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Soviet-Afghan War

Part of the Cold War and the Afghan conflict

Date

24 December 1979 - 15 February 1989
(9 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 1 day)

Location

Result

Mujahideen victory

Belligerents

Soviet Union
Afghanistan

Afghan Mujahideen
Afghan Interim Government (from 1988)

Commanders and leaders

Soviet Union:

Afghanistan:

Sunni Mujahideen:

Shia Mujahideen:

Units involved

Sunni Mujahideen Shia Mujahideen

Strength

Soviet Union:

620,000 total personnel[7] 115,000 (1986 estimate)[8] 120,000 (1987 estimate)[9]

Afghanistan:

250,000 total personnel (1989, including Sarandoy and Khad)[10]

Mujahideen:

Casualties and losses

Total: 86,470-98,017 Soviet Union:

14,453[14]-26,000[15] killed

9,500 killed in combat[14]

4,000 died from wounds[14]

1,000 died from disease and accidents[14]

53,753 wounded[14]

264 missing

451 aircraft lost (including 333 helicopters)

147 tanks lost

1,314 IFVs/APCs lost

433 artillery guns and mortars lost

11,369 cargo and fuel tanker trucks lost

Afghanistan:

41,951 killed (1985-1989)[16]

Total: 162,579-192,579+Mujahideen:

150,000-180,000 casualties (tentative estimate)[17]

Pakistan:
Total killed: 80,775-95,775+

Civilian casualties (Afghan):

The Soviet-Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Soviet-controlled Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) from 1979 to 1989. The war was a major conflict of the Cold War as it saw extensive fighting between the DRA, the Soviet Union and allied paramilitary groups against the Afghan mujahideen and their allied foreign fighters. While the mujahideen were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of their support came from Pakistan, the United States (as part of Operation Cyclone), the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The involvement of the foreign powers made the war a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Combat took place throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside. The conflict led to the deaths of between 562,000 and 2,000,000 Afghans, while millions more fled from the country as refugees; most externally displaced Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and in Iran. Approximately 6.5% to 11.5% of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people (per the 1979 census) is estimated to have been killed over the course of the conflict. The Soviet-Afghan War caused grave destruction throughout Afghanistan and has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, formally ending the Cold War.

The Soviet government had initially planned to swiftly secure Afghanistan's towns and road networks, stabilize the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government, and withdraw all of their military forces in a span of six months to one year. However, they were met with fierce resistance from Afghan guerrillas and experienced great operational difficulties on the rugged mountainous terrain. By the mid-1980s, the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan had increased to approximately 115,000 troops and fighting across the country intensified; the complication of the war effort gradually inflicted a high cost on the Soviet Union as military, economic, and political resources became increasingly exhausted. By mid-1987, reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet military would begin a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. The final wave of disengagement was initiated on 15 May 1988, and on 15 February 1989, the last Soviet military column occupying Afghanistan crossed into the Uzbek SSR. With continued external Soviet backing, the PDPA government pursued a solo war effort against the mujahideen, and the conflict evolved into the Afghan Civil War. However following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, all support to the Republic was pulled, leading to the toppling of the Homeland Party's Isolated Republic at the hands of the mujahideen in 1992 and the start of another Afghan Civil War.

In Afghanistan, the war is usually called the Soviet war in Afghanistan ( Pashto: په افغانستان کې شوروی جګړه, romanized: Pah Afghanistan ke Shuravi Jagera; Dari: جنگ شوروی در افغانستان, romanized: Afghan war ( Jang-e Shuravi dar Afghanestan). In Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, it is usually called the Russian: Афганская война; Ukrainian: Війна в Афганістані; Belarusian: Афганская вайна; Uzbek: Afgʻon urushi); it is sometimes simply referred to as " Afgan" (Russian: Афган), with the understanding that this refers to the war (just as the Vietnam War is often called "Vietnam" or just "'Nam" in the United States). It is also known as the Afghan jihad, especially by the non-Afghan volunteers of the Mujahideen.

Background

Russian interest in Central Asia

In the 19th century, the British Empire was fearful that the Russian Empire would invade Afghanistan and use it to threaten the large British colonies in India. This regional rivalry was called the " Great Game". In 1885, Russian forces seized a disputed oasis south of the Oxus River from Afghan forces, which became known as the Panjdeh Incident. The border was agreed by the joint Anglo-Russian Afghan Boundary Commission of 1885-87. The Russian interest in Afghanistan continued through the Soviet era, with billions in economic and military aid sent to Afghanistan between 1955 and 1978.

Following Amanullah Khan's ascent to the throne in 1919 and the subsequent Third Anglo-Afghan War, the British conceded Afghanistan's full independence. King Amanullah afterwards wrote to Russia (now under Bolshevik control) desiring for permanent friendly relations. Vladimir Lenin replied by congratulating the Afghans for their defence against the British, and a treaty of friendship between Afghanistan and Russia was finalized in 1921. The Soviets saw possibilities in an alliance with Afghanistan against the United Kingdom, such as using it as a base for a revolutionary advance towards British-controlled India.

The Red Army intervened in Afghanistan to suppress the Islamic Basmachi movement in 1929 and 1930, supporting the ousted king Amanullah, as part of the Afghan Civil War (1928-1929). The Basmachi movement had originated in a 1916 revolt against Russian conscription during World War I, bolstered by Turkish general Enver Pasha during the Caucasus campaign. Afterwards, the Soviet Army deployed around 120,000-160,000 troops in Central Asia, a force similar to the peak strength of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in size. By 1926-1928, the Basmachis were mostly defeated by the Soviets, and Central Asia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. In 1929, the Basmachi rebellion reignited, associated with anti- forced collectivization riots. Basmachis crossed over into Afghanistan under Ibrahim Bek, which gave a pretext for the Red Army interventions in 1929 and 1930.

Soviet-Afghan relations post-1920s

The Soviet Union (USSR) had been a major power broker and influential mentor in Afghan politics, its involvement ranging from civil-military infrastructure to Afghan society. Since 1947, Afghanistan had been under the influence of the Soviet government and received large amounts of aid, economic assistance, military equipment training and military hardware from the Soviet Union. Economic assistance and aid had been provided to Afghanistan as early as 1919, shortly after the Russian Revolution and when the regime was facing the Russian Civil War. Provisions were given in the form of small arms, ammunition, a few aircraft, and (according to debated Soviet sources) a million gold rubles to support the resistance during the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. In 1942, the USSR again moved to strengthen the Afghan Armed Forces by providing small arms and aircraft and establishing training centers in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR. Soviet-Afghan military cooperation began on a regular basis in 1956, and further agreements were made in the 1970s, which saw the USSR send advisers and specialists. The Soviets also had interests in the energy resources of Afghanistan, including oil and natural gas exploration from the 1950s and 1960s. The USSR began to import Afghan gas from 1968 onwards.

Afghanistan-Pakistan border

The British Raj also came to an end, and the Dominion of Pakistan gained independence from British India and inherited the Durand Line as its frontier with Afghanistan.

Under the regime of Daoud Khan, Afghanistan had hostile relations with both Pakistan and Iran. Like all previous Afghan rulers since 1901, Daoud Khan also wanted to emulate Emir Abdur Rahman Khan and unite his divided country.

Daoud Khan's irredentist foreign policy to reunite the Pashtun homeland caused much tension with Pakistan, a state that allied itself with the United States. The policy had also angered the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan, and similarly, the Pashtun population in Pakistan were also not interested in having their areas being annexed by Afghanistan. In 1951, the U.S. State Department urged Afghanistan to drop its claim against Pakistan and accept the Durand Line.

1960s-1970s: Proxy war

In 1954, the United States began selling arms to its ally Pakistan, while refusing an Afghan request to buy arms, out of fear that the Afghans would use the weapons against Pakistan. As a consequence, Afghanistan, though officially neutral in the Cold War, drew closer to India and the Soviet Union, which were willing to sell them weapons. In 1962, China defeated India in a border war, and as a result, China formed an alliance with Pakistan against their common enemy, India, pushing Afghanistan even closer to India and the Soviet Union.

In 1960 and 1961, the Afghan Army, on the orders of Daoud Khan following his policy of Pashtun irredentism, made two unsuccessful incursions into Pakistan's Bajaur District. In both cases, the Afghan army was routed, suffering heavy casualties. In response, Pakistan closed its consulate in Afghanistan and blocked all trade routes through the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. This damaged Afghanistan's economy and Daoud's regime was pushed towards closer alliance with the Soviet Union for trade. However, these stopgap measures were not enough to compensate the loss suffered by Afghanistan's economy because of the border closure. As a result of continued resentment against Daoud's autocratic rule, close ties with the Soviet Union and economic downturn, Daoud Khan was forced to resign by the King of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Following his resignation, the crisis between Pakistan and Afghanistan was resolved and Pakistan re-opened the trade routes. After the removal of Daoud Khan, the King installed a new prime minister and started creating a balance in Afghanistan's relation with the West and the Soviet Union, which angered the Soviet Union.

Ten years later, in 1973, Daoud Khan, supported by Soviet-trained Afghan army officers, seized power from the King in a bloodless coup, and established the first Afghan republic. Following his return to power, Daoud revived his Pashtunistan policy and for the first time started proxy warring against Pakistan by supporting anti-Pakistani groups and providing them with arms, training and sanctuaries. The Pakistani government of prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was alarmed by this. The Soviet Union also supported Daoud Khan's militancy against Pakistan as they wanted to weaken Pakistan, which was an ally of both the United States and China. However, it did not openly try to create problems for Pakistan as that would damage the Soviet Union's relations with other Islamic countries, hence it relied on Daoud Khan to weaken Pakistan. They had the same thought regarding Iran, another major U.S. ally. The Soviet Union also believed that the hostile behaviour of Afghanistan against Pakistan and Iran could alienate Afghanistan from the west, and Afghanistan would be forced into a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. The pro-Soviet Afghans (such as the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)) also supported Daoud Khan's hostility towards Pakistan, as they believed that a conflict with Pakistan would induce Afghanistan to seek aid from the Soviet Union. As a result, the pro-Soviet Afghans would be able to establish their influence over Afghanistan.

In response to Afghanistan's proxy war, Pakistan started supporting Afghans who were critical of Daoud Khan's policies. Bhutto authorized a covert operation under MI's Major-General Naseerullah Babar. In 1974, Bhutto authorized another secret operation in Kabul where the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Air Intelligence of Pakistan (AI) extradited Burhanuddin Rabbani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad Shah Massoud to Peshawar, amid fear that Rabbani, Hekmatyar and Massoud might be assassinated by Daoud. According to Baber, Bhutto's operation was an excellent idea and it had hard-hitting impact on Daoud and his government, which forced Daoud to increase his desire to make peace with Bhutto. Pakistan's goal was to overthrow Daoud's regime and establish an Islamist theocracy in its place. The first ever ISI operation in Afghanistan took place in 1975, supporting militants from the Jamiat-e Islami party, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, attempting to overthrow the government. They started their rebellion in the Panjshir valley, but lack of support along with government forces easily defeating them made it a failure, and a sizable portion of the insurgents sought refuge in Pakistan where they enjoyed the support of Bhutto's government.

The 1975 rebellion, though unsuccessful, shook President Daoud Khan and made him realize that a friendly Pakistan was in his best interests. He started improving relations with Pakistan and made state visits there in 1976 and 1978. During the 1978 visit, he agreed to stop supporting anti-Pakistan militants and to expel any remaining militants in Afghanistan. In 1975, Daoud Khan established his own party, the National Revolutionary Party of Afghanistan and outlawed all other parties. He then started removing members of its Parcham wing from government positions, including the ones who had supported his coup, and started replacing them with familiar faces from Kabul's traditional government elites. Daoud also started reducing his dependence on the Soviet Union. As a consequence of Daoud's actions, Afghanistan's relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated. In 1978, after witnessing India's nuclear test, Smiling Buddha, Daoud Khan initiated a military buildup to counter Pakistan's armed forces and Iranian military influence in Afghan politics.

Saur Revolution of 1978

The Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan's strength grew considerably after its foundation. In 1967, the PDPA split into two rival factions, the Khalq (Masses) faction headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and the Parcham (Flag) faction led by Babrak Karmal. Symbolic of the different backgrounds of the two factions were the fact that Taraki's father was a poor Pashtun herdsman while Karmal's father was a Tajik general in the Royal Afghan Army. More importantly, the radical Khalq faction believed in rapidly transforming Afghanistan, if necessary even using violence, from a feudal system into a Communist society, while the moderate Parcham faction favored a more gradualist and gentler approach, arguing that Afghanistan was simply not ready for Communism and would not be for some time. The Parcham faction favored building up the PDPA as a mass party in support of the Daoud Khan government, while the Khalq faction were organized in the Leninist style as a small, tightly organized elite group, allowing the latter to enjoy ascendancy over the former. In 1971, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul reported that there had been increasing leftist activity in the country, attributed to disillusionment of social and economic conditions, and the poor response from the Kingdom's leadership. It added that the PDPA was "perhaps the most disgruntled and organized of the country's leftist groups."

Intense opposition from factions of the PDPA was sparked by the repression imposed on them by Daoud's regime and the death of a leading PDPA member, Mir Akbar Khyber. The mysterious circumstances of Khyber's death sparked massive anti-Daoud demonstrations in Kabul, which resulted in the arrest of several prominent PDPA leaders. On 27 April 1978, the Afghan Army, which had been sympathetic to the PDPA cause, overthrew and executed Daoud along with members of his family. The Finnish scholar Raimo Väyrynen wrote about the so-called "Saur Revolution": "There is a multitude of speculations on the real nature of this coup. The reality appears to be that it was inspired first of all by domestic economic and political concerns and that the Soviet Union did not play any role in the Saur Revolution". After this the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) was formed. Nur Muhammad Taraki, General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, became Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. On 5 December 1978, a treaty of friendship was signed between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan.

"Red Terror" of the revolutionary government

After the revolution, Taraki assumed the leadership, prime ministership and general secretaryship of the PDPA. As before in the party, the government never referred to itself as " communist". The government was divided along factional lines, with Taraki and Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin of the Khalq faction pitted against Parcham leaders such as Babrak Karmal. Though the new regime promptly allied itself to the Soviet Union, many Soviet diplomats believed that the Khalqi plans to transform Afghanistan would provoke a rebellion from the general population, which was socially and religiously conservative. Immediately after coming to power, the Khalqis began to persecute the Parchamis, not the least because the Soviet Union favored the Parchami faction whose "go slow" plans were felt to be better suited for Afghanistan, thereby leading the Khalqis to eliminate their rivals so the Soviets would have no other choice but to back them. Within the PDPA, conflicts resulted in exiles, purges and executions of Parcham members. The Khalq state executed between 10,000 and 27,000 people, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison, prior to the Soviet intervention. Political scientist Olivier Roy estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people disappeared during the Taraki-Amin period:

There is only one leading force in the country - Hafizullah Amin. In the Politburo, everybody fears Amin.

During its first 18 months of rule, the PDPA applied a Soviet-style program of modernizing reforms, many of which were viewed by conservatives as opposing Islam. Decrees setting forth changes in marriage customs and land reform were not received well by a population deeply immersed in tradition and Islam, particularly by the powerful landowners harmed economically by the abolition of usury (although usury is prohibited in Islam) and the cancellation of farmers' debts. The new government also enhanced women's rights, sought a rapid eradication of illiteracy and promoted Afghanistan's ethnic minorities, although these programs appear to have had an effect only in the urban areas. By mid-1978, a rebellion started, with rebels attacking the local military garrison in the Nuristan region of eastern Afghanistan and soon civil war spread throughout the country. In September 1979, Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin seized power, arresting and killing Taraki. More than two months of instability overwhelmed Amin's regime as he moved against his opponents in the PDPA and the growing rebellion.

Affairs with the USSR after the revolution

Even before the revolutionaries came to power, Afghanistan was "a militarily and politically neutral nation, effectively dependent on the Soviet Union." A treaty, signed in December 1978, allowed the Democratic Republic to call upon the Soviet Union for military support.

We believe it would be a fatal mistake to commit ground troops. [...] If our troops went in, the situation in your country would not improve. On the contrary, it would get worse. Our troops would have to struggle not only with an external aggressor, but with a significant part of your own people. And the people would never forgive such things.
- Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, in response to Taraki's request for Soviet presence in Afghanistan

Following the Herat uprising, the first major sign of anti-regime resistance, General Secretary Taraki contacted Alexei Kosygin, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and asked for "practical and technical assistance with men and armament". Kosygin was unfavorable to the proposal on the basis of the negative political repercussions such an action would have for his country, and he rejected all further attempts by Taraki to solicit Soviet military aid in Afghanistan. Following Kosygin's rejection, Taraki requested aid from Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Soviet head of state, who warned Taraki that full Soviet intervention "would only play into the hands of our enemies - both yours and ours". Brezhnev also advised Taraki to ease up on the drastic social reforms and to seek broader support for his regime.

In 1979, Taraki attended a conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana, Cuba. On his way back, he stopped in Moscow on 20 March and met with Brezhnev, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and other Soviet officials. It was rumoured that Karmal was present at the meeting in an attempt to reconcile Taraki's Khalq faction and the Parcham against Amin and his followers. At the meeting, Taraki was successful in negotiating some Soviet support, including the redeployment of two Soviet armed divisions at the Soviet-Afghan border, the sending of 500 military and civilian advisers and specialists and the immediate delivery of Soviet armed equipment sold at 25 percent below the original price; however, the Soviets were not pleased about the developments in Afghanistan and Brezhnev impressed upon Taraki the need for party unity. Despite reaching this agreement with Taraki, the Soviets continued to be reluctant to intervene further in Afghanistan and repeatedly refused Soviet military intervention within Afghan borders during Taraki's rule as well as later during Amin's short rule.

Lenin taught us to be merciless towards the enemies of the revolution, and millions of people had to be eliminated in order to secure the victory of the October Revolution.

-  Taraki's reply to the Soviet ambassador Alexander Puzanov, who asked Taraki to spare the lives of two Parchamites sentenced to death.

Initiation of the rebellion

In 1978, the Taraki government initiated a series of reforms, including a radical modernization of the traditional Islamic civil law, especially marriage law, aimed at "uprooting feudalism" in Afghan society.[page needed ] The government brooked no opposition to the reforms and responded with violence to unrest. Between April 1978 and the Soviet Intervention of December 1979, thousands of prisoners, perhaps as many as 27,000, were executed at the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, including many village mullahs and headmen. Other members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment and intelligentsia fled the country.

Large parts of the country went into open rebellion. The Parcham Government claimed that 11,000 were executed during the Amin/Taraki period in response to the revolts. The revolt began in October among the Nuristani tribes of the Kunar Valley in the northeastern part of the country near the border with Pakistan, and rapidly spread among the other ethnic groups. By the spring of 1979, 24 of the 28 provinces had suffered outbreaks of violence. The rebellion began to take hold in the cities: in March 1979 in Herat, rebels led by Ismail Khan revolted. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people were killed and wounded during the Herat revolt. Some 100 Soviet citizens and their families were killed. By August 1979, up to 165,000 Afghans had fled across the border to Pakistan. The main reason the revolt spread so widely was the disintegration of the Afghan army in a series of insurrections. The numbers of the Afghan army fell from 110,000 men in 1978 to 25,000 by 1980. The U.S. embassy in Kabul cabled to Washington the army was melting away "like an ice floe in a tropical sea". According to scholar Gilles Dorronsoro, it was the violence of the state rather than its reforms that caused the uprisings.

Pakistan-U.S. relations and rebel aid

Pakistani intelligence officials began privately lobbying the U.S. and its allies to send materiel assistance to the Islamist rebels. Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's ties with the U.S. had been strained during Jimmy Carter's presidency due to Pakistan's nuclear program and the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in April 1979, but Carter told National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran. According to former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official Robert Gates, "the Carter administration turned to CIA ... to counter Soviet and Cuban aggression in the Third World, particularly beginning in mid-1979." In March 1979, "CIA sent several covert action options relating to Afghanistan to the SCC [ Special Coordination Committee]" of the United States National Security Council. At a 30 March meeting, U.S. Department of Defense representative Walter B. Slocombe "asked if there was value in keeping the Afghan insurgency going, 'sucking the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire?'" When asked to clarify this remark, Slocombe explained: "Well, the whole idea was that if the Soviets decided to strike at this tar baby [Afghanistan] we had every interest in making sure that they got stuck." Yet a 5 April memo from National Intelligence Officer Arnold Horelick warned: "Covert action would raise the costs to the Soviets and inflame Moslem opinion against them in many countries. The risk was that a substantial U.S. covert aid program could raise the stakes and induce the Soviets to intervene more directly and vigorously than otherwise intended."

In May 1979, U.S. officials secretly began meeting with rebel leaders through Pakistani government contacts. After additional meetings Carter signed two presidential findings in July 1979 permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the DRA, which (in the words of Steve Coll) "seemed at the time a small beginning."

Soviet deployment, 1979

The headquarters of the Soviet 40th Army in Tajbeg Palace, Kabul, 1987. Before the Soviet intervention, the building was the presidential palace, where Hafizullah Amin was assassinated.

The Amin government, having secured a treaty in December 1978 that allowed them to call on Soviet forces, repeatedly requested the introduction of troops in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. They requested Soviet troops to provide security and to assist in the fight against the mujahideen ("Those engaged in jihad") rebels. After the killing of Soviet technicians in Herat by rioting mobs, the Soviet government sold several Mi-24 helicopters to the Afghan military. On 14 April 1979, the Afghan government requested that the USSR send 15 to 20 helicopters with their crews to Afghanistan, and on 16 June, the Soviet government responded and sent a detachment of tanks, BMPs, and crews to guard the government in Kabul and to secure the Bagram and Shindand air bases. In response to this request, an airborne battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel A. Lomakin, arrived at Bagram on 7 July. They arrived without their combat gear, disguised as technical specialists. They were the personal bodyguards for General Secretary Taraki. The paratroopers were directly subordinate to the senior Soviet military advisor and did not interfere in Afghan politics. Several leading politicians at the time such as Alexei Kosygin and Andrei Gromyko were against intervention.

After a month, the Afghan requests were no longer for individual crews and subunits, but for regiments and larger units. In July, the Afghan government requested that two motorized rifle divisions be sent to Afghanistan. The following day, they requested an airborne division in addition to the earlier requests. They repeated these requests and variants to these requests over the following months right up to December 1979. However, the Soviet government was in no hurry to grant them.

We should tell Taraki and Amin to change their tactics. They still continue to execute those people who disagree with them. They are killing nearly all of the Parcham leaders, not only the highest rank, but of the middle rank, too.
- Kosygin speaking at a Politburo session.

The Soviets established a special commission on Afghanistan, comprising the KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, Boris Ponomarev from the Central Committee and Dmitry Ustinov, the Minister of Defence. In late April 1979, the committee reported that Amin was purging his opponents, including Soviet loyalists, that his loyalty to Moscow was in question and that he was seeking diplomatic links with Pakistan and possibly the People's Republic of China (which at the time had poor relations with the Soviet Union). Of specific concern were Amin's supposed meetings with the U.S. chargé d'affaires, J. Bruce Amstutz, which were used as a justification for the invasion by the Kremlin.

During meetings between General Secretary Taraki and Soviet leaders in March 1979, the Soviets promised political support and to send military equipment and technical specialists, but upon repeated requests by Taraki for direct Soviet intervention, the leadership adamantly opposed him; reasons included that they would be met with "bitter resentment" from the Afghan people, that intervening in another country's civil war would hand a propaganda victory to their opponents, and Afghanistan's overall inconsequential weight in international affairs, in essence realizing they had little to gain by taking over a country with a poor economy, unstable government, and population hostile to outsiders. However, as the situation continued to deteriorate from May-December 1979, Moscow changed its mind on dispatching Soviet troops. The reasons for this complete turnabout are not entirely clear, and several speculative arguments include: the grave internal situation and inability for the Afghan government to retain power much longer; the effects of the Iranian Revolution that brought an Islamic theocracy into power, leading to fears that religious fanaticism would spread through Afghanistan and into Soviet Muslim Central Asian republics; Taraki's murder and replacement by Amin, who the Soviet leadership believed had secret contacts within the American embassy in Kabul and "was capable of reaching an agreement with the United States"; however, allegations of Amin colluding with the Americans have been widely discredited and it was revealed in the 1990s that the KGB actually planted the story; and the deteriorating ties with the United States after NATO's two-track missile deployment decision in response to Soviet nuclear presence in Eastern Europe and the failure of Congress to ratify the SALT II treaty, creating the impression that détente was "already effectively dead."

The British journalist Patrick Brogan wrote in 1989: "The simplest explanation is probably the best. They got sucked into Afghanistan much as the United States got sucked into Vietnam, without clearly thinking through the consequences, and wildly underestimating the hostility they would arouse". By the fall of 1979, the Amin regime was collapsing with morale in the Afghan Army having fallen to rock-bottom levels, while the mujahideen had taken control of much of the countryside. The general consensus amongst Afghan experts at the time was that it was not a question of if, but when the mujahideen would take Kabul.

In October 1979, a KGB Spetsnaz force Zenith covertly dispatched a group of specialists to determine the potential reaction from local Afghans to a presence of Soviet troops there. They concluded that deploying troops would be unwise and could lead to war, but this was reportedly ignored by the KGB chairman Yuri Andropov. A Spetsnaz battalion of Central Asian troops, dressed in Afghan Army uniforms, was covertly deployed to Kabul between 9 and 12 November 1979. They moved a few days later to the Tajbeg Palace, where Amin was moving to.

In Moscow, Leonid Brezhnev was indecisive and waffled as he usually did when faced with a difficult decision. The three decision-makers in Moscow who pressed the hardest for an invasion in the fall of 1979 were the troika consisting of Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko; the Chairman of KGB, Yuri Andropov, and the Defense Minister Marshal Dmitry Ustinov. The principal reasons for the invasion were the belief in Moscow that Amin was a leader both incompetent and fanatical who had lost control of the situation, together with the belief that it was the United States via Pakistan who was sponsoring the Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan. Andropov, Gromyko and Ustinov all argued that if a radical Islamist regime came to power in Kabul, it would attempt to sponsor radical Islam in Soviet Central Asia, thereby requiring a preemptive strike. What was envisioned in the fall of 1979 was a short intervention under which Moscow would replace radical Khalqi Communist Amin with the moderate Parchami Communist Babrak Karmal to stabilize the situation. Contrary to the contemporary view of Brzezinski and the regional powers, access to the Persian Gulf played no role in the decision to intervene on the Soviet side.

The concerns raised by the Chief of the Soviet Army General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov who warned about the possibility of a protracted guerrilla war, were dismissed by the troika who insisted that any occupation of Afghanistan would be short and relatively painless. Most notably, though the diplomats of the Narkomindel at the Embassy in Kabul and the KGB officers stationed in Afghanistan were well informed about the developments in that country, such information rarely filtered through to the decision-makers in Moscow who viewed Afghanistan more in the context of the Cold War rather than understanding Afghanistan as a subject in its own right. The viewpoint that it was the United States that was fomenting the Islamic insurgency in Afghanistan with the aim of destabilizing Soviet-dominated Central Asia tended to downplay the effects of an unpopular Communist government pursuing policies that the majority of Afghans violently disliked as a generator of the insurgency and strengthened those who argued some sort of Soviet response was required to a supposed "outrageous American provocation." It was assumed in Moscow that because Pakistan (an ally of both the United States and China) was supporting the mujahideen that therefore it was ultimately the United States and China who were behind the rebellion in Afghanistan.

Amin's revolutionary government had lost credibility with virtually all of the Afghan population. A combination of chaotic administration, excessive brutality from the secret police, unpopular domestic reforms, and a deteriorating economy, along with public perceptions that the state was atheistic and anti-Islamic, all added to the government's unpopularity. After 20 months of Khalqist rule, the country deteriorated in almost every facet of life. The Soviet Union believed that without intervention, Amin's government would have been disintegrated by the resistance and the country would have been "lost" to a regime most likely hostile to the USSR.

Soviet invasion and palace coup

On 31 October 1979, Soviet informants under orders from the inner circle of advisors around Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev relayed information to the Afghan Armed Forces for them to undergo maintenance cycles for their tanks and other crucial equipment. Meanwhile, telecommunications links to areas outside of Kabul were severed, isolating the capital.

The Soviet 40th army launched its initial incursion into Afghanistan on 25 December under the pretext of extending "international aid" to its puppet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. On 25 December, Soviet Defence Minister Dmitry Ustinov issued an official order, stating that "[t]he state frontier of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is to be crossed on the ground and in the air by forces of the 40th Army and the Air Force at 1500 hrs on 25 December". This was the formal beginning of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Subsequently, on December 27, Soviet troops arrived at Kabul airport, causing a stir among the city's residents.

Simultaneously, Amin moved the offices of the General Secretary to the Tajbeg Palace, believing this location to be more secure from possible threats. According to Colonel General Tukharinov and Merimsky, Amin was fully informed of the military movements, having requested Soviet military assistance to northern Afghanistan on 17 December. His brother and General Dmitry Chiangov met with the commander of the 40th Army before Soviet troops entered the country, to work out initial routes and locations for Soviet troops.

On 27 December 1979, 700 Soviet troops dressed in Afghan uniforms, including KGB and GRU special forces officers from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target, the Tajbeg Palace. The operation began at 19:00, when the KGB-led Soviet Zenith Group destroyed Kabul's communications hub, paralyzing Afghan military command. At 19:15, the assault on Tajbeg Palace began; as planned, General Secretary Hafizullah Amin was assassinated. Simultaneously, other key buildings were occupied (e.g., the Ministry of Interior at 19:15). The operation was fully complete by the morning of 28 December 1979.

The Soviet military command at Termez, Uzbek SSR, announced on Radio Kabul that Afghanistan had been "liberated" from Amin's rule. According to the Soviet Politburo, they were complying with the 1978 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighborliness, and Amin had been "executed by a tribunal for his crimes" by the Afghan Revolutionary Central Committee. That committee then installed former Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal as head of government, who had been demoted to the relatively insignificant post of ambassador to Czechoslovakia following the Khalq takeover and announced that it had requested Soviet military assistance.

Soviet ground forces, under the command of Marshal Sergey Sokolov, entered Afghanistan from the north on 27 December. In the morning, the 103rd Guards 'Vitebsk' Airborne Division landed at the airport at Bagram and the deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was underway. The force that entered Afghanistan, in addition to the 103rd Guards Airborne Division, was under command of the 40th Army and consisted of the 108th and 5th Guards Motor Rifle Divisions, the 860th Separate Motor Rifle Regiment, the 56th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade, and the 36th Mixed Air Corps. Later on, the 201st and 68th Motor Rifle Divisions also entered the country, along with other smaller units. In all, the initial Soviet force was around 1,800 tanks, 80,000 soldiers and 2,000 AFVs. In the second week alone, Soviet aircraft had made a total of 4,000 flights into Kabul. With the arrival of the two later divisions, the total Soviet force rose to over 100,000 personnel.

International positions on Soviet invasion

The invasion of a practically defenseless country was shocking for the international community, and caused a sense of alarm for its neighbor Pakistan. Foreign ministers from 34 Muslim-majority countries adopted a resolution which condemned the Soviet intervention and demanded "the immediate, urgent and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops" from the Muslim nation of Afghanistan. Soviet military activities were met with strong criticism internationally, including some of its allied states at the UN General Assembly. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution protesting the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan by a vote of 104-18. According to political scientist Gilles Kepel, the Soviet intervention or invasion was viewed with "horror" in the West, considered to be a fresh twist on the geo-political " Great Game" of the 19th century in which Britain feared that Russia sought access to the Indian Ocean, and posed a threat to Western security, explicitly violating the world balance of power agreed upon at Yalta in 1945.

The general feeling in the United States was that inaction against the Soviet Union could encourage Moscow to go further in its international ambitions. President Jimmy Carter placed a trade embargo against the Soviet Union on shipments of commodities such as grain, while also leading a 66-nation boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The invasion, along with other concurrent events such as the Iranian Revolution and the hostage stand-off that accompanied it showed the volatility of the wider region for U.S. foreign policy:

Massive Soviet military forces have invaded the small, nonaligned, sovereign nation of Afghanistan, which had hitherto not been an occupied satellite of the Soviet Union. [...] This is a callous violation of international law and the United Nations Charter. [...] If the Soviets are encouraged in this invasion by eventual success, and if they maintain their dominance over Afghanistan and then extend their control to adjacent countries, the stable, strategic, and peaceful balance of the entire world will be changed. This would threaten the security of all nations including, of course, the United States, our allies, and our friends.

-  U.S. President Jimmy Carter during the Address to the Nation, January 4, 1980

Carter also withdrew the SALT-II treaty from consideration before the Senate, recalled the US Ambassador Thomas J. Watson from Moscow, and suspended high-technology exports to the Soviet Union.

Ba'athist Syria, led by Hafez al-Assad, was one of the few states outside the Warsaw Pact that publicly favoured the invasion. Soviet Union expanded its military support to the Syrian government in return. The Warsaw Pact Soviet satellites (excluding Romania) publicly supported the intervention; however, a press account in June 1980 showed that Poland, Hungary and Romania privately informed the Soviet Union that the invasion was a damaging mistake.

Military aid

Weapons supplies were made available through numerous countries. Before the Soviet intervention, the insurgents received support from the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and Kuwait, albeit on a limited scale. After the intervention, aid was substantially increased. The United States purchased all of Israel's captured Soviet weapons clandestinely, and then funnelled the weapons to the Mujahideen, while Egypt upgraded its army's weapons and sent the older weapons to the militants. Turkey sold their World War II stockpiles to the warlords, and the British and Swiss provided Blowpipe missiles and Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns respectively, after they were found to be poor models for their own forces. China provided the most relevant weapons, likely due to their own experience with guerrilla warfare, and kept meticulous record of all the shipments. The US, Saudi and Chinese aid combined totaled between $6 billion and $12 billion.

State of the Cold War

In the wider Cold War, drastic changes were taking place in Southwestern Asia concurrent with the 1978-1979 upheavals in Afghanistan that changed the nature of the two superpowers. In February 1979, the Iranian Revolution ousted the American-backed Shah from Iran, losing the United States as one of its most powerful allies. The United States then deployed twenty ships in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea including two aircraft carriers, and there were constant threats of war between the U.S. and Iran.

American observers argued that the global balance of power had shifted to the Soviet Union following the emergence of several pro-Soviet regimes in the Third World in the latter half of the 1970s (such as in Nicaragua and Ethiopia), and the action in Afghanistan demonstrated the Soviet Union's expansionism.

March 1979 marked the signing of the U.S.-backed peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Soviet leadership saw the agreement as giving a major advantage to the United States. A Soviet newspaper stated that Egypt and Israel were now " gendarmes of the Pentagon". The Soviets viewed the treaty not only as a peace agreement between their erstwhile allies in Egypt and the US-supported Israelis but also as a military pact. In addition, the US sold more than 5,000 missiles to Saudi Arabia, and the USSR's previously strong relations with Iraq had recently soured, as in June 1978 it began entering into friendlier relations with the Western world and buying French and Italian-made weapons, though the vast majority still came from the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact satellites, and China.

The Soviet invasion has also been analyzed with the model of the resource curse. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran saw a massive increase in the scarcity and price of oil, adding tens of billions of dollars to the Soviet economy, as it was the major source of revenue for the USSR that spent 40-60% of its entire federal budget (15% of the GDP) on the military. The oil boom may have overinflated national confidence, serving as a catalyst for the invasion. The Politburo was temporarily relieved of financial constraints and sought to fulfill a long-term geopolitical goal of seizing the lead in the region between Central Asia and the Gulf.

December 1979 - February 1980: Occupation and national unrest

The first phase of the war began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and first battles with various opposition groups. Soviet troops entered Afghanistan along two ground routes and one air corridor, quickly taking control of the major urban centers, military bases and strategic installations. However, the presence of Soviet troops did not have the desired effect of pacifying the country. On the contrary, it exacerbated nationalistic sentiment, causing the rebellion to spread further. Babrak Karmal, Afghanistan's new leadership, charged the Soviets with causing an increase in the unrest, and demanded that the 40th Army step in and quell the rebellion, as his own army had proved untrustworthy. Thus, Soviet troops found themselves drawn into fighting against urban uprisings, tribal armies (called lashkar), and sometimes against mutinying Afghan Army units. These forces mostly fought in the open, and Soviet airpower and artillery made short work of them.

