The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence

by Ervin Staub

  When life conditions are complex and difficult, submitting to an authority that offers a vision can satisfy important needs and goals. The military, although unable to stabilize the country economically or politically, had become the big brother in Argentina. Much of the population and political leadership relied on it, and the rest accepted its dominance.

  The military came to see itself as the savior of the nation. The colonels who took power in 1943, for example, “were intent on ruling directly, on the premise that whatever benefited the armed forces would also benefit the country.”13 Per6n originally gained influence through the support of right-wing nationalist officers with fascist views. Although he later acted to reduce the influence of the military, he continued to believe in “the tutelary role of the army as custodian of the supreme values of the nation embodied in Hispanic cultural tradition.”14

  A 1966 publication by the secretary of war on the operation of civil affairs states that the tasks of the army include supervision, evaluation of civil authorities, including judges, and offering guidance to them. It also describes the conditions under which civil authority is to be replaced.15 This document, prepared to guide the military in establishing its rule after the coup of 1966, indicates the extent to which the military was willing to assume dominance over civilian structures.

  The military saw the nation as a living entity, occupying territory in which it lives, gains strength, and expands. Their views were somewhat akin to German ideas about the special nature of the state; individual interests and rights had to submit to the greater good of the country. Substantial segments of the military had a “corporate” view of society: all in it are together, joined. Individual rights did not have a strong tradition in Argentina. All this contributed to the military’s paternalistic view of its relationship to society. Because the military created the policy of disappearances and was the primary agent of torture and killings, we must come to further understand its nature.

  The self-concept and ideology of the military

  In a 1970 publication Robert Potash described the self-concept and ideology of the Argentine military.16 His views are highly consistent with those offered after the disappearances. Argentine military officers saw themselves as heirs to a heroic tradition established in the wars of independence. Self-sacrifice, devotion, and duty were emphasized. The military vocation is like a priesthood; the permanent officer has mystical and passionate dedication. All members of the command corps were graduates of military academies whose rigorous curricula were designed to promote character, honor, and pride.17 They chose a branch of service early, and it became a lifetime association. The indoctrination of officers became well established under Per6n. Potash quotes a recent statement about the purpose of training: “A purely technical-professional efficiency has no meaning if it is not based on deep convictions, and on full faith in the values that are defended and in the success of the ideological struggle that divides the world” (italics mine).18

  A strong sense of corporate identity developed. Army officers saw themselves as members of a unique elite organization; they often felt contempt for civilians and especially politicians.19 They had little faith in democracy and regarded political parties as unnecessary.

  Army officers (and the society in general) regarded Argentina as a nation set apart from the rest of Latin America by its historic role in liberating other countries during the wars of independence, by its natural wealth, size, cultural advancement, and by what they saw as a racially superior population of primary European descent. The country’s steep decline greatly threatened their self-concept: as individuals, soldiers, and nationalists.20

  The threat was enhanced by other aspects of their self-image, view of their role in Argentine life, and ideology. First, as Potash noted in 1970, strong anticommunism had become a major factor in their thinking on both domestic annd international politics since 1930. They showed admiration for the German military and strong fascist sentiments during World War II. Argentine sympathies were primarily with Nazi Germany in that war. The military overthrew the government in 1943 partly to preserve Argentine neutrality. Argentina broke diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan only in 1944, when the outcome of the war was evident, to avoid isolation and retaliation after the war.

  Anticommunism was strengthened by Castro’s success in Cuba, especially after he dissolved the Cuban army and executed many officers. Increasingly close relations with the U.S. military contributed to anticommunism. The United States trained Argentine army officers and provided antiinsurgency training in the fight against the internal enemy. President Frondizi was ousted in 1962 after a campaign in which the military depicted him as a communist.

  The anticommunism of the Argentine officers was strengthened by their commitment to Roman Catholicism.21 While not all officers were devout, they saw themselves as defenders of the church, especially of Christian ideals. An intense anticommunism, representing a world view, an ideology, and even a self-definition, developed among the Argentine military. Potash notes prophetically in his 1970 publication that some high officials recognized the dangers of unreflective communism that does not differentiate between reformers and revolutionaries.

  The military were traditionally viewed as the state’s instrument for defending sovereignty and maintaining domestic order. After World War II this view changed, in complex ways. According to some authors the Argentine military hoped to become a continental or even a world power and aspired to rule the Antarctic and South Atlantic. Books written by civilians promoted the idea of the “manifest destiny of the Argentine people” – the country’s influence stretching beyond its boundaries – which supported the military’s world view.22 Yet the military had few opportunities for war and there was little threat from other nations. Despite continuing border disputes with Chile, war against either Chile or Brazil, past and potential enemies, was highly unlikely for geographic and political reasons.23 Other neighbors were friendly or weak or both. Lacking opportunities for self-defense or conquest, the army sought a new rationale for its existence in fighting against revolution, defending the nation and Christian civilization against communism.

