Zech ISA Draft

Counter-Terrorizing:
The Use of Torture in Counterterrorism Campaigns
Steven T. Zech
Department of Political Science, University of Washington, Seattle, USA Abstract State actors, insurgent groups, and civilian self-defense forces all used torture during Peru's internal armed conflict from 1980-2000. Perpetrators may use torture to elicit confessions, to collect information, to punish, or to intimidate their ward. In this paper I assess several logics behind the use of torture to better understand the process behind establishing torture as common practice during counterterrorism campaigns despite international and domestic legal obligations to protect human rights. I examine torture during Perus internal armed conflict and provide quantitative analysis of torture incidents perpetrated by state security forces. Furthermore, I examine specific incidents of torture to evaluate and illustrate the different motivations for torture use. I draw heavily from testimonies collected by Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission housed in central Lima. I also rely on personal interviews carried out in the Junn and Ayacucho regions of Peru. Keywords Terrorism, Counterterrorism, Torture, Peru, Sendero Luminoso

Paper presented at the 2014 International Studies Association annual conference in Toronto, Canada Panel: Human Rights and Civil Conflict Saturday, March 29, 8:15 AM - 10:00 AM

Zech ISA Draft Torture is indeed contrary to every relevant international law, including the laws of war. No other practice except slavery is so universally and unanimously condemned in law and human convention.1 Introduction In 1984 a young girl disappeared from the Mama Clara secondary school located in the Huanta district of Peru. The students mother recalls that, They arrived at the school in an armored vehicle. It was the time when everyone was leaving and they took my daughter, a teacher, and another student by force. People told me that the armored vehicle went to the military base.2 The womans son, a seventeen year old high school student, visited the military base afterward to make inquiries into his sisters disappearance. The soldiers would not allow her son to enter the base. They insulted him, mistreated him, and refused to provide any information about his sister. Her son refused to give up and returned to the base day after day until the soldiers detained him as well. The woman went to the base to ask why they had arrested her son. She received similar treatment. At the military base they treated me bad. They insulted me and said, Old wretch, youre no longer simply bothering us and if you dont get out of here were going to disappear you too.3 The woman did not report the disappearance of her daughter at the time because she was afraid, could not trust the authorities, and few people would listen. She searched the fields and ravines in the surrounding areas alongside the relatives of other victims. Twenty five soldiers occupied a large home nearby and she could hear the screams of young girls being raped in a room off to the side of the home. The victims relatives were helpless to do anything in the face of arbitrary detentions, torture, and sexual violence and the woman could not help but think that her daughter had suffered a similar fate as the screaming girls behind the closed doors. The soldiers did eventually release her son after she convinced a teacher to intercede with the police on her behalf. While in custody, the military punched, kicked, and tortured her son before setting him free. He never recovered from the experience. His mistreatment while detained left him mentally and physically damaged. His mother explained that to this day, Hes not right in the head and his health is very poor. He failed to finish his studies, never had a family, and had to

1 2

Henry Shue, "Torture," Philosophy & Public Affairs. 7/2 (Winter 1978), p. 124. Testimony 300552. Found in the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation (CVR) archives housed at the Defensora del Pueblo in downtown Lima. All translations from Spanish to English are done by the author. 3 Ibid.

Zech ISA Draft move away from Huanta under threat. She no longer has any contact with her son and the disappearance of her daughter left her traumatized and consumed by sadness. Violent dissent in a country makes torture more likely and more difficult to stop.4 Aside from the obvious negative effects on victims, the use of torture in counterinsurgency campaigns strips the government, the police, and the armed forces of their legal and moral authority. Human rights abuses undermine the rule of law and can generate sympathy and support for armed actors that challenge the state. So, why do states use torture during internal armed conflict? I begin the paper by defining key concepts. Next, I identify numerous motivations to use torture and I describe the potential logic behind each motivation. Understanding the myriad motivations behind torture as part of a counterinsurgency campaign can aid in curtailing its use. I describe and analyze actual torture use in Peru using quantitative data and then assess each logic using specific incidents. I provide descriptive statistics concerning variation in the frequency and methods of tortur. I examine torture during Perus internal armed conflict to identify motivations and to understand the process behind establishing torture as common practice. Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Torture Terrorism and Counterterrorism Despite the contested nature of the terrorism concept, scholars generally agree on several key criteria for a terrorism definition. Terrorism is a fear inspiring action aimed at an audience using actual violence or the credible threat of violence. Acts of terror target random or symbolic victims with counter-normative violence (i.e. unconventional time, place, or target) and seek to disorientate or gain the compliance of an adversary.5 Terrorism is a tactic, one potential violent strategy that actors may adopt to achieve their political, social, or economic goals. Counterterrorism is the use of preemptive action or deterrence strategies to eliminate or minimize terrorist threats. Counterterrorism efforts might involve either proactive or defensive policies.6 A proactive policy involves preemptive action such as directly targeting terrorist actors, policing and intelligence gathering, or freezing assets that fund terrorist operations. A defensive policy involves deterrence strategies to limit or restrain particular actions of an
4

Courtenay Ryals Conrad and Will H. Moore, "What Stops the Torture?" American Journal of Political Science 54/2 (2010), pp. 459-476. 5 On defining terrorism see Alex P. Schmid and Albert J. Jongman, Political Terrorism (Amsterdam: NorthHolland Pub. Co. 1988), Ch. 1; Leonard Weinberg, Ami Pedahzur, and Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler, The Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence 16/4 (2004), pp. 777-794. 6 Daniel G. Arce M. and Todd Sandler, "Counterterrorism: a Game-Theoretic Analysis." The Journal of Conflict Resolution : a Quarterly for Research Related to War and Peace 49/2 (2005), pp. 183-200.