The Soviet occupation provoked a great deal of fear and unrest amongst a wide spectrum of the Afghan populace. The Soviets held the view that their presence would be accepted after having rid Afghanistan of the "tyrannical" Khalq regime, but this was not to be. In the first week of January 1980, attacks against Soviet soldiers in Kabul became common, with roaming soldiers often assassinated in the city in broad daylight by civilians. In the summer of that year, numerous members of the ruling party would be assassinated in individual attacks. The Soviet Army quit patrolling Kabul in January 1981 after their losses due to terrorism, handing the responsibility over to the Afghan army. Tensions in Kabul peaked during the 3 Hoot uprising on 22 February 1980, when the Soviet soldiers murdered hundreds of protesters. The city uprising took a dangerous turn once again during the student demonstrations of April and May 1980, in which scores of students were killed by soldiers and PDPA sympathizers.

According to the Mitrokhin Archive, the Soviet Union deployed numerous active measures at the beginning of the intervention, spreading disinformation relating to both diplomatic status and military intelligence. These efforts focused on most countries bordering Afghanistan, on several international powers, the Soviet's main adversary, the United States, and neutral countries. The disinformation was deployed primarily by "leaking" forged documents, distributing leaflets, publishing nominally independent articles in Soviet-aligned press, and conveying reports to embassies through KGB residencies. Among the active measures pursued in 1980-1982 were both pro- and anti-separatist documents disseminated in Pakistan, a forged letter implying a Pakistani-Iranian alliance, alleged reports of U.S. bases on the Iranian border, information regarding Pakistan's military intentions filtered through the Pakistan embassy in Bangkok to the Carter Administration, and various disinformation about armed interference by India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, Jordan, Italy, and France, among others.

Operations against the guerrillas, 1980-1985

The war now developed into a new pattern: the Soviets occupied the cities and main axis of communication, while the Afghan mujahideen, which the Soviet Army soldiers called 'Dushman,' meaning 'enemy', divided into small groups and waged a guerrilla war in the mountains. Almost 80 percent of the country was outside government control. Soviet troops were deployed in strategic areas in the northeast, especially along the road from Termez to Kabul. In the west, a strong Soviet presence was maintained to counter Iranian influence. Incidentally, special Soviet units would have[clarification needed ] also performed secret attacks on Iranian territory to destroy suspected Mujahideen bases, and their helicopters then got engaged in shootings with Iranian jets. Conversely, some regions such as Nuristan, in the northeast, and Hazarajat, in the central mountains of Afghanistan, were virtually untouched by the fighting, and lived in almost complete independence.

Periodically the Soviet Army undertook multi- divisional offensives into Mujahideen-controlled areas. Between 1980 and 1985, nine offensives were launched into the strategically important Panjshir Valley, but government control in the area did not improve. Heavy fighting also occurred in the provinces neighbouring Pakistan, where cities and government outposts were constantly besieged by the Mujahideen. Massive Soviet operations would regularly break these sieges, but the Mujahideen would return as soon as the Soviets left. In the west and south, fighting was more sporadic, except in the cities of Herat and Kandahar, which were always partly controlled by the resistance.

The Soviets did not initially foresee taking on such an active role in fighting the rebels and attempted to play down their role there as giving light assistance to the Afghan army. However, the arrival of the Soviets had the opposite effect as it incensed instead of pacified the people, causing the Mujahideen to gain in strength and numbers. Originally the Soviets thought that their forces would strengthen the backbone of the Afghan army and provide assistance by securing major cities, lines of communication and transportation. The Afghan army forces had a high desertion rate and were loath to fight, especially since the Soviet forces pushed them into infantry roles while they manned the armored vehicles and artillery. The main reason that the Afghan soldiers were so ineffective, though, was their lack of morale, as many of them were not truly loyal to the communist government but simply wanting a paycheck.[citation needed ] Once it became apparent that the Soviets would have to get their hands dirty, they followed three main strategies aimed at quelling the uprising. Intimidation was the first strategy, in which the Soviets would use airborne attacks and armored ground attacks to destroy villages, livestock and crops in trouble areas. The Soviets would bomb villages that were near sites of guerrilla attacks on Soviet convoys or known to support resistance groups. Local peoples were forced to either flee their homes or die as daily Soviet attacks made it impossible to live in these areas. By forcing the people of Afghanistan to flee their homes, the Soviets hoped to deprive the guerrillas of resources and safe havens. The second strategy consisted of subversion, which entailed sending spies to join resistance groups and report information, as well as bribing local tribes or guerrilla leaders into ceasing operations. Finally, the Soviets used military forays into contested territories in an effort to root out the guerrillas and limit their options. Classic search and destroy operations were implemented using Mil Mi-24 helicopter gunships that would provide cover for ground forces in armored vehicles. Once the villages were occupied by Soviet forces, inhabitants who remained were frequently interrogated and tortured for information or killed.

Afghanistan is our Vietnam. Look at what has happened. We began by simply backing a friendly regime; slowly we got more deeply involved; then we started manipulating the regime - sometimes using desperate measures - and now? Now we are bogged down in a war we cannot win and cannot abandon. [.,.] but for Brezhnev and company we would never have got into it in the first place. - Vladimir Kuzichkin, a KGB defector, 1982

To complement their brute force approach to weeding out the insurgency, the Soviets used KHAD (Afghan secret police) to gather intelligence, infiltrate the Mujahideen, spread false information, bribe tribal militias into fighting and organize a government militia. While it is impossible to know exactly how successful the KHAD was in infiltrating Mujahideen groups, it is thought that they succeeded in penetrating a good many resistance groups based in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. KHAD is thought to have had particular success in igniting internal rivalries and political divisions amongst the resistance groups, rendering some of them completely useless because of infighting. The KHAD had some success in securing tribal loyalties but many of these relationships were fickle and temporary. Often KHAD secured neutrality agreements rather than committed political alignment. The Sarandoy, a KHAD-controlled government militia, had mixed success in the war. Large salaries and proper weapons attracted a good number of recruits to the cause, even if they were not necessarily "pro-communist". The problem was that many of the recruits they attracted were in fact Mujahideen who would join up to procure arms, ammunition and money while also gathering information about forthcoming military operations.

In 1985, the size of the LCOSF (Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces) was increased to 108,800 and fighting increased throughout the country, making 1985 the bloodiest year of the war. However, despite suffering heavily, the Mujahideen were able to remain in the field, mostly because they received thousands of new volunteers daily, and continued resisting the Soviets.

Reforms of the Karmal administration

Karmal called his regime "a new evolutionary phase of the glorious April Revolution," but he failed at uniting the PDPA. In the eyes of many Afghans, he was still seen as a " puppet" of the Soviet Union.

Mujahideen insurrection

Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province became a base for the Afghan resistance fighters and the Deobandi ulama of that province played a significant role in the Afghan 'jihad', with Darul Uloom Haqqania becoming a prominent organisational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan fighters. As well as money, Muslim countries provided thousands of volunteer fighters known as " Afghan Arabs", who wished to wage jihad against the atheist communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whose Arab group eventually evolved into al-Qaeda. Despite their numbers, the contribution has been called a "curious sideshow to the real fighting," with only an estimated 2000 of them fighting "at any one time", compared with about 250,000 Afghan fighters and 125,000 Soviet troops.

Their efforts were also sometimes counterproductive, as in the March 1989 battle for Jalalabad, when they showed the enemy the fate awaiting infidels in the form of a truck filled with dismembered bodies of their comrades chopped to pieces after surrendering to radical non-Afghan salafists. Though demoralizing by the abandonment of them by the Soviets, the Afghan Communist government forces rallied to break the siege of Jalalabad and to win the first major government victory in years. "This success reversed the government's demoralization from the withdrawal of Soviet forces, renewed its determination to fight on, and allowed it to survive three more years."

Afghanistan's resistance movement was born in chaos, spread and triumphed chaotically, and did not find a way to govern differently. Virtually all of its war was waged locally by regional warlords. As warfare became more sophisticated, outside support and regional coordination grew. Even so, the basic units of Mujahideen organization and action continued to reflect the highly segmented nature of Afghan society.

Roy also describes regional, ethnic and sectarian variations in Mujahideen organization. In the Pashtun areas of the east, south and southwest, tribal structure, with its many rival sub-divisions, provided the basis for military organization and leadership. Mobilization could be readily linked to traditional fighting allegiances of the tribal lashkar (fighting force). In favorable circumstances such formations could quickly reach more than 10,000, as happened when large Soviet assaults were launched in the eastern provinces, or when the Mujahideen besieged towns, such as Khost in Paktia province in July 1983. But in campaigns of the latter type the traditional explosions of manpower-customarily common immediately after the completion of harvest-proved obsolete when confronted by well dug-in defenders with modern weapons. Lashkar durability was notoriously short; few sieges succeeded.

Mujahideen mobilization in non-Pashtun regions faced very different obstacles. Prior to the intervention, few non-Pashtuns possessed firearms. Early in the war they were most readily available from army troops or gendarmerie who defected or were ambushed. The international arms market and foreign military support tended to reach the minority areas last. In the northern regions, little military tradition had survived upon which to build an armed resistance. Mobilization mostly came from political leadership closely tied to Islam. Roy contrasts the social leadership of religious figures in the Persian- and Turkic-speaking regions of Afghanistan with that of the Pashtuns. Lacking a strong political representation in a state dominated by Pashtuns, minority communities commonly looked to pious learned or charismatically revered (saints) for leadership. Extensive Sufi and maraboutic networks were spread through the minority communities, readily available as foundations for leadership, organization, communication and indoctrination. These networks also provided for political mobilization, which led to some of the most effective of the resistance operations during the war.

The Mujahideen favoured sabotage operations. The more common types of sabotage included damaging power lines, knocking out pipelines and radio stations, blowing up government office buildings, air terminals, hotels, cinemas, and so on. In the border region with Pakistan, the Mujahideen would often launch 800 rockets per day. Between April 1985 and January 1987, they carried out over 23,500 shelling attacks on government targets. The Mujahideen surveyed firing positions that they normally located near villages within the range of Soviet artillery posts, putting the villagers in danger of death from Soviet retaliation. The Mujahideen used land mines heavily. Often, they would enlist the services of the local inhabitants, even children.

They concentrated on both civilian and military targets, knocking out bridges, closing major roads, attacking convoys, disrupting the electric power system and industrial production, and attacking police stations and Soviet military installations and air bases. They assassinated government officials and PDPA members, and laid siege to small rural outposts. In March 1982, a bomb exploded at the Ministry of Education, damaging several buildings. In the same month, a widespread power failure darkened Kabul when a pylon on the transmission line from the Naghlu power station was blown up. In June 1982 a column of about 1,000 young communist party members sent out to work in the Panjshir valley were ambushed within 30 km of Kabul, with heavy loss of life. On 4 September 1985, insurgents shot down a domestic Bakhtar Airlines plane as it took off from Kandahar airport, killing all 52 people aboard.

Mujahideen groups used for assassination had three to five men in each. After they received their mission to kill certain government officials, they busied themselves with studying his pattern of life and its details and then selecting the method of fulfilling their established mission. They practiced shooting at automobiles, shooting out of automobiles, laying mines in government accommodation or houses, using poison, and rigging explosive charges in transport.

In May 1985, the seven principal rebel organizations formed the Seven Party Mujahideen Alliance to coordinate their military operations against the Soviet Army. Late in 1985, the groups were active in and around Kabul, unleashing rocket attacks and conducting operations against the communist government.

Raids inside Soviet territory

In an effort to foment unrest and rebellion by the Islamic populations of the Soviet Union, starting in late 1984 Director of CIA William Casey encouraged Mujahideen militants to mount sabotage raids inside the Soviet Union, according to Robert Gates, Casey's executive assistant and Mohammed Yousef, the Pakistani ISI brigadier general who was the chief for Afghan operations. The rebels began cross-border raids into the Soviet Union in spring 1985. In April 1987, three separate teams of Afghan rebels were directed by the ISI to launch coordinated raids on multiple targets across the Soviet border and extending, in the case of an attack on an Uzbek factory, as deep as over 16 kilometres (10 mi) into Soviet territory. In response, the Soviets issued a thinly-veiled threat to invade Pakistan to stop the cross-border attacks, and no further attacks were reported.

Media reaction

Those hopelessly brave warriors I walked with, and their families, who suffered so much for faith and freedom and who are still not free, they were truly the people of God. - Journalist Rob Schultheis, 1992

International journalistic perception of the war varied. Major American television journalists were sympathetic to the Mujahideen. Most visible was CBS News correspondent Dan Rather, who in 1982 accused the Soviet Union of genocide, comparing them to Hitler. Rather was embedded with the Mujahideen for a report. In 1987, CBS produced a full documentary special on the war.

Reader's Digest took a highly positive view of the Mujahideen, a reversal of their usual view of Islamic fighters. The publication praised their martyrdom and their role in entrapping the Soviets in a Vietnam War-style disaster.

Leftist journalist Alexander Cockburn was unsympathetic, criticizing Afghanistan as "an unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world. I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it's Afghanistan." Robert D. Kaplan on the other hand, thought any perception of Mujahideen as "barbaric" was unfair: "Documented accounts of mujahidin savagery were relatively rare and involved enemy troops only. Their cruelty toward civilians was unheard of during the war, while Soviet cruelty toward civilians was common." Lack of interest in the Mujahideen cause, Kaplan believed, was not the lack of intrinsic interest to be found in a war between a small, poor country and a superpower where a million civilians were killed, but the result of the great difficulty and unprofitability of media coverage. Kaplan noted that "none of the American TV networks had a bureau for a war", and television cameramen venturing to follow the Mujahideen "trekked for weeks on little food, only to return ill and half starved". In October 1984, the Soviet ambassador to Pakistan, Vitaly Smirnov, told Agence France Presse "that journalists traveling with the mujahidin 'will be killed. And our units in Afghanistan will help the Afghan forces to do it.'" Unlike Vietnam and Lebanon, Afghanistan had "absolutely no clash between the strange and the familiar", no "rock-video quality" of "zonked-out GIs in headbands" or "rifle-wielding Shiite terrorists wearing Michael Jackson T-shirts" that provided interesting "visual materials" for newscasts.

Soviet exit and change of Afghan leadership, 1985-1989

Foreign diplomatic efforts

As early as 1983, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry began working with the Soviet Union to provide them an exit from Afghanistan, initiatives led by Foreign Minister Yaqub Ali Khan and Khurshid Kasuri. Despite an active support for insurgent groups, Pakistanis remained sympathetic to the challenges faced by the Soviets in restoring the peace, eventually exploring the possibility of setting up an interim system of government under former monarch Zahir Shah, but this was not authorized by President Zia-ul-Haq due to his stance on the issue of the Durand line. In 1984-85, Foreign Minister Yaqub Ali Khan paid state visits to China, Saudi Arabia, Soviet Union, France, United States and the United Kingdom in order to develop a framework. On 20 July 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country was announced.

April 1985 - January 1987: Exit strategy

The first step of the Soviet Union's exit strategy was to transfer the burden of fighting the Mujahideen to the Afghan armed forces, with the aim of preparing them to operate without Soviet help. During this phase, the Soviet contingent was restricted to supporting the DRA forces by providing artillery, air support and technical assistance, though some large-scale operations were still carried out by Soviet troops.

Under Soviet guidance, the DRA armed forces were built up to an official strength of 302,000 in 1986. To minimize the risk of a coup d'état, they were divided into different branches, each modeled on its Soviet counterpart. The ministry of defence forces numbered 132,000, the ministry of interior 70,000 and the ministry of state security ( KHAD) 80,000. However, these were theoretical figures: in reality each service was plagued with desertions, the army alone suffering over 10% annual losses, or 32,000 per year.

The decision to engage primarily Afghan forces was taken by the Soviets, but was resented by the PDPA, who viewed the departure of their protectors without enthusiasm. In May 1987 a DRA force attacked well-entrenched Mujahideen positions in the Arghandab District, but the Mujahideen managed to hold their ground, and the attackers suffered heavy casualties. Meanwhile, the Mujahideen benefited from expanded foreign military support from the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other Muslim-majority countries. Two Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, championed Ahmed Shah Massoud as the Afghan resistance leader most worthy of US support under the Reagan Doctrine.

May 1986-1988: Najibullah and his reforms

The government of President Karmal, a puppet regime, was largely ineffective. It was weakened by divisions within the PDPA and the Parcham faction, and the regime's efforts to expand its base of support proved futile. Moscow came to regard Karmal as a failure and blamed him for the problems. Years later, when Karmal's inability to consolidate his government had become obvious, Mikhail Gorbachev, then General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, said, "The main reason that there has been no national consolidation so far is that Comrade Karmal is hoping to continue sitting in Kabul with our help." Karmal's consolidation plan only involved those who had not raised arms against the regime, and even demanded Soviet troops to seal the border with Pakistan before any negotiations with Mujahideen. Eventually, the Soviet Union decided to dispose of Karmal from the leadership of Afghanistan.

President Najibullah launched the " National Reconciliation" program at the start of 1987, the goal of which was to unite the nation and end the war that had enveloped the nation for seven years. He expressed willingness to negotiate with the Mujahideen resistance, allow parties other than the PDPA to be active, and indicated that exiled King Zahir Shah could be part of the process. A six-month ceasefire also began in December 1986. His administration was also more open to foreign visitors outside the Soviet bloc. In November 1987, Najibullah convened a selected by the authorities which successfully passed a new constitution for Afghanistan, creating a presidential system with an elective bicameral parliament. The constitution declared "the sacred religion of Islam" the official religion, guaranteed the democratic rights of the individual, made it legal to form "political parties", and promoted equality between the various tribes and nationalities. Despite high expectations, the new policy only had limited impact in regaining support from the population and the resistance, partly because of the high distrust and unpopularity of the PDPA and KHAD, as well as Najibullah's loyalty to Moscow.

As part of the new structure, national parliamentary elections were held in 1988 to elect members of the new National Assembly, the first such elections in Afghanistan in 19 years.

Negotiations for a coalition

Negotiations continued and in 1988 through 1989, The Interim Afghan Government was formed in Pekhawar as an alliance of various Mujahadeen groups including Hezbi Islami and Jamiat, and would be involved in Operation Arrow and the siege of Khost.

April 1988: The Geneva Accords

Following lengthy negotiations, the Geneva Accords was signed in 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Supported by the Soviet Union and the United States respectively, the two Asian countries agreed to refrain from any form of interference in each other's territory. They also agreed to give Afghan refugees in Pakistan to voluntarily return. The two superpowers agreed to halt their interference in Afghanistan, which included a Soviet withdrawal.

January 1987 - February 1989: Withdrawal

The promotion of Mikhail Gorbachev to General Secretary in 1985 and his 'new thinking' on foreign and domestic policy was likely an important factor in the Soviets' decision to withdraw. Gorbachev had been attempting to remove the Soviet Union from the economic stagnation that had set in under the leadership of Brezhnev, and to reform the Soviet Union's economy and image with the Glasnost and Perestroika policies. Gorbachev had also been attempting to ease cold war tensions by signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the U.S. in 1987 and withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan, whose presence had garnered so much international condemnation. Beijing had stipulated that a normalization of relations would have to wait until Moscow withdrew its army from Afghanistan (among other things), and in 1989 the first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years took place. At the same time, Gorbachev pressured his Cuban allies in Angola to scale down activities and withdraw even though Soviet allies were faring somewhat better there. The Soviets also pulled many of their troops out of Mongolia in 1987, where they were also having a far easier time than in Afghanistan, and restrained the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea to the point of an all-out withdrawal in 1988. This massive withdrawal of Soviet forces from such highly contested areas shows that the Soviet government's decision to leave Afghanistan was based upon a general change in Soviet foreign policy - from one of confrontation to avoidance of conflict wherever possible.

In the last phase, Soviet troops prepared and executed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, whilst limiting the launching of offensive operations by those who had not withdrawn yet.

By mid-1987 the Soviet Union announced that it would start withdrawing its forces. Sibghatullah Mojaddedi was selected as the head of the Interim Islamic State of Afghanistan, in an attempt to reassert its legitimacy against the Moscow-sponsored Kabul regime. Mojaddedi, as head of the Interim Afghan Government, met with then-Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush, achieving a critical diplomatic victory for the Afghan resistance. Defeat of the Kabul government was their solution for peace. This confidence, sharpened by their distrust of the United Nations, virtually guaranteed their refusal to accept a political compromise.

The first half of the Soviet contingent was withdrawn from 15 May to 16 August 1988, and the second from 15 November to 15 February 1989. In order to ensure a safe passage, the Soviets had negotiated ceasefires with local Mujahideen commanders. The withdrawal was generally executed peacefully except for the operation "Typhoon".

CGen of 40th Army, Boris Gromov, announcing the withdrawal of Soviet contingent forces

General Yazov, the Defense Minister of Soviet Union, ordered the 40th Army to violate the agreement with Ahmed Shah Massoud, who commanded a large force in the Panjshir Valley, and attack his relaxed and exposed forces. The Soviet attack was initiated to protect Najibullah, who did not have a ceasefire in effect with Massoud, and who rightly feared an offensive by Massoud's forces after the Soviet withdrawal. General Gromov, the 40th Army Commander, objected to the operation, but reluctantly obeyed the order. "Typhoon" began on 23 January and continued for three days. To minimize their own losses, the Soviets abstained from close-range fight. Instead, they used long-range artillery, surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles. Numerous civilian casualties were reported. Massoud had not threatened the withdrawal to this point and did not attack Soviet forces after they breached the agreement. Overall, the Soviet attack represented a defeat for Massoud's forces, who lost 600 fighters killed and wounded.

Causes of withdrawal

Some of the causes of the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan leading to the Afghanistan regime's eventual defeat include

The Soviet Army of 1980 was trained and equipped for large scale, conventional warfare in Central Europe against a similar opponent, i.e., it used armored and motor-rifle formations. This was notably ineffective against small scale guerrilla groups using hit-and-run tactics in the rough terrain of Afghanistan. Also, the Soviet Army's large formations were not mobile enough to engage small groups of Mujahideen fighters that easily merged back into the terrain. The set strategy also meant that troops were discouraged from "tactical initiative", essential in counter insurgency, because it "tended to upset operational timing".

The Soviets used large-scale offensives against Mujahideen strongholds, such as in the Panjshir Valley, which temporarily cleared those sectors and killed many civilians in addition to enemy combatants. The biggest shortcoming here, though, was the fact that once the Soviets engaged the enemy with force, they failed to hold the ground, as they withdrew once their operation was completed. The killing of civilians further alienated the population from the Soviets, with bad long-term effects.

The Soviets did not have enough men to fight a counter-insurgency war (COIN), and their troops had low morale. The peak number of Soviet troops during the war was 115,000, but the bulk of these troops were conscripts, which led to poor combat performance in their Motor-Rifle Formations. However, the Soviets did have their elite infantry units, such as the famed Spetsnaz, the VDV, and their recon infantry. The problem with their elite units was not combat effectiveness, but that there were not enough of them and that they were employed incorrectly.

Intelligence gathering, essential for successful COIN, was inadequate. The Soviets overly relied on less-than-accurate aerial recon and radio intercepts rather than their recon infantry and special forces. Although their special forces and recon infantry units performed very well in combat against the Mujahideen, they would have better served in intelligence gathering.

The concept of a "war of national liberation" against a Soviet-sponsored "revolutionary" regime was so alien to the Soviet dogma that the leadership could not "come to grips" with it. This led to, among other things, a suppression by the Soviet media for several years of the truth about how bad the war was going, which caused a backlash when it was unable to hide it further.

Fall of Najibullah government, 1992

Aerial engagements

Afghan and Soviet warplanes in Pakistani airspace

Soviet Union and Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force jet fighters and bombers would occasionally cross into Pakistani airspace to target Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. To counter the Soviet jets, the United States started providing F-16 jets to Pakistan. These F-16 jets lacked the capability to fire radar-guided beyond-visual range missiles, and thus they were required to get close to their opponents in order to use their AIM-9P and more advanced AIM-9L Sidewinder heat-seeking or their 20-millimeter Vulcan cannons. On 17 May 1986, two Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 jets intercepted two Su-22M3K belonging to Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force (DRAAF) near the Pakistani airspace. Pakistani officials insisted that both the fighter jets belonging to DRAAF were shot down while Afghan officials confirmed loss of only one fighter jet. Following the engagement, there was a major decline in the number of attacks on Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. On 16 April 1987, a group of PAF F-16s again chased down two DRAAF Su-22 and managed to shoot down one of them and capture its pilot. In 1987, the Soviet Union reported that Pakistani fighter jets were roaming in Afghan airspace, harassing attempts to aerial resupply the besieged garrisons like the one in Khost. On 30 March 1987, two PAF F-16s shot down an An-26 cargo plane, killing all 39 personnel on board the aircraft. In the coming years, PAF claimed credit for shooting down several Mi-8 transport helicopters, and another An-26 which was on a reconnaissance mission in 1989. Also in 1987, two PAF F-16 jets ambushed four Mig-23 which were bombing Mujahideen supply bases. In the clash, one PAF F-16 was lost after it was accidentally hit by an AIM-9 Sidewinder fired by the second PAF F-16. The PAF pilot landed in Afghanistan territory and was smuggled back to Pakistan along with wreckage of his aircraft by the Mujahideen. However, some Russian sources claim that the F-16 was shot down by a Mig-23, though the Soviet Mig-23 were not carrying air-to-air missiles.

On 8 August 1988, Colonel Alexander Rutskoy was leading a group of Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets to attack a refugee camp in Miramshah, Pakistan. His fighter jet was intercepted and shot down by two PAF F-16. Colonel Alexander Rustkoy landed in Pakistani territory and was captured. He was later exchanged back to the Soviet Union. A month later, around twelve Mig-23 crossed into Pakistani airspace with the aim to lure into ambush the Pakistani F-16s. Two PAF F-16s flew towards the Soviet fighter jets. The Soviet radars failed to detect the low flying F-16s, and the Sidewinder fired by one of the F-16s damaged one of the Mig-23. However, the damaged Mig-23 managed to return home. Two Mig-23 engaged the two PAF F-16s. The Pakistani officials state that both Mig-23 planes were shot down. However, Soviet records show that no additional aircraft were lost that day. The last aerial engagement took place on 3 November 1988, in which one Su-2M4K belonging to DRAAF was shot down by a Pakistani Air Force jet.

During the conflict, Pakistan Air Force F-16 had shot down ten aircraft, belonging to Soviet Union, which had intruded into Pakistani territory. However, the Soviet record only confirmed five kills (three Su-22s, one Su-25 and one An-26). Some sources show that PAF had shot down at least a dozen more aircraft during the war. However, those kills were not officially acknowledged because they took place in Afghanistan's airspace and acknowledging those kills would mean that Afghan airspace was violated by PAF. In all, Pakistan Air Force F-16s had downed several MiG-23s, Su-22s, a Su-25, and an An-24 while losing only one F-16.

Stinger missiles and the "Stinger effect"

Whether the introduction of the personal, portable, infrared-homing surface-to-air " Stinger" missile in September 1986 was a turning point in the war is disputed. Many Western military analysts credit the Stinger with a kill ratio of about 70% and with responsibility for most of the over 350 Soviet or Afghan government aircraft and helicopters downed in the last two years of the war. Some military analysts considered it a "game changer" and coined the term "Stinger effect" to describe it. Congressman Charlie Wilson claimed that before the Stinger the Mujahideen never won a set piece battle with the Soviets, but after it was introduced, the Mujahideen never again lost one.

However, these statistics are based on Mujahideen self-reporting, which is of unknown reliability. A Russian general claimed the United States "greatly exaggerated" Soviet and Afghan aircraft losses during the war. According to Soviet figures, in 1987-1988, only 35 aircraft and 63 helicopters were destroyed by all causes. The Pakistan Army fired twenty-eight Stingers at Soviet aircraft near the border without a single kill.

Many Russian military analysts tend to be dismissive of the impact of the Stinger. Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev decided to withdraw from Afghanistan a year before the Mujahideen fired their first Stinger missiles; Gorbachev was motivated by U.S. sanctions, not military losses. The Stingers did make an impact at first but within a few months' flares, beacons, and exhaust baffles were installed to disorient the missiles, while night operation and terrain-hugging tactics tended to prevent the rebels from getting a clear shot. By 1988 the Mujahideen had all but stopped firing them. Stingers also forced Soviet helicopters and ground attack planes to bomb from higher altitudes with less accuracy but did not bring down many more aircraft than Chinese heavy machine guns and other less sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry. Gorbachev stated in an interview in 2010 that the Stinger did not influence his decision-making process.

Several historians and scholars went further, stating that the Afghans were victims of genocide by the Soviet Union. These include American professor Samuel Totten, Australian professor Paul R. Bartrop, scholars from Yale Law School including W. Michael Reisman and Charles Norchi, writer and human rights advocate Rosanne Klass, and scholar Mohammed Kakar. Louis Dupree stated that Afghans were victims of "migratory genocide" implemented by Soviet military.

The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance. In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980. To separate the Mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed many civilians, drove many more Afghans from their homes, and used scorched-earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country. The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and non-combatants to terrorize local populations into submission. The provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, Laghman, Kunar, Zabul, Kandahar, Badakhshan, Logar, Paktia and Paktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces.

The Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the country in search of Mujahideen. In November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD agents kidnapped young women from the city of Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons, to rape them. Women who were taken and raped by Soviet soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home. Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also reported the atrocities by Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, including rape.

Scorched-earth tactics and Wanton destruction

Irrigation systems, crucial to agriculture in Afghanistan's arid climate, were destroyed by aerial bombing and strafing by Soviet or government forces. In the worst year of the war, 1985, well over half of all the farmers who remained in Afghanistan had their fields bombed, and over one quarter had their irrigation systems destroyed and their livestock shot by Soviet or government troops, according to a survey conducted by Swedish relief experts.

Everything was the target in the country, from cities, villages, up to schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, factories and orchards. Soviet tactics included targeting areas which showed support for the Mujahideen, and forcing the populace to flee the rural territories the communists were unable to control. Half of Afghanistan's 24,000 villages were destroyed by the end of the war.

Use of chemical weapons

Amnesty International concluded that the communist-controlled Afghan government used widespread torture against inmates (officials, teachers, businessmen and students suspected of having ties to the rebels) in interrogation centers in Kabul, run by the KHAD, who were beaten, subjected to electric shocks, burned with cigarettes and that some of their hair was pulled out. Some died from these harsh conditions. Women of the prisoners were forced to watch or were locked up in the cells with the corpses. The Soviets were accused of supervising these tortures.

The Soviet soldiers were looting from the dead in Afghanistan, including stealing money, jewelry and clothes. During the Red Army withdrawal in February 1989, 30 to 40 military trucks crammed with Afghan historical treasures crossed into the Soviet Union, under orders from General Boris Gromov. He cut an antique Tekke carpet stolen from Darul Aman Palace into several pieces and gave it to his acquaintances.

Foreign involvement

The Afghan mujahideen were backed primarily by Pakistan, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom making it a Cold War proxy war. Out of the countries that supported the Mujahideen, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia offered the greatest financial support. However, private donors and religious charities throughout the Muslim world-particularly in the Persian Gulf-raised considerably more funds for the Afghan rebels than any foreign government; Jason Burke recounts that "as little as 25 per cent of the money for the Afghan jihad was actually supplied directly by states." Saudi Arabia was heavily involved in the war effort and matched the United States' contributions dollar-for-dollar in public funds. Saudi Arabia also gathered an enormous amount of money for the Afghan mujahideen in private donations that amounted to about $20 million per month at their peak.

Other countries that supported the Mujahideen were Egypt, China, and even Israel. Iran on the other hand only supported the Shia Mujahideen, namely the Persian speaking Shiite Hazaras in a limited way. One of these groups was the Tehran Eight, a political union of Afghan Shi'a. They were supplied predominately by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but Iran's support for the Hazaras nevertheless frustrated efforts for a united Mujahideen front.

Soviet personnel strengths and casualties

Between 25 December 1979, and 15 February 1989, a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000-104,000 serving at one time): 525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other KGB sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of MVD Internal Troops, and police forces.[citation needed ] A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar and blue-collar jobs.

The total official fatalities of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and internal security troops came to 14,453. Other estimates give a figure of 26,000 killed Soviet soldiers. Soviet Army formations, units, and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub-units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28, and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. During this period 312 servicemen were missing in action or taken prisoner; 119 were later freed, of whom 97 returned to the USSR and 22 went to other countries.

Material losses were as follows:

In early 1987 a CIA report estimated that, from 1979 to 1986, the Soviet military spent 18 billion rubles on the war in Afghanistan (not counting other costs incurred to the Soviet state such as economic and military aid to the DRA). The CIA noted that this was the equivalent of US$50 billion ($115 billion in 2019 USD). The report credited the relatively low cost to the small size of the Soviet deployment and the fact that the supply lines to Afghanistan were very short (in some cases, easier and cheaper than internal USSR lines). Military aid to the DRA's armed forces totaled 9.124 billion rubles from 1980 to 1989 (peaking at 3.972 billion rubles in 1989). Financial and economic aid were also significant; by 1990, 75% of the Afghan state's income came from Soviet aid.

Casualties and destruction in Afghanistan

Civilian death and destruction from the war was massive and detrimental. Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 562,000 to 2,000,000. By one estimate, at least 800,000 Afghans were killed during the Soviet occupation. 5 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, 1/3 of the prewar population of the country, and another 2 million were displaced within the country, making it one of the largest refugee crises in history. In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan. In his report, Felix Ermacora, the UN Special Rapporteur to Afghanistan, enumerated 32,755 killed civilians, 1,834 houses and 74 villages destroyed, and 3,308 animals killed in the first nine months of 1985. Data cited by the World Bank shows that Afghanistan's population declined from 13.4 million (1979) to 11.8 million (1989) during the decade of Soviet occupation.

R. J. Rummel, an analyst of political killings, estimated that Soviet forces were responsible for 250,000 democidal killings during the war and that the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan was responsible for 178,000 democidal killings. He also assumed that overall a million people died during the war. There were also a number of reports of large scale executions of hundreds of civilians by Soviet and DRA soldiers. Noor Ahmed Khalidi calculated that 876,825 Afghans were killed up until 1987. Historian John W. Dower somewhat agrees with this estimate, citing 850,000 civilian fatalities, while the military fatalities "certainly totaled over 100,000". Marek Sliwinski estimated the number of war deaths to be much higher, at a median of 1.25 million, or 9% of the entire pre-war Afghan population. Scholars John Braithwaite and Ali Wardak accept this in their estimate of 1.2 million dead Afghans. However, Siddieq Noorzoy presents an even higher figure of 1.71 million deaths during the Soviet-Afghan war. Overall, between 6.5%-11.5% of Afghanistan's population is estimated to have perished in the war. Anti-government forces were also responsible for some casualties. Rocket attacks on Kabul's residential areas caused more than 4,000 civilian deaths in 1987 according to the UN's Ermacora.

Along with fatalities were 1.2 million Afghans disabled (Mujahideen, government soldiers and noncombatants) and 3 million maimed or wounded (primarily noncombatants).

A PFM-1 mine, often mistaken for a toy by children. The mine's shape was dictated by aerodynamics.[276]

The population of Afghanistan's second largest city, Kandahar, was reduced from 200,000 before the war to no more than 25,000 inhabitants, following a months-long campaign of carpet bombing and bulldozing by the Soviets and Afghan communist soldiers in 1987. Land mines had killed 25,000 Afghans during the war and another 10-15 million land mines, most planted by Soviet and government forces, were left scattered throughout the countryside. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated in 1994 that it would take 4,300 years to remove all the Soviet land mines in Afghanistan, which continued to kill hundreds of people on yearly basis.

Before the war, Afghanistan was already one of the world's poorest countries. The prolonged conflict left Afghanistan ranked 170 out of 174 in the UNDP's Human Development Index, making Afghanistan one of the least developed countries in the world.

