Anti-communist mass killings

Anti-communist mass killings are the political mass murders of communists, alleged communists, or their alleged supporters, by people, political organizations or governments opposed to communism. The Communist movement has faced opposition since it was founded, and this opposition has sometimes been organized and violent.

Argentina

Main article: Dirty War

From 1976 to 1983, the military dictatorship of Argentina (known as the National Reorganization Process) organized the arrest and execution of between 9,000 and 30,000 civilians suspected of being Communists or otherwise having leftist sympathies. Children of the victims were sometimes given a new identity and forcibly adopted to childless military families. This period of state terrorism is known as the Dirty War.[1][2] Held to account in the 2000s, the perpetrators of the killings argued that their actions were a necessary part of a "war" against Communism.[3]

El Salvador

1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre

In 1932, a communist-led insurrection against the government of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez was brutally suppressed, resulting in the death of 30,000 Salvadoran peasants.[4]

Salvadoran Civil War

The Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992) was a conflict between the military-led government of El Salvador and a coalition of five left-wing guerrilla organizations known collectively as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). A coup on October 15, 1979 led to the killings of anti-coup protesters by the government as well as anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas, and is widely seen as the tipping point toward civil war.[5]

By January 1980, the left-wing political organizations united to form the Coordinated Revolutionaries of the Masses (CRM). A few months later, the left-wing armed groups united to form the Unified Revolutionary Directorate (DRU). It was renamed the FMLN[6] following its merger with the Communist Party in October 1980.

The full-fledged civil war lasted for more than 12 years and saw extreme violence from both sides. It also included the deliberate terrorizing and targeting of civilians by death squads, the recruitment of child soldiers, and other violations of human rights, mostly by the military.[7] An unknown number of people "disappeared" during the conflict, and the UN reports that more than 75,000 were killed.[8] The United States contributed to the conflict by providing large amounts of military aid to the government of El Salvador during the Carter[9] and Reagan administrations.

Germany

Nazi Germany

German communists, socialists and trade unionists were among the earliest domestic opponents of Nazism[10] and were also among the first to be sent to concentration camps. Hitler claimed that communism was a Jewish ideology which the Nazis termed "Judeo-Bolshevism". Fear of communist agitation was used as justification for the Enabling Act of 1933, the law which gave Hitler plenary powers. Hermann Göring later testified at the Nuremberg Trials that the Nazis' willingness to repress German communists prompted President Paul von Hindenburg and the German elite to cooperate with the Nazis. The first concentration camp was built at Dachau, in March 1933, to imprison German communists, socialists, trade unionists and others opposed to the Nazis.[11] Communists, social democrats and other political prisoners were forced to wear a red triangle.

Whenever the Nazis occupied a new territory, members of communist, socialist, or anarchist groups were normally to be the first persons detained or executed. Evidence of this is found in Hitler's infamous Commissar Order, in which he ordered the summary execution of all political commissars captured among Soviet soldiers, as well as the execution of all Communist Party members in German held territory.[12][13] Einsatzgruppen carried out these executions in the east.[14]

Indonesia

Killings of 1965–66

The Indonesian killings of 1965–66 were a violent anti-Communist purge following an abortive coup in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Conventional estimates of the number of people killed by the Indonesian security forces over the course of this period run at between 500,000 and 1,000,000.[15]

The killings started in October 1965 in Jakarta, spread to Central and East Java and later to Bali, and smaller outbreaks occurred in parts of other islands,[16] notably Sumatra. As the Sukarno presidency began to unravel and Suharto began to assert control following the coup attempt, the PKI's upper national leadership was hunted and arrested with some summarily executed; the airforce in particular was a target of the purge. PKI chairman, Dipa Nusantara Aidit, had flown to Central Java in early October, and where the coup attempt had been supported by leftist officers in Yogyakarta, Salatiga, and Semarang.[17] Fellow senior PKI leader, Njoto, was shot around 6 November, Aidit on 22 November, and First Deputy PKI Chairman, M.H. Lukman, was killed shortly after.[18]

Korea

During the Korean War, thousands of communists and suspected communist sympathizers were killed as what came to be known as Bodo League massacre. Estimates of the death toll vary. According to Prof. Kim Dong-Choon, Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, at least 100,000 people were executed on suspicion of supporting communism;.[19] In the southeastern city of Ulsan, hundreds of people were massacred by the South Korean police during the early months of the Korean War between 1950 and 1953. 407 civilians were executed without trial in July and August 1950 alone. On 24 January 2008, the former President of Korea Roh Moo-hyun apologized for the mass killings.