Zech ISA Draft adversary. These strategies decrease the likelihood of a successful attack or impose additional costs on perpetrators.7 Alternatively, one might adopt a more literal counterterrorism definition as "terror to fight terror."8 Actors use torture as a means to deter opponents with fear. They torture to counter-terrorize the opposition. In this paper I identify and evaluate numerous motivations that contribute to our understanding of how and why states use torture as part of a deterrence strategy to combat insurgent violence. Torture Like terrorism, torture is a highly contested concept. I define torture as the intentional and systematic infliction of physical or psychological torment on detained individuals. My definition differs from many others in that I do not include criteria concerning perpetrator identity or motivation.9 These factors are independent from the act of torture itself. State officials and nonstate actors alike can torture those under their control. Perpetrators may torture to elicit confessions, to collect information, to punish, or to intimidate their ward. But, the motivation to employ torture is an empirical puzzle that differs within and across cases, independent from identifying a torture act. Academic research suggests numerous reasons why actors resort to torture to eliminate security threats. First, perpetrators may use torture to collect information and gather intelligence.10 Torture serves a function. Suspected terrorist or insurgent actors can provide crucial operational information to aid security forces in combating threats to the state. During crises some states use torture as a coercive tool and justify their actions based on conditions of extreme emergency. The ticking bomb argument would challenge an absolute prohibition on the use of torture.11 The argument suggests a utility logic and that under exceptional circumstances the state should employ coercive interrogation techniques if they help to prevent an attack. Actors justify torture as a necessary evil to save lives. As part of this process, torture

Todd Sandler and Walter Enders, "An economic perspective on transnational terrorism." European Journal of Political Economy 20/2 (2004), pp. 301-316. 8 J. Patrice McSherry, Counterterror Wars and Human Rights: From Operation Condor to the Present, NACLA Report on the Americas 42/6 (Nov/Dec, 2009), pp. 10-14. 9 For example, see Darius M. Rejali. Torture and democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 35. Rejali begins with a limited definition and then explores factors that complicate a universal torture concept. The definition provided within the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture includes motivations as part of the torture definition. 10 Ruth Blakeley, "Why Torture?" Review of International Studies. 33/3 (2007), pp. 373-394. 11 Jamie Mayerfeld,, "In Defense of the Absolute Prohibition of Torture." Public Affairs Quarterly. 22/2 (2008), pp. 109-128.

Zech ISA Draft practitioners can also implement a learned helplessness approach to shock their ward into compliance and docility by breaking their will through cruelty. Apart from any utility and information-gathering, a target populations armed agents may respond to terrorist violence with their own terror tactics, effectively counter-terrorizing their opponents. Torture demonstrates power and control. Actors use torture to intimidate suspected insurgents to deter violent acts. Torture in the shadows may not always have the desired effect. A state can use punitive violence so that target audiences (i.e. suspected terrorists or sympathizers) witness state brutality and understand that continued insurgent action will escalate the conflict and bring further retaliatory acts. States use torture as a communication strategy. Armed state actors reason that a democratic state dedicated to maintaining the rule of law will not inspire fear and they use torture to intimidate their opponent so as to deter terrorist violence and demonstrate resolve. Armed state actors take off the gloves and commit acts of torture, apply indiscriminate violence, and disappear suspected insurgents to signal the lengths they are willing to go to defeat an insurgency. States also use torture as a form of punishment. While a logic of intimidation aims to deter broader insurgent violence by a collective audience, state actors also focus their efforts on individual actors to discipline their wards. Torturers seek to condition victims to abandon participation in a movement. They use pain, humiliation, and fear as a means to communicate correct behavior. Torture physically and mentally destroys suspected militants. The desire for revenge can also motivate state actors to use torture. Armed state actors who seek to even the score will torture captives in response to acts of insurgent violence. Violence during internal armed conflict often spirals out of control as groups respond to violent action with a tit-for-tat strategy. The torture balances out the violence perpetrated against their own friends and comrades with targets of opportunity in their custody. Similarly, actors may also torture as an act of impotence. The parties actually responsible for violence against the state often remain elusive during asymmetric conflicts. Detainees serve as proxy targets when their captors cannot engage with clandestine insurgents who commit acts of violence. The torturers substitute targets and take action in moments when other courses of action are not possible. Finally, torture may also serve as an affirmation of identity. Torture helps to reinforce the boundaries of identity categories that define in-groups and out-groups. The act of torture clarifies who the us and them are during armed conflict. Armed state actors in conflict zones may 5

Zech ISA Draft torture as a credible commitment to the counterinsurgency campaign. Torture and other human rights abuses can establish trust and solidarity amongst the soldiers during a conflict when infiltration by insurgent sympathizers becomes common. Furthermore, torture contributes to and facilitates a dehumanization process crucial to many forms of violent action. Dehumanizing language and torture emerge simultaneously during identity construction as rhetoric justifies and legitimizes torture use and state actors overcome dissonant emotions associated with counternormative violence such as torture. In addition to addressing the question as to why actors may torture, I also evaluate how actors carry out these brutal acts. In his seminal work Torture and Democracy, Darius Rejali expertly surveys many conditions under which states use torture and identifies the varied forms these acts of extralegal violence take on. He identifies cases of clean torture, where states use stealth techniques to commit acts of torture and avoid detection in the face of potential repercussions from outside observers. I evaluate Rejalis claims in the context of internal armed conflict and a state counterinsurgency campaign. Terror and Counterterror in Peru Sendero Luminoso initiated armed struggle in Peru in 1980 during their transition from military rule to democracy. Philosophy professor Abimael Guzmn, along with a handful of educators and university students, led a violent campaign against any actor positioned to challenge their revolutionary program. The population also suffered at the hands of state security forces during a heavy-handed counterinsurgency campaign. The police and military commonly brutalized, tortured, and murdered insurgent actors as well as civilians. Although civilians were most commonly caught in the middle of violent confrontations between insurgents and armed state actors, the general public also perpetrated opportunistic violent acts or armed themselves to collectively defend their communities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) estimates that over 69,000 Peruvians died during the twenty-year span between 1980 and 2000, with Sendero and the MRTA responsible for about half of the victims and the armed forces and civilian self-defense responsible for the other half.12

12

Comisin de Verdad y Reconciliacin (CVR). Informe Final, Anexo 2: Estimacin del total de victimas (Lima: CVR 2003). CVR Informe Final documents can be found at http://www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/index.php.