Once the Soviets withdrew, US interest in Afghanistan slowly decreased over the following four years, much of it administered through the DoD Office of Humanitarian Assistance, under the then Director of HA, George M. Dykes III. With the first years of the Clinton Administration in Washington, DC, all aid ceased. The US decided not to help with reconstruction of the country, instead handing the interests of the country over to US allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Pakistan quickly took advantage of this opportunity and forged relations with warlords and later the Taliban, to secure trade interests and routes. The ten years following the war saw much ecological and agrarian destruction-from wiping out the country's trees through logging practices, which has destroyed all but 2% of forest cover country-wide, to substantial uprooting of wild pistachio trees for the exportation of their roots for therapeutic uses, to opium agriculture.

Captain Tarlan Eyvazov, a soldier in the Soviet forces during the war, stated that the Afghan children's future is destined for war. Eyvazov said, "Children born in Afghanistan at the start of the war... have been brought up in war conditions, this is their way of life." Eyvazov's theory was later strengthened when the Taliban movement developed and formed from orphans or refugee children who were forced by the Soviets to flee their homes and relocate their lives in Pakistan. The swift rise to power, from the young Taliban in 1996, was the result of the disorder and civil war that had warlords running wild because of the complete breakdown of law and order in Afghanistan after the departure of the Soviets.

The CIA World Fact Book reported that as of 2004, Afghanistan still owed $8 billion in bilateral debt, mostly to Russia, however, in 2007 Russia agreed to cancel most of the debt.

5.5 million Afghans were made refugees by the war-a full one third of the country's pre-war population-fleeing the country to Pakistan or Iran. Another estimate states 6.2 million refugees. By the end of 1981, the UN High Commission for Refugees reported that Afghans represented the largest group of refugees in the world.

A total of 3.3 million Afghan refugees were housed in Pakistan by 1988, some of whom continue to live in the country up until today. Of this total, about 100,000 were based in the city of Peshawar, while more than 2 million were located in other parts of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then known as the North-West Frontier Province). At the same time, close to two million Afghans were living in Iran. Over the years Pakistan and Iran have imposed tighter controls on refugees which have resulted in numerous returnees. In 2012 Pakistan banned extensions of visas to foreigners. Afghan refugees have also settled in India and became Indian citizens over time. Some also made their way into North America, the European Union, Australia, and other parts of the world. The photo of Sharbat Gula placed on National Geographic cover in 1985 became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation.

Effect on Afghan society

The legacy of the war introduced a culture of guns, drugs and terrorism in Afghanistan. The traditional power structure was also changed in favor of the powerful Mujahideen militias:

"In present-day Afghanistan the groups of clergy, community elders, intelligentsia, and the military cannot be seen."

Fall of the Soviet Union

According to scholars Rafael Reuveny and Aseem Prakash, the war contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union by undermining the image of the Red Army as invincible, undermining Soviet legitimacy, and by creating new forms of political participation. On the other hand, the costs for the Soviet Union were not overwhelmingly large compared to other commitments. The CIA estimated in 1987 that the costs amounted to about 2.5 percent of the Soviet military spending per year. According to historian Sergey Radchenko there is no evidence that the Afghanistan war bankrupted the USSR. The Soviet Union spent about $7.5 billion between 1984 and 1987 but this number was negligible compared to the annual military budget of roughly $128 billion. The decision to withdraw was made based on a number of political factors. The studies about the dissolution of the Soviet Union by historians Stephen Kotkin and Vladislav Zubok identify mainly internal reasons for the collapse and mention the Afghanistan war only in passing.

The war created a cleavage between the party and the military in the Soviet Union, where the efficacy of using the Soviet military to maintain the USSR's overseas interests was now put in doubt. In the non-Russian republics, those interested in independence were emboldened by the army's defeat. Some Russian leaders began to doubt the ability to put down anti-Soviet resistance militarily (as it had in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956, and East Germany in 1953). As the war was viewed as "a Soviet war fought by non Soviets against Afghans", outside of the Soviet Union it undermined the legitimacy of the Soviet Union as a trans-national political union. The war created new forms of political participation, in the form of new civil organizations of war veterans ( Afgantsy), which weakened the political hegemony of the communist party. It also started the transformation of the press and media, which continued under glasnost.

Two Soviet T-55 tanks formerly belonging to the Afghan Army lie rusting in a field near Bagram Airfield, in 2002

The war did not end with the withdrawal of the Soviet Army. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan deep in winter, with intimations of panic among Kabul officials. The Afghan mujahideen were poised to attack provincial towns and cities and eventually Kabul, if necessary. General Secretary Mohammed Najibullah's government, though failing to win popular support, territory, or international recognition, was able to remain in power until 1992. Ironically, until demoralized by the defections of its senior officers, the Afghan Army had achieved a level of performance it had never reached under direct Soviet tutelage. Kabul had achieved a stalemate that exposed the Mujahideen's weaknesses, political and military. But for nearly three years, while Najibullah's government successfully defended itself against Mujahideen attacks, factions within the government had also developed connections with its opponents.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 proposed a peace plan in cooperation with the leader of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah, for the joint cutoff of Soviet and American aid to the government and guerrillas respectively, to result in a ceasefire and peace negotiations. Najibullah sought American cooperation in achieving a political solution. However the newly elected administration of George H. W. Bush rejected the plan, expecting to win the war through battle. Almost immediately after the Soviet withdrawal, the Mujahideen attacked the eastern city of Jalalabad in a plan instigated by Hamid Gul of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Both the Americans and Pakistanis expected Jalalabad to rapidly fall to the guerrillas and lead to a final victorious attack in Kabul. The Afghan Army proved their capability without Soviet troops as they managed to restrain the Mujahideen attack, resulting in a major defeat for the Mujahideen.

In December 1990, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to an agreement to end arms supplies to the sides in the civil war, but a date could not be agreed. Two years after the Soviet withdrawal, the guerrillas only gained one provincial capital, Tarinkot, and its surrender was arranged by local tribal leaders. However, in March 1991, the guerrillas managed to win over a city for the first time: Khost, which was nicknamed "Little Russia" due to the city's high support of local communist officials. However the guerrillas were unable to fully defeat the Afghan Army as expected by the United States and Pakistan, and neither could the Najibullah government win on the battlefield. This situation ended following the 1991 August Coup in the Soviet Union - according to Russian publicist Andrey Karaulov, the main trigger for Najibullah losing power was Russia's refusal to sell oil products to Afghanistan in 1992 for political reasons (the new Boris Yeltsin government did not want to support the former communists), which effectively triggered an embargo.[citation needed ] In April, Najibullah and his communist government fell to the Mujahideen, who replaced Najibullah with a new governing council for the country.

Grain production declined an average of 3.5% per year between 1978 and 1990 due to sustained fighting, instability in rural areas, prolonged drought, and deteriorated infrastructure. Restoration of gas production has been hampered by internal strife and the disruption of traditional trading relationships following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Extremism and international terrorism

The Soviet strategy of " rubblization" returned the country to the Dark Ages, paving the way for a radicalization of the survivors (many of whom joined the now infamous Taliban movement) that would be realized in the decade after the Soviet departure in 1988.
Samuel Totten & Paul Bartrop

Following the Soviet withdrawal, some of the foreign volunteers (including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda) and young Afghan refugees, went on to continue violent jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan and abroad. Some of the thousands of Afghan Arabs who left Afghanistan went on to become "capable leaders, religious ideologues and military commanders," who played "vital roles" as insurgents or terrorists in places such as Algeria, Egypt, Bosnia and Chechnya. Tens of thousands of Afghan refugee children in Pakistan were educated in madrassas "in a spirit of conservatism and religious rigor", and went on to fill the ranks and leadership of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Sipah-e-Sahaba in Pakistan. The groups embodied new varieties of Political Islam - " Salafi jihadism" among the foreign volunteers, and a "hybrid" Deobandi jihadism among the madrassa-educated.

Afghanistan's General Secretary Najibullah, before his ouster by the Mujahideen in 1992, told a visiting US academic that "Afghanistan in extremist hands would be a center of instability." It has been claimed that the chaos could have been avoided had the Bush administration been willing to support the Najibullah and Soviet proposals of a coalition government with the guerrillas, instead of a total military solution. Najibullah also told the International Herald Tribune that "if fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan, war will continue for many years. Afghanistan will be turned into a center of terrorism."

As many as 35,000 non-Afghan Muslim fighters went to Afghanistan between 1982 and 1992. Thousands more came and did not fight but attended schools with "former and future fighters". These "Afghan-Arabs" had a marginal impact on the jihad against the Soviets, but a much greater effect after the Soviets left and in other countries. (After the Soviets left, training continued and "tens of thousands" from "some 40 nations" came to prepare for armed insurrections "to bring the struggle back home". )

When back in the volunteer camps and training centers that he helped set up around Peshawar, Pakistan, Azzam exercised a "strong influence". He preached the importance of jihad: "those who believe that Islam can flourish [and] be victorious without Jihad, fighting, and blood are deluded and have no understanding of the nature of this religion"; of not compromising: "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues"; and that Afghanistan was only the beginning: jihad would "remain an individual obligation" for Muslims until all other formerly-Muslim lands-" Palestine, Bukhara, Lebanon, Chad, Eritrea, Somalia, the Philippines, Burma, South Yemen, Tashkent, Andalusia"-were reconquered.

The volunteers also influenced each other. Many "unexpected" religious-political ideas resulted from the "cross-pollination" during the "great gathering" of Islamists from dozens of countries in the camps and training centers. One in particular was a "variant of Islamist ideology based on armed struggle and extreme religious vigour", known as Salafi jihadism.

When the Soviet Union fell shortly after their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the volunteers were "exultant", believing that-in the words of Osama bin Laden-the credit for "the dissolution of the Soviet Union ... goes to God and the mujahideen in Afghanistan ... the US had no mentionable role," (Soviet economic troubles and United States aid to Mujahideen notwithstanding). They eagerly sought to duplicate their jihad in other countries.

Three such countries were Bosnia, Algeria and Egypt. In Bosnia the Salafi jihadist Afghan Arabs fought against Bosnian Serb and Croat militias but failed to establish a Salafi state. In Algeria and Egypt thousand of volunteers returned and fought but were even less successful. In Algeria Salafi jihadist helped lead and fight for the GIA, deliberately killing thousands of civilians. In Egypt the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya killed more than a thousand people between 1990 and 1997 but also failed to overthrow the government.

Spread of extremism in Pakistan

Pakistani soldiers conducting clearance operations in Mirali, North Waziristan, c. 2015. Pakistan has sought to expel remnants of the Afghan Mujahideen from its borders since the end of the Soviet-Afghan War.

Among the approximately three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, thousands of children were educated in madrasa boarding schools financed by aid from the US and Gulf monarchies. Since that aid was distributed according to the conservative Islamist ideological criteria of Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and Saudi Arabia (and ignoring native Afghan traditions), the schools were part of networks of the favored Hizb-e-Islami party and the Pakistan Deobandi. (Iran provided similar help to Shia Islamist groups and punishments to moderate Shia nationalist Afghans.)

Cut off from families and local traditions, the madrassa students were "educated to put Deobandi doctrines into action through obedience to the fatwas produced in the madrassas in a spirit of conservatism and religious rigor." As the Afghan students came of age, they formed "the mainstay" of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba Sunni terror group in Pakistan. But unlike the traditionally non-violent Deobandi, this "hybrid movement" embraced the violence of jihad, and unlike the Islamists of Hizb-e-Islami they were uninterested in "islamizing modernity" of western knowledge or in western knowledge at all. The culture of religious purification, absolute obedience to leaders, and disinterest in anything else, is thought to explain the willingness of Hizb-e-Islami-trained soldiers to bombard Kabul with artillery and kill thousands of civilians, reassured by their commander that the civilians they killed would "be rewarded" in heaven if they were "good Muslims". From 2008 to 2014 "thousands of Shia" have been killed by Sunni extremists according to Human Rights Watch.

"Blowback" of the U.S.

Blowback, or unintended consequences of funding the Mujahideen, was said to have come to the United States in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the September 11 attacks. In the 1993 bombing, all of the participants in the bombing "either had served in Afghanistan or were linked to a Brooklyn-based fund-raising organ for the Afghan jihad" that was later "revealed to be al-Qaeda's de facto U.S. headquarters". Principals in the 2001 attack - Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - had both fought in Afghanistan, and bin Laden was a lieutenant of Abdullah Azzam. His group, al-Qaeda, returned to Afghanistan to take refuge with the Taliban after being expelled from Sudan. Before the 9/11 attack, al-Qaeda had bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and nearly sank the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. However, no direct U.S. aid to Bin Laden or any of his affiliates has ever been established.

Media and popular culture

Within Afghanistan, war rugs were a popular form of carpet designs woven by victims of the war.

Perception in Afghanistan

Role of the United States

Pro-Mujahideen Afghans had seen the United States as the main power to help their cause in the Soviet-Afghan War. However, after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, a growing number of Afghans started blaming the United States for miseries. This was cited as a result of continued American arming and funding of rebels against the pro-Soviet administration in Kabul. Throughout 1989 and 1990, many rebel rocket attacks were fired, nowhere near military targets, that killed dozens of Afghan civilians. Many Afghans also reportedly felt that the U.S. caused the rise of the Taliban by sending billions of dollars in funding for the rebels while leaving the country in Pakistan's hands after 1992. One Afghan ex-prisoner who was affiliated with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul told the Chicago Tribune in 2001:

Afghan people have good memories of the Americans. During the Russian invasion everybody knows that America helped us to get the Russians out. But when Russia collapsed, they had no more interest and they left us alone

Perception in the former Soviet Union

The war left a long legacy in the former Soviet Union and following its collapse. Along with losses, it brought physical disabilities and widespread drug addiction throughout the USSR.

The remembrance of Soviet soldiers killed in Afghanistan and elsewhere internationally are commemorated annually on 15 February in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Veterans of the war are often referred to as афганцы ( Afgantsy) in Russian.

Russian Federation

Duma member Semyon Bagdasarov (socialist A Just Russia) advocated that Russia had to reject Western calls for stronger assistance to the US-led ISAF-coalition in Afghanistan and also had to establish contacts with the "anti-Western forces"; the Taliban, in case they regain power.

Uzbekistan

The war affected many families in post-Soviet Uzbekistan who had lost children. Some 64,500 young men from the Uzbek SSR were drafted in the war. At least 1,522 were killed and more than 2,500 left disabled. The former Uzbekistani president Islam Karimov described the Afghan war as a "major mistake" of the Soviet Union.

Around 12,500 residents of the Moldavian SSR served during the war. Of those, 301 Moldovans died in the war. The Union of Veterans of the War in Afghanistan of the Republic of Moldova is a veteran's group based in Moldova that advocates for the well-being of veterans. On 15 May 2000, after the Government's initiative to abolish benefits for veterans of the war in Afghanistan, sympathizers went to Great National Assembly Square. In 2001, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova, which came to power, radically changed the position of all veterans in the country. 15 February is celebrated as the Day of Commemoration of those killed in the War in Afghanistan. The main ceremony is held at the memorial "Sons of the Motherland - Eternal Memory".

References

1. ^ "The top leader is believed to be Maulvi Mohammad Umar Amir, who was born in the village of Nodeh in Kandhar, and is now settled in Singesar. He was wounded four times in the battles against the Soviets and his right eye was permanently damaged. He took part in the "Jehad" under the late Hizb-e-Islami Khalis Commander Nek Mohammad". Indian Defence Review. 10: 33. 1995.

2. ^ Nyrop, Richard F.; Seekins, Donald M. (January 1986). Afghanistan: A Country Study (PDF). Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. pp. xviii-xxv. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 November 2001.

3. ^ Borshchevskaya, Anna (2022). "2: The Soviet Union in the Middle East and the Afghanistan Intervention". Putin's War in Syria. 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK: I. B. Tauris. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-7556-3463-7. By 1987, the number of Soviet troops reached 120,000.

4. The Soviet-Afghan War: Breaking the Hammer & Sickle by Lester W. Grau and Ali Ahmad Jalali| vfw.org

5. Peter Beaumont (18 October 2009). "Same old mistakes in new Afghan war". The Guardian.

6. ^ Giustozzi, Antonio (2000). War, politics and society in Afghanistan, 1978-1992. Hurst. p. 115. ISBN 978-1-85065-396-7. A tentative estimate for total mujahideen losses in 1980-92 may be in the 150-180,000 range, with maybe half of them killed.

7. Hilali, A. (2005). ^ US-Pakistan relationship: Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co. (p. 198)ISBN 0-7546-4220-8

8. ^ ""Афган": война, о которой не принято говорить | Вне востока и запада". hromadske.ua. 11 February 2020.

9. ^ Mehrad, Ahmad Tamim; Zvolinski, V P; Kapralova, D O; Niazmand, Milad Ahmad (12 December 2020). "Assessment of oil and gas resources of northern Afghanistan and their impact on energy security in the country". IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. 976 (1): 012038. Bibcode:2020MS&E..976a2038T. doi:10.1088/1757-899x/976/1/012038. ISSN 1757-899X.

10. ^ "Soviets grab Afghan resources, saving their own". Christian Science Monitor. 22 December 1982. ISSN 0882-7729.

11. Pakistan's Support of Afghan Islamists, 1975-79 - Library of congress country studies(Retrieved 4 February 2007)

12. Väyrynen, Raimo (1980). "Afghanistan". Journal of Peace Research. 17 (2): 93-102. doi:10.1177/002234338001700201. JSTOR 423418. S2CID 108646101.

13. "Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War".

14. ^ Hilali, A. Z. (2005). "The Soviet Penetration into Afghanistan and the Marxist Coup". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 18 (4): 709. doi:10.1080/13518040500354984. S2CID 145101689.

15. ^ Atkinson, Darren. "From Communism to Nationalism? The Trajectory of "Post-Communist" Ideology in Afghanistan" (PDF). psa.ac.uk.

16. The April 1978 Coup d'état and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan - Library of congress country studies(Retrieved 4 February 2007)

17. ^ The Russian General Staff (2002). Grau, Lestwer W.; Gress, Michael A. (eds.). The Soviet Afghan-War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost. University Press of Kansas. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-7006-1186-7.

18. ^ Bennett Andrew(1999); A bitter harvest: Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its effects on Afghan political movements(Retrieved February 4, 2007)

19. ^ "U.S. Library of Congress - "The April 1912 Coup d'etat and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan"". Countrystudies.us.

20. "The Rise and Fall of the Taliban", by Neamatollah Nojumi, published in ^ The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan, ed by Robert D Crews and Amin Tarzi, pub by Harvard University Press, 2008

21. ^ "Intensification of Warfare between Government Forces and Moslem Rebels - Government Changes - Alleged Involvement of Foreign Powers". Keesing's Record of World Events (PDF). Vol. 25. Keesing's Worldwide, LLC. October 1979. p. 29878.

22. ^ Riedel, Bruce (2014). What We Won: America's Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. Brookings Institution Press. pp. 98-99. ISBN 978-0-8157-2595-4.

23. Gates, Robert (2007). From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War. Simon & Schuster. pp. 142, 144-145. ISBN 978-1-4165-4336-7.

24. ^ Tobin, Conor (April 2020). "The Myth of the "Afghan Trap": Zbigniew Brzezinski and Afghanistan, 1978-1979". Diplomatic History. Oxford University Press. 44 (2): 237-264. doi:10.1093/dh/dhz065.

25. ^ Harrison, Selig S.; Cordovez, Diego (1995). Out of Afghanistan: the Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 36-37. ISBN 978-0-19-506294-6.

26. Seth G. Jones (2010). In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 16-17. ISBN 9780393071429. 'It was total nonsense,' said the CIA's Graham Fuller. 'I would have been thrilled to have those kinds of contacts with Amin, but they didn't exist.'

27. Coll 2004, pp. 47-49: "Frustrated and hoping to discredit him, the KGB initially planted false stories that Amin was a CIA agent. In the autumn these rumors rebounded on the KGB in a strange case of "blowback," the term used by spies to describe planted propaganda that filters back to confuse the country that first set the story loose."

28. ^ "Генерал-майор Василий Заплатин __ ДО ШТУРМА ДВОРЦА АМИНА". 21 October 2000. Archived from the original on 21 October 2000.

29. ^ Amstutz, J. Bruce (1986). Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation (PDF). Washington, D.C.: National Defense University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 May 2019.

30. ^ "The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979: Failure of Intelligence or of the Policy Process?" (PDF). p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2006.

31. Ye. I. Malashenko, ^ Movement to contact and commitment to combat of reserve fronts, Military Thought (military-theoretical journal of the Russian Ministry of Defence), April-June 2004

32. Brown, James D. J. (1 January 2013). "Oil Fueled? The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan". Post-Soviet Affairs. 29 (1): 56-94. doi:10.1080/1060586X.2013.778543. ISSN 1060-586X.

33. ^ Afghanistan Task Force (10 January 1980). "Afghanistan: Soviet Invasion and U.S. Response Issue Brief Number IB80006" (PDF). Library of Congress Congressional Research Service.

34. ^ Borshchevskaya, Anna (2022). "2: The Soviet Union in the Middle East and the Afghanistan Intervention". Putin's War in Syria. 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK: I. B. Tauris. pp. 24, 25. ISBN 978-0-7556-3463-7.

35. Kinsella, Warren. "Unholy Alliances", Lester Publishing, 1992

36. ^ Goldman, Minton (1984). Soviet Military Intervention in Afghanistan: Roots & Causes.

37. ^ Yousaf, Mohammad & Adkin, Mark (1992). Afghanistan, the bear trap: the defeat of a superpower. Casemate. p. 159. ISBN 0-9711709-2-4.

38. ^ Report from Afghanistan Archived 28 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine Claude Malhuret

39. ^ Grau, Lester W. (1 March 2004). "The Soviet-Afghan War: A Superpower Mired in the Mountains". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 17 (1): 129-151. doi:10.1080/13518040490440692. S2CID 144778383.

40. ^ Haroon, Sana (2008). "The Rise of Deobandi Islam in the North-West Frontier Province and Its Implications in Colonial India and Pakistan 1914-1996". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 18 (1): 66-67. doi:10.1017/s1356186307007778. JSTOR 27755911. S2CID 154959326.

41. ^ "Did the U.S. "Create" Osama bin Laden?(2005-01-14)". US Department of State. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008.

42. ^ Temple-Raston, Dina. "Western Fighters Answer Mideast Extremists' Clarion Call". NPR. The last great call to arms for Muslim fighters was in the 1980s, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. About 20,000 foreign fighters traveled there, most of them from the Gulf states.

43. ^ Westermann, Edward B. (Fall 1999). "The Limits of Soviet Airpower: The Failure of Military Coercion in Afghanistan, 1979-89". Journal of Conflict Studies. XIX (2).

44. ^ ""Think tank fosters bloodshed, terrorism," The Daily Cougar, August 25, 2008". thedailycougar.com. 22 August 2008.

45. ^ Kakar, Hassan; Kakar, Mohammed (1997). Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982. University of California Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-520-20893-3.

46. ^ Manchanda, Nivi (2020). Imagining Afghanistan: The History and Politics of Imperial Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 35. doi:10.1017/9781108867986. ISBN 978-1-108-49123-5. S2CID 211440686.

47. ^ Kuperman, Alan J. (1999). "The Stinger missile and U.S. intervention in Afghanistan" (PDF). Political Science Quarterly. 114 (Summer 1999): 219-263. doi:10.2307/2657738. JSTOR 2657738. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 October 2014.

48. ^ Kuperman, Alan J. (January-February 2002). "Stinging Rebukes". Foreign Affairs. 81 (January/February 2002): 230-231. doi:10.2307/20033070. JSTOR 20033070.

49. ^ Kakar 1997, p. 224

While military operations in the country were going on, women were abducted. While flying in the country in search of mujahideen, helicopters would land in fields where women were spotted. While Afghan women do mainly domestic chores, they also work in fields assisting their husbands or performing tasks by themselves. The women were now exposed to the Soviets, who kidnapped them with helicopters. By November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. In the city of Kabul, too, the Soviets kidnapped women, taking them away in tanks and other vehicles, especially after dark. Such incidents happened mainly in the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons. At times such acts were committed even during the day. KhAD agents also did the same. Small groups of them would pick up young women in the streets, apparently to question them but in reality to satisfy their lust: in the name of security, they had the power to commit excesses.

50. ^ The War Chronicles: From Flintlocks to Machine Guns. Fair Winds. 2009. p. 393. ISBN 978-1-61673-404-6. A final weapon of terror the Soviets used against the mujahideen was the abduction of Afghan women. Soldiers flying in helicopters would scan for women working in the fields in the absence of their men, land, and take the women captive. Soviet soldiers in the city of Kabul would also steal young women. The object was rape, although sometimes the women were killed, as well. The women who returned home were often considered dishonored for life.

51. ^ Sciolino, Elaine (3 August 1984). "4 Soviet Deserters Tell of Cruel Afghanistan War". The New York Times. 'I can't hide the fact that women and children have been killed,' Nikolay Movchan, 20, a Ukrainian who was a sergeant and headed a grenade-launching team, said in an interview later. 'And I've heard of Afghan women being raped.'

52. ^ Schwartzstein, Stuart j. d. (Winter 1982-83). "Chemical Warfare in Afghanistan: An Independent Assessment". World Affairs. 145 (3): 267-272. JSTOR 20671950.

53. ^ Hegghammer, Thomas (2011). "The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad". International Security. 35 (3): 62. doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00023. S2CID 40379198. The United States and Saudi Arabia did provide considerable financial, logistical, and military support to the Afghan mujahideen.

54. Cornwell, Rupert (13 February 2010). "Charlie Wilson: Congressman whose support for the mujahideen helped force the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 24 May 2022.

55. Ruttig, T. ^ Islamists, Leftists - and a Void in the Center. Afghanistan's Political Parties and where they come from (1902-2006) [1]

56. Anton Minkov and Gregory Smolynec. ^ Economic Development in Afghanistan During the Soviet Period, 1979-1989: Lessons Learned from the Soviet Experience in Afghanistan. Archived 2 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine DRDC Centre for Operational Research & Analysis, Canada. Page 4.

57. Sliwinski, Marek (1989). "Afghanistan: Decimation of a People". Orbis. 33 (1): 39-56. PMID 11617850. S2CID 211172972.

58. ^ Braithwaite, John; Wardak, Ali (2013). "Crime and War in Afghanistan: Part I: The Hobbesian Solution" (PDF). The British Journal of Criminology. 53 (2): 179-196. doi:10.1093/bjc/azs065. JSTOR 23640010.

59. Bhutta, Z. A. (2002). "Children of war: The real casualties of the Afghan conflict". BMJ: British Medical Journal. 324 (7333): 349-352. doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7333.349. PMC . PMID 11834566.

60. ^ Pakistan Restricts Afghan Refugees by Donatella Lorch for New York Times. 16 November 1988.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Soviet-Afghan War Part of the Cold War and the Afghan conflict Date 24 December 1979 - 15 February 1989(9 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 1 day) Location Result Mujahideen victory Belligerents Soviet Union Afghanistan Afghan Mujahideen Afghan Interim Government (from 1988) Commanders and leaders Soviet Union: Afghanistan: Sunni Mujahideen:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nigerian Civil War

Part of Cold War, Decolonisation of Africa, and Sino-Soviet split

The de facto independent Republic of Biafra in June 1967

Belligerents

Nigeria
Egypt (air support)[1][2]

Biafra
Republic of Benin (1967)

Commanders and leaders

Hassan Katsina
Mohammed Shuwa
Benjamin Adekunle
Theophilus Danjuma
Shehu Musa Yar'Adua
Yakubu Gowon
Murtala Mohammed
Olusegun Obasanjo
Muhammadu Buhari Ibrahim Babangida ( WIA)

Sani Abacha

Odumegwu Ojukwu
Philip Effiong
Albert Okonkwo
Victor Banjo
Ogbugo Kalu
Joseph Achuzie
Timothy Onwuatuegwu †
Humphrey Chukwuka
Foreign mercenaries:
Rolf Steiner (German)
Jan Zumbach (Polish)
Lynn Garrison (Canadian)
Taffy Williams (Welsh)
Marc Goosens Carl Gustaf von Rosen (Swedish) † (Belgian)

Roger Faulques (French)

Strength

Nigerian Armed Forces:
85,000[27]-150,000[28]
(1967)
(Possibly 100,000)[29][30]
250,000
(1968)[31]
200,000[32]-250,000[28]
(1970)

Biafran Armed Forces:
10,000[30]-100,000[28]
(1967)
(Possibly 30,000)[27]
110,000
(1968)[33]
50,000[32]-100,000[34]
(1970)

Casualties and losses

Military killed: 45,000[32]-100,000[35][36] killed

2 million Biafran civilians perished from famine during the Nigerian naval blockade[37]

Displaced: 2,000,000-4,500,000[38]
Refugees: 500,000[39]-3,000,000[citation needed ]

The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 - 15 January 1970; also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War or the Biafran War) was a civil war fought between the government of Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967. Nigeria was led by General Yakubu Gowon, while Biafra was led by Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu. Biafra represented the nationalist aspirations of the Igbo ethnic group, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the federal government dominated by the interests of the Muslim Hausa-Fulanis of northern Nigeria. The conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions which preceded Britain's formal decolonization of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included ethno-religious violence and anti-Igbo pogroms in Northern Nigeria, a military coup, a counter-coup and persecution of Igbo living in Northern Nigeria. Control over the lucrative oil production in the Niger Delta also played a vital strategic role.

Within a year, the Federal Government troops surrounded Biafra, captured coastal oil facilities and the city of Port Harcourt. A blockade was imposed as a deliberate policy during the ensuing stalemate which led to mass starvation. During the two and half years of the war, there were about 100,000 overall military casualties, while between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians died of starvation.

In mid-1968, images of malnourished and starving Biafran children saturated the mass media of Western countries. The plight of the starving Biafrans became a cause célèbre in foreign countries, enabling a significant rise in the funding and prominence of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were the main supporters of the Nigerian government, while France, Israel (after 1968) and some other countries supported Biafra. The United States' official position was one of neutrality, considering Nigeria as 'a responsibility of Britain', but some interpret the refusal to recognize Biafra as favouring the Nigerian government.

This civil war can be connected to the colonial amalgamation in 1914 of Northern protectorate, Lagos Colony and Southern Nigeria protectorate (later renamed Eastern Nigeria), which was intended for better administration due to the close proximity of these protectorates. However, the change did not take into consideration the differences in the culture and religions of the peoples in each area. Competition for political and economic power exacerbated tensions.

Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on October 1st, 1960, with a population of 45.2 million, made up of more than 300 differing ethnic and cultural groups. When the colony of Nigeria had been created, its three largest ethnic groups were the Igbo, who formed about 60-70% of the population in the southeast; the Hausa-Fulani of the Sokoto Caliphate, who formed about 67% of the population in the northern part of the territory; and the Yoruba, who formed about 75% of the population in the southwestern part. Although these groups have their own homelands, by the 1960s, the people were dispersed across Nigeria, with all three ethnic groups represented substantially in major cities. When the war broke out in 1967, there were still 5,000 Igbos in Lagos.

The semi- feudal and Muslim Hausa-Fulani in the North were traditionally ruled by a conservative Islamic hierarchy consisting of emirs who in turn owed their allegiance to a supreme Sultan. This Sultan was regarded as the source of all political power and religious authority.

The Yoruba political system in the southwest, like that of the Hausa-Fulani, also consisted of a series of monarchs, the Oba. The Yoruba monarchs, however, were less autocratic than those in the North. The political and social system of the Yoruba accordingly allowed for greater upward mobility, based on acquired rather than inherited wealth and title.

In contrast to the two other groups, Igbos and the ethnic groups of the Niger Delta in the southeast lived mostly in autonomous, democratically organised communities, although there were eze or monarchs in many of the ancient cities, such as the Kingdom of Nri. At its zenith, the Kingdom controlled most of Igbo land, including influence on the Anioma people, Arochukwu (which controlled slavery in Igbo), and Onitsha land. Unlike the other two regions, decisions within the Igbo communities were made by a general assembly in which men and women participated.

In contrast to the Hausa-Fulani, the Igbos and other Biafrans often participated directly in the decisions which affected their lives. They had a lively awareness of the political system and regarded it as an instrument for achieving their personal goals. Status was acquired through the ability to arbitrate disputes that might arise in the village, and through acquiring rather than inheriting wealth. The Igbo had been substantially victimized in the Atlantic slave trade; in the year 1790, it was reported that of 20,000 people sold each year from Bonny, 16,000 were Igbo. With their emphasis upon social achievement and political participation, the Igbo adapted to and challenged colonial rule in innovative ways.

These tradition-derived differences were perpetuated and perhaps enhanced by the colonial government in Nigeria. In the North, the colonial government found it convenient to rule indirectly through the Emirs, thus perpetuating rather than changing the indigenous authoritarian political system. Christian missionaries were excluded from the North, and the area thus remained virtually closed to European cultural influence. By contrast the richest of the Igbo often sent their sons to British universities, with the intention of preparing them to work with the British. During the ensuing years, the Northern Emirs maintained their traditional political and religious institutions, while reinforcing their social structure. At the time of independence in 1960, the North was by far the most underdeveloped area in Nigeria. It had an English literacy rate of 2%, as compared to 19.2% in the East (literacy in Ajami (local languages in Arabic script), learned in connection with religious education, was much higher). The West also enjoyed a much higher literacy level, as it was the first part of the country to have contact with western education, and established a free primary education program under the pre-independence Western Regional Government.

In the West, the missionaries rapidly introduced Western forms of education. Consequently, the Yoruba were the first group in Nigeria to adopt Western bureaucratic social norms. They made up the first classes of African civil servants, doctors, lawyers, and other technicians and professionals.

The colonial administration divided Nigeria into three regions-North, West and East-something which exacerbated the already well-developed economic, political, and social differences among Nigeria's different ethnic groups. The country was divided in such a way that the North had a slightly higher population than the other two regions combined. There were also widespread reports of fraud during Nigeria's first census, and even today population remains a highly political issue in Nigeria. On this basis, the Northern Region was allocated a majority of the seats in the Federal Legislature established by the colonial authorities. Within each of the three regions the dominant ethnic groups, the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo, respectively formed political parties that were largely regional and based on ethnic allegiances: the Northern People's Congress (NPC) in the North; the Action Group in the West (AG); and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in the East. Although these parties were not exclusively homogeneous in terms of their ethnic or regional make-up, the disintegration of Nigeria resulted largely from the fact that these parties were primarily based in one region and one tribe.

The basis of modern Nigeria formed in 1914, when Britain amalgamated the Northern and Southern protectorates. Beginning with the Northern Protectorate, the British implemented a system of indirect rule of which they exerted influence through alliances with local forces. This system worked so well, Colonial Governor Frederick Lugard successfully lobbied to extend it to the Southern Protectorate through amalgamation. In this way, a foreign and hierarchical system of governance was imposed on the Igbos. Intellectuals began to agitate for greater rights and independence. The size of this intellectual class increased significantly in the 1950s, with the massive expansion of the national education program. During the 1940s and 1950s the Igbo and Yoruba parties were in the forefront of the campaign for independence from British rule. Northern leaders, fearful that independence would mean political and economic domination by the more Westernized elites in the South, preferred the continuation of British rule. As a condition for accepting independence, they demanded that the country continue to be divided into three regions with the North having a clear majority. Igbo and Yoruba leaders, anxious to obtain an independent country at all costs, accepted the Northern demands.