Spain

White Terror

Main article: White Terror (Spain)

In Spain, White Terror refers to the atrocities committed by the Nationalist movement during the Spanish Civil War and during Francisco Franco's dictatorship.[20]

Most historians agree that the death toll of the White Terror was higher than that of the Red Terror. While most estimates of the Red Terror range from 38,000[21] to 55,000,[22] most of the estimates of the White Terror range from 150,000[23] to 400,000.[24]

Concrete figures do not exist, as many Communists and Socialists fled Spain after losing the Civil War. Furthermore, the Francoist government destroyed thousands of documents relating to the White Terror[25][26][27] and tried to hide the executions of the Republicans.[28][29] Thousands of victims of the "White Terror" are buried in hundreds of unmarked common graves, more than 600 in Andalusia alone.[30] The largest common grave is that at San Rafael cemetery on the outskirts of Malaga (with perhaps more than 4,000 bodies).[31] The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Historica or ARMH)[32] says that the number of disappeared is over 35,000.[33]

Taiwan

Main article: White Terror (Taiwan)

Tens of thousands of people, labelled as communist sympathizers and spies, were killed by the government of Chiang Kai-shek during the White Terror (Chinese: 白色恐怖; pinyin: báisè kǒngbù) in Taiwan, a violent suppression of political dissidents following the February 28 Incident in 1947.[34] Protests erupted on 27 February 1947 following an altercation between a group of Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents and a Taipei resident, with protestors calling for democratic reforms and an end to corruption. The Kuomintang regime responded by using violence to suppress the popular uprising. Over the next several days, the government-led crackdown killed several thousand people, with estimates generally setting the death toll somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 or more.[35][36] From 1947 to 1987, around 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned, of whom about from 3,000–4,000 were executed, for their alleged opposition to the Kuomintang regime.[37]

Thailand

The Thai military government and its Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC), helped by army, police and paramilitary vigilantes, reacted with drastic measures to the insurgency of the Communist Party of Thailand during the 1960s and 70s. The anti-communist operations peaked between 1971 and 1973, during the rule of Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn and General Praphas Charusathien. According to official figures, 3,008 suspected communists were killed during this period throughout the country.[38] Alternative estimates are much higher. These civilians were usually killed without any judicial proceedings.

A prominent example are the so-called "Red Drum" or "Red Barrel" killings of Lam Sai, Phatthalung Province, Southern Thailand. There, more than 200 civilians[38] (informal accounts speak of up to 3,000)[39][40] who were accused of helping the communists were burned in red 200-litre oil drums – sometimes after having been killed to dispose of their bodies, and sometimes burned alive.[40] The incident was never thoroughly investigated and none of the perpetrators was brought to justice.[41]