Zech ISA Draft Insurgent Actors Sendero Luminosos violent strategies varied by region and changed across time as the conflict progressed. Early acts of violence predominately targeted symbols of power as insurgent actors sought to highlight social and economic injustice and the inability of the state to address the peoples needs. Sendero also sought to provoke the state into overreaction and the state did in fact arrive on the scene as a brutal occupying force. Insurgents primarily used selective violence to target rural government officials and landowners at first, but later began to target other civilians indiscriminately. Sendero Luminoso committed especially brutal acts of violence that included torture, beheading, mutilation, castration, disemboweling, and human bonfires. Their victims included men, women, and children, young and old, anyone that stood in the way of the revolution.13 During different periods of violence, Sendero tortured to punish, intimidate, control, and obtain information.14 Many witnesses suggest that Sendero only tortured authorities and exploiters during community popular justice trials in the early days of the conflict. But, later on, Sendero commonly abused civilians and tortured and cut off the ears of state security forces before they executed them.15 For example, in August of 1982 a group of young Sendero militants arrived in Chilcas, a district located in the La Mar province of Ayacucho. Among the militants was Edith Lagos, a charismatic revolutionary icon who died the following month at the age of nineteen.16 The militants arrived in Chilcas in the afternoon and rang the church bell to round up the people for a meeting. A small contingent grabbed one victim from his home, took him to the meeting, and forced him to his knees in front of the community. They blindfolded him and cut off his hair. They accused him of being a local abusive political boss for the reactionary authorities. They made him hold his hands together where they burned various papers. When he moved his hands
13

Cynthia McClintock, Revolutionary Movements in Latin America: El Salvadors FMLN & Perus Shining Path (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 1998), p. 68. 14 CVR. Informe Final, Tomo VI, Captulo 1.4. La tortura y los tratos crueles, inhumanos o degradantes, pp. 193196. 15 Gustavo Montenegro Astupuma, Cmo y por qu fue. In Para no olvidar: testimonios sobre la violencia poltica en el Per, eds. Jorge Bracamonte, Beatriz Duda, and Gonzalo Portocarrero Maisch (Lima, Per: Red para el Desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales en el Per 2003), pp. 35-52. 16 Well before dying, Edith Lagos had touched the fibers from which myth is woven among certain groups of poor people. The image of the polite rebel, the romantic bandit. That arises from almost any civil conflict was in this case a woman. There was nothing romantic about Guzmn or his old guard. Perhaps because of this, a collective longing for a tragic figure in this rebellion had focused on Edith Lagos. Some claim that almost 30,000 people attended the funeral procession in Ayacucho, though this may be an exaggeration. Gustavo Gorriti Ellenbogen, The Shining Path: a history of the millenarian war in Peru (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1999), p. 240.

Zech ISA Draft they whipped him. They sacked his store and home and divided the goods up amongst the people. He begged Edith not to kill him and said that he knew her parents. In the end he was shackled and given thirty-five lashes.17 The Sendero militants tortured the victim to demonstrate the consequences for providing support to the old order. Sendero torture and violence reflected a terrorism strategy. The militants used torture to inspire fear among potential state supporters in pursuit of their political objectives. Torture served to punish the victim, but the principle objective was to communicate with a broader audience and to further their revolutionary goals. Another witness, whose father was a community leader during the early years of the conflict, remembers the terrorists threatening his family. One day they came for his father because he had resisted. They took him up into the hills away from their home to meet with a high-ranking Sendero commander. The militants tormented him psychologically, slit his throat, and removed his heart.18 Sendero members left evidence of torture and extreme brutality everywhere they went. Sometimes these actors left written messages on the mutilated bodies of their victims. For example, in March of 1990 a group of Senderistas grabbed two university students who went out to find candles during one of the frequent blackouts near Huancayo in Junn. They bound the two victims and took them to an open field to torture them. The perpetrators beat the faces and heads of their victims until they died and left a sign stating, Snitches die like this.19 Sendero Luminoso left the same sign on hundreds of victims. In the days leading up to municipal elections, insurgents often took local candidates and officials from their homes to torture and kill them and then displayed their bodies publicly with a similar sign. These acts of violence aimed to punish those who challenged their political objectives while simultaneous deterring collaboration with the state or local civilian self-defense forces.20 Civilian Actors Civilian actors also committed acts of torture. Civilian self-defense forces became an important third party to violence during the internal armed conflict in Peru. As communities found themselves caught between two fires of insurgent and state violence, many organized to combat security challenges. Much of the academic literature on violence during the conflict
17 18

Testimony 203261. Testimony 201819. 19 Testimony 300519. Sendero Luminoso often left this phrase on suspected informers who became victims. As mueren los soplones. 20 For example, see cases numbers 1005362 and 1008027 found in the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation (CVR) archives housed at the Defensora del Pueblo in downtown Lima.

Zech ISA Draft identifies civilian mobilization as a crucial factor in defeating Sendero Luminoso.21 But, the behavior of armed civilian actors differed by region and across time. While many limited their actions to local patrols and defense, some civilian groups began to carry out offensive operations to eliminate insurgents and their supporters. For example, in the Apurmac, Ene, and Mantaro River Valley (the VRAEM), the infamous Comando Huayhuaco led a fearsome band of armed civilians intent on eliminating the Sendero threat. He assumed control of and further developed a broad network of armed peasants that patrolled the region, helped communities organize their own defense, and hunted down suspected militants and sympathizers. The Peruvian media printed Comando Huayhuacos bold claims that he could defeat the Sendero insurgency within a year if the government supplied him with 500 rifles to arm the peasants he had organized in 62 communities near the Apurmac River.22 In coordination with armed state actors, he helped mobilize several thousand residents to fight the insurgency and liberate much of the region from Sendero control. But, many of these armed civilian actors also committed acts of excessive violence and human rights abuses. One witness remembers: The ronderos came from Pichiwilca in 1989. They killed twenty people, accusing them of terrorism. They caught one terrorist alive after a battle that killed five ronderos. They dragged him around town tied to the back of a car while he screamed. They told the people that this is what happens to people who support the terrorists. They then doused the victim in gasoline and burned him alive.23 Armed civilian actors punished suspected terrorists and their supporters. They used torture to deter participation and collaboration with the Sendero Luminoso insurgency. They sought to communicate undesirable behavior and counter-terrorize the opposition.
21

For example see Jos Coronel, Carlos Ivn Degregori, Ponciano del Pino, and Orin Starn, Las rondas campesinas y la derrota de Sendero Luminoso (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos 1996); CVR, Informe Final, Tomo II, Captulo 1.5. Los comits de autodefensa, pp. 437-462; Carlos Ivn Degregori, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Rondas Campesinas and the Defeat of Sendero Luminoso in Ayacucho. In Societies of Fear: The Legacy of Civil War, Violence and Terror in Latin America, eds. Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt (New York: Zed Books 1999); Oscar Espinosa, Rondas campesinas y nativas en la Amazonia peruana (Lima: Centro Amaznico de Antropologa y Aplicacin Prctica 1995); Mario Fumerton, From victims to heroes: peasant counter-rebellion and civil war in Ayacucho, Peru, 1980-2000 (Amsterdam: Rozenberg 2003); Carlos Tapia, Autodefensa armada del campesinado (Lima: Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Participacin 1995). 22 Jaime de Althaus and Jorge Morelli Salgado, Comandante Huayhuaco (Ardilla), jefe de los ronderos del ro Apurmac: Denme 500 Fusiles y Libero Ayacucho en un Ao, Expreso No. 10084 (March 25, 1989), pp. 5, 6, 8. 23 Personal interview with witness in Maynay near Huanta on May 10, 2013. The witness lived near San Francisco during the conflict, one of the larger towns located in the VRAEM.

Zech ISA Draft Armed State Actors Even with domestic and international legal obligations, state agents frequently committed acts of torture during their counterinsurgency campaign. Peruvian law prohibits the use of torture. The 1979 Peruvian constitution came into law during the transition back to democratic governance in 1980. This document identifies rights in Articles 1 and 2 that implicitly protect individuals from many of the abuses perpetrated by state security forces during the internal armed conflict. Peru adopted a new constitution in 1993 after President Alberto Fujimori reinstated Congress following the 1992 self-coup. The new constitution emphasizes many human rights norms and provides an explicit prohibition of torture in Article 2, Number 24, letter H.24 Peru has also signed and ratified numerous international human rights instruments.25 As a member state to the United Nations, Peru must strive to recognize and uphold the general principles and practices outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in Article 5, prohibits torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Peru also ratified the Geneva Conventions related to the Law of Armed Conflict in 1956 that clarify expectations of behavior concerning the treatment of combatants and noncombatants in times of war. Peru has also signed treaties that specifically prohibit the use of torture. They signed the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on May 29, 1985 and ratified the treaty on July 7, 1988.26 They also signed the regional Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture on January 10, 1986 and ratified the treaty on March 28, 1991.27 Despite these obligations there has been a clear disconnect between state commitments to refrain from torture and the actual behavior of individuals and organizations within the state. Data on torture use in Peru suggests that they ratified treaties prohibiting torture at the very
24

Even stronger and more explicit legal protections came in 1998 near the end of the internal armed conflict when Peru adopted further legal protections for Crimes Against Humanity and detainee medical examinations. For the current 1993 constitution see http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Peru/per93reforms05.html. For the 1979 constitution see page 481 onward at http://www.garciabelaunde.com/biblioteca/LasConstitucionesdelPeru.pdf. 25 I include only selected examples of domestic, regional, and international human rights obligation concerning torture. For example, segments of the International Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ratified by Peru in 1971) contains numerous articles that could apply to patterns of torture against indigenous groups in Peru. Alternatively, treaties like the Rome Statute (which Peru ratified in 2001) contains articles that explicitly forbid torture, but this paper focuses on torture during the conflict period 1980-2000. For a more exhaustive review and summary of norms and legal obligations see Miguel Huerta Barrn and Gustavo Campos Peralta, La tortura en el Per y su regulacin legal (Jess Mara, Lima: COMISEDH, 2005), chapter 2. 26 See a partial summary of Perus ratification of international human rights treaties at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/research/ratification-peru.html. 27 See http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/sigs/a-51.html.

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Zech ISA Draft moment armed state actors committed a large number of violations (see Figure 1 below). These were not just individual excesses linked to particular officials or their subordinates; torture in Peru became a systematic, general practice.28 Prisoner became almost synonymous with torture victim during the period of internal armed conflict.29 The Peruvian Legal Defense Institute found that for 1,250 cases of those accused of terrorism and treason who maintained their innocence, 77.2% showed signs of torture during the course of the investigation.30 As insurgent violence began to escalate, the state declared many regions emergency zones, effectively creating military-controlled territories starting in December of 1982. Widespread torture and disappearances became common in these zones. In fact, counterinsurgency directives that encouraged abuses and perpetrator impunity, as well as efforts to intimidate independent monitors and investigators, led to a campaign rife with torture, sexual violence, disappearances, murder, and mass killings.31 Data and Methods To analyze torture practices and to evaluate torture motives I use data collected by the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR). In June 2001, the Peruvian government created the CVR to address issues related to violence and human rights abuses during their internal armed conflict between May 1980 and November 2000. The commission sought to analyze the conditions that led to violence, clarify the facts concerning the crimes and human rights violations, and to identify the effects of the violence to suggest strategies for reparation and national reconciliation. The commission released a Final Report in August 2003 that summarized their findings and made recommendations for institutional reform.32 Data collection occurred in numerous headquarters located in different regions of Peru. The commission compiled these data into a violence database using almost 17,000 personal interviews with victims, their families, and other witnesses. I filter the quantitative data to identify incidents of torture and other relevant variables such as victim and perpetrator identities
28

For a summary of torure use by actors linked to the state see CVR. Informe Final, Tomo VI, Captulo 1.4. La tortura y los tratos crueles, inhumanos o degradantes, pp. 211-260. 29 Alberto Flores Galindo, La Guerra Silenciosa. In Violencia y Campesinado, eds. Alberto Flores Galindo and Nelson Manrique (Peru: Instituto de Apoyo Agrario 1985 or 1986), p. 22. 30 Yvn Montoya, El delito de tortura en el Per: posibilidades e insuficiencias en la lucha contra la impunidad (Lima: Instituto de Defensa Legal 1998). 31 Amnesty International, Peru: Human Rights in Climate of Terror (1991), http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR46/056/1991/en/d1a8bd3f-f941-11dd-92e7c59f81373cf2/amr460561991en.pdf. 32 Links to the various sections of the CVR Final Report can be found at http://cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/index.php.