However, the two Southern regions had significant cultural and ideological differences, leading to discord between the two Southern political parties. Firstly, the AG favoured a loose confederacy of regions in the emergent Nigerian nation whereby each region would be in total control of its own distinct territory. The status of Lagos was a sore point for the AG, which did not want Lagos, a Yoruba town situated in Western Nigeria (which was at that time the federal capital and seat of national government) to be designated as the capital of Nigeria, if it meant loss of Yoruba sovereignty. The AG insisted that Lagos must be completely recognized as a Yoruba town without any loss of identity, control or autonomy by the Yoruba. Contrary to this position, the NCNC was anxious to declare Lagos, by virtue of it being the "Federal Capital Territory" as "no man's land"-a declaration which as could be expected angered the AG, which offered to help fund the development of another territory in Nigeria as "Federal Capital Territory" and then threatened secession from Nigeria if it didn't get its way. The threat of secession by the AG was tabled, documented and recorded in numerous constitutional conferences, including the constitutional conference held in London in 1954 with the demand that a right of secession be enshrined in the constitution of the emerging Nigerian nation to allow any part of the emergent nation to opt out of Nigeria, should the need arise. This proposal for inclusion of right of secession by the regions in independent Nigeria by the AG was rejected and resisted by NCNC which vehemently argued for a tightly bound united/unitary structured nation because it viewed the provision of a secession clause as detrimental to the formation of a unitary Nigerian state. In the face of sustained opposition by the NCNC delegates, later joined by the NPC and backed by threats to view maintenance of the inclusion of secession by the AG as treasonable by the British, the AG was forced to renounce its position of inclusion of the right of secession a part of the Nigerian constitution. Had such a provision been made in the Nigerian constitution, later events which led to the Nigerian/Biafran civil war may have been avoided. The pre-independence alliance between the NCNC and the NPC against the aspirations of the AG would later set the tone for political governance of independent Nigeria by the NCNC/NPC and lead to disaster in later years in Nigeria.

Northern-Southern tension manifested firstly in the 1945 Jos Riot in which 300 Igbo people died and again on 1 May 1953, as fighting in the Northern city of Kano. The political parties tended to focus on building power in their own regions, resulting in an incoherent and disunified dynamic in the federal government.

In 1946, the British divided the Southern Region into the Western Region and the Eastern Region. Each government was entitled to collect royalties from resources extracted within its area. This changed in 1956 when Shell- BP found large petroleum deposits in the Eastern region. A Commission led by Sir Jeremy Raisman and Ronald Tress determined that resource royalties would now enter a "Distributable Pools Account" with the money split between different parts of government (50% to region of origin, 20% to federal government, 30% to other regions). To ensure continuing influence, the British government promoted unity in the Northern bloc and secessionist sentiments among and within the two Southern regions. The Nigerian government, following independence, promoted discord in the West with the creation of a new Mid-Western Region in an area with oil potential. The new constitution of 1946 also proclaimed that "The entire property in and control of all mineral oils, in, under, or upon any lands, in Nigeria, and of all rivers, streams, and watercourses throughout Nigeria, is and shall be vested in, the Crown." Britain profited significantly from a fivefold rise in Nigerian exports amidst the post-war economic boom.

Nigeria gained independence on 1 October 1960, and the First Republic came to be on 1 October 1963. The first prime minister of Nigeria, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was a northerner and co-founder of the Northern People's Congress. He formed an alliance with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party, and its popular nationalist leader Nnamdi "Zik" Azikiwe, who became Governor General and then President. The Yoruba-aligned Action Group, the third major party, played the opposition role.

The 1964 elections, which involved heavy campaigning all year, brought ethnic and regional divisions into focus. Resentment of politicians ran high and many campaigners feared for their safety while touring the country. The Army was repeatedly deployed to Tiv Division, killing hundreds and arresting thousands of Tiv people agitating for self-determination.

Widespread reports of fraud tarnished the election's legitimacy. Westerners especially resented the political domination of the Northern People's Congress, many of whose candidates ran unopposed in the election. Violence spread throughout the country and some began to flee the North and West, some to Dahomey. The apparent domination of the political system by the North, and the chaos breaking out across the country, motivated elements within the military to consider decisive action.

Though the Nigeria Regiment had fought for Britain in both the First and Second World Wars, the army Nigeria inherited upon independence in 1960 was an internal security force designed and trained to assist the police in putting down challenges to authority rather than to fight a war. The Indian historian Pradeep Barua called the Nigerian Army in 1960 "a glorified police force", and even after independence, the Nigerian military retained the role it held under the British in the 1950s. The Nigerian Army did not conduct field training, and notably lacked heavy weapons. Before 1948, Nigerians were not allowed to hold officer's commissions, and only in 1948 were certain promising Nigerian recruits allowed to attend Sandhurst for officer training while at the same time Nigerian NCOs were allowed to become officers if they completed a course in officer training at Mons Hall or Eaton Hall in England. Despite the reforms, only an average of two Nigerians per year were awarded officers' commissions between 1948-55 and only seven per year from 1955 to 1960. At the time of independence in 1960, of the 257 officers commanding the Nigeria Regiment which became the Nigerian Army, only 57 were Nigerians.

Using the " martial races" theory first developed under the Raj in 19th-century India, the colonial government had decided that peoples from northern Nigeria such as the Hausa, Kiv, and Kanuri were the hard "martial races" whose recruitment was encouraged while the peoples from southern Nigeria such as the Igbos and the Yoruba were viewed as too soft to make for good soldiers and hence their recruitment was discouraged. As a result, by 1958, men from northern Nigeria made up 62% of the Nigeria Regiment while men from the south and the west made up only 36%. In 1958, the policy was changed: henceforward men from the north would make up only 50% of the soldiers while men from the southeast and southwest were each to make up 25%. The new policy was retained after independence. The previously favored northerners whose egos had been stoked by being told by their officers that they were the tough and hardy "martial races" greatly resented the change in recruitment policies, all the more as after independence in 1960 there were opportunities for Nigerian men to serve as officers that had not existed prior to independence. As men from the southeast and southwest were generally much better educated than men from the north, they were much more likely to be promoted to officers in the newly founded Nigerian Army, which provoked further resentment from the northerners. At the same time, as a part of Nigerianisation policy, it was government policy to send home the British officers who had been retained after independence, by promoting as many Nigerians as possible until by 1966 there were no more British officers. As part of the Nigerianisation policy, educational standards for officers were drastically lowered with only a high school diploma being necessary for an officer's commission while at the same time Nigerianisation resulted in an extremely youthful officer corps, full of ambitious men who disliked the Sandhurst graduates who served in the high command as blocking further chances for promotion. A group of Igbo officers formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government, seeing the northern prime minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, as allegedly plundering the oil wealth of the southeast.

On 15 January 1966, Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, and other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup d'état. The two major political leaders of the north, the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello were executed by Major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Sir Ahmadu Bello's wife and officers of Northern extraction. The President, Sir Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, was on an extended vacation in the West Indies. He did not return until days after the coup. There was widespread suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters had tipped him and other Igbo leaders off regarding the pending coup. In addition to the killings of the Northern political leaders, the Premier of the Western region, Ladoke Akintola and Yoruba senior military officers were also killed. The coup, also referred to as "The Coup of the Five Majors", has been described in some quarters as Nigeria's only revolutionary coup. This was the first coup in the short life of Nigeria's nascent second democracy. Claims of electoral fraud were one of the reasons given by the coup plotters. Besides killing much of Nigeria's elite, the "Majors' Coup" also saw much of the leadership of the Nigerian Federal Army killed with seven officers holding the rank above colonel killed. Of the seven officers killed, four were northerners, two were from the southeast and one was from the Midwest. Only one was a Igbo.

This coup was, however, not seen as a revolutionary coup by other sections of Nigerians, especially in the Northern and Western sections and by later revisionists of Nigerian coups. Some alleged, mostly from Eastern part of Nigeria, that the majors sought to spring Action Group leader Obafemi Awolowo out of jail and make him head of the new government. Their intention was to dismantle the Northern-dominated power structure but their efforts to take power were unsuccessful. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and loyalist head of the Nigerian Army, suppressed coup operations in the South and he was declared head of state on 16 January after the surrender of the majors.

In the end though, the majors were not in the position to embark on this political goal. While their 15th January coup succeeded in seizing political control in the north, it failed in the south, especially in the Lagos-Ibadan-Abeokuta military district where loyalist troops led by army commander Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi succeeded in crushing the revolt. Apart from Ifeajuna who fled the country after the collapse of their coup, the other two January Majors, and the rest of the military officers involved in the revolt, later surrendered to the loyalist High Command and were subsequently detained as a federal investigation of the event began.

Aguyi-Ironsi suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament. He abolished the regional confederated form of government and pursued unitary policies favoured by the NCNC, having apparently been influenced by NCNC political philosophy. He, however, appointed Colonel Hassan Katsina, son of Katsina emir Usman Nagogo, to govern the Northern Region, indicating some willingness to maintain cooperation with this bloc. He also preferentially released northern politicians from jail (enabling them to plan his forthcoming overthrow). Aguyi-Ironsi rejected a British offer of military support but promised to protect British interests.

Despite the overwhelming contradictions of the coup being executed by mostly Northern soldiers (such as John Atom Kpera, later military governor of Benue State), the killing of Igbo soldier Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Unegbe by coup executioners, and Ironsi's termination of an Igbo-led coup, the ease by which Ironsi stopped the coup led to suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters planned all along to pave the way for Ironsi to take the reins of power in Nigeria.

In the face of provocation from the Eastern media which repeatedly showed humiliating posters and cartoons of the slain northern politicians, on the night of 29 July 1966, northern soldiers at Abeokuta barracks mutinied, thus precipitating a counter-coup, which had already been in the planning stages. Ironsi was on a visit to Ibadan during their mutiny and there he was killed (along with his host, Adekunle Fajuyi). The counter-coup led to the installation of Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon as Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Gowon was chosen as a compromise candidate. He was a Northerner, a Christian, from a minority tribe, and had a good reputation within the army.

Ethnomusicologist Charles Keil, who was visiting Nigeria in 1966, recounted:

The pogroms I witnessed in Makurdi, Nigeria (late Sept. 1966) were foreshadowed by months of intensive anti-Ibo and anti-Eastern conversations among Tiv, Idoma, Hausa and other Northerners resident in Makurdi, and, fitting a pattern replicated in city after city, the massacres were led by the Nigerian army. Before, during and after the slaughter, Col. Gowon could be heard over the radio issuing 'guarantees of safety' to all Easterners, all citizens of Nigeria, but the intent of the soldiers, the only power that counts in Nigeria now or then, was painfully clear. After counting the disembowelled bodies along the Makurdi road I was escorted back to the city by soldiers who apologised for the stench and explained politely that they were doing me and the world a great favour by eliminating Igbos.

The Federal Military Government also laid the groundwork for the economic blockade of the Eastern Region which went into full effect in 1967.

On 27 May 1967, Gowon proclaimed the division of Nigeria into twelve states. This decree carved the Eastern Region in three parts: South Eastern State, Rivers State, and East Central State. Now the Igbos, concentrated in the East Central State, would lose control over most of the petroleum, located in the other two areas.

The Federal Military Government immediately placed an embargo on all shipping to and from Biafra-but not on oil tankers. Biafra quickly moved to collect oil royalties from oil companies doing business within its borders. When Shell- BP acquiesced to this request at the end of June, the Federal Government extended its blockade to include oil. The blockade, which most foreign actors accepted, played a decisive role in putting Biafra at a disadvantage from the beginning of the war.

Although the very young nation had a chronic shortage of weapons to go to war, it was determined to defend itself. Although there was much sympathy in Europe and elsewhere, only five countries ( Tanzania, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, Zambia, and Haiti) officially recognised the new republic. Britain supplied heavy weapons and ammunition to the Nigerian side because of its desire to preserve the country it had created. The Biafra side received arms and ammunition from France, even though the French government denied sponsoring Biafra. An article in Paris Match of 20 November 1968 claimed that French arms were reaching Biafra through neighbouring countries such as Gabon. The heavy supply of weapons by Britain was the biggest factor in determining the outcome of the war.

Several peace accords were held, with the most notable one held at Aburi, Ghana (the Aburi Accord). There were different accounts of what took place in Aburi. Ojukwu accused the federal government of going back on their promises while the federal government accused Ojukwu of distortion and half-truths. Ojukwu gained agreement to a confederation for Nigeria, rather than a federation. He was warned by his advisers that Gowon did not understand the difference and would renege upon the agreement.

The UK, which still maintained the highest level of influence over Nigeria's highly valued oil industry through Shell-BP, and the Soviet Union supported the Nigerian government, especially by military supplies.

The Nigerian Army in 1967 was completely unready for war. The Nigerian Army had no training or experience of war on the operational level, still being primarily an internal security force. Most Nigerian officers were more concerned with their social lives than military training, spending a disproportionate amount of their time on partying, drinking, hunting and playing games. Social status in the Army was extremely important and officers devoted an excessive amount of time to ensure their uniforms were always immaculate while there was a competition to own the most expensive automobiles and homes. The killings and purges perpetuated during the two coups of 1966 had killed most of the Sandhurst graduates. By July 1966, all of the officers holding the rank above colonel had been either killed or discharged while only 5 officers holding the rank of lieutenant colonel were still alive and on duty. Almost all of the junior officers had received their commissions after 1960 and most were heavily dependent on the more experienced NCOs to provide the necessary leadership. The same problems that afflicted the Federal Army also affected the Biafran Army even more whose officer corps was based around former Federal Igbo officers. The shortage of experienced officers was a major problem for the Biafran Army, made worse by a climate of paranoia and suspicion within Biafra as Ojukwu believed that other former Federal officers were plotting against him.

Shortly after extending its blockade to include oil, the Nigerian government launched a " police action" to retake the secessionist territory. The war began on the early hours of 6 July 1967 when Nigerian Federal troops advanced in two columns into Biafra. The Biafra strategy had succeeded: the federal government had started the war, and the East was defending itself. The Nigerian Army offensive was through the north of Biafra led by Colonel Mohammed Shuwa and the local military units were formed as the 1st Infantry Division. The division was led mostly by northern officers. After facing unexpectedly fierce resistance and high casualties, the western Nigerian column advanced on the town of Nsukka, which fell on 14 July, while the eastern column made for Garkem, which was captured on 12 July.

The Biafrans responded with an offensive of their own. On 9 August, Biafran forces crossed their western border and the Niger river into the Mid‑Western state of Nigeria. Passing through the state capital of Benin City, the Biafrans advanced west until 21 August, when they were stopped at Ore in present-day Ondo State, 210 kilometres (130 mi) east of the Nigerian capital of Lagos. The Biafran attack was led by Lt. Col. Banjo, a Yoruba, with the Biafran rank of brigadier. The attack met little resistance and the Mid‑Western state was easily taken over. This was due to the pre-secession arrangement that all soldiers should return to their regions to stop the spate of killings, in which Igbo soldiers had been major victims. The Nigerian soldiers who were supposed to defend the Mid‑Western state were mostly Igbo from that state and, while some were in touch with their Biafran counterparts, others resisted the invasion. General Gowon responded by asking Colonel Murtala Mohammed (who later became head of state in 1975) to form another division (the 2nd Infantry Division) to expel the Biafrans from the Mid‑Western state, to defend the border of the Western state and to attack Biafra. At the same time, Gowon declared "total war" and announced the Federal government would mobilise the entire population of Nigeria for the war effort. From the summer of 1967 to the spring of 1969, the Federal Army grew from a force of 7,000 to a force of 200,000 men organised in three divisions. Biafra began the war with only 240 soldiers at Enugu, which grew to two battalions by August 1967, which soon were expanded into two brigades, the 51st and 52nd which became the core of the Biafran Army. By 1969, the Biafrans were to field 90,000 soldiers formed into five undermanned divisions together with a number of independent units.

As Nigerian forces retook the Mid‑Western state, the Biafran military administrator declared it to be the Republic of Benin on 19 September, though it ceased to exist the next day. (The present country of Benin, west of Nigeria, was still named Dahomey at that time.)

Although Benin City was retaken by the Nigerians on 22 September, the Biafrans succeeded in their primary objective by tying down as many Nigerian Federal troops as they could. Gen. Gowon also launched an offensive into Biafra south from the Niger Delta to the riverine area, using the bulk of the Lagos Garrison command under Colonel Benjamin Adekunle (called the Black Scorpion) to form the 3rd Infantry Division (which was later renamed as the 3rd Marine Commando). As the war continued, the Nigerian Army recruited amongst a wider area, including the Yoruba, Itshekiri, Urhobo, Edo, Ijaw, etc.

Enugu became the hub of secession and rebellion, and the Nigerian government believed that once Enugu was captured, the drive for secession would end. The plans to conquer Enugu began on 12 September 1967. On 4 October, the Nigerian 1st Division captured Enugu. Ojukwu was asleep in the Biafran State House when the federal troops attacked and narrowly escaped by disguising himself as a servant. Many Nigerians hoped that Enugu's capture would convince the Igbos' traditional elite to end their support for secession, even if Ojukwu did not follow them. This did not occur. Ojukwu relocated his government without difficulty to Umuahia, a city positioned deep within traditional Igbo territory. The fall of Enugu contributed to a brief destabilisation of Biafran propaganda efforts, as the forced relocation of personnel left the Ministry of Information disorganised and the federal force's success undermined previous Biafran assertions that the Nigerian state could not withstand a protracted war. On 23 October the Biafran official radio declared in a broadcast that Ojukwu promised to continue resisting the federal government, and that he attributed the loss of Enugu to subversive actions.

Nigerian soldiers under Murtala Mohammed carried out a mass killing of 700 civilians when they captured Asaba on the River Niger. The Nigerians were repulsed three times as they attempted to cross the River Niger during October, resulting in the loss of thousands of troops, dozens of tanks and equipment. The first attempt by the 2nd Infantry Division on 12 October to cross the Niger from the town of Asaba to the Biafran city of Onitsha cost the Nigerian Federal Army over 5,000 soldiers killed, wounded, captured or missing. Operation Tiger Claw (17-20 October 1967) was a military conflict between Nigerian and Biafran military forces. On 17 October 1967 Nigerians invaded Calabar led by the "Black Scorpion", Benjamin Adekunle, while the Biafrans were led by Col. Ogbu Ogi, who was responsible for controlling the area between Calabar and Opobo, and Lynn Garrison, a foreign mercenary. The Biafrans came under immediate fire from the water and the air. For the next two days Biafran stations and military supplies were bombarded by the Nigerian air force. That same day Lynn Garrison reached Calabar but came under immediate fire by federal troops. By 20 October, Garrison's forces withdrew from the battle while Col. Ogi officially surrendered to Gen. Adekunle. On 19 May 1968 Port Harcourt was captured. With the capture of Enugu, Bonny, Calabar and Port Harcourt, the outside world was left in no doubt of the Federal supremacy in the war.

Biafran propaganda always blamed military defeats on "saboteurs" within the ranks of the Biafran officer, and both officers and the other ranks were encouraged to denounce suspected "saboteurs". Throughout the war, Biafran officers were far more likely to be executed by their own side than by the Federal Army as Ojukwu conducted purges and had officers who were merely accused of being "saboteurs" taken out and shot. Ojukwu did not trust the majority of the former Federal Igbo officers who had rallied to Biafra and saw them as potential rivals, thus leading to murderous purges that led to most of them being executed. Furthermore, Ojukwu needed scapegoats for Biafra's defeats and death was the usual punishment for a Biafran officers who lost a battle. Out of a fear of a coup, Ojukwu created several units such as the S Brigade commanded by himself and the 4th Commando Brigade commanded by the German mercenary Rolf Steiner that existed outside of the regular chain of command. Barua wrote that Ojukwu's leadership, especially his frequent executions of his own officers had a "disastrous impact" on the morale of the Biafran officer corps. The executions of officers also made it difficult for the Biafran officers to acquire the necessary experience to conduct military operations successfully as Barua noted the Biafran Army lacked both the "continuity and cohesion" to learn from the war.

Oil exploration in Nigeria was pioneered by the Shell-BP Petroleum Development Company in 1937. In a bid to control the oil in the eastern region, the Federal government placed a shipping embargo on the territory. This embargo did not include oil tankers. The leadership of Biafra wrote to Shell-BP demanding royalties for the oil that was being explored in their region. After much deliberation, Shell-BP decided to pay Biafra the sum of 250,000 pounds. The news of this payment reached the Federal government, which immediately extended the shipping embargo to oil tankers. The Nigerian government also made it clear to Shell-BP that it expected the company to pay all outstanding oil royalties immediately. With the stalling on the payment for Biafra, the government instructed Shell-BP to stop operations in Biafra and took over from the company.

Towards the end of July 1967, Nigerian federal troops and marines captured Bonny Island in the Niger Delta, thereby taking control of vital Shell-BP facilities. Operations began again in May 1968, when Nigeria captured Port Harcourt. Its facilities had been damaged and needed repair. Oil production and export continued, but at a lower level. The completion in 1969 of a new terminal at Forçados brought production up from 142,000 barrels/day in 1958 to 540,000 barrels/day in 1969. In 1970, this figure doubled to 1.08 million barrels/day. The royalties enabled Nigeria to buy more weapons, hire mercenaries, etc. Biafra proved unable to compete on this economic level.

Britain backed the Federal Government but, when the war broke out, cautioned them not to damage British oil installations in the East. These oilworks, under the control of the Shell-BP Petroleum Development Company (jointly owned by Shell and British Petroleum), controlled 84% of Nigeria's 580,000 barrels per day. Two-thirds of this oil came from the Eastern region, and another third from the newly created Mid-West region. Two-fifths of all Nigerian oil ended up in Britain. In 1967, 30% of the oil being imported into Britain came from Nigeria.

Ojukwu, even victorious, will not be in a strong position. He will require all the international help and recognition he can get. The Federal Government would be much better placed both internationally and internally. They would have a cast iron case for the severest treatment of a company which has subsidised a rebel, and I feel fairly convinced they would press their case to the lengths of cancelling the Company's concessions and nationalising their installations. I conclude, therefore, if the company does change its mind and asks the British Government for advice, the best that could be given is for it to clamber hastily back on the Lagos side of the fence with cheque book at the ready."

During the war, Britain covertly supplied Nigeria with weapons and military intelligence and may have also helped it to hire mercenaries. After the decision was made to back Nigeria, the BBC oriented its reporting to favour this side. Supplies provided to the Federal Military Government included two vessels and 60 vehicles.

In Britain, the humanitarian campaign around Biafra began on 12 June 1968, with media coverage on ITV and in The Sun. The charities Oxfam and Save the Children Fund were soon deployed, with large sums of money at their disposal.

France provided weapons, mercenary fighters, and other assistance to Biafra and promoted its cause internationally, describing the situation as a genocide. President Charles de Gaulle referred to "Biafra's just and noble cause". However, France did not recognise Biafra diplomatically. Through Pierre Laureys, France had apparently provided two B-26s, Alouette helicopters, and pilots. France supplied Biafra with captured German and Italian weapons from World War II, sans serial numbers, delivered as part of regular shipments to Côte d'Ivoire. France also sold Panhard armoured vehicles to the Nigerian federal government.

French involvement in the war can be viewed in the context of its geopolitical strategy (Françafrique) and competition with the British in West Africa. Nigeria represented a base of British influence in the predominantly French-aligned area. France and Portugal used nearby countries in their sphere of influence, especially Côte d'Ivoire under President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, as waystations for shipments to Biafra. To some extent, also, France repeated its earlier policy from the Congo Crisis, when it supported the secession of the southern mining province Katanga.

Economically, France gained incentives through oil drilling contracts for the Société Anonyme Française de Recherches et d'Exploitation de Pétrolières (SAFRAP), apparently arranged with Eastern Nigeria in advance of its secession from the Nigerian Federation. SAFRAP laid claim to 7% of the Nigerian petroleum supply. In the assessment of a CIA analyst in 1970, France's "support was actually given to a handful of Biafran bourgeoisie in return for the oil. " Biafra, for its part, openly appreciated its relationship with France. Ojukwu suggested on 10 August 1967, that Biafra introduce compulsory French classes in secondary, technical and teacher training schools, in order to "benefit from the rich culture of the French-speaking world".

France led the way, internationally, for political support of Biafra. Portugal also sent weapons. These transactions were arranged through the "Biafran Historical Research Centre" in Paris. French-aligned Gabon and Côte d'Ivoire recognised Biafra in May 1968. On 8 May 1968, De Gaulle personally contributed 30,000 francs to medicine purchases for the French Red Cross mission. Fairly widespread student-worker unrest diverted the government's attention only temporarily. The government declared an arms embargo but maintained arms shipments to Biafra under cover of humanitarian aid. In July the government redoubled its efforts to involve the public in a humanitarian approach to the conflict. Images of starving children and accusations of genocide filled French newspapers and television programs. Amidst this press blitz, on 31 July 1968, De Gaulle made an official statement in support of Biafra. Maurice Robert, head of Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE, the French foreign intelligence service) African operations, wrote in 2004 that his agency supplied the press with details about the war and told them to use the word "genocide" in their reporting.

France declared "Biafra Week" on 11-17 March 1969, centred on a 2-franc raffle held by the French Red Cross. Soon after, de Gaulle terminated arms shipments, then resigned on 27 April 1969. Interim president Alain Poher fired General Jacques Foccart, the lead coordinator of France's Africa policy. Georges Pompidou re-hired Foccart and resumed support for Biafra, including cooperation with the South African secret service to import more weapons.

On 9 September 1968, United States presidential candidate Richard Nixon stated:

Until now, efforts to relieve the Biafra people have been thwarted by the desire of central government of Nigeria to pursue total and unconditional victory and by the fear of the Ibo people that surrender means wholesale atrocities and genocide. But genocide is what is taking place right now-and starvation is the grim reaper.

When Nixon became President in 1969, he found there was little he could do to change the established stance aside from calling for another round of peace talks. Despite this, he continued to personally support Biafra.

The Soviet Union strongly backed the Nigerian government, emphasising the similarity with the Congo situation. Nigeria's need for more aircraft, which Britain and the United States refused to sell, led Gowon to accept a Soviet offer in the summer of 1967 to sell a squadron of 17 MiG-17 fighters. The British-trained Nigerian military tended to be distrustful of the Soviet Union, but the Soviet ambassador in Lagos, Alexander Romanov, a gregarious and friendly man as well as a shrewd diplomat, established an excellent rapport with Gowon and persuaded him that accepting Soviet weapons would not mean subjection to the Soviet Union. The first MiG-17s arrived in Nigeria in August 1967 together with some about 200 Soviet technicians to train the Nigerians in their use. Though the MiG-17s turned out to be too sophisticated for the Nigerians to use properly, requiring Egyptian Air Force pilots to fly them, the Soviet-Nigerian arms deal turned out to be one of the turning points of the war. Besides establishing an arms pipeline from the Soviet Union to Nigeria, the possibility that the Soviet Union would gain greater influence in Nigeria led Britain to increase its supply of arms to maintain its influence in Lagos while ruling out the possibility of either the United States or Britain recognizing Biafra.

Israel did not begin arms sales to Nigeria until after Aguyi-Ironsi came to power on 17 January 1966. This was considered an opportune time to develop this relationship with the federal government. Ram Nirgad became Israeli ambassador to Nigeria in January. Thirty tons of mortar rounds were delivered in April.

The Eastern Region began seeking assistance from Israel in September 1966. Israel apparently turned down their requests repeatedly, although they may have put the Biafran representatives in contact with another arms dealer. In 1968, Israel began supplying the Federal Military Government with arms-about $500,000 worth, according to the US State Department. Meanwhile, as elsewhere, the situation in Biafra became publicised as a genocide. The Knesset publicly debated this issue on 17 and 22 July 1968, winning applause from the press for its sensitivity. Right-wing and left-wing political groups, and student activists, spoke for Biafra. In August 1968, the Israeli Air Force overtly sent twelve tons of food aid to a nearby site outside of Nigerian (Biafran) airspace. Covertly, Mossad provided Biafra with $100,000 (through Zurich) and attempted an arms shipment. Soon after, Israel arranged to make clandestine weapons shipments to Biafra using Côte d'Ivoire transport planes. The nations of sub-Saharan Africa tended to support the Arabs in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute by voting for resolutions sponsored by Arab states at the United Nations. A major goal of Israeli diplomacy was to wean the African states away from the Arab states, and given the way that the majority of African nations supported Nigeria, Israel was loath to antagonise them by supporting Biafra too overtly.

President Gamal Abdel Nasser dispatched pilots of the Egyptian Air Force to fight for Nigeria in August 1967, flying the recently arrived MiG-17s. The tendency of Egyptian pilots to indiscriminately bomb Biafran civilians proved counterproductive in the propaganda war as the Biafrans did their best to publicise cases of civilians killed by the Egyptians. In the spring of 1969, the Nigerians replaced the Egyptian pilots with East German pilots who proved to be considerably more competent.

At the request of the Nigerian government, Canada sent three observers to investigate allegations of genocide and war crimes against the Nigerian military. Major General W.A. Milroy was joined by two other Canadian officers in 1968, and the Canadian contingent remained until February 1970.

Biafra appealed unsuccessfully for support from the Organisation of African Unity (the precursor to the African Union). The member states generally did not want to support internal secessionist movements, and many African countries like Ethiopia and Egypt supported the Nigerian government in order to prevent inspiring revolts in their own countries. However, Biafra received the support of African countries such as Tanzania, Zambia, Gabon and Côte d'Ivoire.

Outmatched by Nigeria's superior firepower, Biafra hired foreign mercenaries for extra support. Mercenaries with prior experience fighting in the Congo Crisis were eagerly drawn to Biafra. German mercenary Rolf Steiner was placed in charge of the 4th Commando Brigade of the Biafran Armed Forces and commanded 3,000 men. Welsh mercenary Taffy Williams, one of Steiner's subordinates, was in command of one hundred Biafran fighters. Steiner's other subordinates were a mixture of adventurers consisting of the Italian Giorgio Norbiato; the Rhodesian explosive expert Johnny Erasmus; the Scotsman Alexander "Alec" Gay; the Irishman Louis "Paddy" Malrooney; the Corsican Armand Iaranelli who had been able to enlist in the Foreign Legion by pretending to be Italian; and a Jamaican bartender turned mercenary who called himself "Johnny Korea". Polish-Swiss pilot Jan Zumbach formed and commanded a ragtag air force for Biafra. Canadian pilot Lynn Garrison, Swedish pilot Carl Gustaf von Rosen, and Rhodesian pilot Jack Malloch served as leaders of Biafran air operations, attacking Nigerian forces and also supplying weapons and food aid. Portuguese pilots also served in the Biafran Air Force, transporting weapons from Portugal to Biafra. Steiner established a brown water navy by converting some Chris-Craft Boats into gun boats, which turned out to be successful in launching surprise raids for weapons and supplies.

It was hoped that employing mercenaries in Nigeria would have similar impact to the Congo, but the mercenaries proved largely ineffective since the Nigerian military received much more professional and adequate training compared to the Congolese militias. Despite some initial early successes (such as Operation OAU), over half of the 4th Commando Brigade was wiped out by Nigerian forces during the disastrous Operation Hiroshima of 15-29 November 1968, resulting in Steiner experiencing depression and a nervous breakdown, leading to his eventual expulsion and replacement by Taffy Williams. Although Nigeria appeared to be a tougher opponent, commentators observing the war noted that the remaining mercenaries appeared to have developed a personal or ideological commitment to Biafra's cause, which is a rare trait for mercenaries. Belgian mercenary Marc Goosens, who was killed by defensive Nigerian forces in a suicide mission during Operation Hiroshima, was reportedly motivated by his hatred of the British government (which supported Nigeria during the war). Steiner claimed to have fought for Biafra for idealistic reasons, saying the Igbo people were the victims of genocide, but the American journalist Ted Morgan mocked his claims, describing Steiner as a militarist who simply craved war because killing was the only thing he knew how to do well. Journalist Frederick Forsyth quotes Taffy Williams speaking of his Biafran subordinates, "I've seen a lot of Africans at war. But there's nobody to touch these people. Give me 10,000 Biafrans for six months, and we'll build an army that would be invincible on this continent. I've seen men die in this war who would have won the Victoria Cross in another context".

From 1968 onward, the war fell into a form of stalemate, with Nigerian forces unable to make significant advances into the remaining areas under Biafran control due to stiff resistance and major defeats in Abagana, Arochukwu, Oguta, Umuahia ( Operation OAU), Onne, Ikot Ekpene, etc. But another Nigerian offensive from April to June 1968 began to close the ring around the Biafrans with further advances on the two northern fronts and the capture of Port Harcourt on 19 May 1968. The blockade of the surrounded Biafrans led to a humanitarian disaster when it emerged that there was widespread civilian hunger and starvation in the besieged Igbo areas.

The Biafran government reported that Nigeria was using hunger and genocide to win the war, and sought aid from the outside world. Private groups in the US, led by Senator Ted Kennedy, responded. No one was ever held responsible for these killings.

In September 1968, the federal army planned what Gowon described as the "final offensive." Initially the final offensive was neutralised by Biafran troops by the end of the year after several Nigerian troops were routed in Biafran ambushes. In the latter stages, a Southern Federal Military Government offensive managed to break through. However, in 1969, the Biafrans launched several offensives against the Nigerians in their attempts to keep the Nigerians off-balance starting in March when the 14th Division of the Biafran army recaptured Owerri and moved towards Port Harcourt, but were halted just north of the city. In May 1969, Biafran commandos recaptured oil wells in Kwale. In July 1969, Biafran forces launched a major land offensive supported by foreign mercenary pilots continuing to fly in food, medical supplies and weapons. Most notable of the mercenaries was Swedish Count Carl Gustav von Rosen who led air attacks with five Malmö MFI-9 MiniCOIN small piston-engined aircraft, armed with rocket pods and machine guns. His Biafran Air Force consisted of three Swedes: von Rosen, Gunnar Haglund and Martin Lang. The other two pilots were Biafrans: Willy Murray-Bruce and Augustus Opke. From 22 May to 8 July 1969 von Rosen's small force attacked Nigerian military airfields in Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin City and Ughelli, destroying or damaging a number of Nigerian Air Force jets used to attack relief flights, including a few MiG-17's and three of Nigeria's six Ilyushin Il-28 bombers that were used to bomb Biafran villages and farms on a daily basis. Although the Biafran offensives of 1969 were a tactical success, the Nigerians soon recovered. The Biafran air attacks did disrupt the combat operations of the Nigerian Air Force, but only for a few months.

In response to the Nigerian government using foreigners to lead some advances, the Biafran government also began hiring foreign mercenaries to extend the war. Only German-born Rolf Steiner, a lieutenant colonel with the 4th Commandos, and Major Taffy Williams, a Welshman, would remain for the duration. Nigeria deployed foreign aircraft, in the form of Soviet MiG‑17 and Il‑28 bombers.

The September massacres and subsequent Igbo withdrawal from northern Nigeria was the basis for the initial human rights petition to the UN to end genocide and provided a historical link to Biafran claims of genocide during the Nigerian civil war. Awareness of a mounting crisis rose in 1968. Information spread especially through religious networks, beginning with alerts from missionaries. It did not escape the notice of worldwide Christian organisations that the Biafrans were Christian and the northern Nigerians controlling the federal government were Muslim. Among these Christian efforts were the organization Joint Church Aid and Caritas, the latter aligned with various international Catholic aid groups. The famine was a result of the blockade that the Nigerian government had imposed on the Eastern region in the months leading up to secession. Frederick Forsyth, then a journalist in Nigeria and later a successful novelist, observed that the main problem was kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency. Prior to the civil war, the main source of dietary protein was dried fish imported from Norway, which was supplemented by local hogs, chicken and eggs. The blockade prevented imports, and local protein supplies were quickly depleted: "The national diet was now almost 100% starch."

Bernard Kouchner was one of a number of French doctors who volunteered with the French Red Cross to work in hospitals and feeding centres in besieged Biafra. The Red Cross required volunteers to sign an agreement, which was seen by some (like Kouchner and his supporters) as being similar to a gag order, that was designed to maintain the organisation's neutrality, whatever the circumstances. Kouchner and the other French doctors signed this agreement.

After entering the country, the volunteers, in addition to Biafran health workers and hospitals, were subjected to attacks by the Nigerian army, and witnessed civilians being murdered and starved by the blockading forces. Kouchner also witnessed these events, particularly the huge number of starving children, and when he returned to France, he publicly criticised the Nigerian government and the Red Cross for their seemingly complicit behaviour. With the help of other French doctors, Kouchner put Biafra in the media spotlight and called for an international response to the situation. These doctors, led by Kouchner, concluded that a new aid organisation was needed that would ignore political/religious boundaries and prioritise the welfare of victims. They formed le Comité de Lutte contre le Génocide au Biafra which in 1971 became Médecins Sans Frontières ( Doctors Without Borders).