After three years of civilian rule following the October 1973 popular uprising, at least 46 leftist students and activists who had gathered on and around Bangkok's Thammasat University campus were massacred by police and right-wing paramilitaries on 6 October 1976. They had been accused of supporting communism. The mass killing followed a campaign of violently anti-communist propaganda by right-wing politicians, media and clerics, exemplified by the Buddhist monk Phra Kittiwuttho's claim that killing communists were not sinful.[42][43]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Anderson, Jon Lee (March 14, 2013). "Pope Francis and the Dirty War". New Yorker.
  2. ↑ Goldman, Francisco (March 19, 2012). "Children of the Dirty War". New Yorker.
  3. ↑ McDonnell, Patrick (August 29, 2008). "Two Argentine ex-generals guilty in 'dirty war' death". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ↑ Cold War's Last Battlefield, The: Reagan, the Soviets, and Central America by Edward A. Lynch State University of New York Press 2011, page 49
  5. ↑ Wood, Elizabeth (2003). Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  6. ↑ Uppsala Conflict Data Program Conflict Encyclopedia, El Salvador, In Depth: Negotiating a settlement to the conflict, http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=51&regionSelect=4-Central_Americas#, viewed on May 24, 2013
  7. ↑ Larsen, Neil (2010). "Thoughts on Violence and Modernity in Latin America". In Grandin & Joseph, Greg & Gilbert. A Century of Revolution. Durham & London: Duke University Press. pp. 381–393.
  8. ↑ "Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador" United Nations, 1 April 1993
  9. ↑ Uppsala Conflict Data Program Conflict Encyclopedia, El Salvador, In Depth: Negotiating a settlement to the conflict, http://www.ucdp.uu.se/gpdatabase/gpcountry.php?id=51&regionSelect=4-Central_Americas#, "While nothing of the aid delivered from the US in 1979 was earmarked for security purposes the 1980 aid for security only summed US$6,2 million, close to two-thirds of the total aid in 1979", viewed on May 24, 2013
  10. ↑ Non-Jewish Resistance, Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
  11. ↑ "Horrors of Auschwitz", Newsquest Media Group Newspapers, 27 January 2005
  12. ↑ "The war that time forgot", The Guardian, 5 October 1999
  13. ↑ Commissar Order
  14. ↑ Peter Hitchens, The Gathering Storm, 9 April 2008
  15. ↑ Friend (2003), p. 113.
  16. ↑ Cribb (1990), p. 3.
  17. ↑ Vickers (2005), p. 157.
  18. ↑ Ricklefs (1991), p. 288; Vickers (2005), p. 157
  19. ↑ "Khiem and Kim Sung-soo: Crime, Concealment and South Korea". Japan Focus. Archived from the original on 2008-10-07. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  20. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain; The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2006), pp.89–94.
  21. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain; The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. 2006. London. p.87
  22. ↑ Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. 2001. p.900
  23. ↑ Casanova, Julían; Espinosa, Francisco; Mir, Conxita; Moreno Gómez, Francisco. Morir, matar, sobrevivir. La violencia en la dictadura de Franco. Editorial Crítica. Barcelona. 2002. p.8
  24. ↑ Richards, Michael. A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco's Spain, 1936-1945. Cambridge University Press. 1998. p.11
  25. ↑ Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, revolution & revenge. Harper Perennial. 2006. London. p.316
  26. ↑ Espinosa, Francisco. La justicia de Queipo. Editorial Crítica. 2006. Barcelona. p.4
  27. ↑ Espinosa, Francisco. Contra el olvido. Historia y memoria de la guerra civil. Editorial Crítica. 2006. Barcelona. p.131
  28. ↑ Fontana, Josep, ed. España bajo el franquismo. Editorial Crítica. 1986. Barcelona. p.22
  29. ↑ Espinosa, Francisco. La justicia de Queipo. Editorial Crítica. 2006. Barcelona. pp.172–173
  30. ↑ Moreno Gómez, Francisco. 1936: el genocidio franquista en Córdoba. Editorial Crítica. Barcelona. 2008. p.11
  31. ↑ The Olive Press
  32. ↑ "Opening Franco's Graves", by Mike Elkin Archaeology Volume 59 Number 5, September/October 2006. Archaeological Institute of America
  33. ↑ Silva, Emilio. Las fosas de Franco. Crónica de un desagravio. Ediciones Temas de Hoy. 2006. Madrid. p. 110
  34. ↑ Rubinstein, Murray A. (2007). Taiwan: A New History. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. p. 302. ISBN 9780765614957.
  35. ↑ 傷亡人數與人才斷層. TaiwanUS.net (in Chinese). Retrieved 2008-09-24.
  36. ↑ Durdin, Tillman (March 29, 1947). "Formosa killings are put at 10,000". New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 April 2006. Retrieved 2006-04-22.
  37. ↑ Huang, Tai-lin (20 May 2005). "White Terror exhibit unveils part of the truth". Taipei Times.
  38. 1 2 Jularat Damrongviteetham (2013). Narratives of the "Red Barrel" Incident: Collective and Individual Memories in Lamsin, Southern Thailand. Oral History in Southeast Asia: Memories and Fragments. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 101.
  39. ↑ Tyrell Haberkorn (2013). Getting Away with Murder in Thailand: State Violence and Impunity in Phatthalung. State Violence in East Asia. University Press of Kentucky. p. 186.
  40. 1 2 Matthew Zipple (2014). "Thailand's Red Drum Murders Through an Analysis of Declassified Documents" (PDF). Southeast Review of Asian Studies. 36: 91.
  41. ↑ Tyrell Haberkorn (2013). Getting Away with Murder in Thailand. pp. 186–187.
  42. ↑ Chris Baker; Pasuk Pongphaichit (2009). A History of Thailand (Second ed.). Ocford University Press. pp. 191–194.
  43. ↑ Thongchai Winichakul (2002). Remembering/Silencing the Traumatic Past: The Ambivalent Memories of the October 1976 Massacre in Bangkok. Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos. Routledge. p. 244.
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