LATIN AMERICAN TRENDS: STAFF NOTES AUGUST 11, 1976[SANITIZED] - 1976/08/11

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Argentina Declassification Project - The "Dirty War" (1976-83)
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06627466
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: April 3, 2019
• Document Release Date: April 12, 2019
• Publication Date: August 11, 1976

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Latin American Trends
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LATIN AMERICAN TRENDS
This publication is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington com-
munity by the Western Hemisphere Division, Office of Current Intelligence,
with occasional contributions from other offices within the Directorate of
Intelligence. Comments and queries are welcome. They should be directed to
the authors of the individual articles.
CONTENTS
August 11, 1976
Argentina: New Foreign Policy Initiatives. 1
Southern Cone Counterterrorism Plans 4
Annex
Terrorism in South America 9
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Argentina: New Foreign Policy Initiatives
The military junta in the past five months has
imposed political calm, instituted strong economic
stabilization measures, and achieved considerable
success against the most militant of the leftist
terrorist groups. It now feels able to turn its
attention to restoring Argentina's "big power" dip-
lomatic image in South America.
Foreign Ministry strategists and military leaders
have already begun to improve relations with a number
of South American capitals. Brazil, long viewed as
a rival, may soon be approached in a new spirit of
cooperation. Diplomatic experts in Buenos Aires are
talking of a "dialogue" and a "continental equilibrium"
with Brazil.
Four decades of internal economic and political
chaos left Argentina without a coherent foreign policy,
even in hemispheric affairs. During the tumult of the
Peron presidencies, relations with neighboring states,
particularly Brazil, languished or deteriorated while
time and resources were consumed in a courtship of
Communist and Third World countries.
Brazil gained the diplomatic ground lost by
Argentina, dashing the hopes of some geopoliticians
in Buenos Aires who had dreamed of forming .a coalition
of Spanish-speaking states to counter Brazil's
burgeoning power. Brazil, after establishing close
economic and political ties with Paraguay, Uruguay,
and Bolivia, turned its attention to Chile, Peru,
Venezuela, and Colombia. Brazil is now improving
its relations with Central America.
The bankruptcy of Argentine foreign policy was
brought home to Buenos Aires dramatically last Feb-
ruary when the United States and Brazil signed the
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Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Consultations.
The Argentines reacted with surprising objectivity
and s^phistication. They interpreted the agreement
as Washington's recognition of Brazil's emerging power
podWon in the world and its preeminence in Latin
AmeriCa. Argentines acknowledged that if they had
lost the race with Brazil, it was the result of their
own domestic failures.
The military coup that toppled President Peron
on March 24 put Argentina in step with its conserva-
tive, military-dominated neighbors and gave impetus
to improved relations with Brazil. Thirteen days
after the coup Brazilian Navy Minister Azevedo Henning
arrived in Buenos Aires to discuss the defense of the
South Atlantic and the Soviet-Cuban presence in Angola.
In June Buenos Aires sent as ambassador to Brasilia
one of its top career diplomats and Brazilian specialists.
Argentine strategists began talking of the "new
realities" in hemispheric affairs and advocating co-
operation and friendly competition rather than con-
frontation with their powerful neighbor. The coopera-
tive anti-subversive program adopted by intelligence
and security forces in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay is an example of what
the Argentines describe as their "new foreign policy."
Sensing that many South American governments are
eager to balance off their close relations with Brazil,
Argentine diplomats are trying to improve ties, but
not necessarily at Brazil's expense.
To lay the groundwork for its new policy of
friendly competition and to "make up for lost time,"
in June the Foreign Ministry sent carefully selected
ambassadors to Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador,
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and Venezuela. Some were military officers who had
served in those countries as attaches. The following
month high military and Foreign Ministry officials
visited Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela and Ecuador. In
addition, a nuclear cooperation pact was signed with
Peru and an agreement for the purchase of natural gas
and manganese was negotiated with Bolivia.
Already this month Foreign Minister Guzzetti has
visited Paraguay, and his Peruvian counterpart, de
la Puente, has traveled to Buenos Aires. On August
7-8 junta member Admiral Massera visited Uruguay.
