#dirty war

[agentfascinateur]

A reminder about Palestine:

Firstly, the existence of the country of Palestine was never in question. And secondly, as per the UK's own words in the oft-referred to "foundational" "Balfour Declaration":

"NOTHING SHALL BE DONE WHICH MAY PREJUDICE THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS OF EXISTING NON-JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN PALESTINE."

Plain as day.

[news4dzhozhar]

[beautiful-basque-country]

On a day like today [Aug 30] in 1989, Anjel Etxaniz was killed by Batallón Vasco Español in Ondarru. While working in his nightclub, he was shot with machine guns, and his cousin Noelia Olabarria and worker Pakita Urresti were injured.

He was a member of the Committee for Amnesty, as well as one of the founders of newspaper Egin; he had been supporting the Bai Euskarari movement and was the vice-president of Aurrera soccer team. He was tortured several times in 1963, 1968 and 1976.

Batallón Vasco Español is one of the names used by the Spanish secret services for the dirty war between 1975 and 1982, made up of members of the extreme right. These groups killed at least 70 people in the Basque Country during that period.

During Anjel's funeral, the Guardia Civil drove past the church honking through the crowd and causing great moments of tension.

No one has ever been punished for this murder.

[x]

[leftistfeminista]

How the Junta faked the death of a Leftist Woman Leader

One of the cruelest, dirty tricks of Junta psychological warfare was faking the death of a high ranking Montoneros woman leader Esther Norma Arrostito. It was reported in all the newspapers that she had died a heroic martyrdom in a shootout with the Junta.

As part of their misogynist treatment of women leaders, as human trophies, they actually kept her alive and used her as a tool to break the spirit of her comrades who admired her as a heroic martyr. As part of their patriarchal machismo ideology they believed that being lead by women was a weakness of the egalitarian Left. The Junta attempted to exploit this "weakness" for singling out women leaders for intense humiliation in front of their comrades. Faking her death in a heroic battle so she would be worshipped as a martyr first, was a way of intensifying this contrast. Comrades with absolute faith in her incorruptibility would be demoralized when their dead martyr was dragged out in chains and skimpy underwear.

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"They kept her in the ESMA chained and in sight of other kidnapped people to make a dent in their morale."

The military faked her death in order to keep Montoneros in the belief that a lot of compromising information had been lost with her. Arrostito, however, endured more than a year of torture and humiliation without betraying her comrades. 

[dougielombax]

30 years ago today.

I’m posting this because I study history.

And in case any stupid British armchair historians start bleating on about the usual crap.

The details are as follows.

Members of the UVF armed with machine guns (supplied by apartheid South Africa (who in turn bought them from Israel after they raided a PLO arms depot, idk the exact details beyond that) and the British government) burst into a pub in the village of Loughinisland and murdered 6 people. All of whom were innocent unarmed civilians.

It was also during the 1994 World Cup but that’s not strictly relevant.

It was believed that the attack was organised in cooperation with the RUC as well, with investigations pointing to evidence of collusion.

Why did they do this? Because they felt they ought to.

So they killed innocent people simply because that’s all they were capable of.

Because they viewed Irish people as being subhuman, soulless monsters deserving of death.

Which btw far too many idiots today still believe for some baffling reason, like what is this? 1875?

And which by the way we AREN’T!

Away with that shite!

Such attacks were hardly unusual for the UVF, most people they killed were innocent unarmed civilians.

Above: A memorial site dedicated to the victims of the attack.

Here’s an article from a few years ago too.

Also a link to one of the relevant investigations along with a relevant article.

Before any loyalists, or British or American far right fascist types or stupid Tories show up to bitch at me for posting about this, keep in mind that I study history!

I have an obligation to post about this stuff. As I’ve done for prior events on relevant dates.

So kindly shush up!

Feel free to reblog as well.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Argentine Federal Police Motorized Corps IKA-Renault Torino during Operation Independence, 1975

[spaceintruderdetector]

https://archive.org/details/the-killing-zone

[mexicanistnet]

Mexico's Dirty War in Guerrero saw army abuses reign supreme: disappearances, torture, rape. Brave voices, like Pompeya Muñoz Rentería, dared to break silence, exposing atrocities despite fear and government impunity. Their stories, unearthed from archives.

[immaculatasknight]

The fruits of Catholic collaboration with fascism

[youare7567]

Obi-Wan and Cody holding hands

[darthvaders]

Darth Vader + entrance

[agentfascinateur]

The plan IS genocide

Everything else is window dressing, posturing, slowrolling and denying.

[flekh]

Anders the Healer

[beautiful-basque-country]

Drugs as part of Spain's dirty war against Euskadi

In 1982, the proliferation of syringes on the streets, young people wandering around with withdrawal symptoms, and small-scale robberies in stores or homes were evidencing a problem that would leave a trail of deaths in that decade that was impossible to calculate anymore. Heroin was going to mark an entire generation at a very politically turbulent time.

Citizens' perception of the impending catastrophe would become official in some way with the Basque Government's Plan against Drug Dependence was introduced on February 9, 1982. It included some figures for the first time: there were already between 6,000 and 10,000 heroin addicts aged 14-25 in Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. Something else was pointed out: "Police action in this matter has been weak" and "public authorities have neglected it." The plan warned especially about Gipuzkoa, where drugs flowed with absolute freedom, to the point of being the place in the Spanish State where the most heroin was consumed after Barcelona.

Man doing heroine on the street in Bizkaia.

Why Gipuzkoa? To the purely geographical elements (possibility of entering by sea, proximity of the border to another state) were obviously added the political ones: it was the region in which there was the most political agitation - which the youth was most involved in - and in which ETA had the most strength. It was also the epicenter of police action against the insurgents, with the Intxaurrondo Guardia Civil barracks as the main reference.

Heroin coincidentally punished the areas very close to Intxaurrondo: the neighborhoods of Altza and Herrera, Pasaia, Errenteria, Hernani… But also Arrasate, Elgoibar, Bermeo or the capitals: Iruñea, Gasteiz, and Bilbo (some estimates put the death toll at 400 in Otxarkoaga [a neighborhood of Bilbo] alone).

People protesting before the Intxaurrondo barracks.

The widespread conviction that it was actually the police using drugs to politically demobilize Basque youth increased with two relevant press reports: after the seizure of large consignments of cocaine in Irun and hashish in Hondarribia, it turned out that a large part of the shipments had "disappeared" and/or returned to the market. The second one, the publishing of a report where the chief prosecutor of the Court of Gipuzkoa pointed to connections between the Spanish Security Forces and the spread of heroin in the Basque Country.

Report that was never seen again after being transferred to Madrid.

The issue today still constitutes a file to be opened. It has not been possible to put the exact dimension of the human drama that entailed and we have no actual number of deaths. The effects were not just deaths and illnesses, in a Russian roulette game that would worsen with the almost parallel emergence of AIDS. They also caused an economic drain on many families. The situation also left its mark on the artistic world in many of the songs of the so-called Basque Radical Rock, also shaken by the scourge.

Drug addiction was also associated to the increase in unemployment among youth, completing a picture of punishment and an eventual -and much wanted - political demobilization.

[x]

[biblioklept]

Farce, then tragedy | A few thoughts on Osvaldo Soriano's novel A Funny Dirty Little War

Farce, then tragedy | A few thoughts on Osvaldo Soriano’s novel A Funny Dirty Little War

I had never heard of the Argentinian author Osvaldo Soriano, but I plucked his novel A Funny Dirty Little War from the bookstore shelf because of its title. The goofy, menacingly violent cover, featuring an illustration by Oscar Zarate, intrigued me, and the Italo Calvino blurb on the back sold me on the book before I’d even opened it. Calvino’s blurb offers a succinct summary of the novel: A…

[dougielombax]

Too many people, especially in the UK, Russia and America (as well as MANY other countries) don’t view war as a hellish but sometimes sadly necessary thing to keep evil in check.

When it is that at least. (It’s not always the case)

Because it’s not always so.

Unfortunately.

As we have seen from many vicious colonial conflicts and dirty wars like the one the UK was waging in my own country not 30 years ago.

Instead they have come to venerate the idea of war.

To view it as a kind of cleansing ritual. Sickeningly.

Instead they come to view war as some kind of necessary sacred rite of passage.

A putrid baptism of fire.

A sacred war (fuck off!). (This particular line of thinking is especially prevalent among Putin and his ilk)

It’s sickening.

Borderline cult thinking

You see this all the time with armchair colonels bitching about the NEED to bring back National service or whatever.

Spurred on by vulgar shithead billionaires, tabloid tv and radio hosts and middle aged mediocrities with podcasts.

It’s disgusting.