  The political instability, turmoil, and terrorism in Argentina (to which the military substantially contributed) greatly threatened the military’s view of itself as protector of the nation’s traditions, well-being, and public order. The military came to see it as their primary role to protect the state from subversion by alien forces and ideas, preserve essential Argentine values, and maintain internal purity.

  The military attacked all who might possibly, even in the remotest way, be or become the enemy. This overgeneralization in the selection of victims occurred partly because of their view that all the forces that might change traditional values and the status quo were subversive, partly because of the nature of the terrorist activity. In one instance, for example, the house of General Cardozo, the chief of the Federal Police, was blown up by a bomb left under his bed by a school friend of his daughter while she was a guest in the house.24 It seemed that anyone might be a terrorist.

  Edwardo Crawley offers a view of the Argentine military consistent with my perspective on the psychology of perpetrators. In his view, when the police proved unable to control terrorism and the military took up the task, its self-respect demanded that the guerrillas’ status should be enhanced.

  So the guerrilas became demonized. The few thousand armed fighters began to be portrayed as merely the tip of the iceberg, which consisted not only of the “surface” organizations of the left, but of a vast subversive conspiracy which, according to the military, had already taken hold of every aspect of life in Argentina. There was the “ideological subversion” that pervaded the universities, the press, the arts, some professions like psychiatry and sociology; there was the “economic subversion” detectable in the adoption of policies aimed at destroying the national economy; there was the infiltration of the state apparatus, and an orchestrated campaign to destroy the family and moral
s, to falsify history and corrode all traditional values.25

  A 1980 government publication on Terrorism in Argentina provides insight into the mind of the military. Behind the terrorism the military saw foreign Marxist influence. Argentina had been targeted for destruction by its enemies, the communists, whose “ideology of death” had come to dominate all domains of national life: education, the economy, justice, culture, and labor. In different appendixes, the infiltration in each realm is described in detail. For example, the following refers to preelementary and elementary schools.

  Subversive operations were carried out by biased teachers who, because of their pupils’ age, easily influenced their minds’ sensibility. The instruction was direct, using informal talks and readings of prejudiced books published to that effect. Using children’s literature, terrorism tried to convey the kind of message which would stimulate children, and make room for self-education, based on freedom and the search for “alternatives.”26

  The schools, instead of instructing children in their parents’ values, inculcated “self-development” and rebelliousness in an attempt to destroy the family.

  These views are similar, in their image of an enemy threatening both essential identity and survival, to the ideologies guiding the perpetrators in other genocides and mass killings. In the Argentine case, enhancing the enemy made difficult life conditions and social upheavals more understandable. The military blamed civilian politicians for all failures of society, but given its dominance in Argentine society, it required additional psychological maneuvers to avoid feeling responsible. It was the pervasiveness of the enemy that explained the failure of the military as the nation’s guardian.

  Crawley’s analysis also highlights the fact that for the first time in many years, the military felt needed in the fight against a real enemy – “someone who made sense of the long years of training, the military mystique, the long sacrificial years of barrack boredom; someone who enabled the professional soldier to test his own mettle, his skills, his self abnegation and patriotism.”27

  Following the example of its Brazilian counterpart, the Argentine military adopted a

  sweeping doctrine of national security.. In its essentials, the national security doctrine regards domestic political struggles as an expression of a basic East-West conflict and sees Marxist penetration and insurgency as an all-prevading presence of a new type of enemy fighting a new type of war. Civilians are also warriors, ideas a different form of weapon.28

  The ideology was directly expressed in many statements by military leaders. For example, as reported in April 29, 1976, in the newspaper La Razon, the head of the Fourteenth Regiment of the Airborne Infantry, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Eduardo Gorleri, had this to say to journalists who were invited as witnesses to the public burning of books by Marxist authors or by those with a similar philosophy: [We] “are going to burn ‘pernicious literature which affects our intellect and our Christian way of being...and ultimately our most traditional ideals, encapsulated in the words God, Country and Home.’”29

  In sum, the officers’ fascist inclinations, their preference for centralized bureaucratic rule, their elevation of the nation over the individual, their loyalty to religious traditions, their nationalism, militarism, and strong anticommunism, and the needs aroused by societal problems led them to devalue not only terrorists, but broad segments of the community. They were supported in this by the dominant culture of Argentina, which stressed Christian values, a sene of unfulfilled greatness, and anticommunism, and by the Argentine people, who suffered under the persistent life problems and shared a societal tilt with them. In 1976 the majority welcomed the military takeover and initially accepted and justified the repression and violence that followed.