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Zech ISA Draft and attributes.33 The database documents 2,823 incidents of torture and 220 incidents of sexual violence.34 In the analysis I examine torture and sexual violence separately for the first visualization of incidents, but combine them into a single variable for subsequent analysis because the values show very similar patters across time. I also filter the 3,043 total incidents of torture and sexual violence perpetrated by all groups in the conflict down to 2,146 incidents perpetrated only by armed state actors. In addition to quantitative data from the CVR database, I reviewed several hundred testimonies at the Defensora del Pueblo offices in Lima during fieldwork in Peru January to June 2013. I also draw from testimonies collected by religious and social service organizations. Finally, I conducted numerous personal interviews with torture victims in the Junn and Ayacucho regions of Peru. In this paper I provide summary statistics to describe the frequency and type of torture used by parties to the conflict across time. I assess the various theoretical motivating factors using testimonies from the Peru case. Empirical Analysis of Torture in Peru Although the period of internal armed conflict generated a spike in the frequency and severity of incidents, torture was common before and continued after the cessation of broader conflict.35 In this section I provide descriptive statistics and analyze torture practices during Perus internal armed conflict between 1980 and 2000 using CVR data. All armed groups used torture to varying degrees during the conflict. Figure 1 below shows torture frequency by perpetrator identity across time. The data suggest torture use mirrored significant political developments in the conflict.

33

The CVR codes torture incidents as distinct from sexual violence. But, I conceptualize sexual violence as an additional form of torture used during the Peruvian conflict and include these incidents in parts of my analysis. The systematic use of rape during armed conflict is a war crime and evidence suggests that armed state actors used sexual violence as a method of terror against both male and female victims in Peru. For a discussion on rape as torture see Deborah Blatt, Recognizing Rape as a Method of Torture, N.Y.U. Revue of Law and Social Change (1991-1992) pp. 821-866. 34 These totals include incidents of torture (TTR) and sexual violence (TVS) I filter from a violence type variable (IDTIPOAC translates to type of act ID) found in the violence database. These violence types include disappearance, arrest, forced recruitment, kidnapping, assassination, extrajudicial killing, death in attack, death in battle, wounded or injured, torture, and sexual violence. 35 Miguel Huerta Barrn and Gustavo Campos Peralta, La tortura en el Per y su regulacin legal (Lima: COMISEDH 2005), p. 11.

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Zech ISA Draft

Figure 1. Torture and sexual violence incidents in Peru by perpetrator identity, 1980-2000

(insert Figure 1 here)

The CVR report separates the conflict into five periods.36 The burning of ballot boxes in Chuschi and other acts of symbolic violence by Sendero Luminoso militants marked the beginning of the first period of violence (May 1980 December 1982). The Marxist militants painted graffiti on the walls of remote towns and villages and actively recruited among the marginalized communities in the Central Sierras. Sendero intimidated local political leaders and residents with greater resources and wealth. They actively targeted police and state actors fled many areas until the armed forces arrived in Ayacucho to implement their counterinsurgency strategy. In reaction to escalating insurgent violence the president declared a State of Emergency, marking the beginning of the second phase (January 1983 June 1986). This period saw the militarization of the conflict with widespread assassinations, extrajudicial kills, and massacres. Sendero intensified their use of revolutionary violence and the military sought to crush the insurgency with brute force. Although a change in military and presidential leadership helped lower the levels of violence at the end of the second period, violence continue to spread throughout Peru and intensified during the third phase (June 1986 March 1989). Sendero started to gain momentum and went of the offensive during the fourth period (March 1989
36

CVR. Informe Final, Tomo I, Captulo 1: Los perodos de la violencia, pp. 59-60.

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Zech ISA Draft September 1992), escalating the intensity of revolutionary violence and the subsequent state suppression. The capture of professor Abimael Guzmn (Senderos leader) in 1992 marks the end of the fourth period. Following the capture of Guzmn, the fifth and final period (September 1992- November 2000) saw a decline in insurgent violence in many parts of Peru with an increasingly successful counterinsurgency campaign, the expansion of civilian self-defense forces, and offers of amnesty to repentant Sendero militants. But, during this final phase of the conflict, President Alberto Fujimori implemented measures that brought increased authoritarianism and widespread corruption. Spikes in torture and sexual violence perpetrated by state security forces correspond to the poorly implemented counterinsurgency during the second phase of the conflict and Sendero successes at the end of the third period. Torture incidents perpetrated by state security forces accompanied the generally indiscriminate violent response to the Sendero revolutionary movement in the Central Sierras. The widespread use of torture by state security forces between 1983 and 1985 match descriptions of the militarys arrival in the Ayacucho region as an occupying force. Soldiers came predominantly from the coastal regions and initially saw the conflict as a general peasant uprising. Soldiers frequently committed brutal acts in what they perceived as inferior, Quechua-speaking, rural communities.37 But, civilians at risk of detention and potential torture observed variation in the frequency and severity of torture perpetrated by different branches of the state security forces. Figure 2 below shows disaggregated torture and sexual violence incidents perpetrated by military and police units. The armed forces did not arrive in Ayacucho in force until late 1982. When they did arrive, they frequently tortured suspected militants. Police also perpetrated more acts of torture as the conflict became extremely militarized. But, torture levels subsided to some degree within a couple of years. Many credit the leadership change from General Roberto C. Noel Moral to General Adrin Huaman Centeno (aka el Ayacuchano) in 1984 with helping to lower the torture levels in the conflict zone. General Huaman shifted focus to a more traditional counterinsurgency that focused on getting to know the people, utilizing his family ties to the region and his ability to speak Quechua.