Media and public relations played a central role in the war, due to their influence on morale at home and the dynamics of international involvement. Both sides relied heavily on external support. Biafra hired the New York public relations firm of Ruder and Finn to lobby American public opinion. However, it was not until Biafra hired the Geneva public relations Markpress in January 1968 that significant international sympathy was won. Markpress was headed by an American public relations executive, William Bernhardt, who was paid 12,000 Swiss francs per month for his services, and who expected a share of Biafra's oil revenues after the war. Markpress's portrayal of the war as a struggle for freedom by the Catholic Igbos against the Muslim-dominated north won the support of Catholic opinion all over the world, especially in the United States. Besides portraying the war as a Christian-Muslim conflict, Markpress accused the Federal government of waging genocide against the Igbos, a campaign that was extremely effective as pictures of starving Igbos won the sympathy of the world.

Media campaigns focused on the plight of the Biafrans intensified internationally in the summer of 1968. By the Biafran leadership and then around the world, the pogroms and famine were classified as genocide and compared to The Holocaust; hypothetical Judaic origins of the Igbos were used to bolster comparisons with Jews in Germany. In the international press, Igbo refugee camps were compared to Nazi extermination camps.

Humanitarian appeals differed somewhat from place to place. In Britain, humanitarian aid used familiar discourses of imperial responsibility; in Ireland, advertisements appealed to shared Catholicism and experiences of civil war. Both of these appeals channelled older cultural values into support for the new model of international NGOs. In Ireland, public opinion identified intensely with Biafra as most of the Catholic priests working in Biafra were Irish who naturally sympathized with the Biafrans, who they saw as fellow Catholics struggling for independence. The Irish journalist John Hogan who covered the war noted: "The threat of famine, combined with an independence struggle, had an almost irresistible political and emotional impact on Irish public opinion, which became hugely supportive of the regular airlifts, via the off-shore Portuguese island of São Tomé, of food and medical supplies to the beleaguered infant republic". The use of famine as a conscious tactic by the Federal government who wanted to starve Biafra into submission provoked parallels with the Great Famine of Ireland of the 1840s while many Irish people saw a parallel with Igbo struggle for independence with their own independence struggle. The pro-Biafra British journalist Frederick Forsyth started covering the war in the summer of 1967 for the BBC, became angry at the pro-Nigeria stance of the British government and resigned in protest in September 1967. Returning as a freelance journalist in 1968, Forysth worked closely with the Irish Holy Ghost Fathers to collect information about the famine, and whose dispatches from Biafra had an immense impact on British public opinion.

In Israel, the Holocaust comparison was promoted, as was the theme of threat from hostile Muslim neighbours.

Biafran elites studied Western propaganda techniques and released carefully constructed public communications in an intentional fashion. Biafran propagandists had the dual task of appealing to international public opinion, and maintaining morale and nationalist spirit domestically. Political cartoons were a preferred medium for publicising simple interpretations of the war. Biafra also used push polling to insinuate messages about Nigeria's inherent bloodthirstiness. Novelist Chinua Achebe became a committed propagandist for Biafra, and one of its leading international advocates.

On 29 May 1969, Bruce Mayrock, a student at Columbia University, set himself ablaze at the premises of the United Nations Headquarters in New York, to protest what he viewed as a genocide against the people of Biafra. He died of his injuries the following day. On 25 November 1969, musician John Lennon returned the MBE he had awarded by Queen Elizabeth II in 1964 in protest against British support for Nigeria. In his letter to the Queen returning the MBE, Lennon wrote: "Your Majesty, I am returning this in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With love. John Lennon.".

In May 1969 a company of Biafran commandos raided an oil field in Kwale and killed 11 Saipem workers and Agip technicians. They captured three Europeans unhurt and then at a nearby Okpai Field Development Biafran commandos surrounded and captured 15 more expatriate personnel. The captives included 14 Italians, 3 West Germans and one Lebanese. It was claimed that the foreigners were captured fighting alongside Nigerians against Biafran troops and that they assisted Nigerians in constructing roads to aid them in their operations against Biafra. They were tried by a Biafran court and sentenced to death.

This incident caused an international uproar. In the month that followed Pope Paul VI, the governments of Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States of America mounted concerted pressure on Biafra. On 4 June 1969, after receiving a personal direct mail from the Pope, Ojukwu pardoned the foreigners. They were released to the special envoys sent by the governments of Ivory Coast and Gabon and left Biafra.

With increased British support, the Nigerian federal forces launched their final offensive against the Biafrans once again on 23 December 1969, with a major thrust by the 3rd Marine Commando Division. The division was commanded by Col. Olusegun Obasanjo (who later became president twice), which succeeded in splitting the Biafran enclave into two by the end of the year. The final Nigerian offensive, named "Operation Tail-Wind", was launched on 7 January 1970 with the 3rd Marine Commando Division attacking, and supported by the 1st Infantry division to the north and the 2nd Infantry division to the south. The Biafran towns of Owerri fell on 9 January, and Uli on 11 January. Only a few days earlier, Ojukwu fled into exile by plane to the Ivory Coast, leaving his deputy Philip Effiong to handle the details of the surrender to General Yakubu Gowon of the Federal Army on 13 January 1970. The surrender paper was signed on 14 January 1970 in Lagos and thus came the end of the civil war and renunciation of secession. Fighting ended a few days later, with the Nigerian forces advancing into the remaining Biafran-held territories, which was met with little resistance.

After the war, Gowon said, "The tragic chapter of violence is just ended. We are at the dawn of national reconciliation. Once again we have an opportunity to build a new nation. My dear compatriots, we must pay homage to the fallen, to the heroes who have made the supreme sacrifice that we may be able to build a nation, great in justice, fair trade, and industry."

The war cost the Igbos a great deal in terms of lives, money and infrastructure. It has been estimated that up to one million people may have died due to the conflict, most from hunger and disease caused by Nigerian forces. More than half a million people died from the famine imposed deliberately through blockade throughout the war. Lack of medicine also contributed. Thousands of people starved to death every day as the war progressed. (The International Committee of the Red Cross in September 1968 estimated 8,000-10,000 deaths from starvation each day.) The leader of a Nigerian peace conference delegation said in 1968 that "starvation is a legitimate weapon of war and we have every intention of using it against the rebels". This stance is generally considered to reflect the policy of the Nigerian government. The federal Nigerian army is accused of further atrocities including deliberate bombing of civilians, mass slaughter with machine guns, and rape.

Ethnic minorities (Ibibio, Ijaw, Ikwerre, Ogoni and others) made up approximately 40% of the Biafran population in 1966. The attitude of ethnic minorities in Biafra towards the conflict were initially divided early in the war, having suffered the same fate as Igbos in the North held the same fear and dread as Igbos. However, actions by Biafra authorities suggesting they favored the Igbo majority turned these attitudes negative. Great suspicion was directed towards ethnic minorities and opponents of Biafra, with 'combing' exercises conducted to sift these communities for saboteurs, or 'sabo,' as they were commonly branded. This brand was widely feared, as it generally resulted in death by the Biafran forces or even mobs. The accusations subjected entire communities to violence in the form of killings, rapes, kidnapping and internments in camps by Biafran forces. Biafran Organization of Freedom Fighter (BOFF) was a paramilitary organization set up by the civil defense group with instructions to suppress the enemy, and engaged in "combing" exercises in minority communities.

Minorities in Biafra suffered atrocities at the hands of those fighting for both sides of the conflict. The pogroms in the North in 1966 were indiscriminately directed against people from Eastern Nigeria.

Despite a seemingly natural alliance between these victims of the pogroms in the north, tensions rose as minorities, who had always harbored an interest in having their own state within the Nigerian federation, were suspected of collaborating with Federal troops to undermine Biafra.

The Federal troops were equally culpable of this crime. In the Rivers area, ethnic minorities sympathetic to Biafra were killed in the hundreds by federal troops. In Calabar, some 2000 Efiks were also killed by Federal troops. Outside of the Biafra, atrocities were recorded against the resident of Asaba in present-day Delta State by both sides of the conflict.

Genocide question

Legal scholar Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe and other academics argued that the Biafran war was a genocide, for which no perpetrators have been held accountable. Critics of this position acknowledge that starvation policies were pursued deliberately and that accountability has not been sought for the 1966 pogroms, but suggest that claims of genocide are incongruous with the fact that the Igbo were not exterminated after the war ended, alongside other arguments such as a lack of clarity surrounding Nigerian intentions and that Nigeria was fighting to retain control of Biafra and its people rather than to expel or exterminate them. Biafra made a formal complaint of genocide against Igbos to the International Committee on the Investigation of Crimes of Genocide, which concluded that the actions undertaken by the Nigerian government against the Igbo amounted to a genocide. With special reference to the Asaba Massacre, jurist Emma Okocha described the killings as "the first black-on-black genocide". Ekwe-Ekwe places significant blame on the British government for their support of the Nigerian government, which he argued allowed for their depredations against the Igbo to continue.

Reconstruction, helped by the oil money, was swift; however, the old ethnic and religious tensions remained a constant feature of Nigerian politics. Accusations were made of Nigerian government officials diverting resources meant for reconstruction in the former Biafran areas to their ethnic areas. Military government continued in power in Nigeria for many years, and people in the oil-producing areas claimed they were being denied a fair share of oil revenues. Laws were passed mandating that political parties could not be ethnically or tribally based; however, it has been hard to make this work in practice.

On 29 May 2000, The Guardian reported that President Olusegun Obasanjo commuted to retirement the dismissal of all military persons who fought for the breakaway state of Biafra during the Nigerian civil war. In a national broadcast, he said that the decision was based on the principle that "justice must at all times be tempered with mercy."

Biafra was more or less wiped off the map until its resurrection by the contemporary Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra. Chinua Achebe's last book, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, has also rekindled discussion of the war. In 2012, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) separatist movement was founded, led by Nnamdi Kanu. In 2021, tensions between IPOB and the Nigerian government escalated into the violent Orlu Crisis, with IPOB declaring that the "second Nigeria/Biafra war" had begun. The separatists vowed that this time, Biafra would win.

According to a 2021 study, "War exposure among women [in the Biafran war] results in reduced adult stature, an increased likelihood of being overweight, earlier age at first birth, and lower educational attainment. War exposure of mothers has adverse impacts on next-generation child survival, growth, and education. Impacts vary with age of exposure."

Achebe, Chinua. There Was a Country, Penguin Press, 2012. (ISBN 978-1-59420-482-1)

Chuku, Gloria. "Women and the Nigeria-Biafra war." in Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide (Routledge, 2017) pp. 329-359.

Daly, Samuel Fury Childs. A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the Nigerian Civil War, (Cambridge University Press, 2020) online review

Diamond, Larry. Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria: The Failure of the First Republic. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press, 1988. ISBN 0-333-39435-6

Draper, Michael I. Shadows : Airlift and Airwar in Biafra and Nigeria 1967-1970. ISBN 1-902109-63-5

Dudley, Billy. Instability and Political Order: Politics and Crisis in Nigeria

Ejibunu, Hassan Tai: Nigeria's Delta Crisis: Root Causes and Peacelessness - EPU Research Papers: Issue 07/07, Stadtschlaining 2007

Ekwe-Ekwe, Herbert. The Biafra War: Nigeria and the Aftermath. African Studies, Volume 17. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990. ISBN 0-88946-235-6

Levey, Zach. "Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra civil war, 1967-70". Journal of Genocide Research 2-3, 2014.

Madiebo, Alexander A. The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War. Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1980.

Njoku, H. M. A Tragedy Without Heroes: The Nigeria-Biafra War. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishing Co., Ltd., 1987. ISBN 978-156-238-2

Obe, Peter Nigeria - A decade of crisis in pictures. Peter Obe Photo Agency, Lagos, 1971.

Ojiaku, Chief Uche Jim. Surviving the Iron Curtain: A Microscopic View of What Life Was Like, Inside a War-Torn Region. 2007. ISBN 1-4241-7070-2; ISBN 978-1-4241-7070-8

Omaka, Arua Oko. "Conquering the Home Front: Radio Biafra in the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970." War in History 25.4 (2018): 555-575.

Pierri, Bruno (2013). "A New Entry into the World Oil Market: Nigeria and Its Relations with the Atlantic Powers, 1967-1973". Eunomia. Rivista Semestrale di Storia e Politica Internazionali. 1 (2).

Stevenson, John Allen. "Capitol Gains: How Foreign Military Intervention and the Elite Quest for International Recognition Cause Mass Killing in New States". Political science PhD dissertation, accepted at University of Chicago, December 2014. online

Uche, Chibuike. "Oil, British Interests and the Nigerian Civil War". Journal of African History 49, 2008.

Vidal, João M. (September-October 1996). "Texans in Biafra: T-6Gs in Use in the Nigerian Civil War". Air Enthusiast (65): 40-47. ISSN 0143-5450.

Ugwueze, Michael I. "Biafra War Documentaries: Explaining Continual Resurgence of Secessionist Agitations in the South-East, Nigeria." Civil Wars 23.2 (2021): 207-233.

Zumbach, Jan. On Wings of War: My Life as a Pilot Adventurer.

Historiography and memory

Falola, Toyin, and Ogechukwu Ezekwem, eds. Writing the Nigeria-Biafra War (Boydell & Brewer, 2016).

Nwosu, Maik. "The Muse of History and the Literature of the Nigeria-Biafra War." in Routledge Handbook of Minority Discourses in African Literature (Routledge, 2020) pp. 276-291.

O'Sullivan, Kevin (2014). "Humanitarian encounters: Biafra, NGOs and imaginings of the Third World in Britain and Ireland, 1967-70". Journal of Genocide Research. 16 (2-3): 299-315. doi:10.1080/14623528.2014.936706. hdl:. S2CID 71299457.

Ojaide, Tanure, and Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega, eds. The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta (Taylor & Francis, 2021) online.

Ojaruega, Enajite Eseoghene. "From the Niger Delta's viewpoint: The Nigerian Civil War literature." in The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta (Routledge, 2021) pp. 206-217.

Ojaruega, Enajite E. "Beyond Victimhood: Female Agency in Nigerian Civil War Novels." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.4 (2022): 2+ online.

Roy-Omoni, Alex. "Sleeping Crocodiles are not Dead: Echoes of The Civil War in Contemporary Niger Delta Poetry." African Journal of Rhetoric 13.1 (2021): 261-281.

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Nigerian Civil War Part of Cold War, Decolonisation of Africa, and Sino-Soviet split The de facto independent Republic of Biafra in June 1967 Belligerents Nigeria Egypt (air support) [1] [2] Biafra Republic of Benin (1967) Commanders and leaders Hassan Katsina Mohammed Shuwa Benjamin Adekunle Theophilus Danjuma Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Yakubu

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The 1976 Argentine coup d'état was a right-wing coup that overthrew Isabel Perón as President of Argentina on 24 March 1976. A military junta was installed to replace her; this was headed by Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier-General Orlando Ramón Agosti. The political process initiated on 24 March 1976, took the official name of National Reorganization Process, and the junta, although not with its original members, remained in power until the return to the democratic process on December 10, 1983. Given the systematic persecution of a social minority, the period has been classified as a geoncidal process. This has been established in the sentences of trials for crimes against humanity.

The coup d'état had been planned since October 1975, and the United States Department of State learned of the preparations two months before its execution. Henry Kissinger would meet several times with Argentine Armed Forces leaders after the coup, urging them to destroy their opponents quickly before outcry over human rights abuses grew in the United States.

When president Juan Perón died of natural causes on July 1, 1974, he was succeeded by his wife (then vice-president) María Estela Martínez de Perón, also known as "Isabelita." Despite her claim as the country's rightful ruler, she rapidly lost political gravitas and power. A group of military officials, tasked by Perón to aide the vice-president,[citation needed ] took control in an effort to revitalize Argentina's deteriorating political and social climate. This shift in governance paved the way for the ensuing coup.

On February 5, 1975 Operativo Independencia was launched. This Vietnam-style intervention aimed to eliminate the guerrillas in the Tucumán jungle, who had maintained strongholds in the area as early as May 1974. In October the country was divided into five military zones, with each commander given full autonomy to unleash a carefully planned wave of repression.

On December 18, a number of warplanes took off from Morón Air Base and strafed the Casa Rosada in an attempt to overthrow Isabel Perón. The rebellion was brought to a halt four days later through arbitration by a chaplain.

However, the military did succeed in removing the only officer remaining loyal to the government, Air Force commander Héctor Fautario. Fautario drew harsh criticism from the Army and Navy owing to his vehement opposition to their repressive plans, and for his refusal to mobilize the Air Force against the guerrillas' strongholds in the north. Fautario was Videla's final obstacle in his pursuit of power.

By January 1976 the guerrilla presence in Tucumán had been reduced to a few platoons. Meanwhile, the military, fully backed by the local élite and the United States, bided its time before ultimately seizing power.

Shortly before 01:00 am, President Martínez de Perón was detained and taken by helicopter to the El Messidor residence. At 03:10 all television and radio stations were interrupted. Regular transmissions were cut and replaced by a military march, after which the first communiqué was broadcast:

[...] People are advised that as of today, the country is under the operational control of the Joint Chiefs General of the Armed Forces. We recommend to all inhabitants strict compliance with the provisions and directives emanating from the military, security or police authorities, and to be extremely careful to avoid individual or group actions and attitudes that may require drastic intervention from the operating personnel. Signed: General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier Orlando Ramón Agosti.

A state of siege and martial law were implemented, as military patrolling spread to every major city. The morning was seemingly uneventful, but as the day progressed, the detentions multiplied. Hundreds of workers, unionists, students, and political activists were abducted from their homes, their workplaces, or in the streets.

The Junta assumed the executive power until March 29th when Videla was designated president. Congress was disbanded and an entity known as Legislative Advising Commission (in Spanish: Comision de Asesoramiento Legislativo - CAL) assumed a Legislative role.

Human rights activists state that in the aftermath of the coup and ensuing Dirty War, some 30,000 people, primarily young opponents of the military regime, were " disappeared" or killed. Military men responsible for the killings often spared pregnant women for a time, keeping them in custody until they gave birth, before killing them and giving their infants to childless military families. Kissinger privately assured the military regime that they would have the full support of the United States government in their war and associated actions, a promise that was opposed by the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina at the time, Robert Hill.

The criminal dictatorship counted on the complicity of civil and ecclesiastical sectors, therefore it is usually characterized as a civic-military-ecclesiastical-business dictatorship.

The Junta remained in power until the election of Raúl Alfonsín as the President of Argentina, in December 1983.

The 24th of March anniversary of the coup is now designated in Argentina as the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice.

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The 1976 Argentine coup d'état was a right-wing coup that overthrew Isabel Perón as President of Argentina on 24 March 1976. A military junta was installed to replace her; this was headed by Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier-General Orlando Ramón Agosti.

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The Dominican Civil War ( Spanish: Guerra Civil Dominicana) took place between April 24, 1965, and September 3, 1965, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It started when civilian and military supporters of the overthrown democratically-elected president Juan Bosch ousted the militarily-installed president Donald Reid Cabral from office. The second coup prompted General Elías Wessin y Wessin to organize elements of the military loyal to President Reid ("loyalists"), initiating an armed campaign against the so-called "constitutionalist" rebels. In riposte, the dissidents passed out Cristóbal carbines and machine guns to several thousand civilian sympathizers and adherents. Allegations of foreign communist support for the rebels led to a United States intervention in the conflict (codenamed Operation Power Pack), which later transformed into an Organization of American States occupation of the country by the Inter-American Peace Force. Elections were held in 1966, in the aftermath of which Joaquín Balaguer was elected into the presidential seat. Later in the same year, foreign troops departed from the country.

Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño was the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic. Sworn into office in February 1963, he tried to implement a number of social reforms, which caused the anger of the, business magnates and members of the army, who initiated a rumor campaign that accused Bosch of being a communist. On September 25, 1963, a group of twenty-five senior military commanders, led by General Elías Wessin y Wessin, expelled Bosch from the country and installed Donald Reid Cabral as the new president. Reid failed to gather popular support, and several factions prepared to launch a counter- coup; Constitutionalists under Bosch, a group in the Dominican army under Peña Taveras, supporters of the former Dominican Revolutionary Party leader Nicolás Silfa and plotters siding with Joaquín Balaguer.

April Revolution

On April 24, 1965, three junior officers requested a meeting with President Donald Reid Cabral, who rejected the offer after he had received news of a suspected anti-government plot. When Chief of Staff Riviera Cuesta was instead sent to discuss with the officers at the August 16 military camp, he was immediately detained. A group of military constitutionalists and Dominican Revolutionary Party (DRP) supporters then seized the Radio Santo Domingo building and issued calls of sedition while Constitutionalist officers distributed weapons and Molotov cocktails to their civilian comrades. The transmissions prompted the garrison of the February 27 camp and a unit of the Dominican Navy's frogmen to defect. Large numbers of police officers abandoned their positions and changed into civilian clothing.

The following day, Reid appointed General Wessin y Wessin as the new chief of staff. Wessin rallied the government troops, branded them Loyalists, and announced his plans of suppressing the rebellion. At 10:30 am rebels stormed the presidential palace and arrested Reid. Several hours later, four Loyalist P-51 Mustangs conducted aerial bombings of the National Palace and other Constitutionalist positions, and one plane was shot down during the incident. A single Loyalist vessel, Mella, on the river Ozama, also bombarded the palace. Fearing that a mob, which had gathered at the palace, would lynch Reid, the rebel commander Francisco Caamaño allowed him to escape, as Reid had already lost the support of the Loyalists. The majority of the DRP leadership fled the capital, and Constitutionalists mobilized a total of 5,000 armed civilians and 1,500 members of the military. On April 26, José Rafael Molina Ureña was declared the provisional president, and large crowds gathered in the streets to demand Bosch's return from exile.

US intervention

In the meantime, US diplomats in Santo Domingo initiated preparations for evacuating 3,500 U.S citizens. In the early morning of April 27, 1,176 foreign civilians who had assembled in Hotel Embajador were airlifted to the Bajos de Haina naval facility, where they boarded USS Ruchamkin and USS Wood County, as well as the helicopters of HMM-264, which evacuated them from the island to USS Boxer and USS Raleigh. Later that day, 1,500 Loyalist troops, supported by armored cars and tanks, marched from the San Isidro Air Base, captured Duarte Bridge, and took position on the west bank of the Ozama River. A second force, consisting of 700 soldiers, left San Cristóbal and attacked the western suburbs of Santo Domingo. Rebels overran the Fortaleza Ozama police headquarters and took 700 prisoners. On April 28, armed civilians attacked the Villa Consuelo police station and executed all of the police officers who survived the initial skirmish. One US Marine battalion landed in Haina and later moved to Hotel Embajador, where it provided assistance in the upcoming airlifts. During the night, 684 civilians were airlifted to USS Boxer. One US Marine was killed by a rebel sniper during the operation.

On April 29, the US ambassador to the Dominican Republic, William Tapley Bennett, who had sent numerous reports to US President Lyndon Johnson, reported that the situation had reached life-threatening proportions for US citizens and that the rebels received foreign support. Bennett stressed that the US had to act immediately, as the creation of an international coalition would be time-consuming. Contrary to the suggestions of his advisers, Johnson authorized the transformation of evacuation operations into a large-scale military intervention through Operation Power Pack, which was aimed to prevent the development of what he saw as a second Cuban Revolution. It was the first overt U.S. military intervention in Latin America in more than 30 years, although it came on the heels of U.S.-backed coups in Guatemala and Brazil, as well as ongoing covert interference in Cuba.

At 2:16 a.m. on April 30, 1965, the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division landed at the San Isidro Air Base and started the US military intervention in the conflict. During the next couple of hours, two brigade combat teams and heavy equipment were also dispatched. At sunrise the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment moved up the San Isidoro highway, securing a position east of the Duarte bridge. The 1st Battalion 505th Infantry Regiment remained at the airbase and sent out patrols to the perimeter. A force of 1,700 Marines of the 6th Marine Expeditionary Unit occupied an area containing a number of foreign embassies. The locale was proclaimed an International Security Zone by the Organization of American States (OAS). Earlier in the day, the OAS also issued a resolution calling the combatants to end all hostilities. At 4:30 p.m., representatives of the loyalists, the rebels, and the US military signed a ceasefire that was to take effect at 11:45 p.m. That timing favored the demoralized Loyalists, who had lost control of Ciudad Colonial.

On May 5, the OAS Peace Committee arrived in Santo Domingo, and a second definite ceasefire agreement was signed, which ended the main phase of the civil war. Under the Act of Santo Domingo, the OAS was tasked with overseeing the implementation of the peace deal as well as distributing food and medication through the capital. The treaties failed to prevent some violations such as small-scale firefights and sniper fire. A day later, OAS members established the Inter-American Peace Force (IAPF) with the goal of serving as a peacekeeping formation in the Dominican Republic. The IAPF had 1,748 Brazilian, Paraguayan, Nicaraguan, Costa Rican, Salvadoran and Honduran troops and was headed by Brazilian General Hugo Panasco Alvim, with US Army General Bruce Palmer serving as his deputy commander.

US withdrawal

On May 26, US forces began gradually withdrawing from the island. On June 15, the Constitutionalists launched a second and final attempt to expand the boundaries of their stronghold. In the bloodiest battle of the intervention, the rebels began their attack on US outposts. Using the greatest firepower yet, they used tear gas grenades, .50-caliber machine guns, 20 mm guns, mortars, rocket launchers, and tank fire. The 1st battalions of the 505th and 508th Infantry quickly went on the offensive. Two days of fighting cost the US five KIA and 31 WIA. The OAS forces, consisting of a large number of Brazilians and whose orders were to remain at their defenses, counted five wounded. The Constitutionalists claimed 67 dead and 165 injured.

The first postwar elections were held on July 1, 1966, and pit the conservative Reformist Party candidate, Joaquín Balaguer, against the former president Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño. Balaguer - with the support of the US - emerged victorious in the elections after he built his campaign on promises of reconciliation. On September 21, 1966, the last OAS peacekeepers withdrew from the island, which ended the foreign intervention in the conflict.

McPherson, Darrell G. The Role of the Army Medical Service in the Dominican Republic. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army.

Warnock, Timothy (2000). Dominican Crisis: Operation POWER PACK. Short of War: Major USA Contingency Operations. Air Force History and Museums Program.

Maurer, Noel (2013). The Empire Trap: The Rise and Fall of U.S. Intervention to Protect American Property Overseas, 1893-2013. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691155821.

Galindez, Jésus (1962). L'Ère de Trujillo. Paris: Gallimard. ISBN 0816503591.

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The Dominican Civil War ( Spanish: Guerra Civil Dominicana) took place between April 24, 1965, and September 3, 1965, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It started when civilian and military supporters of the overthrown democratically-elected president Juan Bosch ousted the militarily-installed president Donald Reid Cabral from office.

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The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 - 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.

The Western Allies organised the Berlin Airlift ( German: Berliner Luftbrücke, "Berlin Air Bridge") from 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949 to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin, a difficult feat given the size of the city and the population. American and British air forces flew over Berlin more than 250,000 times, dropping necessities such as fuel and food, with the original plan being to lift 3,475 tons of supplies daily. By the spring of 1949, that number was often met twofold, with the peak daily delivery totalling 12,941 tons. Among these was the work of the later concurrent Operation Little Vittles in which candy-dropping aircraft dubbed " raisin bombers" generated much goodwill among German children.

Having initially concluded there was no way the airlift could work, the Soviets found its continued success an increasing embarrassment. On 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin, due to economic issues in East Berlin, although for a time the Americans and British continued to supply the city by air as they were worried that the Soviets would resume the blockade and were only trying to disrupt western supply lines. The Berlin Airlift officially ended on 30 September 1949 after fifteen months. The US Air Force had delivered 1,783,573 tons (76.4% of total) and the RAF 541,937 tons (23.3% of total), totalling 2,334,374 tons, nearly two-thirds of which was coal, on 278,228 flights to Berlin. In addition Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African air crews assisted the RAF during the blockade. The French also conducted flights, but only to provide supplies for their military garrison.

American C-47 and C-54 transport airplanes, together, flew over 92,000,000 miles (148,000,000 km) in the process, almost the distance from Earth to the Sun. British transports, including Handley Page Haltons and Short Sunderlands, flew as well. At the height of the airlift, one plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds.

Seventeen American and eight British aircraft crashed during the operation. A total of 101 fatalities were recorded as a result of the operation, including 40 Britons and 31 Americans, mostly due to non-flying accidents.

The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe. It played a major role in aligning West Berlin with the United States and Britain as the major protecting powers, and in drawing West Germany into the NATO orbit several years later in 1955.

The red area of Germany (above) is Soviet controlled East Germany. German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line (light beige) was ceded to Poland, while a portion of the easternmost section of Germany East Prussia, Königsberg, was annexed by the USSR, as the Kaliningrad Oblast.

From 17 July to 2 August 1945, the victorious Allies reached the Potsdam Agreement on the fate of postwar Europe, calling for the division of defeated Germany, west of the Oder-Neisse line, into four temporary occupation zones each one controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union (thus re-affirming principles laid out earlier by the Yalta Conference). These zones were located roughly around the then-current locations of the allied armies. As the seat of the Allied Control Council, Berlin was also divided into four occupation zones, despite the city's location, which was fully located 100 miles (160 km) inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany. The United States, United Kingdom, and France controlled western portions of the city, while Soviet troops controlled the eastern sector.

Soviet zone and the Allies' rights of access to Berlin

Sectors of divided Berlin

The only three permissible air corridors to Berlin

In the eastern zone, the Soviet authorities forcibly unified the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the Socialist Unity Party ("SED"), claiming at the time that it would not have a Marxist-Leninist or Soviet orientation. The SED leaders then called for the "establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic regime, a parliamentary democratic republic" while the Soviet Military Administration suppressed all other political activities. Factories, equipment, technicians, managers and skilled personnel were removed to the Soviet Union.

In a June 1945 meeting, Stalin informed German communist leaders that he expected to slowly undermine the British position within their occupation zone, that the United States would withdraw within a year or two and that nothing would then stand in the way of a united Germany under communist control within the Soviet orbit. Stalin and other leaders told visiting Bulgarian and Yugoslavian delegations in early 1946 that Germany must be both Soviet and communist.

The Soviets also granted only three air corridors for access to Berlin from Hamburg, Bückeburg, and Frankfurt. In 1946 the Soviets stopped delivering agricultural goods from their zone in eastern Germany, and the American commander, Lucius D. Clay, responded by stopping shipments of dismantled industries from western Germany to the Soviet Union. In response, the Soviets started a public relations campaign against American policy and began to obstruct the administrative work of all four zones of occupation.

Until the blockade began in 1948, the Truman Administration had not decided whether American forces should remain in West Berlin after the establishment of a West German government, planned for 1949.

Berlin quickly became the focal point of both US and Soviet efforts to re-align Europe to their respective visions. As Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov noted, "What happens to Berlin, happens to Germany; what happens to Germany, happens to Europe." Berlin had suffered enormous damage; its prewar population of 4.3 million people was reduced to 2.8 million.

After harsh treatment, forced emigration, political repression and the particularly harsh winter of 1945-1946, Germans in the Soviet-controlled zone were hostile to Soviet endeavours. Local elections in 1946 resulted in a massive anti-communist protest vote, especially in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Berlin's citizens overwhelmingly elected non-Communist members to its city government.

The US had secretly decided that a unified and neutral Germany would inevitably fall under Soviet domination, with Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith telling General Eisenhower that "in spite of our announced position, we really do not want nor intend to accept German unification on any terms that the Russians might agree to, even though they seem to meet most of our requirements." American planners had privately decided during the war that it would need a strong, allied Germany to assist in the rebuilding of the West European economy.

To coordinate the economies of the British and United States occupation zones, these were combined on 1 January 1947 into what was referred to as the Bizone (renamed "the Trizone" when France joined on 1 August 1948). After March 1946 the British zonal advisory board (Zonenbeirat) was established, with representatives of the states, the central offices, political parties, trade unions, and consumer organisations. As indicated by its name, the zonal advisory board had no legislative power, but was merely advisory. The Control Commission for Germany - British Element made all decisions with its legislative power. In reaction to the Soviet and British advances, in October 1945 the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) encouraged the states in the US zone to form a co-ordinating body, the so-called Länderrat (council of states), with the power to legislate for the entire US zone. It created its own central bodies (Ausschüsse or joint interstate committees) headed by a secretariat seated in Stuttgart. While the British and Soviet central administrations were allied institutions, these US zone committees were not OMGUS subdivisions, but instead were autonomous bodies of German self-rule under OMGUS supervision.

Representatives of these three governments, along with the Benelux nations, met twice in London ( London 6-Power Conference) in the first half of 1948 to discuss the future of Germany, going ahead despite Soviet threats to ignore any resulting decisions. Eventually the London Agreement on German External Debts, also known as the London Debt Agreement (German: Londoner Schuldenabkommen), was concluded. Under the London Debts Agreement of 1953, the repayable amount was reduced by 50% to about 15 billion marks and stretched out over 30 years, and compared to the fast-growing German economy were of minor impact.

After a 9 March meeting between Stalin and his military advisers, a secret memorandum was sent to Molotov on 12 March 1948, outlining a plan to force the policy of the western allies into line with the wishes of the Soviet government by "regulating" access to Berlin. The Allied Control Council (ACC) met for the last time on 20 March 1948, when Vasily Sokolovsky demanded to know the outcome of the London Conference and, on being told by negotiators that they had not yet heard the final results from their governments, he said, "I see no sense in continuing this meeting, and I declare it adjourned."

The entire Soviet delegation rose and walked out. Truman later noted, "For most of Germany, this act merely formalised what had been an obvious fact for some time, namely, that the four-power control machinery had become unworkable. For the city of Berlin, however, this was an indication for a major crisis."

On 25 March 1948, the Soviets issued orders restricting Western military and passenger traffic between the American, British and French occupation zones and Berlin. These new measures began on 1 April along with an announcement that no cargo could leave Berlin by rail without the permission of the Soviet commander. Each train and truck was to be searched by the Soviet authorities. On 2 April, General Clay ordered a halt to all military trains and required that supplies to the military garrison be transported by air, in what was dubbed the "Little Lift."

At the same time, Soviet military aircraft began to violate West Berlin airspace and would harass, or what the military called "buzz", flights in and out of West Berlin. On 5 April, a Soviet Air Force Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter collided with a British European Airways Vickers Viking 1B airliner near RAF Gatow airfield, killing all aboard both aircraft. Later dubbed the Gatow air disaster, this event exacerbated tensions between the Soviets and the other allied powers.

Internal Soviet reports in April stated that "Our control and restrictive measures have dealt a strong blow to the prestige of the Americans and British in Germany" and that the Americans have "admitted" that the idea of an airlift would be too expensive.

Creation of an economically stable western Germany required reform of the unstable Reichsmark German currency introduced after the 1920s German inflation. The Soviets continued the debasing of the Reichsmark, which had undergone severe inflation during the war, by excessive printing, resulting in many Germans using cigarettes as a de facto currency or for bartering. The Soviets opposed western plans for a reform. They interpreted the new currency as an unjustified, unilateral decision, and responded by cutting all land links between West Berlin and West Germany. The Soviets believed that the only currency that should be allowed to circulate was the currency that they issued themselves.

Anticipating the introduction of a new currency by the other countries in the non-Soviet zones, the Soviet Union in May 1948 directed its military to introduce its own new currency and to permit only the Soviet currency to be used in their sector of Berlin if the other countries brought in a different currency there. On 18 June the United States, Britain and France announced that on 21 June the Deutsche Mark would be introduced, but the Soviets refused to permit its use as legal tender in Berlin. The Allies had already transported 250,000,000 Deutsche marks into the city and it quickly became the standard currency in all four sectors. Stalin looked to force the Western nations to abandon Berlin.