  Steps along the continuum of destruction

  Some of the historical material presented in the section on life conditions is relevant here as well. Military takeovers and repressive military dictatorships had become commonplace in Argentina. As I noted, Per6n created a police state and began using informers and torturers.30 After his overthrow political arrests and torture of political prisoners recurred. The student riots in Cordoba in 1969 and the repression that followed were a turning point toward persistent repression and confrontation.31 Suspending individual rights and press freedom reduced the free expression of diverse views.

  The Marxist-Leninist People’s Revolutionary Party and a group of left-wing Peronistas who called themselves the Montoneros engaged in hit-and-run assaults, bombings, and attacks on political offices, broadcasting stations, and even military installations.32 They killed about six hundred military officers, government officials, business executives, and even labor leaders. In turn right-wing terrorist bands, including army and police groups, were killing left-wing leaders. There was an increasing cycle of violence. The Alianza Anticommnista Argentina, formed in 1974, even murdered priests suspected of left-wing sympathies.33

  This cycle of violence made ever greater violence seem necessary and acceptable. It contributed to the evolution of the military’s ideology, its perception of extreme threat, and its extreme devaluation of all opponents. The result was the arrest, torture, and murder of real and supposed enemies, and even of persons who happened to be in a house from which a supposed subversive was kidnapped.

  The military itself evolved over time in ways that made it psychologically easier for them first to assume total power and later to do anything they deemed right. According to Robert Potash only a minority of the army took part in the military takeover in 1930, while others regarded it as contrary to the military’s professional role and some officers refused to join. But a precedent was set that would “inspire a series of plots over the next decade and facilitate a more broadly based movement next time.”34 The military repeatedly assumed power with substantial impunity. Participation in an unsuccessful rebellion might interrupt an officer’s career, but amnesties usually allowed full restitution. The Supreme Court came to accept military rebellion as a legitimate source of power; military coups were regarded as establishing de facto governments, rather than as acts of treason.35

  Anticommunist activity abroad also increased readiness for further violence. During the 1962 missile crisis the Argentine navy participated in the blockade of Cuba. In 1965 the army offered to participate in the Dominican occupation by the United States. The example of the military in nearby Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Brazil also contributed to the evolution along the continuum of destruction. In these countries military dictatorships used anticommunism to justify their brutal rule. The Brazilian army was reported to have crucified some political prisoners in 1969.36 The Argentine military acted jointly with other repressive governments to suppress dissent. Uruguayans, Paraguayans, Bolivians, and Chileans who had been granted political asylum or had fled to Argentina to avoid persecution were kidnapped, tortured, and killed in joint operations.37

  Changing institutions

  In 1974 the government of Isabel Perón declared a state of siege and suspended constitutional rights. In 1975 a decree ordered the police to help the army eliminate subversion in Tucumán Province. A second decree set up an internal security council to direct all armed and police forces in fighting against subversion. A third decree placed the provincial police under the council’s authority and directed military and police to “annihilate the activities” of all subversive elements.38 Although the wording is ambiguous, the last decree seemingly requires killing without due process of the law.

  Upon taking power in 1976 the military junta adopted the Statute for the Process of National Reorganization. It issued communiques and enacted special laws further suspending basic rights and justifying subsequent actions. Following established precedent, it replaced many officials at the highest levels of the judiciary, for example, the Supreme Court, the attorney general, the Provincial High Courts. All members of the judiciary were suspended; the judges, some reappointed but many newly appointed, had to swear to uphold the articles and objectives of the Process
of National Reorganization. Over the next few years, as disappearances progressed, changes in laws and court procedures weakened individual rights. The habeas corpus law was enfeebled (and disregarded anyway) and the right to leave the country was often denied. The judicial process became almost inoperative as a means of appeal.39 Such changes in norms, practices, and institutions, as I have pointed out, are both products and means of resocialization.

  The machinery of destruction

  The machinery of destruction was readily available in the military, which had been growing since before World War II. The number of soldiers and the quantity and quality of arms increased greatly. The military became an increasingly autonomous system that produced its supplies in its own factories. Admission to military academies, although partly based on ability, was limited to Catholics after 1930. Germany had helped train and organize the armed forces. Argentine officers were sent to Germany to study. The Staff College, which opened around 1900, was directed and some of the training in it was provided by German officers. German advisors remained with the army until 1940. The result was an institution that resembled the Prussian army.40 Even more than in most armies there was emphasis on discipline and obedience within a hierarchical command systems.41 The German influence partly explains the Argentine military’s inclinations toward Nazi Germany in World War II. The attitudes and practices of the military were further shaped by training by the United States in the fight against subversion.42

  The mass killings