37

Nelson Manrique. Domocracia y Campesinado Indigena en el Peru Contemporaneo. In Violencia y Campesinado, eds. Alberto Flores Galindo and Nelson Manrique (Peru: Instituto de Apoyo Agrario 1985 or 1986), pp. 5-15.

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Zech ISA Draft

Figure 2: Torture and sexual violence incidents by different state security forces in Peru, 1980-2000

(insert Figure 2 here)

The various branches within the armed forces also differed in their use of torture. Figure 3 below displays torture incidents perpetrated by different branches of the military.
Figure 3: Torture and sexual violence incidents by branches of the armed forces in Peru, 1980-2000

(Insert Figure 3 here)

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Zech ISA Draft The data demonstrate that the Army committed the most acts of torture throughout the conflict. But, this may be a result of how extensive their role was in the conflict and not necessarily reflect organizational culture and accountability. The army played the largest role in early military operations and tortured more frequently based on the sheer magnitude of their presence. Different branches of the police also tortured to varying degrees. State security forces did not behave uniformly. Organizations responded to changing political developments during the conflict and word spread among civilians that if you were to be arrested and tortured, you would be better off in the custody of certain organizations. For example, one witness remembered that in his community they heard it was much better to be tortured by the Polica de Investigaciones del Per than the Guardia Civil.38 Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Sinchis, a special operations division of the police, were notorious for torture and excessive violence. As seen in Figure 4, the data support this proposition.
Figure 4: Torture and sexual violence incidents by different state security forces in Peru, 1980-2000

(Insert Figure 4 here)

But, the data also show that the various police intelligence organizations perpetrated torture to a greater degree than other police groups. Victims often experienced confusion over who was who
38

Carlos Flores Lizana, Diario de vida y muerte: memorias para recuperar humanidad (Cuzco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos Bartolom de Las Casas 2004), p. 52.

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Zech ISA Draft in terms of police actors that perpetrated torture. Furthermore, changes in torture may also reflect the restructuring and consolidation of police forces into the PNP under the Garcia administration after he took office in 1985.39 The Face of Torture in Peru In this section I present data on torture practices and the conditions under which torture took place. In cases where armed state actors tortured victims, where did the torture happen? What forms of torture practices did state security forces use? Table 1 describes torture practices by armed state actors in relation to other forms of violence across different regions of Peru. Almost half of the documented torture incidents took place in the Ayacucho region of Peru, the epicenter of armed conflict. But, as a total percentage of violent acts, security forces used torture more frequently in other regions such as Huancavelica, Cusco, and Puno. Torture incidents accounted for over 40 percent of total violent incidents in these three regions.
Table 1: Regional variation in torture incidents and torture by armed state actors as a % of total regional violence

(Insert Table 1 here) Region Ayacucho Apurimac Huancavelica Cusco Huanuco Ucayali San Martin Puno Junin Lima-Callao Other Totals Regional torture incidents 966 231 129 128 218 23 73 63 129 72 114 2146 % of total torture 45.01% 10.76% 6.01% 5.96% 10.16% 1.07% 3.40% 2.94% 6.01% 3.36% 5.31% 100.00% All regional violence incidents 4793 564 611 301 953 91 271 146 728 248 298 9004 % of total violence 53.23% 6.26% 6.79% 3.34% 10.58% 1.01% 3.01% 1.62% 8.09% 2.75% 3.31% 100.00% Torture as % of total regional violence 20.15% 40.96% 21.11% 42.52% 22.88% 25.27% 26.94% 43.15% 17.72% 29.03% 38.26%

Torture took place in a variety of locations and under differing conditions. State security forces frequently tortured victims in their custody at military bases or police stations. Torture

39

Carlos Basombro, The Militarization of Public Security in Peru. In Crime and violence in Latin America: citizen security, democracy, and the state, eds. Hugo Frhling, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Heather A. Golding (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press 2003), p. 157.

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Zech ISA Draft also took place in victims homes or public spaces such as community plazas. Figure 5 provides a summary of where torture incidents took place during the conflict.
Figure 5: Location of torture locations perpetrated by state security forces in Peru, 1980-2000

(Insert Figure 5 here)

Trends in torture location suggest that torture acts predominantly occurred as part of major operations in the conflict zone or while in military custody. The spikes in torture incidents in another place correspond to pushes in rural communities by armed actors to gather intelligence on the ground and deter peasant collaboration with Sendero militants. Security forces tortured victims on site for various reasons that may have included information gathering, punishment, or revenge, among others. State security forces use a variety of techniques when they tortured. Of the 3043 documented incidents of torture and sexual violence in the CVR dataset, 1,266 of those incidents have details concerning the methods of torture employed by perpetrators. Of the 2,146 incidents of torture and sexual violence perpetrated by armed state actors, 874 incidents have details concerning the methods. Table 2 present the counts and frequency for various types of torture acts performed during torture incidents.

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Zech ISA Draft

Table 2: Frequency of torture act types by all actors and state security forces in Peru, 1980-2000

(Insert Table 2 here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

A single torture incident could include two or more types of torture acts. For example, outside of Lima in 1992 one man was hooded and taken off in a car by police for suspicion of participating in an attack against a truck. They inserted a soda bottle in his anus and beat him, fracturing three of his ribs. The perpetrators stole his wallet and shoes and passed the man off to the intelligence services. While in their custody they tied him up and hung him by his arms behind his back for extended intervals. He lost consciousness despite the loud salsa music they played in the background to unsettle him psychologically. He woke up naked on the floor spitting up blood from hemorrhaging caused by the broken ribs. They dunked his head in spicy water, almost drowning the man six times. They kept him in solitary confinement and his captors told him that they had arrested his mother. During subsequent interrogations the captain, a wellbuilt 35 year old with wavy dark hair, threatened him and put a pistol in his mouth until the barrel touched his throat. The captain told him the military authority was going to condemn him to death. A chatty lieutenant bragged about killing two other prisoners that were students. He 19