The day after the 18 June 1948 announcement of the new Deutsche Mark, Soviet guards halted all passenger trains and traffic on the autobahn to Berlin, delayed Western and German freight shipments and required that all water transport secure special Soviet permission. On 21 June, the day the Deutsche Mark was introduced, the Soviet military halted a United States military supply train to Berlin and sent it back to western Germany. On 22 June, the Soviets announced that they would introduce the East German mark in their zone.

On 24 June, the Soviets severed land and water connections between the non-Soviet zones and Berlin. That same day, they halted all rail and barge traffic in and out of Berlin. The West answered by introducing a counter-blockade, stopping all rail traffic into East Germany from the British and US zones. Over the following months, this counter-blockade would have a damaging impact on East Germany, as the drying up of coal and steel shipments seriously hindered industrial development in the Soviet zone. On 25 June, the Soviets stopped supplying food to the civilian population in the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin. Motor traffic from Berlin to the western zones was permitted, but this required a 23-kilometre (14 mi) detour to a ferry crossing because of alleged "repairs" to a bridge. They also cut off the electricity relied on by Berlin, using their control over the generating plants in the Soviet zone.

At the time, West Berlin had an estimated 36 days worth of food, and 45 days worth of coal. Militarily, the Americans and British were greatly outnumbered because of the postwar scaling back of their armies. The United States, like other Western countries, had disbanded most of its troops and was largely inferior in the European theatre. The entire United States Army had been reduced to 552,000 men by February 1948. Military forces in the western sectors of Berlin numbered only 8,973 Americans, 7,606 British and 6,100 French. Of the 98,000 American troops in West Germany in March 1948, only 31,000 were combat forces, and only one reserve division was immediately available in the United States. Soviet military forces in the Soviet sector that surrounded Berlin totaled 1.5 million. The two United States regiments in Berlin could have provided little resistance against a Soviet attack. Because of the imbalance, US war plans were based on using hundreds of atomic bombs, but only about 50 Fat Man-specification bombs, the only version available to the US military, existed in mid-1948. In March 1948, only 35 " Silverplate" atomic-capable Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers-just over half of the 65 Silverplate specification B-29 aircraft built through the end of 1947-and a few trained flight and assembly crews were available. Three B-29 groups arrived in Europe in July and August 1948. Despite the intention to signal the threat of the West's ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons if necessary, the Soviets possibly knew that none of the bombers were atomic-capable. The first Silverplate bombers only arrived in Europe near the end of the crisis in April 1949.

General Lucius D. Clay, in charge of the US Occupation Zone in Germany, summed up the reasons for not retreating in a cable on June 13, 1948, to Washington, D.C.:

There is no practicability in maintaining our position in Berlin and it must not be evaluated on that basis... We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and in Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of the American intent.

Believing that Britain, France, and the United States had little option other than to acquiesce, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany celebrated the beginning of the blockade. General Clay felt that the Soviets were bluffing about Berlin since they would not want to be viewed as starting a Third World War. He believed that Stalin did not want a war and that Soviet actions were aimed at exerting military and political pressure on the West to obtain concessions, relying on the West's prudence and unwillingness to provoke a war. General Curtis LeMay, commander of United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), reportedly favored an aggressive response to the blockade, in which his B-29s with fighter escort would approach Soviet air bases while ground troops attempted to reach Berlin; Washington vetoed the plan.

Although the ground routes had never been negotiated, the same was not true of the air. On 30 November 1945, it had been agreed in writing that there would be three twenty-mile-wide air corridors providing free access to Berlin. Additionally, unlike a force of tanks and trucks, the Soviets could not claim that cargo aircraft were a military threat.

The airlift option critically depended on scale and effectiveness. If the supplies could not be flown in fast enough, Soviet help would eventually be needed to prevent starvation. Clay was told to take advice from General LeMay to see if an airlift was possible. "We can haul anything," LeMay responded, after initially taken aback by the inquiry, "Can you haul coal?"

When American forces consulted Britain's Royal Air Force about a possible joint airlift, they learned the RAF was already running an airlift in support of British troops in Berlin. General Clay's counterpart, General Sir Brian Robertson, was ready with some concrete numbers. During the Little Lift in April 1948, British Air Commodore Reginald Waite had calculated the resources required to support the entire city.

Based on a minimum daily ration of 1,990 kilocalories (July 1948), the American military government set a total of daily supplies needed at 646 tons of flour and wheat, 125 tons of cereal, 64 tons of fat, 109 tons of meat and fish, 180 tons of dehydrated potatoes, 180 tons of sugar, 11 tons of coffee, 19 tons of powdered milk, 5 tons of whole milk for children, 3 tons of fresh yeast for baking, 144 tons of dehydrated vegetables, 38 tons of salt and 10 tons of cheese. In all, 1,534 tons were required each day to sustain the over two million people of Berlin. Additionally, for heat and power, 3,475 tons of coal, diesel and petrol were also required daily.

C-47 Skytrains unloading at Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin Airlift

The postwar demobilisation left the US forces in Europe with only two groups of C-47 Skytrain transports (the military version of the Douglas DC-3, which the British called the "Dakota"), nominally 96 aircraft, each of which could carry about 3.5 tons of cargo. LeMay believed that "with an all-out effort" of 100 daily round trips these would be able to haul about 300 tons of supplies a day. The RAF was somewhat better prepared, since it had already moved some aircraft into the German area, and they expected to be able to supply about 400 tons a day.

This was not nearly enough to move the 5,000 tons a day that would be needed, but these numbers could be increased as new aircraft arrived from the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. The RAF would be relied on to increase its numbers quickly. It could fly additional aircraft in from Britain in a single hop, bringing the RAF fleet to about 150 Dakotas and 40 of the larger Avro Yorks with a 10-ton payload.

With this fleet, the British contribution was expected to rise to 750 tons a day in the short term, albeit at the cost of suspending all air traffic except for the airlift to Berlin. For a longer-term operation, the US would have to add additional aircraft as soon as possible, and those would have to be as large as possible while still able to fly into the Berlin airports. Only one aircraft type was suitable, the four-engined C-54 Skymaster and its US Navy equivalent, the R5D, of which the US military had approximately 565, with 268 Air Force and Navy Skymasters in MATS, 168 in the troop carrier groups, and 80 Navy R5Ds in miscellaneous commands. Planners calculated that including C-54s already ordered to Germany and drawing on those flying with civilian carriers, 447 Skymasters could be available for an "extreme emergency".

Given the feasibility assessment made by the British, an airlift appeared to be the best course of action. One remaining concern was the population of Berlin. Clay called in Ernst Reuter, the mayor-elect of Berlin, accompanied by his aide, Willy Brandt. Clay told Reuter:

Look, I am ready to try an airlift. I can't guarantee it will work. I am sure that even at its best, people are going to be cold and people are going to be hungry. And if the people of Berlin won't stand that, it will fail. And I don't want to go into this unless I have your assurance that the people will be heavily in approval.

Reuter, although skeptical, assured Clay that Berlin would make all the necessary sacrifices and that the Berliners would support his actions.

General Albert Wedemeyer, the US Army chief of plans and operations, was in Europe on an inspection tour when the crisis broke out. He had been the commander of the US China Burma India Theater in 1944-45 and he had a detailed knowledge of the previously largest airlift-the World War II American airlift from India over the Hump of the Himalayas to China. His endorsement of the airlift option gave it a major boost. The British and Americans agreed to start a joint operation without delay; the US action was dubbed "Operation Vittles", while the British action was called "Operation Plainfare". The Australian contribution to the airlift, begun in September 1948, was designated " Operation Pelican".

The British asked Canada to contribute planes and crews. It refused, primarily on the grounds that the operation risked war and Canada had not been consulted.

Loading milk on a West Berlin-bound aircraft

On 24 June 1948 LeMay appointed Brigadier General Joseph Smith, headquarters commandant for USAFE at Camp Lindsey, as the provisional task force commander of the airlift. Smith had been chief of staff in LeMay's B-29 command in India during World War II and had no airlift experience. On 25 June 1948, Clay gave the order to launch Operation Vittles. The next day, 32 C-47s lifted off for Berlin hauling 80 tons of cargo, including milk, flour and medicine. The first British aircraft flew on 28 June. At that time, the airlift was expected to last three weeks.

On 27 June, Clay cabled William Draper with an estimate of the current situation:

I have already arranged for our maximum airlift to start on Monday [June 28]. For a sustained effort, we can use seventy Dakotas [C-47s]. The number which the British can make available is not yet known, although General Robertson is somewhat doubtful of their ability to make this number available. Our two Berlin airports can handle in the neighborhood of fifty additional airplanes per day. These would have to be C-47s, C-54s or planes with similar landing characteristics, as our airports cannot take larger planes. LeMay is urging two C-54 groups. With this airlift, we should be able to bring in 600 or 700 tons a day. While 2,000 tons a day is required in normal foods, 600 tons a day (utilizing dried foods to the maximum extent) will substantially increase the morale of the German people and will unquestionably seriously disturb the Soviet blockade. To accomplish this, it is urgent that we be given approximately 50 additional transport planes to arrive in Germany at the earliest practicable date, and each day's delay will of course decrease our ability to sustain our position in Berlin. Crews would be needed to permit maximum operation of these planes.

By 1 July, the system was getting under way. C-54s were starting to arrive in quantity, and Rhein-Main Air Base became exclusively a C-54 hub, while Wiesbaden retained a mix of C-54s and C-47s. Aircraft flew northeast through the American air corridor into Tempelhof Airport, then returned due west flying out on through the British air corridor. After reaching the British Zone, they turned south to return to their bases.

Germans watching supply planes at Tempelhof

1950s film by the British Government about the Berlin airlift

The British ran a similar system, flying southeast from several airports in the Hamburg area through their second corridor into RAF Gatow in the British Sector, and then also returning out on the center corridor, turning for home or landing at Hanover. However, unlike the Americans, the British also ran some round-trips, using their southeast corridor. To save time many flights didn't land in Berlin, instead air dropping material, such as coal, into the airfields. On 6 July the Yorks and Dakotas were joined by Short Sunderland flying boats. Flying from Finkenwerder on the Elbe near Hamburg to the Havel river next to Gatow, their corrosion-resistant hulls suited them to the particular task of delivering baking powder and other salt into the city. The Royal Australian Air Force also contributed to the British effort.

During the first week, the airlift averaged only ninety tons a day, but by the second week it reached 1,000 tons. This likely would have sufficed had the effort lasted only a few weeks, as originally believed. The Communist press in East Berlin ridiculed the project. It derisively referred to "the futile attempts of the Americans to save face and to maintain their untenable position in Berlin."

Despite the excitement engendered by glamorous publicity extolling the work (and over-work) of the crews and the daily increase of tonnage levels, the airlift was not close to being operated to its capability because USAFE was a tactical organisation without any airlift expertise. Maintenance was barely adequate, crews were not being efficiently used, transports stood idle and disused, necessary record-keeping was scant, and ad hoc flight crews of publicity-seeking desk personnel were disrupting a business-like atmosphere. This was recognised by the United States National Security Council at a meeting with Clay on 22 July 1948, when it became clear that a long-term airlift was necessary. Wedemeyer immediately recommended that the deputy commander for operations of the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, command the operation. When Wedemeyer had been the commander of US forces in China during World War II, Tunner, as commander of the India-China Division of the Air Transport Command, had reorganised the Hump airlift between India and China, doubling the tonnage and hours flown. USAF Chief of Staff Hoyt S. Vandenberg endorsed the recommendation.

On 28 July 1948, Tunner arrived in Wiesbaden to take over the operation. He revamped the entire airlift operation, reaching an agreement with LeMay to form the Combined Air Lift Task Force (CALTF) to control both the USAFE and RAF lift operations from a central location, which went into effect in mid-October 1948. MATS immediately deployed eight squadrons of C-54s-72 aircraft-to Wiesbaden and Rhein-Main Air Base to reinforce the 54 already in operation, the first by 30 July and the remainder by mid-August, and two-thirds of all C-54 aircrew worldwide began transferring to Germany to allot three crews per aircraft.

A C-74 Globemaster plane at Gatow airfield on 19 August with more than 20 tons of flour from the United States

As a result of Black Friday, Tunner instituted a number of new rules; instrument flight rules (IFR) would be in effect at all times, regardless of actual visibility, and each sortie would have only one chance to land in Berlin, returning to its air base if it missed its approach, where it was slotted back into the flow. Stacking was completely eliminated. With straight-in approaches, the planners found that in the time it had taken to unstack and land nine aircraft, 30 aircraft could be landed, bringing in 300 tons. Accident rates and delays dropped immediately. Tunner decided, as he had done during the Hump operation, to replace the C-47s in the airlift with C-54s or larger aircraft when it was realised that it took just as long to unload a 3.5-ton C-47 as a 10-ton C-54. One of the reasons for this was the sloping cargo floor of the "taildragger" C-47s, which made truck loading difficult. The tricycle geared C-54's cargo deck was level, so that a truck could back up to it and offload cargo quickly. The change went into full effect after 28 September 1948.

Having noticed on his first inspection trip to Berlin on 31 July that there were long delays as the flight crews returned to their aircraft after getting refreshments from the terminal, Tunner banned aircrew from leaving their aircraft for any reason while in Berlin. Instead, he equipped jeeps as mobile snack bars, handing out refreshments to the crews at their aircraft while it was being unloaded. Airlift pilot Gail Halvorsen later noted, "he put some beautiful German Fräuleins in that snack bar. They knew we couldn't date them, we had no time. So they were very friendly." Operations officers handed pilots their clearance slips and other information while they ate. With unloading beginning as soon as engines were shut down on the ramp, turnaround before takeoff back to Rhein-Main or Wiesbaden was reduced to thirty minutes.

An RAF Short Sunderland moored on the Havel near Berlin unloading salt during the airlift

The Berliners themselves solved the problem of the lack of manpower. Crews unloading and making airfield repairs at the Berlin airports were made up almost entirely of local civilians, who were given additional rations in return. As the crews increased in experience, the times for unloading continued to fall, with a record set for the unloading of an entire 10-ton shipment of coal from a C-54 in ten minutes, later beaten when a twelve-man crew unloaded the same quantity in five minutes and 45 seconds.

"Operation Little Vittles"

US Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen, who pioneered the idea of dropping candy bars and bubble gum with handmade miniature parachutes, which later became known as "Operation Little Vittles"

Gail Halvorsen, one of the many airlift pilots, decided to use his off-time to fly into Berlin and make movies with his hand-held camera. He arrived at Tempelhof on 17 July 1948 on one of the C-54s and walked over to a crowd of children who had gathered at the end of the runway to watch the aircraft. He introduced himself and they started to ask him questions about the aircraft and their flights. As a goodwill gesture, he handed out his only two sticks of Wrigley's Doublemint Gum. The children quickly divided up the pieces as best they could, even passing around the wrapper for others to smell. He was so impressed by their gratitude and that they didn't fight over them, that he promised the next time he returned he would drop off more. Before he left them, a child asked him how they would know it was him flying over. He replied, "I'll wiggle my wings."

A Douglas C-54 Skymaster dropping candy over Berlin, c. 1948/49

The next day on his approach to Berlin, he rocked the aircraft and dropped some chocolate bars attached to a handkerchief parachute to the children waiting below. Every day after that, the number of children increased and he made several more drops. Soon, there was a stack of mail in Base Ops addressed to "Uncle Wiggly Wings", "The Chocolate Uncle" and "The Chocolate Flier". His commanding officer was upset when the story appeared in the news, but when Tunner heard about it, he approved of the gesture and immediately expanded it into "Operation Little Vittles". Other pilots participated, and when news reached the US, children all over the country sent in their own candy to help out. Soon, major candy manufacturers joined in. In the end, over three tons of candy were dropped on Berlin and the "operation" became a major propaganda success. German children christened the candy-dropping aircraft " raisin bombers" or candy bombers.

The Soviets had an advantage in conventional military forces, but were preoccupied with rebuilding their war-torn economy and society. The US had a stronger navy and air force, and had nuclear weapons. Neither side wanted a war; the Soviets did not disrupt the airlift.

As the tempo of the airlift grew, it became apparent that the Western powers might be able to pull off the impossible: indefinitely supplying an entire city by air alone. In response, starting on 1 August 1948, the Soviets offered free food to anyone who crossed into East Berlin and registered their ration cards there, and almost 22 thousand Berliners received their cards until 4 August 1948. In 1949 more than 100 thousand West Berliners were receiving Soviet supplies in Eastern Berlin. Some West Berliners rejected Soviet offers of food.

During the early months of the airlift, the Soviets used various methods to harass allied aircraft. These included buzzing by Soviet planes, obstructive parachute jumps within the corridors, and shining searchlights to dazzle pilots at night. Although the USAFE reported 733 separate harassing events, including flak, air-to-air fire, rocketing, bombing, and explosions, this is now considered to be exaggerated. None of these measures were effective. Former RAF Dakota pilot Dick Arscott described one "buzzing" incident. " Yaks (Soviet fighter aircraft) used to come and buzz you and go over the top of you at about twenty feet which can be off-putting. One day I was buzzed about three times. The following day it started again and he came across twice and I got a bit fed up with it. So when he came for the third time, I turned the aircraft into him and it was a case of chicken, luckily he was the one who chickened out."

Attempted Communist putsch in the municipal government

In the autumn of 1948 it became impossible for the non-Communist majority in Greater Berlin's citywide parliament to attend sessions at city hall within the Soviet sector. The parliament ( Stadtverordnetenversammlung von Groß-Berlin) had been elected under the provisional constitution of Berlin two years earlier (20 October 1946). As SED-controlled policemen looked on passively, Communist-led mobs repeatedly invaded the Neues Stadthaus, the provisional city hall (located on Parochialstraße since all other central municipal buildings had been destroyed in the War), interrupted the parliament's sessions, and menaced its non-Communist members. The Kremlin organised an attempted putsch for control of all of Berlin through a 6 September takeover of the city hall by SED members.

Three days later RIAS Radio urged Berliners to protest against the actions of the communists. On 9 September 1948 a crowd of 500,000 people gathered at the Brandenburg Gate, next to the ruined Reichstag in the British sector. The airlift was working so far, but many West Berliners feared that the Allies would eventually discontinue it. Then- SPD city councillor Ernst Reuter took the microphone and pleaded for his city, "You peoples of the world, you people of America, of England, of France, look on this city, and recognise that this city, this people, must not be abandoned-cannot be abandoned!"

Berlin's parliament decided to meet instead in the canteen of the Technical College of Berlin-Charlottenburg in the British sector, boycotted by the members of SED, which had gained 19.8% of the electoral votes in 1946. On 30 November 1948 the SED gathered its elected parliament members and 1,100 further activists and held an unconstitutional so-called "extraordinary city assembly" ( außerordentliche Stadtverordnetenversammlung) in East Berlin's Metropol-Theater which declared the elected city government ( Magistrat) and its democratically elected city councillors to be deposed and replaced it with a new one led by Oberbürgermeister Friedrich Ebert Jr. and consisting only of Communists. This arbitrary act had no legal effect in West Berlin, but the Soviet occupants prevented the elected city government for all of Berlin from further acting in the eastern sector.

The city parliament, boycotted by its SED members, then voted for its re-election on 5 December 1948, however, inhibited in the eastern sector and defamed by the SED as a Spalterwahl ("divisive election"). The SED did not nominate any candidates for this election and appealed to the electorate in the western sectors to boycott the election, while the democratic parties ran for seats. The turnout amounted to 86.3% of the western electorate with the SPD gaining 64.5% of the votes (= 76 seats), the CDU 19.4% (= 26 seats), and the Liberal-Demokratische Partei (LDP, merged in the FDP in 1949) 16.1% (= 17 seats).

On 7 December the new, de facto West-Berlin-only city parliament elected a new city government in West Berlin headed by Lord Mayor Reuter, who had already once been elected lord mayor in early 1946 but prevented from taking office by a Soviet veto. Thus two separate city governments officiated in the city divided into East and West versions of its former self. In the east, a communist system supervised by house, street, and block wardens was quickly implemented.

West Berlin's parliament accounted for the de facto political partition of Berlin and replaced the provisional constitution of Berlin by the Verfassung von Berlin (constitution of Berlin), meant for all Berlin, with effect of 1 October 1950 and de facto restricted to the western sectors only, also renaming city parliament (from Stadtverordnetenversammlung von Groß-Berlin to Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin), city government (from Magistrat von Groß-Berlin to Senate of Berlin), and head of government (from Oberbürgermeister to Governing Mayor of Berlin).

Although the early estimates were that about 4,000 to 5,000 tons per day would be needed to supply the city, this was made in the context of summer weather, when the airlift was only expected to last a few weeks. As the operation dragged on into autumn, the situation changed considerably. The food requirements would remain the same (around 1,500 tons), but the need for additional coal to heat the city dramatically increased the total amount of cargo to be transported by an additional 6,000 tons a day.

To maintain the airlift under these conditions, the current system would have to be greatly expanded. Aircraft were available, and the British started adding their larger Handley Page Hastings in November, but maintaining the fleet proved to be a serious problem. Tunner looked to the Germans once again, hiring former Luftwaffe mechanics.

C-54s stand out against the snow at Wiesbaden Air Base during the Berlin Airlift in the Winter of 1948-49

Another problem was the lack of runways in Berlin to land on: two at Tempelhof and one at Gatow-neither of which was designed to support the loads the C-54s were putting on them. All of the existing runways required hundreds of labourers, who ran onto them between landings and dumped sand into the runway's Marston Mat (pierced steel planking) to soften the surface and help the planking survive. Since this system could not endure through the winter, between July and September 1948 a 6,000 ft.-long asphalt runway was constructed at Tempelhof.

Far from ideal, with the approach being over Berlin's apartment blocks, the runway nevertheless was a major upgrade to the airport's capabilities. With it in place, the auxiliary runway was upgraded from Marston Matting to asphalt between September and October 1948. A similar upgrade program was carried out by the British at Gatow during the same period, also adding a second runway, using concrete.

The French Air Force, meanwhile, had become involved in the First Indochina War, so it could only bring up a few French built Junkers Ju 52s (known as A.A.C. 1 Toucan) to support its own troops, and they were too small and slow to be of much help. However, France agreed to build a complete, new and larger airport in its sector on the shores of Lake Tegel. French military engineers, managing German construction crews, were able to complete the construction in under 90 days. Because of a shortage of heavy equipment, the first runway was mostly built by hand, by thousands of labourers who worked day and night.

For the second runway at Tegel, heavy equipment was needed to level the ground, equipment that was too large and heavy to fly in on any existing cargo aircraft. The solution was to dismantle large machines and then re-assemble them. Using the five largest American C-82 Packet transports, it was possible to fly the machinery into West Berlin. This not only helped to build the airfield, but also demonstrated that the Soviet blockade could not keep anything out of Berlin. The Tegel airfield was subsequently developed into Berlin Tegel Airport.

To improve air traffic control, which would be critical as the number of flights grew, the newly developed ground-controlled approach radar system (GCA) was flown to Europe for installation at Tempelhof, with a second set installed at Fassberg in the British Zone in West Germany. With the installation of GCA, all-weather airlift operations were assured. November and December 1948 proved to be the worst months of the airlift operation for the Western Allies. One of the longest-lasting fogs ever experienced in Berlin blanketed the entire European continent for weeks. All too often, aircraft would make the entire flight and then be unable to land in Berlin. On 20 November 1948, 42 aircraft departed for Berlin, but only one landed there. At one point, the city had only a week's supply of coal left. However, the weather eventually improved, and more than 171,000 tons were delivered in January 1949, 152,000 tons in February, and 196,223 tons in March.

By April 1949, airlift operations were running smoothly and Tunner wanted to shake up his command to discourage complacency. He believed in the spirit of competition between units and, coupled with the idea of a big event, felt that this would encourage them to greater efforts. He decided that, on Easter Sunday, the airlift would break all records. To do this, maximum efficiency was needed and so, to simplify cargo-handling, only coal would be airlifted. Coal stockpiles were built up for the effort and maintenance schedules were altered so that the maximum number of aircraft were available.

On 21 April, the tonnage of supplies flown into the city exceeded that previously brought by rail.

Berlin Airlift Monument in Berlin-Tempelhof, displaying the names of the 39 British and 31 American airmen who lost their lives during the operation. Similar monuments are located at the military airfield of Wietzenbruch near the former RAF Celle and at Rhein-Main Air Base.

Base of the Berlin Airlift Monument in Berlin-Tempelhof with inscription "They gave their lives for the freedom of Berlin in service of the Berlin Airlift 1948/49"

Near the start of the blockade, the Western powers had established an embargo on exports from the entire Eastern bloc, severely hampering the East German economy in particular. The embargo had been exacting a higher toll on the Soviets than the airlift was costing the Western bloc, leading Stalin to recognize the futility of continuing the blockade.

On 15 April 1949, the Soviet news agency TASS reported a willingness by the Soviets to lift the blockade. The next day, the US State Department stated that the "way appears clear" for the blockade to end. Soon afterwards, the four powers began serious negotiations, and a settlement was reached on Western terms. On 4 May 1949, the Allies announced an agreement to end the blockade in eight days.

The Soviet blockade of Berlin was lifted at one minute after midnight on 12 May 1949. A British convoy immediately drove through to Berlin, and the first train from West Germany reached Berlin at 5:32 a.m. Later that day, an enormous crowd celebrated the end of the blockade. General Clay, whose retirement had been announced by US President Truman on 3 May 1949, was saluted by 11,000 US soldiers and dozens of aircraft. Once home, Clay received a ticker tape parade in New York City, was invited to address the US Congress, and was honoured with a medal from President Truman.

Nevertheless, supply flights to Berlin continued for some time in order to build up a comfortable surplus, though night flying and then weekend flights could be eliminated once the surplus was deemed to be large enough. By 24 July 1949, three months' worth of supplies had been amassed, ensuring that there was ample time to restart the airlift if needed.

On 18 August 1949, Flt Lt Roy Mather DFC AFC and his crew of Flt Lt Roy Lewis Stewart Hathaway AFC, Flt Lt Richardson and Royston William Marshall AFM of 206 squadron, flew back to Wunstorf for the 404th time during the blockade, the record number of flights for any pilot of any nationality, either civilian or military.

A total of 101 fatalities were recorded as a result of the operation, including 40 Britons and 31 Americans, mostly due to non-flying accidents. One Royal Australian Air Force member was killed in an aircraft crash at Lübeck while attached to No. 27 Squadron RAF. Seventeen American and eight British aircraft crashed during the operation.

The cost of the airlift was shared between the US, UK, and German authorities in the Western sectors of occupation. Estimated costs range from approximately US$224 million to over US$500 million (equivalent to approximately $2.87 billion to $6.4 billion now).

Operational control of the three Allied air corridors was assigned to BARTCC (Berlin Air Route Traffic Control Center) air traffic control located at Tempelhof. Diplomatic approval was granted by a four-power organisation called the Berlin Air Safety Center, also located in the American sector.

Berlin crises 1946-1962

Millions of East Germans escaped to West Germany from East Germany, and Berlin became a major escape route. This led to major-power conflict over Berlin that stretched at least from 1946 to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Dwight D. Eisenhower became US President in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev became Soviet leader in the same year. Khrushchev tried to push Eisenhower on Berlin in 1958-59. The Soviets backed down when Eisenhower's resolve seemed to match that of Truman. When Eisenhower was replaced by Kennedy in 1961, Khrushchev tried again, with essentially the same result.

In the late 1950s, the runways at West Berlin's city centre Tempelhof Airport had become too short to accommodate the new-generation jet aircraft, and Tegel was developed into West Berlin's principal airport. During the 1970s and 1980s Schönefeld had its own crossing points through the Berlin Wall and communist fortifications for western citizens.

The Soviets' contravention by the blockade of the agreement reached by the London 6-Power Conference, and the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, convinced Western leaders that they had to take swift and decisive measures to strengthen the portions of Germany not occupied by the Soviets.

The US, British and French authorities also agreed to replace their military administrations in their occupation zones with High Commissioners operating within the terms of a three-power occupation statute. The Blockade also helped to unify German politicians in these zones in support of the creation of a West German state; some of them had hitherto been fearful of Soviet opposition. The blockade also increased the perception among many Europeans that the Soviets posed a danger, helping to prompt the entry into NATO of Portugal, Iceland, Italy, Denmark, and Norway.

It has been claimed that animosities between Germans and the Western Allies were greatly reduced by the airlift, with the former enemies recognising common interests. The Soviets refused to return to the Allied Control Council in Berlin, rendering the four-power occupation authority set up at the Potsdam Conference useless. It has been argued that the events of the Berlin Blockade are proof that the Allies conducted their affairs within a rational framework, since they were keen to avoid war.

In 2007, Tegel was joined by a re-developed Berlin-Schönefeld International Airport in Brandenburg. As a result of the development of these two airports, Tempelhof was closed in October 2008, while Gatow became home of the Bundeswehr Museum of Military History - Berlin-Gatow Airfield and a housing development. In October 2020, the expansion of Schönefeld into the larger Berlin Brandenburg Airport was completed, making Tegel mostly redundant as well.

A Douglas C-54 Skymaster, called Spirit of Freedom, operated as a flying museum. It is owned and operated by the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation.

In the early days, the Americans used their C-47 Skytrain or its civilian counterpart Douglas DC-3. These machines could carry a payload of up to 3.5 tons, but were replaced by C-54 Skymasters and Douglas DC-4s, which could carry up to 10 tons and were faster. These made up a total of 330 aircraft, which made them the most used types. Other American aircraft such as the five C-82 Packets, and the one YC-97A Stratofreighter 45-59595, with a payload of 20 tons-a gigantic load for that time-were only sparsely used.

The British used a considerable variety of aircraft types. Many aircraft were either former bombers or civil versions of bombers. In the absence of enough transports, the British chartered many civilian aircraft. British European Airways (BEA) coordinated all British civil aircraft operations. Apart from BEA itself, the participating airlines included British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and most British independent airlines of that era-e.g. Eagle Aviation, Silver City Airways, British South American Airways (BSAA), the Lancashire Aircraft Corporation, Airwork, Air Flight, Aquila Airways, Flight Refuelling Ltd (which used their Lancaster tankers to deliver aviation fuel), Skyways, Scottish Airlines and Ciro's Aviation.

Altogether, a total of 692 aircraft were engaged in the Berlin Airlift, more than 100 of which belonged to civilian operators.

Other aircraft included Junkers Ju 52/3m which were operated briefly by France.

1. Smoler, Fredric (April/May 2003). "Where Berlin and America Meet Archived 28 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine" American Heritage. Retrieved 29 July 2010.

2. ^ Berlin Airlift: Logistics, Humanitarian Aid, and Strategic Success Archived 16 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Major Gregory C. Tine, Army Logistician

3. ^ Daum, Andreas W. (2000). "America's Berlin, 1945‒2000: Between Myths and Visions". In Trommler, Frank (ed.). Berlin: The New Capital in the East (PDF). The American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University. pp. 49-73.

4. ^ Layne, Christopher (2007). The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present. Cornell University Press. pp. 63-67. ISBN 9780801474118.

5. ^ Clarks, Delbert (6 April 1948). "Soviet-British Plane Collision Kills 15; Russian Apologizes". The New York Times. p. 1.

6. ^ Thody, Phillip Malcom Waller (2000), "Berlin Crisis of 1948-1949 and 1958-1962", Europe since 1945, London: Routledge. N. pag. Print.

7. Young, Ken (January 2007). "US 'Atomic Capability' and the British Forward Bases in the Early Cold War". Journal of Contemporary History. 42 (1): 117-136. doi:10.1177/0022009407071626. JSTOR 30036432. S2CID 159815831.[page needed ]

8. spiritoffreedom.org: The Berlin Airlift

9. ^ Partos, Gabriel (1993). The World That Came in from the Cold. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs. p. 33.

10. ^ Fifty years ago, a massive airlift into Berlin showed the Soviets that a post-WW II blockade would not work, C.V. Glines

11. ^ Wetzlaugk U. Berliner Blokade 1948/49. Berlin, 1998. S.54

12. ^ BBC Radio 4 programme "The Reunion, The Berlin Airlift," first broadcast 22 August 2014

13. ^ MacDonogh, G "After the Reich" John Murray London 2007 p. 533

14. ^ Roger G. Miller (2008). To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948-1949 (PDF). Texas A&M University Press. pp. 110-111. ISBN 978-1-60344090-5. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 March 2020. Over 17,000 Berliners, working three shifts for slightly over a mark an hour and a hot meal, did the work. Alt URL

15. The Berlin Airlift - Facts & Figures, National Cold War Exhibition. Retrieved 2 January 2013

16. ^ "The Berlin Airlift - Die Luftbrücke 1948-49". Archived from the original on 16 May 2008.

17. 1634-1699: ^ McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700-1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800-present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800-".

18. ^ "Occupation of Germany, including the Berlin air lift, cost the UK taxpayer £35 million in 1948" (PDF).

19. ^ Theodore D. Raphael (1 September 1982). "Integrative Complexity Theory and Forecasting International Crises: Berlin 1946-1962". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 6 (3): 423-450. ISSN 0022-0027. Wikidata Q64022945.

20. ^ Berlin Airport Company - Special Report on Air France's 25th Anniversary at Berlin Tegel, March 1985 Monthly Timetable Booklet for Berlin Tegel Airport, Berlin Airport Company, West Berlin, 1985 (in German)

Beschloss, Michael R. (2003), The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-7432-6085-6

Canwell, Diane (2008), Berlin Airlift, the, Gretna: Pelican Publishing, ISBN 978-1-58980-550-7

Cherny, Andrei (2008), The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, ISBN 978-0-399-15496-6

Daum, Andreas (2008), Kennedy in Berlin, New York: Cambridge University Press

Harrington, Daniel F. Berlin on the Brink: The Blockade, the Airlift, and the Early Cold War (2012), University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, KY, ISBN 978-08131-3613-4.

Larson, Deborah Welch. "The Origins of Commitment: Truman and West Berlin," Journal of Cold War Studies, 13#1 Winter 2011, pp. 180-212

Miller, Roger Gene (1998), To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948-1949 (PDF), US Government printing office, 1998-433-155/92107

Schrader, Helena P. The Blockade Breakers: The Berlin Airlift (2011)

Stent, Angela (2000), Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-05040-9

Tunner, LTG (USAF) William H. (1998) [1964], Over the Hump, Duell, Sloan and Pearce (USAF History and Museums Program)

Daum, Andreas W. "America's Berlin, 1945‒2000: Between Myths and Visions". In Frank Trommler (ed.), Berlin: The New Capital in the East. The American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 2000, pp. 49-73 online

Defrance, Corine; Greiner, Bettina; Pfeil, Ulrich, eds. (2018), Die Berliner Luftbrücke. Erinnerungsort des Kalten Krieges (in German), Berlin: Christoph Links, ISBN 978-3-86153-991-9 , in German

Fenton Jr, Robert. "The Berlin Airlift and the Use of Air Mobility as a Function of U.S. Policy." (Air War College, Air University Maxwell AFB, 2016) online.

Grehan, John. The Berlin Airlift: The World's Largest Ever Air Supply Operation (Pen and Sword, 2019).

Giangreco, D. M.; Griffin, Robert E. (1988). Airbridge to Berlin: The Berlin Crisis of 1948, Its Origins and Aftermath. Presidio Press. ISBN 0-89141-329-4. Archived from the original on 6 March 2002.

Launius, Roger D.; Cross, Coy F. (1989). MAC and the Legacy of the Berlin Airlift. Scott Air Force Base IL: Office of History, Military Airlift Command. OCLC 21306003.

Giles Milton Checkmate in Berlin (John Murray, 2021).

O'Connell, Kaete M. "'Uncle Wiggly Wings': Children, chocolates, and the Berlin Airlift." Food and Foodways 25.2 (2017): 142-159.

Turner, Barry. The Berlin Airlift: The Relief Operation that Defined the Cold War (Icon Books, 2017).

Windsor, Philip. "The Berlin Crises" History Today (June 1962) Vol. 6, pp. 375-384, summarizes the series of crises 1946 to 1961; online.

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The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 - 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control.

