ABSTRACT
To assess fully the scope and meaning of political terrorism in Latin America begs a systematic analysis of the region’s violent social and political heritage. This legacy spans various types of civil discord, including organized and spontaneous violence of nongovernmental groups against regional and national governments, continued interdiction or national political leadership change by military elites, and the use of structured repression and often state terror by incumbent regimes against real and perceived opponents. Such an investigation of patterned violence in this century would begin with the study of the terrorist aspects of the Mexican revolution and continue with an analysis of various massacres of campesino groups in Central American struggles during the 1920s and 1930s. It would also examine pre-1970 South American patterns of “strong man” rule in Haiti, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina, la violencia in Columbia, and various revolutions and near civil wars in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador.