Zech ISA Draft told the victim that in Ayacucho there was a bread oven in which they put subversives and pulled them out burnt to a crisp.40 In Darius Rejalis research on torture he seeks to explain why perpetrators decide on some torture techniques over others and suggests that, torture worldwide still has all the characteristics of a craft apprenticeship. What torturers do is turn to what is available, what is habitual, what they can get away with, what they have heard from others, what they remember, and what they can learn by imitating others.41 He finds that democracies tend to use stealth torture practices that do not leave evidence. He argues that in Peru, torturers preferred to use electroshock and to choke prisoners in water (la tina) with salt or hot peppers.42 Data on actual torture practices find that in Peru, state security forces preferred to beat, bind, drown, suspend, and psychologically torment their victims. The Peruvian case suggests that democracies contending with internal armed conflict may differ in torture use than those that are not. Figure 6 examines torture act types perpetrated by state security forces based on whether or not they leave a mark.
Figure 6: Clandestine or Stealth Torture by State Security Forces in Peru, 1980-2000

(Insert Figure 6 here)

40 41

Testimony 700348. Rejali, Torture and democracy, p. 28. 42 Ibid., pp. 206, 289.

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Zech ISA Draft Whether or not their actions left marks did not appear to influence perpetrator decisions about torture methods during the conflict. State security forces generally favored methods that left marks on their victims and they did not make a concerted effort to adopt stealth tactics. Torture Motivations A variety of reasons potentially motivate state security forces to use torture. In fact, based on testimonies recounting torture during Perus internal armed conflict, the factors that motivate torture may even vary even during a single episode of torture.43 In this section I evaluate and illustrate the potential motivations using specific incident from Peru. Perpetrators may use torture to collect information and gather intelligence. State security forces tortured when they questioned suspected insurgents. They sought to obtain evidence or confessions to establish guilt and convict suspected militants. They also wanted to obtain additional information on collaborators. When the police detained and tortured the man outside Lima that I described in the previous section, they believed he had attacked a truck a few blocks from where they picked him up. While in custody they attempted to elicit a confession and force him to sign an affidavit. Attempts to force confessions were not uncommon. The sinchis arrested a union leader and educator in Ayacucho in 1983. In addition to beatings and simulated drownings in a septic tank, they prodded his fingers, testicles, and penis with a needle when he gave answers they did not like. One officer sitting in on the Captains interrogation whispered in his ear, Cholo, if you dont say that youre a senderista, theyre going to kill you. Better just to tell him you participated in the attack on the police station.44 In another case, the police detained a man and his two friends while they were out drinking in Huanta in 1983. The police transferred the detainees to a military base where they beat them with the butts of their rifles and tried to get them to tell the truth. Soldiers asked about militants and beat them continually, keeping them bound and blindfolded with nothing to eat or drink. The victim complained about the cold one night and one of his captors yelled, Now you feel cold you *%$# terrorist, but when youre marching up in the hills youre notyou better talk to us *%$#, you have to cooperate with uslook, those that cooperate are already leaving. The soldiers killed his two friends but eventually released him several weeks later after he signed a paper stating he had been treated well while in custody. They explained that they
43 44

Testimony 700348. Testimony 204160. Senderistas is a Spanish term used to describe Sendero Luminoso militants. Cholo is a derogatory term in Peru used to describe someone of mixed ancestry.

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Zech ISA Draft could not find anything to implicate him and everything they had done was to figure out who the real senderistas were.45 State security forces also used torture to counter-terrorize and to communicate with a broader audience how far they were willing to go to defeat the insurgency. They often made detainees that they would later release watch as they tortured and killed other detainees. Witnesses recall a wide range of inhumane, brutal incidents. They witnessed state agents commit unimaginably cruel acts. One woman detained in Huanta by the Marines in 1984 remembers the inescapable loud music and the agonizing screams of other detainees. She spent most of her detention naked and bound, suffering through numerous simulated drownings as well as a helicopter ride where she thought they would throw her to her death.46 She was a nurse they accused of removing a bullet from a wounded terrorist after they found medicine while searching her residence. The soldiers sought to make it clear to the general population that they would not accept any form of support for or collaboration with insurgents. The state security forces made some detainees dig graves and dispose of the mutilated corpses of torture victims.47 The sinchis made one lieutenant governor critical of the states response to Sendero dig his own grave in multiple locations during his detention. They fired a gun next to his head, leaving him deaf in one ear and released him.48 Other victims suffered worse fates. The military and police littered the countryside with bodies showing signs of torture. One mother went out with a younger child searching for her son, a twenty-five year old university student specializing in education that disappeared in Junn in 1990. She explained, We went out looking for him in all the places where they said the dead turned up, we looked over them one by one to see if we could recognize him, and nothing. She heard news of one particular place on the banks of the Montaro River where they disposed of bodies. She went there with her youngest child at five in the morning to search. When we got close we saw an army vehicle arrive and we hid so they wouldnt see us. We watched as they quickly threw out some black bags and left. We got closer and there were piles of dead. They were young torture

45 46

Testimony 200727. Testimony 200591. 47 Testimony 100027. 48 Testimony 100001.

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Zech ISA Draft victims with wire around their necks, lots of blood, broken feet, and severely beaten.49 She left when without finding her son. State security forces used torture to punish, intimidate, and condition individual victims. Perpetrators sometimes focused on reeducating individual detainees through acts of torture. For example, in 1992 soldiers round up the residents of a village in the Apurmac region of Peru in the community education center. They interrogated residents, accused them of sympathizing and assisting Sendero militants, and punished their alleged transgressions. One victim recalls, The soldiers said to me, Hey, cholo, youve collaborated in the killing of authorities, isnt that right? Speaking to me like this they began to strip off my cloths, threw me on the floor, and the soldiers stomped on me. After, they hung me by my feet from the rafters pulling me up and dropping me down over and over again. Everyone taken inside the assembly hall received the same punishment as me.50 In the Chorrillos prison outside of Lima, guards used irritating chemicals to punish women convicted on terrorism charges. They took them out to a patio and forced them to sing the national anthem.51 Guards used sexual violence against prisoners, including pregnant detainees. One victim suggests perpetrators tortured and violated her as punishment, but also as diversion, as a cruel way to pass the time.52 Sometimes multiple logics motivate perpetrators to torture their victims. In 1998, in the Apurmac region, a detainee found himself with two others when soldiers began to solicit information using torture. Who killed the soldiers in Choccemaray? Speak you damn dog!!! Who went after the soldiers, who stabbed them? When they failed to answer, the soldiers removed their pants and whipped them all over their bodies with the metal part of their own belts. One of the other terrorists could not handle the beatings and said, Yesit was meI did it because my jefe Rok ordered me to. I killed him. The other terrorist also said he had stabbed a soldier. The victim stated, After they had confessed the soldiers tortured them severely again.53 At first the perpetrator sought information and to extract a confession. But,