There are rumors that President Videla will make a
state visit to Chile before the end of the year.
A fundamental and lasting improvement of relations
with Brazil will be the most difficult hurdle, even
if Argentine leaders are prepared to work at the
problems with, in the words of one diplomat, "a
serious and rational mind." The issues are many and
some are long-standing:.
--Diversion of waters on the upper Parana
caused by Brazil's construction of the
huge Itaipu hydroelectric project.
--Penetration of Argentina's northeastern
borders by Brazilian citizens.
--Trade barriers and nuclear competition.
Progress on these problems will require patience
and months of quiet diplomacy. For the first time
in years, however, Argentina appears to be psychol-
ogically ready to embark on the task.
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Southern Cone Counterterrorism Plans
Security officials of Chile, Argentina, and
Uruguay are reportedly expanding their cooperative
anti-subversive activities to include assassination
of top-level terrorists in exile in Europe.
The intelligence cooperation program of Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, known
as "Condor," already includes development of a cen-
tralized data collection capability and the direction
of joint operations in the southern part of South
America.
The Chilean, Argentinian, and Uruguayan services
now plan to train teams in Buenos Aires for the
missions in Western Europe. The plans and targets of
the teams will be withheld from at least some govern-
ment leaders.
The largest concentratio7 of Latin American
exiles in Europe is in Paris.
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Terrorism in South America
Terrorism flourishes on the bones of polities.
It is the delusion of those who have lost
the capacity to distinguish between hope
and death.
Irving Howe "The Ultimate
Price of Random Terror"
Modern terrorism invites repression. The guer-
rilla is intent on provoking his enemy--the govern-
ment--into acts of counter-terrorism so widespread
and so brutal that the general public becomes alien-
ated from the government and sympathetic to the sub-
versive cause. The immediate goal, according to
Carlos Marighela, the slain Brazilian apostle of urban
guerrilla warfare, is that "the political situation
of the country will become a military situation, and
the acts of violence, the mistakes and various ca-
lamities that fall upon the people will be put down
to 'errors' by the government bodyguards."
As violence begets violence, according to this
doctrine, the fabric of society is torn apart, demo-
cratic institutions give way to authoritarian decrees,
and armed repression supplants political freedom.
The aim of terrorism is to make life unbearable for
ordinary people, in the hope that they will eventually
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become embittered embittered and exasperated with their government
and clamor for change. Such a situation, Marighela
argued, could lead to tae seizure of power by the guerril-
las in what he described as "a climate of collapse."
Employed against colonial regimes, such tactics have
nroven successful, as in British-mandated Palestine and
Cyprus. This hope has not been fulfilled, however,
In any Latin American nation. Yet, it is precisely in
those countries where political violence has become the
major policy preoccupation--Uruguay and Argentina--that
terrorism has been the strongest single catalytic force
in recent military coups d'etat.
As a political weapon modern terrorism dates from
the French Revolution where it was employed by the in-
surrectionary government to instill fear and respect
for new authority in the general populace. Then, as
now, terror consisted of symbolic acts designed to in-
fluence political behavior by extraordinary means, en-
tailing the use or threat of violence. For example,
in Guatemala, Uruguay, and Argentina, leftist guerrillas
placed heavy emphasis on the symbolic nature of their
violent acts--kidnaping and killing military officers
and police chiefs, foreign diplomats, and wealthy busi-
nessmen--both domestic and foreign.
The concept of terror may be old, but its effects
are magnified by modern technology. The modern terror-
ist's arsenal includes incendiary devices, sophisticated
bombs, and hand-held missiles. Modern psychological
studies have provided new techniques of interrogation
and intimidation. More important, the conditions of
contemporary living and space-age communications systems
have facilitated the growth and the impact of urban
political violence. Today terrorists feed on the frus-
trations generated by crowded living conditions domi-
nated by and dependent on technology, and thrive on in-
stantaneous dramatic communication of their acts by the
electronic media.
