INTRODUCTION
As the United States battled revolutionary communist guerrillas in Vietnam on the center stage in the world news in the 1960's, other revolutionary forces worked fervently to destabilize oppressive Latin American authoritarian regimes. As guerilla activity spread across Central America from Guatemala (1954), to Cuba (1959 & 1961), and the Dominican Republic (1965), South American revolutionary leaders, such as Che Guevara and Carlos Marighella, as well as the guerrilla organization of the Tupamaros, watched intently learning much from the failures and success of their revolutionary brothers to the north.
Each leader or group adopted the revolutionary struggle in their South American countries in efforts to destabilize and overthrow the authoritarian regimes. The ultimate goal of each of the movements was basically the same, but their methods varied dramatically. Each movement had one thing in common however: failure. Why did the communist guerrillas loose? Each group modified the guerrilla movement to "fit" their country. Each group had at least a portion of the civilian population's support. James Kohl and John Litt attempt to answer that question as well as compare the differences between each of the guerrilla movements.
Their book, Urban Guerrilla Warfare in Latin America, was written near the end of the communist struggles in 1974. Kohl and Litt's intent was to provide the historical background for three urban guerrilla movements the media glosses over as they rush to show the world car bombs, assassinations, and kidnaping. They attempt to explore the "origins, development, strategy, and tactics of urban guerrilla warfare in Latin America (p. 1-2)."
The intent of this review is to focus primarily on the urban tactics of guerrilla warfare and the tools the each government used to defeat their respective insurgency. The final objective is to analyze those tactics to provide lessons learned from their successes to the leadership of the United States and Iraq in order to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Obviously, one could assume that it would be a stretch to compare Latin American communist movements to the terrorist activities seen in Iraq today. The tactics used by each, however, are very similar if not identical. Car bombings, assassinations, kidnaping, are not wholly specific to the Middle East. Scale and indiscrimanancy seem to be the biggest differential factors in the tactics. It is the tactics and techniques used to defeat the insurgency this review wishes to address.
This review will summarize the three sections of the book and highlight the insurgencies in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. The opening chapter is the most important and the majority of the summary is dedicated to it. It will also provide an analysis of each section and highlight both urban guerrilla tactics and the methods each government used in suppressing insurgencies. It will also provide a summary of the lessons learned and feasibility for use in Iraq.
SUMMARY
In their opening chapter, Kohl and Litt provide the foundation of their theory of urban guerrilla and provide background information on the U.S. interaction with the insurgencies in Cuba, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. They describe the post-WWII confrontations between the CIA/U.S. and each of the actions against revolutionary reform in Latin America. Highlighting the "successes" of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, and the "failure" of U.S. foreign policy in the Bay of Pigs and Cuba, the authors develop the growth and death of rural guerrilla movements and the transformations to the urban guerrilla activities across Latin-America.
Kohl and Litt show the growth of the "foco", or nucleus of the rural guerrilla movements, highlighting leaders such as Che Guevara and Régis Debray that developed their theories of rural movements providing "the small motor which moves the large motor of revolution (p.6)." They also note the deterioration of foquismo in the failure of rural revolutionary movements on some seventeen occasions from Argentina in 1959 to the Dominican Republic in 1973 peaking with the death of Che in 1967. The elimination of the rural guerrilla was attributed to American technological advances and CIA/Special Forces units working with local forces to quell rural activities. These actions pressured the guerrilla movements into urban areas that would negate the technology and eliminate the use of American armed forces (p.10).
Kohl and Litt trace U.S. hegemony from the early 1800's and the Monroe Doctrine from mere rhetoric to reality in an attempt to show American patterns of intervention in their southern neighbors' affairs (p.11). This activity culminates, in their view, with the use of US forces, CIA, and local police training in order to quell the insurgencies across the region and continue the stable authoritarian regimes.
Urban Guerrilla Warfare
STRATEGY - The strategy of the urban guerrilla develops "in contrast to earlier strategies of revolutionary struggle, namely, urban insurrection, Maoism, and foquismo (p.15)." Kohl and Litt prescribe that the rural or mass struggles should not be in whole discounted; highlighting the successes of the urban insurrection of the Russian Revolution and Communist China's successes with Maoist models of guerrilla war. They claim that the major difference between foquismo and the other forms of rural warfare is the role of the Communist Party, stating that communism became an issue after Castro assumed power and other rural communist movements following that were quickly suppressed.
The authors state that the similarities of foquismo and the urban guerrilla remain in the hurdles that they need to overcome. The primary target is the legitimacy of the regime and the urban guerrilla has the advantage of population density (access to weapons, autos, money and mass anonymity) and proximity to the enemy (hours and hundreds of miles in rural uprisings versus minutes and miles for the urban). The greatest strategic problem inherent in urban guerrilla warfare is controlling the level of violence (p.18). The urban guerilla's use of violence must be "measured, clear, and precise" as not to isolate the movement from the masses (p.18). The regime has almost unlimited capacity for violence and can be directed at mass organizations or the armed underground. The regimes' difficulty in distinguishing between the movement and mass population serves as deterrence for guerrilla recruiting which further isolates the urban movement. Torture and death squads provide the regime the ability "to obtain information, to dissuade guerrillas and their supporters, and sometimes indulge sadism in the police-military apparatus (p.19)."