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Greek Civil War

Part of the Cold War

QF 25 pounder gun of the Hellenic Army during the Civil War

Belligerents

Kingdom of Greece

Provisional Democratic Government (from 1947)

Commanders and leaders

Strength

26,000 (at peak, mid-1948)[2]
c. 100,000 men and women served, of whom:
15,000-20,000
Slav Macedonians
2,000-3,000 Pomaks
130-150 Chams[3]

Casualties and losses

Hellenic Army, Navy and Air Force, from 16 August 1945 to 22 December 1951:[4] 15,268 killed, 37,255 wounded, 3,843 missing, 865 deserters

Hellenic Gendarmerie, from 1 December 1944 to 27 December 1951:[5] 1,485 killed, 3,143 wounded, 159 missing

38,839 killed
20,128 captured
(Hellenic Army claim)

158,000 total killed[6][7][8][9]
1,000,000 temporarily relocated during the war[10]

The Greek Civil War ( Greek: Eμφύλιος Πόλεμος, Emfýlios Pólemos) took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a communist-dominated uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The opposition declared a people's republic, the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece, which was governed by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its military branch, the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). The rebels were supported by Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. With the support of the United Kingdom and United States, the Greek government forces ultimately prevailed.

The war had its roots in divisions within Greece during World War II between the communist-dominated left-wing resistance organisation, the EAM- ELAS, and loosely-allied anti-communist resistance forces. It later escalated into a major civil war between the Greek state and the communists. Fighting resulted in the defeat of the DSE by the Hellenic Army.

The war resulted from a highly-polarized struggle between left and right ideologies that started when each side targeted the power vacuum resulting from the end of Axis occupation (1941-1944) during World War II. The struggle was the first proxy war of the Cold War and represents the first example of postwar involvement on the part of the Allies in the internal affairs of a foreign country, an implementation of George F. Kennan's containment policy in his Long Telegram. Greece in the end was funded by the United States (through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan) and joined NATO (1952), while the insurgents were demoralized by the bitter split between the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, who wanted to end the war, and Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, who wanted it to continue.

Background: 1941-1944

While Axis forces approached Athens in April 1941, King George II and his government escaped to Egypt, where they proclaimed a government-in-exile, recognised by the UK but not by the Soviet Union. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill encouraged George II to appoint a moderate cabinet. As a result, only two of his ministers were previous members of the 4th of August Regime under Ioannis Metaxas, who had both seized power in a coup d'état with the blessing of the king and governed the country since August 1936. Nevertheless, the exiled government's inability to influence affairs inside Greece rendered it irrelevant in the minds of most Greek people. At the same time, the Germans set up a collaborationist government in Athens, which lacked legitimacy and support. The puppet regime was further undermined when economic mismanagement in wartime conditions created runaway inflation, acute food shortages and famine among the civilian population.

The power vacuum that the occupation created was filled by several resistance movements that ranged from monarchist to communist in ideology. Resistance was born first in eastern Macedonia and Thrace, where Bulgarian troops occupied Greek territory. Soon large demonstrations were organized in many cities by the Defenders of Northern Greece (YVE), a patriotic organization. However, the largest group to emerge was the National Liberation Front (EAM), founded on 27 September 1941 by representatives of four left-wing parties. Proclaiming that it followed the Soviet policy of creating a broad united front against fascism, EAM won the support of many non-communist patriots.

These resistance groups launched attacks against the occupying powers and set up large espionage networks. The communist leaders of EAM, however, had planned to dominate in postwar Greece, so, usually by force, they tried to take over or destroy the other Greek resistance groups (such as the destruction of National and Social Liberation (EKKA) and the murder of its leader, Dimitrios Psarros by Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) partisans) and undertaking a campaign of Red Terror. When liberation came in October 1944, Greece was in a state of crisis, which soon led to the outbreak of civil war.

Although controlled by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the organization had democratic republican rhetoric. Its military wing, ELAS was founded in February 1942. Aris Velouchiotis, a member of KKE's Central Committee, was nominated Chief ( Kapetanios) of the ELAS High Command. The military chief, Stefanos Sarafis, was a colonel in the prewar Greek army who had been dismissed during the Metaxas regime for his views. The political chief of EAM was Vasilis Samariniotis ( nom de guerre of Andreas Tzimas).

The Organization for the Protection of the People's Struggle (OPLA) was founded as EAM's security militia, operating mainly in the occupied cities and most particularly Athens. A small Greek People's Liberation Navy (ELAN) was created, operating mostly around the Ionian Islands and some other coastal areas. Other Communist-aligned organizations were present, including the National Liberation Front (NOF), composed mostly of Slavic Macedonians in the Florina region. They would later play a critical role in the civil war. The two other large resistance movements were the National Republican Greek League (EDES), led by republican former army officer Colonel Napoleon Zervas, and the social-liberal EKKA, led by Colonel Dimitrios Psarros.

Guerrilla control over rural areas

The Greek landscape was favourable to guerrilla operations, and by 1943, the Axis forces and their collaborators were in control only of the main towns and connecting roads, leaving the mountainous countryside to the resistance. EAM-ELAS in particular controlled most of the country's mountainous interior, while EDES was limited to Epirus and EKKA to eastern Central Greece. By early 1944, ELAS could call on nearly 25,000 men under arms, with another 80,000 working as reserves or logistical support, EDES had roughly 10,000 men, and EKKA had under 10,000 men.

To combat the rising influence of the EAM, and fearful of an eventual takeover after the German defeat, in 1943, Ioannis Rallis, the Prime Minister of the collaborationist government, authorised the creation of paramilitary forces, known as the Security Battalions. Numbering 20,000 at their peak in 1944, composed mostly of local fascists, convicts, sympathetic prisoners-of-war, and forcibly impressed conscripts, they operated under German command in Nazi security warfare operations and soon achieved a reputation for brutality.

EAM-ELAS, EDES, and EKKA were mutually suspicious and tensions were exacerbated as the end of the war became nearer and the question of the country's political future arose. The role of the British military mission in these events proved decisive. EAM was by far the largest and most active group but was determined to achieve its own political goal to dominate postwar Greece, and its actions were not always directed against the Axis powers. Consequently, British material support was directed mostly to the more reliable Zervas, who by 1943 had reversed his earlier anti-monarchist stance.

First conflicts: 1943-1944

The Western Allies, at first, provided all resistance organisations with funds and equipment. However, they gave special preference to ELAS, which they saw as the most reliable partner and a formidable fighting force that would be able to create more problems for the Axis than other resistance movements. As the end of the war approached, the British Foreign Office, fearing a possible communist upsurge, observed with displeasure the transformation of ELAS into a large-scale conventional army more and more out of Allied control. After the September 8, 1943, Armistice with Italy, ELAS seized control of Italian garrison weapons in the country. In response, the Western Allies began to favor rival anti-communist resistance groups. They provided them with ammunition, supplies and logistical support as a way of balancing ELAS's increasing influence. In time, the flow of weapons and funds to ELAS stopped altogether, and rival EDES received the bulk of the Allied support.

A member of the Security Battalions with a man executed for aiding the Resistance

In mid-1943 the animosity between ELAS and the other movements erupted into armed conflict. The communists and EAM accused EDES of being traitors and collaborators, and vice versa. Other smaller groups, such as EKKA, continued the anti-occupation fight with sabotage and other actions. They declined to join the ranks of ELAS. While some organizations accepted assistance from the Germans in their operations against ELAS, the great majority of the population refused any form of cooperation with the occupation authorities. By early 1944, after a British-negotiated ceasefire (the Plaka Agreement), ELAS had destroyed EKKA and confined EDES to a small part of Epirus, where it could only play a marginal role in the rest of the war. Its political network (EAM) had reached about 500,000 citizens around the country. By 1944, ELAS had the numerical advantage in armed fighters, having more than 50,000 men in arms and an extra 500,000 working as reserves or logistical support personnel ( Efedrikos ELAS). In contrast, EDES and EKKA had around 10,000 fighters each

After the declaration of the formation of the Security Battalions, KKE and EAM implemented a pre-emptive policy of terror, mainly in the Peloponnese countryside areas close to garrisoned German units, to ensure civilian allegiance. As the communist position strengthened, so did the numbers of the "Security Battalions", with both sides engaged in skirmishes. The ELAS units were accused of what became known as the Meligalas massacre. Meligalas was the headquarters of a local Security Battalion Unit that was given control of the wider area of Messenia by the Nazis. After a battle there between ELAS and the Security Battalions, ELAS forces prevailed, and the remaining forces of the collaborators were taken into custody.

After the civil war ended, postwar governments declared that 1,000 members of the collaborationist units were massacred along with civilians by the communists; however, that number was not matched by the actual numbers of bodies found in the mass grave (an old well in the area) of executed Security Battalion and civilian prisoners. According to left-wing sources, civilian bodies found there could have been victims of the Security Battalions. As Security Battalions were replacing occupation forces in territories the Germans could not enter, they were accused of many instances of brutality against civilians and captured partisans, and of the executions of prominent EAM and KKE members by hanging.

In addition, recruiting by both sides was controversial, as the case of Stefanos Sarafis indicates. The soon-to-be military leader of ELAS sought to join the noncommunist resistance group commanded by Kostopoulos in Thessaly, along with other former officers. On their way, they were captured by an ELAS group, with Sarafis agreeing to join ELAS at gunpoint when all other officers who refused were killed. Sarafis never admitted this incident, and in his book on ELAS makes special reference to the letter that he sent all officers of the former Greek army to join the ranks of EAM-ELAS. Again, numbers favored the EAM organisation; nearly 800 officers of the pre-war Greek army joined the ranks of ELAS with the position of military leader and Kapetanios.

Egypt "mutiny" and the Lebanon Conference

In March 1944, EAM established the Political Committee of National Liberation ( Politiki Epitropi Ethnikis Apeleftherosis, or PEEA), in effect a third Greek government to rival those in Athens and Cairo "to intensify the struggle against the conquerors... for full national liberation, for the consolidation of the independence and integrity of our country... and for the annihilation of domestic Fascism and armed traitor formations." PEEA was dominated by, but not composed exclusively of communists.

The moderate aims of the PEEA (known as "κυβέρνηση του βουνού", "the Mountain Government") aroused support even among Greeks in exile. In April 1944, the Egypt-based Free Greek Forces, many of them well-disposed towards EAM, demanded for a government of national unity to be established, based on PEEA principles, to replace the government-in-exile, as it had no political or other link with the occupied home country and that any pro-fascist elements in the Army be removed.

The movement threatened Allied unity, angering Great Britain and the United States. British and Greek troops loyal to the exiled government moved to suppress the PEEA. Approximately 5,000 Greek soldiers and officers were disarmed and deported to prison camps. After the mutiny, Allied economic aid to the EAM almost stopped. Later on, through political screening of the officers, the Cairo government created the III Greek Mountain Brigade, composed of staunchly anti-communist personnel, under the command of Brigadier General Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos.

In May 1944, representatives from all political parties and resistance groups came together at the Lebanon Conference under the leadership of Georgios Papandreou, in hopes of forming a government of national unity. Despite EAM's accusations of collaboration made against all other Greek resistance forces and charges against EAM-ELAS members of murders, banditry, and thievery, the conference ended with an agreement (the National Contract) for a government of national unity consisting of 24 ministers (6 to be EAM members). The agreement was made possible by Soviet directives to KKE to avoid harming Allied unity, but did not resolve the problem of disarmament of resistance groups.

By 1944, EDES and ELAS each saw the other to be their great enemy. They both saw that the Germans were going to be defeated and were a temporary threat. For the ELAS, the British represented their major problem, even while for the majority of Greeks, the British were their major hope for an end to the war.

By the summer of 1944, it was obvious that the Germans would soon withdraw from Greece, as Soviet forces were advancing into Romania and towards Yugoslavia, threatening to cut off the retreating Germans. In September, General Fyodor Tolbukhin's armies advanced into Bulgaria, forcing the resignation of the country's pro-Nazi government and the establishment of a pro-communist regime, while Bulgarian troops withdrew from Greek Macedonia. The government-in-exile, now led by prominent liberal Georgios Papandreou, moved to Italy, in preparation for its return to Greece. Under the Caserta Agreement of September 1944, all resistance forces in Greece were placed under the command of a British officer, General Ronald Scobie. The Western Allies arrived in Greece in October, by which time the Germans were in full retreat and most of Greece's territory had already been liberated by Greek partisans. On October 13, British troops entered Athens, the only area still occupied by the Germans, and Papandreou and his ministers followed six days later. The king stayed in Cairo because Papandreou had promised that the future of the monarchy would be decided by referendum.

There was little to prevent ELAS from taking full control of the country. With the German withdrawal, ELAS units had taken control of the countryside and most cities. However, they did not take full control because the KKE leadership was instructed by the Soviet Union not to precipitate a crisis that could jeopardize Allied unity and put Joseph Stalin's larger postwar objectives at risk. The KKE's leadership knew so, but the ELAS's fighters and rank-and-file communists did not, which became a source of conflict within both EAM and ELAS. Following Stalin's instructions, the KKE's leadership tried to avoid a confrontation with the Papandreou government. The majority of the ELAS members saw the Western Allies as liberators, although some KKE leaders, such as Andreas Tzimas and Aris Velouchiotis, did not trust them. Tzimas was in touch with Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito and disagreed with ELAS's cooperation with the Western Allied forces.

The issue of disarming the resistance organizations was a cause of friction between the Papandreou government and its EAM members. Advised by British ambassador Reginald Leeper, Papandreou demanded the disarmament of all armed forces apart from the Sacred Band and the III Mountain Brigade and the constitution of a National Guard under government control. The communists, believing that it would leave the ELAS defenseless against its opponents, submitted an alternative plan of total and simultaneous disarmament, but Papandreou rejected it, causing EAM ministers to resign from the government on December 2. On December 1, Scobie issued a proclamation calling for the dissolution of ELAS. Command of ELAS was KKE's greatest source of strength, and KKE leader Siantos decided that the demand for ELAS's dissolution must be resisted.

Tito's influence may have played some role in ELAS's resistance to disarmament. Tito was outwardly loyal to Stalin, but had come to power through his own means and believed that communist Greeks should do the same. His influence, however, had not prevented the EAM leadership from putting its forces under Scobie's command a couple of months earlier in accordance with the Caserta Agreement. In the meantime, following Georgios Grivas's instructions, Organization X members had set up outposts in central Athens and resisted EAM for several days, until British troops arrived, as their leader had been promised.

The Dekemvriana events

Unarmed EAM protesters lying dead or wounded on 3 December 1944 in front of the Greek Parliament, while others are running for their lives; moments after the first shootings that left at least 28 dead and signalled the beginning of the Dekemvriana events

According to the Caserta Agreement all Greek forces (tactical and guerillas) were under Allied command. On December 1, 1944, the Greek government of "National Unity" under Papandreou and Scobie announced an ultimatum for the general disarmament of all guerrilla forces by 10 December excluding the tactical forces (the III Greek Mountain Brigade and the Sacred Band); and also a part of EDES and ELAS that would be used, if it was necessary, in Allied operations in Crete and Dodecanese against the remaining German Army units. As a result, on December 2 six ministers of the EAM, most of whom were KKE members, resigned from their positions in the "National Unity" government. The EAM called for a general strike and announced the reorganization of the Central Committee of ELAS. A demonstration, forbidden by the government, was organised by EAM on December 3.

The demonstration involved at least 200,000 people marching in Athens on Panepistimiou Street towards the Syntagma Square. British tanks along with police units had been scattered around the area, blocking the way of the demonstrators. Shooting began when the marchers had arrived at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, above the Syntagma Square. They originated from the building of the General Police Headquarters, from the Parliament (Βουλή), from the Hotel Grande Bretagne (where international observers had settled), from other governmental buildings and from policemen on the street.

Among many testimonies, N. Farmakis, a member of the Organization X participating in the shootings, described that he heard the head of the police Angelos Evert giving the order to open fire on the crowd. Although there are no accounts hinting that the crowd indeed possessed guns, the British commander Christopher Montague Woodhouse insisted that it was uncertain whether the first shots were fired by the police or the demonstrators. A total of 28 protesters were killed by the Greek police that day, and hundreds were injured. This signaled the beginning of the Dekemvriana ( Greek: Δεκεμβριανά, "the December events"), a 37-day period of full-scale fighting in Athens between EAM fighters and smaller parts of ELAS and the forces of the British army and the government.

At the beginning the government had only a few policemen and gendarmes, some militia units, the III Greek Mountain Brigade, which, however, lacked heavy weapons, and the royalist group Organization X, which was accused by EAM of collaborating with the Nazis. Consequently, the British intervened in support of the government, freely using artillery and aircraft as the battle approached its last stages.

In the early morning hours of 4 December, ELAS reservists began operations in the Athens- Piraeus area, attacking Grivas' X forces. In the evening, a peaceful demonstration by EAM members cum funeral procession took place. Government forces took no action but the procession was attacked by X forces led by Colonel Grivas, with over 100 dead.

On December 4, Papandreou gave his resignation to Scobie, who rejected it. By December 12, ΕΑΜ was in control of most of Athens and Piraeus. The British, outnumbered, flew in the 4th Indian Infantry Division from Italy as emergency reinforcements. Although the British were openly fighting against the EAM in Athens, there were no such battles in the rest of Greece. In certain cases, such as Volos, some RAF units even surrendered equipment to ELAS fighters. However, the units of the ELAS in Central Greece and Epirus attacked Napoleon Zervas's units of the EDES forcing them to flee to the Ionian islands.

Conflicts continued throughout December with the forces confronting the EAM slowly gaining the upper hand. ELAS forces in the rest of Greece did not attack the British. It seems that the ELAS preferred to avoid an armed confrontation with the British forces initially and later tried to reduce the conflict as much as possible although poor communication between its very independent units around the country might also have played a role. That might explain the simultaneous struggle against the British, the largescale ELAS operations against Trotskyists and other political dissidents in Athens and the many contradictory decisions of EAM leaders. Also, KKE's leadership, was supporting a doctrine of "national unity" while eminent members, such as Leonidas Stringos, Theodoros Makridis, and even Georgios Siantos were creating revolutionary plans. Even more curiously, Tito was both the KKE's key sponsor and a key British ally, owing his physical and political survival in 1944 to British assistance.

Churchill in Athens

This outbreak of fighting between Allied forces and an anti-German European resistance movement while the war in Europe was still being fought was a serious political problem for Churchill's coalition government of left and right. It caused much protest in the British press and the House of Commons. To prove his peacemaking intentions to the public, Churchill went to Athens on December 25 to preside over a conference in the Hotel Grande Bretagne in which Soviet representatives also participated, to bring about a settlement. It failed because the EAM/ELAS demands were considered excessive and so rejected. Later, it became known that there was a plan by EAM to blow up the building, aiming to kill the participants, and the conference was finally canceled.

British paratroopers of the 5th Battalion, Parachute Regiment during the battle

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union remained passive about developments in Greece. True to their " percentages agreement" with Britain relating to Greece, the Soviet delegation in Greece neither encouraged nor discouraged EAM's ambitions, as Greece belonged to the British sphere of influence. The delegation's chief gained the nickname "sphinx" among local communist officers for not giving any clues about Soviet intentions. did not mention the clashes at all.

By early January, EAM forces had lost the battle. Despite Churchill's intervention, Papandreou resigned and was replaced by General Nikolaos Plastiras. On January 15, 1945, Scobie agreed to a ceasefire in exchange for ELAS's withdrawal from its positions at Patras and Thessaloniki and its demobilisation in the Peloponnese. Despite the severe defeat, ELAS continued to exist, and the KKE had an opportunity to reconsider its strategy.

KKE's defeat in 1945 was mainly political but the exaltation of terrorism in the whole country made a political settlement even more difficult. The hunting of "collaborators" was extended to people who were supporting the Greek government. The brutal treatment by the OPLA and other minor communist groups of supposed collaborators (including policemen, professors and priests) during the events greatly increased anticommunist sentiment. In the area of ULEN refineries, hundreds of supposed collaborators were executed. In the village of Feneos, OPLA turned a nearby monastery into a concentration camp and killing ground for those they deemed "reactionaries". It is believed that hundreds were killed. In addition, several Trotskyists had to leave the country in fear for their lives ( Cornelius Castoriadis fled to France). As a result of the fighting in Athens, most of the prominent non-communists of EAM left the organization, and KKE support declined sharply. After the ceasefire, ELAS under the leadership of Siantos left Athens, taking thousands of captives.

Interlude: 1945-1946

In February 1945, the various Greek parties signed the Treaty of Varkiza, with the support of all the Allies. It provided for the complete demobilisation of the ELAS and all other paramilitary groups, amnesty for only political offenses, a referendum on the monarchy and a general election to be held as soon as possible. The KKE remained legal and its leader, Nikolaos Zachariadis, who returned from Germany in April 1945, said that the KKE's objective was now for a "people's democracy" to be achieved by peaceful means. There were dissenters such as former ELAS leader Aris Velouchiotis. The KKE disavowed Velouchiotis when he called on the veteran guerrillas to start a second struggle; shortly afterwards, he committed suicide surrounded by security forces, but some think that the Soviet NKVD killed him.

The Treaty of Varkiza transformed the KKE's political defeat into a military one. The ELAS's existence was terminated. The amnesty was not comprehensive because many actions during the German occupation and the Dekemvriana were classified as criminal, exempting the perpetrators from the amnesty. Thus, the authorities captured approximately 40,000 communists or ex-ELAS members. As a result, a number of veteran partisans hid their weapons in the mountains, and 5,000 of them escaped to Yugoslavia although that was not encouraged by the KKE's leadership.

Anticommunist poster during the referendum in favour of George II: "This is what they fear! Vote for the King!"

Between 1945 and 1946, anti-communist forces allegedly killed about 1,190 communist civilians and tortured many others. Entire villages that had helped the partisans were attacked. The anti-communist forces are claimed to have admitted that they were "retaliating" for their suffering under ELAS rule. The reign of " White Terror" led many ex-ELAS members to form self-defence troops without any KKE approval.

The KKE soon reversed its former political position, as relations between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies deteriorated. With the onset of the Cold War, communist parties everywhere moved to more militant positions. The change of political attitude and the choice to escalate the crisis derived primarily from the conclusion that regime subversion, which had not been successful in December 1944, could now be achieved. The KKE leadership decided in February 1946, "after weighing domestic factors, and the Balkan and international situation", to go forward with "organization of a new armed struggle against the Monarcho-Fascist regime". The KKE boycotted the March 1946 elections, which were won by the monarchist United Alignment of Nationalists ( Inomeni Parataxis Ethnikofronon), the main member of which was Konstantinos Tsaldaris's People's Party. A referendum in September 1946 favored the retention of the monarchy, but the KKE claimed that it had been rigged. King George returned to Athens.

The king's return to Greece reinforced British influence in the country. Nigel Clive, then a liaison officer to the Greek government and later the head of the Athens station of MI6, stated, "Greece was a kind of British protectorate, but the British ambassador was not a colonial governor". There were to be six changes of prime ministers within just two years, an indication of the instability that would characterise the country's political life.

Civil War: 1946-1949

Crest: 1946-1948

Fighting resumed in March 1946, as a group of 30 ex-ELAS members attacked a police station in the village of Litochoro, killing the policemen, the night before the elections. The next day, the Rizospastis, the KKE's official newspaper, announced, "Authorities and gangs fabricate alleged communist attacks". Armed bands of ELAS' veterans were then infiltrating Greece through mountainous regions near the Yugoslav and Albanian borders; they were now organized as the Democratic Army of Greece ( Dimokratikos Stratos Elladas, DSE) under the command of ELAS veteran Markos Vafiadis (known as "General Markos"), operating from a base in Yugoslavia and sent by the KKE to organize already existing troops.

The Yugoslav and Albanian communist governments supported the DSE fighters, but the Soviet Union remained ambivalent. The KKE kept an open line of communication with the Soviet Communist Party, and its leader, Nikos Zachariadis, had visited Moscow on more than one occasion. No evidence exists of mercenaries, although the guerrillas received various types of assistance from their Balkan communist neighbours. One example of an international volunteer joining the ranks of the DSE is Turkish communist Mihri Belli.

By late 1946, the DSE was able to deploy about 16,000 partisans, including 5,000 in the Peloponnese and other areas of Greece. According to the DSE, its fighters "resisted the reign of terror that right-wing gangs conducted across Greece". In the Peloponnese especially, local party officials, headed by Vangelis Rogakos, had established a plan long before the decision to go to guerrilla war under which the numbers of partisans operating in the mainland would be inversely proportional to the number of soldiers that the enemy would concentrate in the region. According to the study, the DSE III Division in the Peloponnese numbered between 1,000 and 5,000 fighters in early 1948.

Rural peasants were caught in the crossfire. When DSE partisans entered a village asking for supplies, citizens were supportive (in previous years, EAM could count on two million members across the whole country) or did not resist. When government troops arrived at the same village, citizens who had supplied the partisans were immediately denounced as communist sympathizers and usually imprisoned or exiled. In rural areas, the government also used a strategy, which had been advised by US advisers, of evacuating villages under the pretext that they were under direct threat of communist attack. That would deprive the partisans of supplies and recruits and simultaneously raise antipathy towards them.

The Greek Army now numbered about 90,000 men and was gradually being put on a more professional footing. The task of re-equipping and training the army had been carried out by its fellow Western Allies. By early 1947, however, Britain, which had spent £85 million in Greece since 1944, could no longer afford this burden. US President Harry S. Truman announced that the United States would step in to support the Greek government against communist pressure. That began a long and troubled relationship between Greece and the United States. For several decades to come, the US ambassador advised the king on important issues, such as the appointment of the prime minister.

Through 1947, the scale of fighting increased. The DSE launched large-scale attacks on towns across northern Epirus, Thessaly, Peloponnese, and Macedonia, provoking the army into massive counteroffensives, which met no opposition as the DSE melted back into the mountains and its safe havens across the northern borders. In the Peloponnese, where General Georgios Stanotas was appointed area commander, the DSE suffered heavily, with no way to escape to mainland Greece. In general, army morale was low, and it would be some time before US support became apparent.

Conventional warfare

In September 1947, however, the KKE's leadership decided to move from guerrilla tactics to fullscale conventional war despite the opposition of Vafiadis. In December, the KKE announced the formation of a Provisional Democratic Government, with Vafiadis as prime minister; that led the Athens government to ban the KKE. No foreign government recognized this government. The new strategy led the DSE into costly attempts to seize a major town as its seat of government, and in December 1947, 1,200 DSE fighters were killed at a set battle around Konitsa. At the same time, the strategy forced the government to increase the size of the army. With control of the major cities, the government cracked down on KKE members and sympathizers, many of whom were imprisoned on the island of Makronisos.

Despite setbacks, such as the fighting at Konitsa, the DSE reached the height of its power in 1948, extending its operations to Attica, within 20 km of Athens. It drew on more than 20,000 fighters, both men and women, and a network of sympathizers and informants in every village and suburb.

Among analysts emphasising the KKE's perceived control and guidance by foreign powers, such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, some estimate that of the DSE's 20,000 fighters, 14,000 were Slavic Macedonians from Greek Macedonia. Expanding their reasoning, they conclude that given their important role in the battle, the KKE changed its policy towards them. At the fifth Plenum of KKE on January 31, 1949, a resolution was passed declaring that after KKE's victory, the Slavic Macedonians would find their national restoration within a united Greek state. The alliance of the Democratic army with the Slavic Macedonians caused the official Greek state propaganda to call the communist guerillas Eamovulgari (from EAM plus Bulgarians), and the communists were calling their opponents Monarchofasistes (Monarch Fascists).

The extent of such involvement remains contentious and unclear; some emphasize that the KKE had in total 400,000 members (or 800,000, according to some sources) immediately prior to December 1944 and that during the Civil War, 100,000 ELAS fighters, mostly KKE members, were imprisoned, and 3,000 were executed. Supporters emphasise instead the DSE's conduct of a war effort across the country aimed at "a free and liberated Greece from all protectors that will have all the nationalities working under one Socialist State".

DSE divisions conducted guerrilla warfare across Greece; III Division, with 20,000 men in 1948, controlled 70% of the Peloponnese politically and militarily; battalions named after ELAS formations were active in northwestern Greece, and in the islands of Lesvos, Limnos, Ikaria, Samos, Creta, Evoia, and the bulk of the Ionian Islands. Advisers, funds and equipment were now flooding into the country from Western Allies, and under their guidance a series of major offensives were launched into the mountains of central Greece. Although the offensives did not achieve all their objectives, they inflicted serious defeats on the DSE.

Communist removal of the children and the Queen's Camps

The removal of children by both sides was another highly emotive and contentious issue. About 30,000 children were forcibly taken by the DSE from territories they controlled to Eastern Bloc countries. Many others were moved for protection to special camps inside Greece, an idea of Queen Frederica. The issue drew the attention of international public opinion, and a United Nations Special Committee issued a report, stating that "some children have in fact been forcibly removed".

The communist leadership claimed that children were being gathered to be evacuated from Greece at the request of "popular organizations and parents". According to other researchers, the Greek government also followed a policy of displacement by adopting children of the guerrillas and placing them in indoctrination camps.

According to Kenneth Spencer, a UN committee reported at that time, "Queen Frederica has already prepared special 'reform camps' in Greek islands for 12,000 Greek children...." According to the official KKE story, the Provisional Government issued a directive for the evacuation of all minors from 4 to 14 years old for protection from the war and problems linked to it, as was stated clearly according to the decisions of the Provisional Government on March 7, 1948. According to non-KKE accounts, the children were abducted to be indoctrinated as communist Janissaries. Several United Nations General Assembly resolutions appealed for the repatriation of children to their homes. After 50 years, more information regarding the children gradually emerged. Many returned to Greece between 1975 and 1990, with varied views and attitudes toward the communist faction.

During the war, more than 25,000 children, most with parents in the DSE, were also placed in 30 "child towns" under the immediate control of Queen Frederica, something especially emphasised by the left. After 50 years, some of these children, given up for adoption to American families, were retracing their family background in Greece.

The insurgents were demoralised by the bitter split between Stalin and Tito. In June 1948, the Soviet Union and its satellites broke off relations with Tito. In one of the meetings held in the Kremlin with Yugoslav representatives, during the Soviet-Yugoslav crisis, Stalin stated his unqualified opposition to the "Greek uprising". Stalin explained to the Yugoslav delegation that the situation in Greece has always been different from the one in Yugoslavia because the US and Britain would "never permit [Greece] to break off their lines of communication in the Mediterranean". (Stalin used the word svernut, Russian for "fold up", to express what the Greek communists should do.)

Yugoslavia had been the Greek communists' main supporter from the years of the occupation. The KKE thus had to choose between its loyalty to the Soviet Union and its relations with its closest ally. After some internal conflict, the great majority, led by party secretary Nikolaos Zachariadis, chose to follow the Soviet Union. In January 1949, Vafiadis himself was accused of "Titoism" and removed from his political and military positions, to be replaced by Zachariadis.

After a year of increasing acrimony, Tito closed the Yugoslav border to the DSE in July 1949, and disbanded its camps inside Yugoslavia. The DSE was still able to use Albanian border territories, a poor alternative. Within the KKE, the split with Tito also sparked a witch hunt for "Titoites" that demoralised and disorganised the ranks of the DSE and sapped support for the KKE in urban areas.

In summer 1948, DSE Division III in the Peloponnese suffered a huge defeat. Lacking ammunition support from DSE headquarters and having failed to capture government ammunition depots at Zacharo in the western Peloponnese, its 20,000 fighters were doomed. The majority (including the commander of the Division, Vangelis Rogakos) were killed in battle with nearly 80,000 National Army troops. The National Army's strategic plan, codenamed " Peristera" (the Greek word for "dove (bird)"), was successful. A number of other civilians were sent to prison camps for helping communists. The Peloponnese was now governed by paramilitary groups fighting alongside the National Army. To terrify urban areas assisting DSE's III Division, the forces decapitated a number of dead fighters and placed them in central squares. Following defeat in southern Greece, the DSE continued to operate in northern Greece and some islands, but it was a greatly weakened force facing significant obstacles both politically and militarily.

At the same time, the National Army found a talented commander in General Alexander Papagos, commander of the Greek Army during the Greco-Italian War. In August 1949, Papagos launched a major counteroffensive against DSE forces in northern Greece, codenamed " Operation Pyrsos/Torch". The campaign was a victory for the National Army and resulted in heavy losses for the DSE. The DSE army was now no longer able to sustain resistance in pitched battles. By September 1949, the main body of DSE divisions defending Grammos and Vitsi, the two key positions in northern Greece for the DSE, had retreated to Albania. Two main groups remained within the borders, trying to reconnect with scattered DSE fighters largely in Central Greece.

These groups, numbering 1,000 fighters, left Greece by the end of September 1949. The main body of the DSE, accompanied by its HQ, after discussion with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other communist governments, was moved to Tashkent in the Soviet Union. They were to remain there, in military encampments, for three years. Other older combatants, alongside injured fighters, women and children, were relocated to European socialist states. On October 16, Zachariadis announced a "temporary ceasefire to prevent the complete annihilation of Greece"; the ceasefire marked the end of the Greek Civil War.

Almost 100,000 ELAS fighters and communist sympathizers serving in DSE ranks were imprisoned, exiled, or executed. That deprived the DSE of the principal force still able to support its fight. According to some historians, the KKE's major supporter and supplier had always been Tito, and it was the rift between Tito and the KKE that marked the real demise of the party's efforts to assert power.

Western anti-communist governments allied to Greece saw the end of the Greek Civil War as a victory in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Communists countered that the Soviets never actively supported the Greek communist efforts to seize power in Greece. Both sides had, at differing junctures, nevertheless looked to an external superpower for support.

The Civil War left Greece in ruins and in even greater economic distress than it had been following the end of German occupation. Furthermore, it divided the Greek people for ensuing decades, with both sides vilifying their opponents. Thousands languished in prison for many years or were sent into internal exile on the islands of Gyaros and Makronisos. Many others sought refuge in communist countries or emigrated to Australia, Germany, the US, the UK, Canada, and elsewhere.

The polarization and instability of Greek politics in the mid-1960s was a direct result of the Civil War and the deep divide between the leftist and rightist sections of Greek society. A major crisis as a result was the murder of the left-wing politician Gregoris Lambrakis in 1963, the inspiration for the Costa Gavras political thriller . The crisis of the followed in 1965, together with the " ASPIDA affair", which involved an alleged coup plot by a left-wing group of officers; the group's alleged leader was Andreas Papandreou, son of Georgios Papandreou, the leader of the Center Union political party and the country's prime minister at the time.

On April 21, 1967, a group of rightist and anti-communist army officers executed a and seized power from the government, using the political instability and tension of the time as a pretext. The leader of the coup, Georgios Papadopoulos, was a member of the right-wing military organization IDEA ("Sacred Bond of Greek Officers"), and the subsequent military regime (later referred to as the Regime of the Colonels) lasted until 1974.

After the collapse of the military junta, a conservative government under Constantine Karamanlis led to the abolition of monarchy, the legalization of the KKE and a new constitution, which guaranteed political freedoms, individual rights and free elections. In 1981, in a major turning point in Greek history, the centre-left government of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) allowed a number of DSE veterans who had taken refuge in communist countries to return to Greece and reestablish their former estates, which greatly helped to diminish the consequences of the Civil War in Greek society. The PASOK administration also offered state pensions to former partisans of the anti-Nazi resistance; Markos Vafiadis was honorarily elected as member of the Greek parliament under PASOK's flag.

In 1989, the coalition government between Nea Dimokratia and the Coalition of Left and Progress (SYNASPISMOS), in which the KKE was for a period the major force, suggested a law that was passed unanimously by the Greek Parliament, formally recognizing the 1946-1949 war as a civil war and not merely as a communist insurgency (Συμμοριτοπόλεμος Symmoritopolemos) ( Ν. 1863/89 (ΦΕΚ 204Α΄) ). Under the terms of this law, the war of 1946-1949 was recognized as a Greek Civil War between the National Army and the Democratic Army of Greece, for the first time in Greek postwar history. Under the aforementioned law, the term "communist bandits" (Κομμουνιστοσυμμορίτες Kommounistosymmorites, ΚΣ), wherever it had occurred in Greek law, was replaced by the term "Fighters of the DSE".