49 50

Testimony 300038. Testimony 500165. 51 APRODEH (Asociacin Pro Derechos Humanos), Al otro lado de la libertad: testimonios de mujeres en crcel (Lima, Per: APRODEH 2002), pp. 23-24. 52 APRODEH, Memoria del horror: testimonios de mujeres afectadas por la violencia (Lima, Per:, APRODEH 2002), pp. 38-40. 53 Testimony 500141

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Zech ISA Draft after the two detainees confessed, they would have stopped if a confession were their sole motivation. They continued to torture as a form of punishment. Security forces also used torture to deter and intimidate potential insurgents. Perpetrators used physical as well as psychological methods. One detainee recalls that the police made her brothers walk around naked with signs on their backs that stated, Brother of a Terrorist.54 One victim, detained while visiting family in Ayacucho as a university student, remembers the military beating him and using Chinese water torture for hours to drive him mad. Later they took him up into the hills with other detainees to instill fear in their captives with the threat of execution. On his knees with a gun pointed at his head, he remembers trying to reason with his captor, You would have this on your conscious. His captor responded coldly, We dont have a conscious. A sympathetic guard cut him loose while his colleagues took other detainees away and he heard gunfire. The guard told him to run and never look back. Reflecting back on this moment he explains, I didnt know if theyd really do it or if it was a game. I still dont.55 Amid the spirals of violence between state security forces and insurgents, sometimes armed state actor used torture as a means to exact revenge. During asymmetric conflict, insurgent actors often attack military and police and quickly retreat. Security forces incapable of directly confronting their opponents sometimes substitute targets or attack proxy targets. The armed forces justified their acts of violence by invoking collective responsibility for perceived collaboration with opposing forces. One soldier testified to the atrocities he witnessed. During his military service in Ayacucho, they received a report about the killing of a police captain. They went to the town and started killing community members that did not seem to be senderistas.56 The soldiers saw all the entire community as terrorists and killed them indiscriminately though none of the victims were likely involved in the policemans death. The inability to directly confront the enemy led state security forces to use violence against proxy targets opportunistically. In one case, the police strangled patients in a hospital while under attack by Sendero militants.57

54

APRODEH, Memoria del horror: testimonios de mujeres afectadas por la violencia (Lima, Per:, APRODEH 2002), pp. 44-46. 55 Personal interview with the victim in Huanta May 9, 2013. 56 Testimony 1005165. 57 Gustavo Gorriti Ellenbogen, The Shining Path: a history of the millenarian war in Peru (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1999), pp. 169-170.

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Zech ISA Draft Finally, armed state actors also used torture and other forms of extralegal violence as an affirmation of identity. Soldiers used torture and killing to socialize new recruits, to aid in dehumanizing the opposition, and as a way to credibly commit to the counterinsurgency and put their loyalty beyond reproach. New soldiers sometimes performed a baptism as part of their indoctrination at a new base in the conflict zone. A baptism consisted of a soldier killing a suspected militant. In some cases new recruits lined up across from hooded militants and handed a knife to perform the deed.58 One soldier recalled his time at a military base in the La Mar province of Ayacucho. He described a bravery test where soldiers executed a suspected militant to experience the act of killing. The soldier remembers one militants being killed in the bathroom and orders to bring the index fingers of the dead. They were carried as amulets on key chains for protection. Some soldiers believed that when they had the index finger of someone they had their soul.59 Conclusion Practitioners use a variety of torture methods despite domestic and international legal prohibitions and a body of research that suggests the inefficacy of torture. There are numerous reasons that states should not torture. State security forces involved in intelligence gathering generally find other interrogation strategies more effective. Using torture often generates false confessions and can become a crutch for security services as they neglect more useful methods to gather intelligence. Furthermore, torture begets more torture as perpetrators justify their actions and these practices become embedded within organizational culture. Finally, torture can generate recruits for the opposition and inhibit the recruitment of voluntary informants and cripple efforts to implement a successful counterterrorism campaign.60 Yet states still practice widespread torture during many internal armed conflicts. In this paper I identify and examine potential motivations for state security forces to use torture during a counterinsurgency campaign. I evaluate actual torture practices in Peru during internal armed conflict and provide illustrative examples for the various motivations behind acts of torture. Many of the testimonies on torture suggest that torture practices reflect social pressures that actors face within groups. Future research might focus on rhetorical practices and the psychological processes related to counter-normative violence more generally. Furthermore,
58 59

See testimonies 100168, 100088. and 411311 for more on baptisms. Testimony 411311. 60 Citations?

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Zech ISA Draft the Peruvian case suggests that countries experiencing armed conflict, even democracies, may use torture differently than states during times of peace. As policymakers and state security forces formulate strategies to confront new security challenges, they might consider words from a leading figure in Italys struggle against Leftist terrorism and Mafia violence. Despite political violence from both the Left and the Right in Italy during the 1970s, key political actors tried to avoid torturing suspected terrorist actors. When the Red Brigades kidnapped Aldo Moro, a member of the security services suggested to General Dalla Chiesa that they torture a captured suspect that supposedly had valuable information. The general responded, Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture.61

61

Cited in Argentina. Nunca ms (Never again): A Report by Argentinas National Commission on Disappeared People (London: Faber and Faber1986), p. 1.

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