StrategicVillages · Violent settlements: strategic villages and clandestine burial sites in Latin America

Violent settlements: strategic villages and clandestine burial sites in Latin America

Since the beginning of the Cold War, counterinsurgency policies have aimed not only to destroy guerrilla movements, but also to “win the hearts and minds” of the population. Among the different techniques used to pursue this goal, I explored one that has been used for almost seven decades: the forced displacement of rural populations to villages created ex nihilo, and therefore considered as “strategic”. Although these programs have received different nominations around the world, I therefore proposed to bring them together under the unique concept of “strategic villages”. These “strategic villages” were indeed built up by the military in order to cut the links between the population and the guerrilla movements through the displacement and forced regrouping of rural zone’s inhabitants into these newly created villages. The military tried thus to use forced urbanization as a counterinsurgency measure to better control the inhabitants of these villages, to gain control over disputed territories and to expand (or to consolidate) state power over them. This type of programs has been applied in decolonization wars in Africa and Asia (1950-1960) but also under authoritarian regimes in Latin America (1970-1980). My study has aimed at analysing for the first time the application of the strategic village’s programs in Latin America. Based on qualitative fieldwork undertaken in Argentina (Tucumán and Chaco) and in Peru (Ayacucho and Lima) and framed within social anthropology, sociology and human geography, this research had produced a seminal in-depth study of the daily life among the strategic villages in Latin America, by analysing the experience of the displaced population that was forced to inhabit in there. Moreover, my research has explored the way in which this program was conceived by the military and how it circulated in Latin America during the 70s and 80s. Despite the various applications of this policy throughout the world, I showed that the construction of strategic villages regularly involves the support of foreign governments, the creation of militias, the destruction of old rural living spaces, the introduction of new infrastructure, and the production of profound changes in the surrounding communities and territories (Colombo 2018). In some cases, like in Argentina, these villages still exist and people who have been forcibly displaced continue to live there. Based on qualitative fieldwork, my study analysed the connection between mass violence and the so-called “military civic action programs”.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз