binford, 1996; Comisión de la Verdad, 1993). The third group of writings on state terror can be loosely termed "instrumentalist. " Instrumentalist writings purport to uncover the hidden logic and goals of state repression.

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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=73149086302&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9780292706477

SP - 85

EP - 114

BT - When States Kill

PB - University of Texas Press

ER -