Television and, to a lesser extent, radio have
given new meaning to the 19th Century anarchist view of
terrorism as propaganda by deed. Now guerrilla groups
can attract national or even world attention to their
cause. The term "guerrilla theater" is an apt descrip-
tion since terrorism is often drama consisting of:
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- Carefully staged kidnapings, as in the abduction
of the Born brothers, two wealthy Argentine in-
dustrialists whose seizure by Montonero guerril-
las consisted of an elaborate maneuver designed
to divert their automobile from most of their
bodyguards, in which the terrorists masqueraded
as street construction workers and policemen.
Ritual trials and executions, such as the now
famous killing of US AID official Daniel Mitrione
by the Tupamaros in Uruguay, or the "capital pun-
ishment" of US honorary consul John Egan, after
Argentine authorities failed to meet terrorist
demands to show several captured guerrillas "live
and well" on television.
Newspapers have also been exploited by Latin American
guerrillas. One of the conditions for the release of the
Born brothers was the publication of a Montonero adver-
tisement in prominent newspapers all over the world.
Roberto Santucho, the recently slain leader of the Ar-
gentine Peoples Revolutionary Army, invited correspond-
ents to guerrilla press conferences. One spectacular
operation in 1973 saw guerrillas seize the editor of a
prominent Buenos Aires newspaper, and insist that the
paper print terrorist advertisements--in direct violation
of a recently enacted ban on news of guerrilla activities.
The newspaper complied with the demands to secure the safe
return of its editor, and in retaliation right-wing coun-
ter-terrorists sabotaged the printing presses. Farther
afield, the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympic Games
gained its perpetrators the services of satellite-relayed
international television.
Such events dramatically illustrate the fact that
terrorist tactics are aimed primarily at the people
watching and only incidentally at the victims--who often
are innocent bystanders. The random quality of the vio-
lence heightens the terror and often exaggerates the
actual threat posed by the guerrilla. In reality, guer-
rilla groups in South America have never posed a direct
challenge to any government. Most of the groups have
been too small and weak to engage security forces directly,
and in the battles that have occurred, as in Argentina,
the guerrillas have taken most of the blows. As one
scholar has observed, "terror may be the weapon of lonely
fanatics or a huddle of conspirators intent upon forcing
history through their own self-sacrifice and other peo-
ple's blood, but rarely is it the weapon of mass movements
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engaged in public politics."
The two most prominent examples of South American
nations where terrorism currently exists-- and
Argentina--support this viewpoint.
In Argentina, the Peoples Revolutionary Army (ERP)
has lost its image of invincibility after more than a
year of harassment by military forces. Hundreds of
guerrillas have been killed--including the leader,
Roberto Santucho--and even more are in prison. The or-
ganization's treasury, once estimated in millions of
dollars, is said to have dwindled to about $100,000.
In addition, the ERP has lost hideouts, weapons, ammu-
nition, and documents containing valuable operational in-
formation. It is doubtful that the ERP will ever regain
its former prominence.
The other major Argentine group, the Montoneros, has
suffered as well. More than seven months have elapsed
since Montonero chieftain Roberto Quieto was captured by
security forces. During that period the guerrillas have
made no known attempt to !ree him or to secure his re-
lease. One of the reason.; for their failure to respond
may be that Quieto has cooperated with the security offi-
cials. We cannot determine how much the information pro-
vided by Quieto has hurt the organization, but lack of
recent violent activity suggests that the leftist Peron-
ist guerrillas are on the defensive.
The serious reverses suffered by the ERP may force
the remnants of the group to try to link up with the
Montoneros, who have long advocated a broad-based "Na-
tional Liberation Front." Efforts to form such an alli-
ance in the past failed. The Montoneros, in fact, now
may be reluctant to affiliate wlth the survivors because
they fear the ERP has been penetrated by the police.
Another possibility that is being taken seriously by
South American security forces is that several guerrilla
groups are forging operative alliances to engage in trans-
national or international terrorist activities.
