DEATH SQUADS AS PARALLEL FORCES: URUGUAY, OPERATION CONDOR, AND THE UNITED STATES

Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2007 by McSherry, J Patrice

Operation Condor's cross-border death squads represented a fearsome new phenomenon in Latin America: a supranational strike force of the national security states. Condor was characterized by its specialization in cross-border and foreign operations against exiles; its multinational character; its precise and selective targeting of dissidents; its parastatal structure; its advanced technology; and its use of criminal syndicates and extremist organizations to carry out operations.25 Condor was a top-secret component of the hemispheric military system. The Condor system's key members were the military regimes of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil, laterjoined by Ecuador and Peru in less central roles. Condor also enjoyed organizational, intelligence, financial, and technological sustenance from the United States, acting as a secret partner and sponsor.

Declassified documents show that top U.S. leaders and national security officials considered the Condor system an effective weapon in the hemispheric anticommunist crusade. Key branches of the U.S. state, namely the executive, the State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA, were not only closely informed of Condor operations but also supplied significant assistance and sustenance to the Condor system, trained, advised, and funded its personnel, and actively collaborated with some of Condor's extralegal seizures of exiled political activists. The CIA provided state-of-the-art computers to the Condor system and U.S. security agencies provided intelligence and cooperation. Condor was granted authorized access to the U.S. continental communications system housed in the Panama Canal Zone, vastly upgrading Condor's ability to track and seize individuals.26 Uruguay was one of the Condor system's most zealous protagonists.

In sum, the Cold War counterinsurgency regime in the hemisphere was a continental effort led by Washington, in conjunction with anticommunist elites and military forces, to prevent or reverse structural change and block leftists from coming to power. The use of parallel forces and illegal methods was a strategic choice, legitimized by national security doctrine and by concepts of irregular warfare. Overall, counterinsurgency warfare-conducted in the shadows, using parallel forces and secret armies operating outside lawful state action-was a means to demobilize popular movements, terrorize society, and solidify military and elite power.

URUGUAY: THE PATH TO SOCIAL CONFLICT

For generations preceding the Cold War Uruguay had been famously known as the Switzerland of South America due to its longstanding social democracy, its historic prosperity, its fine education and heath care systems, and its peaceful society.27 Unlike many of the other Latin American militaries, Uruguay's armed forces (like Chile's) had not used violence or repression against the population; they were constitutionalist and mainly carried out civic tasks. The political system was open and there was a full spectrum of political tendencies. Along with the traditional Blanco and Colorado parties, the Communist Party, which was legal until 1975, played a strong role in Uruguay's labor unions and also garnered a small percentage of the vote. But Uruguay began to face difficult times in the 1950s. International prices for Uruguay's products fell and the landowning elite resisted modernization of agriculture. Right-wing sectors of the landed oligarchy bitterly resented President José Batlle's social democratic policies. In 1950 an anticommunist radio personality named Benito Nardone formed the Federal League for Rural Action to oppose the welfare state. The Blanco Party, representing ranching and agro interests, won power in 1958 and began to implement free-market policies; Uruguay's first accord with the International Monetary Fund was signed in 1960. Foreign capital increasingly displaced the state in key industrial sectors. Nardone went on to become president of the country in 1960-61-and he was secretly a CIA "agent of influence."28