ORGANZATION - Underground networks surrounded by secrecy act as the model for organizing urban guerrillas. Compartmentalization, according to the authors, is the key to urban guerrilla effectiveness. The ability to act independently without knowledge of sister cell activities, but understanding the movement's politics, strategy, and orientation provides the basic building blocks for the movements (p.21). The government counters this organization with the use of "infiltrators, defectors, informers (whether deliberate or accidental), and tortured revolutionaries. The cycle of arrest and torture is the foundation of counterguerrilla operations (p.21)."
Compartmentalization can be considered the downfall of the urban movement however. The inability to mass on a particular strategic goal can lead to disintegration of the movement. "A hierarchy can easily mobilize all units for action, but is vulnerable to decapitation," as seen in the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) movement in the 1990's (p.22). Compartmentalization can lead to fractionalization of the movement as well as competition among the divergent cells acting without central direction. As a result, the organization of the movement can be its downfall due to the necessity to maintain secrecy and the inability to coordinate efforts.
ACTION - Similar actions at different times can lead to vastly different outcomes. All actions must be analyzed in terms of the "target, their audience, and their context" in order to identify if the action will be seen as justified in the eyes of the population (p.23). A kidnaping may be seen as either extreme or justified depending on the target and the social context. A bank robbery may expose the corrupt regime or merely infuriate the people by their loss of personal earnings.
The guerrilla movement must take actions with regard to "qualitative leaps (p.25)." Strategic planning on behalf of the guerrillas must involve correct assessment of each action in order to maintain the appropriate amount of public support. Premature leaps can expose the organization or extreme leaps may be seen as excessive loose the support of the people.
PROSPECTS - "Urban guerrilla warfare can contribute to the fall of a government and it can transform a conjuncture from crisis to breaking point, but urban guerrilla warfare has yet to win (p.25)." "Rural armed struggle, the most prevalent strategy in the last decade, can threaten an export economy, harass a government, and force an army to emerge from the cities and disperse its force. In Latin America the result has always been defeat (p.26)."
Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina
Kohl and Litt use Brazil as the first proof of their theory. Highlighting the regionalism and uneven development back to the establishment of a Portuguese colony, they explain how populism developed across the country which divided the political ranks and eventually established a dictatorship in 1964 led by General Castelo Branco. The urban guerrilla warfare spread as a result of the authoritarian regime and came to the forefront with the kidnaping of the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Burke Elbrick. 1 The authoritarian crackdown on the movement following the abduction involved torture and death squads. After the release of 15 revolutionaries in exchange for the Ambassador, the demise of the guerrillas began as the military arrested nearly 2000 guerrillas and assassinated the guerrilla leader Carlos Marighella. The chapter concludes with a detailed timeline and excerpts from writings by Carlos Marighella that detail the structure, characteristics, and principles of the Brazilian guerrilla organization. The chapter also includes the "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla" by Carlos Marighella that was written in 1969 and used as a training manual for the ALN and other guerrilla groups operating in Brazil during the movement.
Uruguay, once known as the Switzerland of South America, fell from a solid democracy into an authoritarian regime in the mid 1960's. Economic deterioration and production stagnation began to impact every portion of society as the Tupamaros movement gained momentum. The movement seen as a romantic revolution was initially undermined by the government gaining control over the press and eventually spiraled into the abolition of Congress and municipal councils. Once the military assumed control of the political arm of the government, the Tupamaro movement continued to gain popularity and almost toppled the regime, but the military made a strategic victory with the capture of nine senior Tupamaro members. This secured the victory by the military regime and as in the case of Brazil, torture and death squads contributed to the success of the regime. Defections, infiltrations, informants, and tortured revolutionaries again played a key role in the suppression of the urban guerrilla movement. This chapter concludes with a detailed timeline as well as interviews with several Tupamaro members, and overviews of major Tupamaro operations against the regime.
Argentina' s political history in the 1900's is marked by Colonel Juan Perón and his lengthy hold on power beginning with cabinet positions, to the Vice-Presidency, to the Presidency, and later, from exile. His first administration solidified Perónism and divided the politics into pro or anti-Peró nism. Turmoil followed Peró n's outster with a series of military interventions and eventually solidified the authoritarian regime under General OnganĦa. The authoritarian control led to sporadic guerrilla foco movements in the late 1950's and early 1960's allegedly involving Che Guevara. The rise of the urban movements in Brazil and Uruguay along with the defeat of the many foco movements across Argentina and death of Che Guevara as well as the urban centered working class dictated that the next guerilla movement be urban in nature. Assassinations and kidnaping marked the guerrilla movements that bore ever increasing pressure on the regime. Working class and guerrilla pressure forced the government to return to democratic elections which brought the return of Juan Perón to power after 17 years of exile. Perón and the urban guerrilla's articulated their divergent paths, and the initial stages of the second Perón administration saw the urban guerrilla's intensifying their kidnaping and assassinations while the regime stepped up its anti-guerrilla campaigns. This chapter concludes with many interviews and statements by the different guerrilla and pro-Perón sectors as well as a detailed timeline of the guerrilla and governmental actions.