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Official concern has been fueled by recent confirma-
tion of the existence of an organization known as the
Revolutionary Coordinating Junta, consisting of guerrilla
representatives from Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina,
and possibly Paraguay. The Coordinating Junta was orig-
inally organized under the leadership of the Peoples Rev-
olutionary Army, however, and despite reports of repre-
sentatives based in several European countries, available
evidence indicates that its headquarters is still in Ar-
gentina and that most of its funds, and probably its mem-
bers, come from the ERP. If it is indeed a creature of
Argentine terrorists, it has probably suffered with the
decline in their activity and strength. On the other
hand the fact that the Junta has not taken credit for
any terrorist operations--as is the customary practice
of individual guerrilla organizations--does not mean that
it has been inactive. It wou-d appear from captured
guerrilla documents that the organization takes its co-
ordinating function seriously and exists for that purpose
and to provide logistical support to member groups.
It is the fear that individual guerrilla groups
throughout South America will unite that has motivated
the recent intensification in cooperation among security
officials in the Southern Cone. At present intelligence
services in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay,
and Uruguay share information on terrorist targets, and
there are reports of plans to cooperate more extensively.
Despite the fact that guerrillas seem to be losing
the battle in Argentina and are only a minor threat
elsewhere in South America, it is unlikely that terrorism
will disappear. Few terrorist groups anywhere have a-
chieved any of their long range objectives, but the use
of terrorist tactics always attracts publicity and fre-
quently wins concessions.
In South America, therefore, political extremists
will probably continue to establish links, and form al-
liances, if only for the sake of convenience in particular
operations. The development and deployment of sophisti-
cated small arms and precision-guided munitions and their
likely acquisition by terrorists is a serious new threat.
On the �the: hand, the fear that terrorists will obtain
and explode nuclear weapons seems to be exaggerated. The
survival of any guerrilla movement is contingent on some
tacit public support. Mass murder would be counterpro-
ductive. Nevertheless, the possibility that guerrillas
will threaten to use nuclear weapons in order to take
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advantage of a mass hostage situation cannot be ruled
out.
Until now leftist guerrillas in South America have
not been completely indiscriminate in their use of ter-
rorist tactics, but have restricted their targets to
identified political enemies. In contrast, counterter-
rorists and in some cases government forces have threat-
ened or murdered prominent liberal members of society
not linked in any known way to the guerrillas. This is
of course the response that the guerrillas seek. Yet
some repressive measures are officially justified and
accepted by a frightened population on the grounds that
they reduce the effectiveness and attractiveness of ter-
rorism. Greater government controls over the news media
with regard to reporting terrorist incidents would di-
minish the publicity that terrorists apparently crave.
A tougher official stance on granting political asylum
is already evident in Argentina and Uruguay, and South
American countries in general have taken an increasingly
tougher stance on yielding to terrorist demands.
Terrorism poses a continuing threat to human lib-
erties and to human life. Last year more people died
in Argentine. as a result of political violence than have
been killed in Northern Ireland in the past five years.
In all strategies of terror, there is an inherent tend-
ency to go beyond the limits previously accept.nd, formally
or informally, by both rulers and ruled. It is just this
"one step further" that makes terror momentarily effec-
tive and, to some people, exciting. Except, perhaps, in
the most disciplined kinds of actions against precisely
selected individual targets, the strategy of terror can
succeed only through a steady abandonment of moral re-
straints.' Regardless of the intentions the terrorists
bring to their act, it tends, out of desperation and
through repetition, to become increasingly unselective.
Indeed it is precisely the increasing unselectivity that
makes terrorism so frightening.
There are, however, political limits to the ef-
fectiveness of terrorism. Over forty years ago, one
scholar, J. B. Hardman, defined those limits:
"As a complete revolutionary tactic terrorism has
never attained real success. Governments, whether con-
servative or revolutionary, are not inclined to retreat
before acts of terror directed against key persons. The
will to power is not weakened by the exercise of power,
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and positions made vacant through the explosion of
bombs are readily filled. On the other hand, the will
to revolution requires a stronger force than the heroism
of isolated individuals or even of small, well-organized
groups. The art of revolution must be sustained by the
interested will of a large proportion of the population
and by concerted mass operations."
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