ABSTRACT

The Cold War in Latin America spawned numerous authoritarian and military regimes in response to the ostensible threat of communism in the Western Hemisphere, and with that, a rigid national security doctrine was exported to Latin America by the United States. Between 1964 and 1985, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uraguay experienced a period of state-sponsored terrorism commonly referred to as the "dirty wars." Thousands of leftists, students, intellectuals, workers, peasants, labor leaders, and innocent civilians were harassed, arrested, tortured, raped, murdered, or 'disappeared.'

Many studies have been done about this phenomenon in the other areas of Latin America, but strangely, Mexico's dirty war has been excluded from this particular scholarship. Here  for the first time is a sustained look at this period and consideration of the many facets that make up the nearly two decades of the Mexican dirty war. Offering the reader a broad perspective of the period, the case studies in the book present narratives of particular armed revolutionary movements as well as thematic essays on gender, human rights, culture, student radicalism, the Cold War, and the international impact of this state-sponsored terrorism.

chapter |18 pages

Introduction

The Unknown Mexican Dirty War

chapter |21 pages

Madera 1965

Primeros Vientos 1

chapter |20 pages

Seizing Hold of Memories in Moments of Danger

Guerrillas and Revolution in Guerrero, Mexico

chapter |21 pages

In the Vanguard Of The Revolution

The Revolutionary Action Movement and the Armed Struggle

chapter |24 pages

“Por la reunificaciÓn de los Pueblos Libres de AmÉrica en Su Lucha por el Socialismo”

The Chicana/o Movement, the PPUA and the Dirty War in Mexico in the 1970s

chapter |24 pages

From Books to Bullets

Youth Radicalism and Urban Guerrillas in Guadalajara

chapter |19 pages

A Revolutionary Group Fighting against a Revolutionary State

The September 23rd Communist League Against the PRI-State (1973–1975)

chapter |19 pages

Armed Struggle without Revolution

The Organizing Process of the National Liberation Forces (FLN) and the Genesis of Neo-Zapatism (1969–1983)

chapter |15 pages

Subjugating the Nation

Women and the Guerrilla Experience

chapter |16 pages

Armed Forces and Counterinsurgency

Origins of the Dirty War (1965–1982)

chapter |13 pages

Transcending Violence

A Crisis of Memory and Documentation 1