ANALYSIS
Kohl and Litt provide an excellent description of an era in Western Hemispheric history that was overshadowed by the U.S. activity in Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. The activities of both the communist guerrilla movements and the attempts of local governments supported by U.S. interests to suppress the movements bring new light upon American anti-communism efforts in the heart of the cold war.
The differences in Latin American guerrilla activities as compared to that of the Iraqi insurgency are numerous. Beginning with the lack of weapons and resources constraining the guerrilla activities, Iraqi insurgency were left with wide open arms rooms and ammunition storage bunkers to exploit prior to their growth in effectiveness having a virtual endless supply of arms. Iraqi insurgency also seems to be a mixture of foreign and local fighters as the guerrilla movements in Latin America spawned from internal organizations with limited input from outside forces.
Difference s in organization are also evident in Iraq as we see an external insurgent structure overlaid onto anti-imperialism sentiment and a planned post-regime fall of insurgency battling a nascent Iraqi police and military force and an external army trying to establish security. Latin American guerrilla activity established itself in the country-side and urban areas against an established authoritarian regime that eventually controlled the monopoly of force.
Political circumstances are obvious as the authoritarian regimes in Latin America controlled access to the media and the established regime could make "qualitative leaps" in the use of force as necessary to defeat the insurgency. Iraqi governmental establishments may prevent the escalation of the use of torture as the government attempts to establish legitimacy. The communist movements in Latin America were battling a pre-established, legitimate government over purely political view with a focused goal of political change versus mere destabilization of a newly formed government.
The similarities seem to be only in the types of activities engaged by both insurgencies. Assassinations, car bombings, and kidnappings are the primary means of activities by both insurgents. The communist movements seemed to focus against the political might of the authoritarian regime, as the Iraqi insurgency appears to be indiscriminant attempting to spiral the country into chaos. The end result of the guerrilla movements in Latin America transformed into isolation from the masses.
Following the isolation theory, the Iraqi insurgency will eventually isolate itself as the mass of people become tired of the assassinations and violence, as did the masses in Latin America. We should see overt activity by the population as they identify the terrorist outsiders to local authorities. Local authorities will continue to gather information by means of infiltrators, defectors, informers, and tortured insurgents as they establish and solidify their monopoly of force. The fact that the majority of the insurgency is non-Iraqi will aid the regime in establishing legitimacy and it will eventually be seen as the answer to cope with the foreign extremists. The extreme violence used by the Iraqi insurgency will, like its Latin American predecessors, isolate the movement which will bring about the defeat of the insurgent forces.
CONCLUSION
The bad news is that the guerrilla movements against an established authoritarian regime in Latin America lasted between five to ten years. The Iraqi insurgency is going against a political regime that is trying to establish legitimacy as well as quell insurgency. The length of time for active insurgency against the Iraqi regime could be lengthened considerably. The good news is that the insurgency in Iraqi will eventually be defeated by the Iraqi regime, if history is our guide. The use of torture and death squads will likely be used to subdue the Iraqi insurgency as Middle Eastern capacity for violence is greater than current limits in the United States. This use of force could, however, provide hurdles to regime legitimacy in the eyes of the world.
Semantics and definitions are not addressed in this review. The guerrilla movements in Latin America in the 60's are obviously defined differently than the terrorist activity in Iraq today. Definitions of terrorism and guerrilla have purposely been left out of this analysis as it would consume the majority of the analysis portion of this review. Focusing on the tactics used by government and the insurgency is the primary concern. The goals of the respective insurgencies are obviously different as well; the tactics are similar and comparable.
In conclusion, this book review has highlighted the main points of urban guerrilla activity in Latin America as stated by the authors James Kohl and John Litt. This article has observed guerrilla activity in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina beginning at mid-century and has traced their communist movements to their loss of impact in the eyes of the population. Lastly, we have identified the differences and similarities between the insurgent movements in Iraq and Latin America. It has also provided historical aspects as to the reasons the insurgency in Iraq will eventually succumb to governmental forces. The activities in Iraq today, while spectacular in nature, will fall as the population begins to stand up for its safety and the regime establishes control across the nation that will allow peace to be restored to the proud people of Iraq, just as peace is observed throughout Latin America today.
1. This movement was documented in a 1997 film by director Bruno Barreto called Four Days in September. BACK