In a 2008 Gallup poll, Greeks were asked "whether it was better that the right wing won the Civil War". 43% responded that it was better for Greece that the right wing won, 13% responded that it would have been better if the left had won, 20% responded "neither" and 24% did not respond.

Bærentzen, Lars, John O. Iatrides, Ole Langwitz Smith, eds. Studies in the history of the Greek Civil War, 1945-1949, 1987

Byford-Jones, W. The Greek Trilogy: Resistance-Liberation-Revolution, London, 1945

Carabott, Philip and Thanasis D. Sfikas, The Greek Civil War, (2nd ed 2017)

Christodoulakis, Nicos. "Country failure and social grievances in the Greek Civil War 1946-1949: An economic approach." Defence and Peace Economics 26.4 (2015): 383-407.

Close, David H. The Greek Civil War (Routledge, 2014).

Gerolymatos, André. Red Acropolis, Black Terror: The Greek Civil War and the Origins of Soviet-American Rivalry, 1943-1949 (2004).

Goulter, Christina J. M. "The Greek Civil War: A National Army's Counter-insurgency Triumph," Journal of Military History (July 2014) 78:3 pp: 1017-1055.

Hondros, John. Occupation and resistance: the Greek agony, 1941-44 (Pella Publishing Company, 1983)

Iatrides, John O. "Revolution or self-defense? Communist goals, strategy, and tactics in the Greek civil war." Journal of Cold War Studies (2005) 7#3 pp: 3-33.

Iatrides, John O., and Nicholas X. Rizopoulos. "The international dimension of the Greek Civil War." World Policy Journal 17.1 (2000): 87-103. online

Iatrides, John O. "George F. Kennan and the birth of containment: the Greek test case." World Policy Journal 22.3 (2005): 126-145. online

Jones, Howard. 'A New Kind of War' America's Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece (1989)

Kalyvas, S. N. The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Cambridge, 2006

Karpozilos, Kostis. "The defeated of the Greek Civil War: From fighters to political refugees in the Cold War." Journal of Cold War Studies 16.3 (2014): 62-87. online

Koumas, Manolis. "Cold War Dilemmas, Superpower Influence, and Regional Interests: Greece and the Palestinian Question, 1947-1949." Journal of Cold War Studies 19.1 (2017): 99-124.

Kousoulas, D. G. Revolution and Defeat: The Story of the Greek Communist Party, London, 1965

Marantzidis, Nikos. "The Greek Civil War (1944-1949) and the International Communist System." Journal of Cold War Studies 15.4 (2013): 25-54.

Mazower. M. (ed.) After the War was Over. Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943-1960 Princeton University Press, 2000 (ISBN 0691058423)[1]

Nachmani, Amikam. "Civil War and Foreign Intervention in Greece: 1946-49" Journal of Contemporary History (1990) 25#4 pp. 489-522 online

Plakoudas, Spyridon. The Greek Civil War: Strategy, Counterinsurgency and the Monarchy (2017)

Sarafis, Marion, & Martin Eve (editors), Background to contemporary Greece, (vols 1 & 2, Merlin Press London 1990) (ISBN 0850363934, 0850363942)

Sarafis, Stefanos. ELAS: Greek Resistance Army, Merlin Press London 1980 (Greek original 1946 & 1964)

Sfikas, Thanasis D. The Greek Civil War: Essays on a Conflict of Exceptionalism and Silences (Routledge, 2017).

Stavrakis, Peter J. Moscow and Greek Communism, 1944-1949 (Cornell University Press, 1989) excerpt.

Tsoutsoumpis, Spyros. "The Will to Fight: Combat, Morale, and the Experience of National Army Soldiers during the Greek Civil War, 1946-1949." International Journal of Military History and Historiography 1.aop (2022): 1-33.

Vlavianos. Haris. Greece, 1941-49: From Resistance to Civil War: The Strategy of the Greek Communist Party (1992)

Alexander, G. M. The Prelude to the Truman Doctrine: British Policy in Greece 1944-1947 (1982)

Churchill, Winston S. The Second World War

Clive, Nigel. A Greek Experience: 1943-1948 (Michael Russell, 1985.)

Frazier, Robert. Anglo-American relations with Greece: the coming of the Cold War 1942-47 (1991)

Goulter-Zervoudakis, Christina. "The politicization of intelligence: The British experience in Greece, 1941-1944." Intelligence and National Security (1998) 13#1 pp: 165-194.

Iatrides, John O., and Nicholas X. Rizopoulos. "The International Dimension of the Greek Civil War." World Policy Journal (2000): 87-103. in JSTOR

Myers, E. C. F. Greek entanglement (Sutton Publishing, Limited, 1985)

Sfikas, Athanasios D. British Labour Government and The Greek Civil War: 1945-1949 (Edinburgh University Press, 2019).

Lalaki, Despina. "On the Social Construction of Hellenism Cold War Narratives of Modernity, Development and Democracy for Greece." Journal of Historical Sociology (2012) 25#4 pp: 552-577. online

Marantzidis, Nikos, and Giorgos Antoniou. "The axis occupation and civil war: Changing trends in Greek historiography, 1941-2002." Journal of Peace Research (2004) 41#2 pp: 223-231. online

Nachmani, Amikam. "Civil War and Foreign Intervention in Greece: 1946-49." Journal of Contemporary History (1990): 489-522. in JSTOR

Plakoudas, Spyridon. The Greek Civil War: Strategy, Counterinsurgency and the Monarchy (2017) pp 119-127.

Stergiou, Andreas. "Greece during the cold war." Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (2008) 8#1 pp: 67-73.

Van Boeschoten, Riki. "The trauma of war rape: A comparative view on the Bosnian conflict and the Greek civil war." History and Anthropology (2003) 14#1 pp: 41-44.

Andrews, Kevin. The flight of Ikaros, a journey into Greece, Weidenfeld & Nicolson London 1959 & 1969

Capell, R. Simiomata: A Greek Note Book 1944-45, London, 1946

Danforth Loring, Boeschoten Riki Van Children of the Greek Civil War: refugees and the politics of memory, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2012

Hammond, N. G. L. Venture into Greece: With the Guerillas, 1943-44, London, 1983 (Like Woodhouse, he was a member of the British Military Mission)

C. M. Woodhouse, Apple of Discord: A Survey of Recent Greek Politics in their International Setting, London, 1948 (Woodhouse was a member of the British Military Mission to Greece during the war)

The following are available only in Greek:

Ευάγγελος Αβέρωφ, Φωτιά και τσεκούρι. Written by ex-New Democracy leader Evangelos Averoff - initially in French. (ISBN 9600502080)

Γενικόν Επιτελείον Στρατού, Διεύθυνσις Ηθικής Αγωγής, Η Μάχη του Έθνους, Ελεύθερη Σκέψις, Athens, 1985. Reprinted edition of the original, published in 1952 by the Hellenic Army General Staff.

"Γράμμος Στα βήματα του Δημοκρατικού Στρατού Ελλάδας Ιστορικός - Ταξιδιωτικός οδηγός", "Σύγχρονη Εποχή" 2009 (ISBN 978-9604510801)

"Δοκίμιο Ιστορίας του ΚΚΕ", τόμος Ι. History of the Communist Party of Greece, issued by its Central Committee in 1999.

Δημήτριος Γ. Καλδής, Αναμνήσεις από τον Β' Παγκοσμιο Πολεμο, (Memories of the Second World War, private publication Athina 2007)

Αλέξανδος Ζαούσης, Οι δύο όχθες, Athens, 1992

Αλέξανδος Ζαούσης, Η τραγική αναμέτρηση Athens, 1992

Α. Καμαρινού, "Ο Εμφύλιος Πόλεμος στην Πελοπόνησσο", Brigadier General of DSE's III Division, 2002

"ΚΚΕ, Επίσημα Κείμενα", τόμοι 6,7,8,9. The full collection of KKE's official documents of this era.

Μιχάλης Λυμπεράτος, Στα πρόθυρα του Εμφυλίου πολέμου: Από τα Δεκεμβριανά στις εκλογές του 1946-1949, "Βιβλιόραμα", Athens, 2006

Γιώργος Μαργαρίτης, Ιστορία του Ελληνικού εμφύλιου πολέμου 1946-1949, "Βιβλιόραμα", Athens, 2001

Σπύρος Μαρκεζίνης, Σύγχρονη πολιτική ιστορία της Ελλάδος, Athens, 1994

Γιώργου Μπαρτζώκα, "Δημοκρατικός Στρατός Ελλάδας", Secretary of the Communist organization of Athens of KKE in 1945, 1986.

Μαντώ Νταλιάνη - Καραμπατζάκη, Παιδιά στη δίνη του ελληνικού εμφυλίου πολέμου 1946-1949, σημερινοί ενήλικες, Μουσείο Μπενάκη, 2009, ISBN 978-9609317108

Περιοδικό "Δημοκρατικός Στράτος", Magazine first issued in 1948 and re-published as an album collection in 2007.

Αθανάσιος Ρουσόπουλος, Διακήρυξης του επί κατοχής πρόεδρου της Εθνικής Αλληλεγγύης (Declaration during the Occupation by the chairman of National Solidarity Athanasios Roussopoulos, Athens, published Athens 11 July 1947)

Στέφανου Σαράφη, "Ο ΕΛΑΣ",written by the military leader of ELAS, General Sarafi in 1954.

Δημ. Σέρβου, "Που λες... στον Πειραιά", written by one of DSE fighters.

Anon, Egina: Livre de sang, un requisitoire accablant des combattants de la résistance condamnés à mort, with translations by Paul Eluard, Editions "Grèce Libre" c. 1949

Comité d'Aide à la Grèce Démocratique, Macronissos: le martyre du peuple grec, (translations by Calliope G. Caldis) Geneva 1950

Dominique Eude, Les Kapetanios (in French, Greek and English), Artheme Fayard, 1970

Hagen Fleischer, Im Kreuzschatten der Maechte Griechenland 1941-1944 Okkupation - Resistance - Kollaboration (2 vols., New York: Peter Lang, 1986), 819 pp

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Greek Civil War Part of the Cold War QF 25 pounder gun of the Hellenic Army during the Civil War Belligerents Kingdom of Greece Provisional Democratic Government (from 1947) Commanders and leaders Strength 26,000 (at peak, mid-1948)[2] c.

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The genocide in Bangladesh began on 26 March 1971 with the launch of Operation Searchlight, as West Pakistan (now Pakistan) began a military crackdown on the Eastern wing (now Bangladesh) of the nation to suppress Bengali calls for self-determination. During the nine-month-long Bangladesh War for Liberation, members of the Pakistani military and supporting pro Pakistani Islamist militias from Jamaat-e-Islami party killed between 200,000 and 3,000,000 people and raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women, according to Bangladeshi and Indian sources, in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape. The actions against women were supported by Jamaat-e-Islami religious leaders, who declared that Bengali women were gonimoter maal (Bengali for "public property"). As a result of the conflict, a further eight to ten million people, mostly Hindus, fled the country to seek refuge in neighbouring India. It is estimated that up to 30 million civilians were internally displaced out of 70 million. During the war, there was also ethnic violence between Bengalis and Urdu-speaking Biharis. Biharis faced reprisals from Bengali mobs and militias and from 1,000 to 150,000 were killed.

There is an academic consensus that the events which took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War constituted a genocide. However, there are scholars who deny the killing was a genocide.

Background

Following the partition of India, the new state of Pakistan represented a geographical anomaly, with two wings separated by 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) of Indian territory. The wings were not only separated geographically, but also culturally. The authorities of the West viewed the Bengali Muslims in the East as "too Bengali" and their application of Islam as "inferior and impure", believing this made the Bengalis unreliable "co-religionists". To this extent politicians in West Pakistan began a strategy to forcibly assimilate the Bengalis culturally.

The Bengali people were the demographic majority in Pakistan, making up an estimated 75 million in East Pakistan, compared with 55 million in the predominantly Punjabi-speaking West Pakistan. The majority in the East were Muslim, with large minorities of Hindus, Buddhists and Christians. The West considered the people of the East to be second-class citizens, and Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, who served as head of the Pakistani Forces in East Pakistan in 1971, referred to the region as a "low-lying land of low-lying people".

In 1948, a few months after the creation of Pakistan, Governor-General Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared Urdu as the national language of the newly formed state, although only four per cent of Pakistan's population spoke Urdu at that time. He branded those who supported the use of Bengali as communists, traitors and enemies of the state. The refusal by successive governments to recognise Bengali as the second national language culminated in the Bengali language movement and strengthened support for the newly formed Awami League, which was founded in the East as an alternative to the ruling Muslim League. A 1952 protest in Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, was forcibly broken up, resulting in the deaths of several protesters. Bengali nationalists viewed those who had died as martyrs for their cause, and the violence led to calls for secession. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 caused further grievances, as the military had assigned no extra units to the defence of the East. This was a matter of concern to the Bengalis who saw their nation undefended in case of Indian attack during the conflict of 1965, and that Ayub Khan, the dictator-ruler of Pakistan, was willing to lose the East if it meant gaining Kashmir.

The slow response to the Bhola cyclone which struck on 12 November 1970 is widely seen as a contributing factor in the December 1970 general election. The East Pakistan-based Awami League, headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a national majority in the first democratic election since the creation of Pakistan, sweeping East Pakistan. But, the West Pakistani establishment prevented them from forming a government. President Yahya Khan, encouraged by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, banned the Awami League and declared martial law. The Pakistani Army demolished Ramna Kali Mandir (temple) and killed 85 Hindus. On 22 February 1971, General Yahya Khan is reported to have said "Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands."

Some Bengalis supported a united Pakistan and opposed secession from it. According to Indian academic Sarmila Bose, these pro-Pakistan Bengalis constituted a significant minority, and included the Islamic parties. Moreover, many Awami League voters who hoped to achieve provincial autonomy may not have desired secession. Additionally, some Bengali officers and soldiers remained loyal to the Pakistani Army and were taken as prisoners of war by India along with other West Pakistani soldiers. Thus, according to Sarmila Bose, there were many pro-regime Bengalis who killed and persecuted the pro-liberation fighters. Sydney Schanberg reported the formation of armed civilian units by the Pakistani Army in June 1971. Only a minority of the recruits were Bengali while most were Biharis and Urdu speakers. The units with local knowledge played an important role in the implementation of the Pakistani Army's genocide. American writer Gary J. Bass believes that the breakup of Pakistan was not inevitable, identifying 25 March 1971 as the point where the idea of a united Pakistan ended for Bengalis with the start of military operations. According to John H. Gill, since there was widespread polarisation between pro-Pakistan Bengalis and pro-liberation Bengalis during the war, those internal battles are still playing out in the domestic politics of modern-day Bangladesh.

Operation Searchlight

Operation Searchlight was a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistani Army to curb elements of the separatist Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan in March 1971. The Pakistani state justified commencing Operation Searchlight on the basis of anti-Bihari violence by Bengalis in early March. Ordered by the government in West Pakistan, this was seen as the sequel to Operation Blitz which had been launched in November 1970. On 1 March 1971 East Pakistan governor Admiral Syed Mohammed Ahsan was replaced after disagreeing with military action in East Pakistan. His successor Sahibzada Yaqub Khan resigned after refusing to use soldiers to quell a mutiny and disagreement with military action in East Pakistan.

According to Indian academic Sarmila Bose, the postponement of the National Assembly on 1 March led to widespread lawlessness spread by Bengali protesters during the period of 1-25 March, in which the Pakistani government lost control over much of the province. Bose asserts that during this 25-day period of lawlessness, attacks by Bengalis on non-Bengalis were common as well as attacks by Bengalis on Pakistani military personnel who, according to Bose and Anthony Mascarenhas, showed great restraint until 25 March, when Operation Searchlight began. Bose also described the atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army in her book. According to Anthony Mascarenhas, the actions of the Pakistani Army compared to the violence by Bengalis was "altogether worse and on a grander scale".

On the night of 25 March 1971 the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight. Time magazine dubbed General Tikka Khan, the "Butcher of Bengal" for his role in Operation Searchlight. Targets of the operation included Jagannath Hall which was a dormitory for non-Muslim students of Dhaka University, Rajarbagh Police Lines, Pilkhana, which is the headquarters of East Pakistan Rifles. About 34 students were killed in the dormitories of Dhaka University. Neighbourhoods of old Dhaka which had a majority Hindu population were also attacked. Robert Payne, an American journalist, estimated that 7,000 people had been killed and 3,000 arrested in that night. Teachers of Dhaka University were killed in the operation by the Pakistani Army. Sheikh Mujib was arrested by the Pakistani Army on 25 March. Ramna Kali Mandir was demolished by the Pakistani Army in March 1971.

The original plan envisioned taking control of the major cities on 26 March 1971, and then eliminating all opposition, political, or military, within one month. The prolonged Bengali resistance was not anticipated by Pakistani planners. The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid May. The countryside still remained almost evenly contested.

The first report of the Bangladesh genocide was published by West Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas in The Sunday Times, London on 13 June 1971 titled "Genocide". He wrote: "I saw Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to door, shot off-hand after a cursory 'short-arm inspection' showed they were uncircumcised. I have heard the screams of men bludgeoned to death in the compound of the Circuit House (civil administrative headquarters) in Comilla. I have seen truckloads of other human targets and those who had the humanity to try to help them hauled off 'for disposal' under the cover of darkness and curfew." This article helped turn world opinion against Pakistan and decisively encouraged the Government of India to intervene. On 2 August 1971, Time magazine correspondent sent a dispatch that provided detailed description of the destruction in East Pakistan. It wrote that cities have whole sections damaged from shelling and aerial bombardments. The dispatch wrote: "In Dhaka, where soldiers set sections of the Old City ablaze with flamethrowers and then machine-gunned thousands as they tried to escape the cordon of fire, nearly 25 blocks have been bulldozed clear, leaving open areas set incongruously amid jam-packed slums." It quoted a senior US official as saying "It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland."

Archer K. Blood, American diplomat wrote in the Blood Telegram: "with support of the Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people's quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus."

Estimated killed

Bangladeshi authorities claim that as many as 3 million people were killed, although the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, the official Pakistani government investigation, claimed the figure was only 26,000 civilian casualties. The figure of 3 million has become embedded in Bangladeshi culture and literature. Sayyid A. Karim, Bangladesh's first foreign secretary alleges that the source of the figure was , the news-arm of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Independent researchers have estimated the death toll to be around 300,000 to 500,000 people while others estimate the casualty figure to be 3 million. The United States intelligence agency, the CIA and the State Department estimated that 200,000 people had been killed in the genocide.

According to Sarmila Bose's controversial book Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War, the number lies somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000. However, her book was the subject of strong criticism by journalists; writer and visual artist Naeem Mohaiemen; Nayanika Mookherjee, an anthropologist at Durham University; and others.

In 1976 the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh undertook a comprehensive population survey in Matlab, Noakhali where a total of 868 excess wartime deaths were recorded; this led to an estimated overall excess number of deaths in the whole of Bangladesh of nearly 500,000. Based on this study, the British Medical Journal in 2008, conducted a study by Ziad Obermeyer, Christopher J. L. Murray, and Emmanuela Gakidou which estimated that 125,000-505,000 civilians died as a result of the conflict; the authors note that this is far higher than a previous estimate of 58,000 by Uppsala University and the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. This figure is supported by the statements of Bangladeshi author Ahmed Sharif in 1996, who added that "they kept the truth hidden for getting political advantages". American political scientists Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose give a low-end estimate of 300,000 dead, killed by all parties, and they deny that a genocide occurred, while American political scientist R. J. Rummel estimated that about 1.5 million people were killed in Bangladesh. Indian journalist Nirmal Sen claims that the total number killed was about 250,000 and among them, about 100,000 were Bengalis and the rest were Biharis.

Many of those killed were the victims of radical religious paramilitary militias formed by the West Pakistani Army, including the Razakars, Al-Shams and Al-Badr forces. There are many mass graves in Bangladesh, and more are continually being discovered (such as one in an old well near a mosque in Dhaka, located in the Mirpur region of the city, which was discovered in August 1999). The first night of war on Bengalis, which is documented in telegrams from the American Consulate in Dhaka to the United States State Department, saw indiscriminate killings of students of Dhaka University and other civilians.

On 16 December 2002, the George Washington University's National Security Archive published a collection of declassified documents, consisting mostly of communications between US embassy officials and USIS centres in Dhaka and India, and officials in Washington, D.C. These documents show that US officials working in diplomatic institutions within Bangladesh used the terms selective genocide and genocide (see Blood telegram) to describe events they had knowledge of at the time. The complete chronology of events as reported to the Nixon administration can be found on the Department of State website.

Islamist militias

The Jamaat-e-Islami party as well as some other pro Pakistani Islamists opposed the Bangladeshi independence struggle and sided with the Pakistani state and armed forces out of Islamic solidarity. According to political scientist Peter Tomsen, Pakistan's secret service, in conjunction with the political party Jamaat-e-Islami, formed militias such as Al-Badr ("the moon") and the Al-Shams ("the sun") to conduct operations against the nationalist movement. These militias targeted noncombatants and committed rapes as well as other crimes. Local collaborators known as Razakars also took part in the atrocities. The term has since become a pejorative akin to the western term " Judas".

Members of the Muslim League, Nizam-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema Pakistan, who had lost the election, collaborated with the military and acted as an intelligence organisation for them. Jamaat-e-Islami members and some of its leaders collaborated with the Pakistani forces in rapes and targeted killings. The atrocities by Al-Badr and the Al-Shams garnered worldwide attention from news agencies; accounts of massacres and rapes were widely reported.

Killing of intellectuals

During the war, the Pakistani Army and its local collaborators, mainly Jamaat e Islami carried out a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. A number of professors from Dhaka University were killed during the first few days of the war. However, the most extreme cases of targeted killing of intellectuals took place during the last few days of the war. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers and writers were rounded up by the Pakistani Army and the Razakar militia in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh and other locations in different sections of the city to be executed en masse, most notably at Rayerbazar and Mirpur. Allegedly, the Pakistani Army and its paramilitary arm, the Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces created a list of doctors, teachers, poets, and scholars.

During the nine-month duration of the war, the Pakistani Army, with the assistance of local collaborators systematically executed an estimated 991 teachers, 13 journalists, 49 physicians, 42 lawyers, and 16 writers, artists and engineers. Even after the official ending of the war on 16 December there were reports of killings being committed by either the armed Pakistani soldiers or by their collaborators. In one such incident, notable filmmaker Jahir Raihan was killed on 30 January 1972 in Mirpur allegedly by the armed Beharis. In memory of the people who were killed, 14 December is observed in Bangladesh as Shaheed Buddhijibi Dibosh ("Day of the Martyred Intellectuals").

Notable intellectuals who were killed from the time period of 25 March to 16 December 1971 in different parts of the country include Dhaka University professors Dr. Govinda Chandra Dev (philosophy), Dr. Munier Chowdhury (Bengali literature), Dr. Mufazzal Haider Chaudhury (Bengali Literature), Dr. Anwar Pasha (Bengali Literature), Dr M Abul Khair (history), Dr. Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta (English literature), Humayun Kabir (English literature), Rashidul Hasan (English literature), Ghyasuddin Ahmed, Sirajul Haque Khan, Faizul Mahi, Dr Santosh Chandra Bhattacharyya and Saidul Hassan (physics), Rajshahi University professors Dr. Hobibur Rahman (mathematics), Prof Sukhranjan Somaddar (Sanskrit), Prof Mir Abdul Quaiyum (psychology) as well as Dr. Mohammed Fazle Rabbee (cardiologist), Dr. AFM Alim Chowdhury (ophthalmologist), Shahidullah Kaiser (journalist), Nizamuddin Ahmed (journalist), Selina Parvin (journalist), Altaf Mahmud (lyricist and musician), Dhirendranath Datta (politician), Jahir Raihan (novelist, journalist, film director) and Ranadaprasad Saha (philanthropist).

Violence against women

The generally accepted figure for the mass rapes during the nine-month long conflict is between 200,000 and 400,000. During the war, a fatwa in Pakistan declared that the Bengali freedom fighters were Hindus and that their women could be taken as the 'booty of war'. Imams and Muslim religious leaders publicly declared that the Bengali women were 'gonimoter maal' (war booty) and thus they openly supported the rape of Bengali women by the Pakistani Army. Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war. The Pakistani military wanted Hindus out of East Pakistan but still the Pakistani soldiers raped Hindus. Hindu women used to be killed after being raped and Bengali Muslim women left alive to give birth to "pure" Muslims. Aubrey Menen documented a 17 year old Hindu bride who was gang raped by Pakistani soldiers.

Two went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed...In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the extra room. And so on, until all six had raped the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit.

Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war-babies. The soldiers of the Pakistan Army and razakars also kept Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Pakistani Army's camps, and many became pregnant. The perpetrators also included Mukti Bahini and the Indian Army, which targeted noncombatants and committed rapes, as well as other crimes. Among other sources, Susan Brownmiller refers to an estimated number of over 400,000. Pakistani sources claim the number is much lower, though having not completely denied rape incidents. Brownmiller quotes:

Khadiga, thirteen years old, was interviewed by a photojournalist in Dacca. She was walking to school with four other girls when they were kidnapped by a gang of Pakistani soldiers. All five were put in a military brothel in Mohammadpur and held captive for six months until the end of the war.

In a New York Times report named 'Horrors of East Pakistan Turning Hope into Despair', Malcolm W. Browne wrote:

One tale that is widely believed and seems to come from many different sources is that 563 women picked up by the army in March and April and held in military brothels are not being released because they are pregnant beyond the point at which abortions are possible.

The licentious attitude of the soldiers, although generally supported by their superiors, alarmed the regional high command of the Pakistani Army. On 15 April 1971, in a secret memorandum to the divisional commanders, Niazi complained,

Since my arrival, I have heard numerous reports of troops indulging in looting and arson, killing people at random and without reasons in areas cleared of the anti state elements; of late there have been reports of rape and even the West Pakistanis are not being spared; on 12 April two West Pakistani women were raped, and an attempt was made on two others.

Anthony Mascarenhas published a newspaper article titled 'Genocide in June 1971' in which he also wrote about violence perpetrated by Bengalis against Biharis.

First it was the massacre of the non-Bengalis in a savage outburst of Bengali hatred. Now it was massacre deliberately carried out by the West Pakistan army ... The West Pakistani soldiers are not the only ones who have been killing in East Bengal, of course. On the night of 25 March... the Bengali troops and paramilitary units stationed in East Pakistan mutinied and attacked non-Bengalis with atrocious savagery. Thousands of families of unfortunate Muslims, many of them refugees from Bihar who chose Pakistan at the time of the partition riots in 1947, were mercilessly wiped out. Women were raped, or had their breasts torn out with specially-fashioned knives. Children did not escape the horror; the lucky ones were killed with their parents...

Pakistani Major General Khadim Hussain Raja wrote in his book that Niazi, in presence of Bengali officers would say ' Main iss haramzadi qom ki nasal badal doonga (I will change the race of the Bengalis)'. A witness statement to the commission read "The troops used to say that when the Commander (Lt Gen Niazi) was himself a raper (sic), how could they be stopped?".

Another work that has included direct experiences from the women raped is Ami Birangona Bolchhi ("I, the heroine, speak") by Nilima Ibrahim. The work includes in its name from the word Birangona (Heroine), given by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after the war, to the raped and tortured women during the war. This was a conscious effort to alleviate any social stigma the women might face in the society.

There are eyewitness reports of the "rape camps" established by the Pakistani Army. The US based Women Under Siege Project of the Women's Media Center have reported the girls as young as 8 and women as old as 75 were detained in Pakistan military barracks, and where they were victims of mass rape which sometimes culminated in mass murder. The report was based on interview with survivors. Australian Doctor Geoffrey Davis was brought to Bangladesh by the United Nation and International Planned Parenthood Federation to carry out late term abortions on rape victims. He was of the opinion that the 200,000 to 400,000 rape victims were an underestimation. On the actions of Pakistan army he said "They'd keep the infantry back and put artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all those were sexually matured would be segregated..And then the women would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the troops ... Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being raped again and again and again. A lot of them died in those [rape] camps. There was an air of disbelief about the whole thing. Nobody could credit that it really happened!"

In October 2005, Sarmila Bose published a paper suggesting that the casualties and rape allegations in the war have been greatly exaggerated for political purposes. Whilst she received praise from many quarters, a number of researchers have shown inaccuracies in Bose's work, including flawed methodology of statistical analysis, misrepresentation of referenced sources, and disproportionate weight to Pakistani Army testimonies.

A 2014 film titled Children of War focused on the harrowing condition in the 'rape camps' set up by the Anti Separatists.

Historian Christian Gerlach states that "a systematic collection of statistical data was aborted, possibly because the tentative data did not substantiate the claim that three million had died and at least 200,000 women had been raped."

Violence against Hindus

An article in Time magazine dated 2 August 1971, stated "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred." Pakistan army eastern command headquarter officials in Dhaka made clear the government's policy on East Bengal. After the elimination or exile of Hindus, their property was going to be shared among middle class Muslims. According to Colonel Naim Hindus "undermined the Muslim masses." He said Bengali culture to a great extent was Hindu culture and "We have to sort them out to restore the land to the people." In April 1971 at Comilla Major Rathore said to Anthony Mascarenhas on Hindus: "Now under the cover of fighting we have an excellent opportunity of finishing them off...Of course, we are only killing the Hindu men. We are soldiers, not cowards like the rebels."

Hindus were alleged to have corrupted the Awami League. Pakistani soldiers repeatedly boasted that they have came "to kill Hindus" to US Consul Archer Blood. A witness heard an officer shouting to soldiers: "Why you have killed Muslims. We ordered you to kill only Hindus." US government cables noted that the minorities of Bangladesh, especially the Hindus, were specific targets of the Pakistani Army. US consulates reported methodical slaughter of Hindu men in cities starting in the first 24 hours of the crackdown. Army units entered villages asking where Hindus live; it was "common pattern" to kill Hindu males. Hindus were identified because they were not circumcised. Sometimes the military also massacred Hindu women. There were barely any areas where no Hindu was killed. There was widespread killing of Hindu males, and rapes of women. Documented incidents in which Hindus were massacred in large numbers include the Jathibhanga massacre, the Chuknagar massacre, and the Shankharipara massacre.

Senator Edward Kennedy wrote in a report that was part of United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations testimony dated 1 November 1971, "Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad". More than 60% of the Bengali refugees who fled to India were Hindus. It has been alleged that this widespread violence against Hindus was motivated by a policy to purge East Pakistan of what was seen as Hindu and Indian influences. Buddhist temples and Buddhist monks were also attacked through the course of the year. Lt. Colonel Aziz Ahmed Khan reported that in May 1971 there was written order to kill Hindus and that General Niazi would ask troops how many Hindus they had killed.

According to R. J. Rummel, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii,

The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fueled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. "Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said General Niazi, 'It was a low lying land of low lying people.' The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Pakistani captain as telling him, "We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one." This is the arrogance of Power.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney Schanberg covered the start of the war and wrote extensively on the suffering of the East Bengalis, including the Hindus both during and after the conflict. In a syndicated column "The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored", he wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. "Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army" (by "Muslim army", meaning the Pakistan Army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well). Bangladesh reported massacres occurring on a daily basis. One priest reported to Schanberg about the slaughter of over thousand Hindus in southern district of Barisal in one day. According to another priest, meeting was called in northeastern Sylhet district. Later troops arrived and from the gathered crowd selected 300 Hindus and shot them dead.

Persecution of Biharis

In 1947, at the time of partition and the establishment of the state of Pakistan, Bihari Muslims, many of whom were fleeing the violence that took place during partition, migrated from India to the newly independent East Pakistan. These Urdu-speaking people were averse to the Bengali language movement and the subsequent nationalist movements because they maintained allegiance toward West Pakistani rulers, causing anti-Bihari sentiments among local nationalist Bengalis. After the convening of the National Assembly was postponed by Yahya Khan on 1 March 1971, the dissidents in East Pakistan began targeting the ethnic Bihari community which had supported West Pakistan.

In early March 1971, 300 Biharis were slaughtered in rioting by Bengali mobs in Chittagong alone. The Government of Pakistan used the 'Bihari massacre' to justify its deployment of the military in East Pakistan on 25 March, when it initiated its infamous Operation Searchlight. When the war broke out in 1971, the Biharis sided with the Pakistani Army. Some of them joined Razakar and Al-Shams militia groups and participated in the persecution and genocide of their Bengali countrymen, in retaliation for atrocities committed against them by Bengalis, including the widespread looting of Bengali properties and abetting other criminal activities. When the war finished Biharis faced severe retaliation, resulting in a counter-genocide and the displacement of over a million non-Bengalis.

According to The Minorities at Risk Project the number of Bihari killed is about 1,000. International estimates vary between 20,000 and 200,000. In June 1971, Bihari representatives stated that 500,000 Biharis were killed by Bengalis. R.J. Rummel gives a prudent estimate of 150,000 killed.

After the war the Government of Bangladesh confiscated the properties of the Bihari Population. There are many reports of massacres of Biharis and alleged collaborators that took place in the period following the surrender of the Pakistani Army on 16 December 1971. In an incident on 18 December 1971, captured on camera and attended by members of the foreign press, Abdul Kader Siddiqui and Kaderia Bahini guerrillas under his command and named after him, bayoneted and shot to death a group of prisoners of war who were accused of belonging to the Razakar paramilitary forces.

International reactions

reported a high US official as saying "It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland." Genocide is the term that is used to describe the event in almost every major publication and newspaper in Bangladesh, and is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"

A 1972 report by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) noted that both sides in the conflict accused each other of perpetrating genocide. The report observed that it may be difficult to substantiate claims that the "whole of the military action and repressive measures taken by the Pakistani Army and their auxiliary forces constituted genocide' that was intended to destroy the Bengali people in whole or in part, and that 'preventing a nation from attaining political autonomy does not constitute genocide: the intention must be to destroy in whole or in part the people as such." The difficulty of proving intent was considered to be further complicated by the fact that three specific sections of the Bengali people were targeted in killings committed by the Pakistani Army and their collaborators: members of the Awami League, students, and East Pakistani citizens of the Hindu religion. The report observed, however, that there is a strong prima facie case that particular acts of genocide were committed, especially towards the end of the war, when Bengalis were targeted indiscriminately. Similarly, it was felt that there is a strong prima facie case that crimes of genocide were committed against the Hindu population of East Pakistan.

As regards the massacres of non-Bengalis by Bengalis during and after the Liberation War, the ICJ report argued that it is improbable that "spontaneous and frenzied mob violence against a particular section of the community from whom the mob senses danger and hostility is to be regarded as possessing the necessary element of conscious intent to constitute the crime of genocide," but that, if the dolus specialis were to be proved in particular cases, these would have constituted acts of genocide against non-Bengalis.

After the minimum 20 countries became parties to the Genocide Convention, it came into force as international law on 12 January 1951. At that time however, only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were parties to the treaty, and it was not until after the last of the five permanent members ratified the treaty in 1988, and the Cold War came to an end, that the international law on the crime of genocide began to be enforced. As such, the allegation that genocide took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 was never investigated by an international tribunal set up under the auspices of the United Nations.

Rudolph Rummel wrote "In 1971, the self-appointed president of Pakistan and commander-in-chief of the army General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals prepared a careful and systematic military, economic, and political operation against East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). They planned to murder that country's Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cutthroat plan was outright genocide."

The genocide is also mentioned in some publications outside the subcontinent; for example, The Guinness Book of Records lists the atrocities as one of the largest five genocides in the twentieth century.

US complicity

President Richard Nixon viewed Pakistan as a Cold War ally and, therefore, refused to condemn its actions. From the White House tapes: "The President seems to be making sure that the distrusted State Department would not, on its own, condemn Yahya for killing Bengalis." Nixon and China tried to suppress reports of genocide from East Pakistan. Nixon also relied on American disinterest in what was happening in Pakistan, he said " Biafra stirred up a few Catholics. But you know, I think Biafra stirred people up more than Pakistan, because Pakistan they're just a bunch of brown goddamn Moslems."

The US government secretly encouraged the shipment of weapons from Iran, Turkey, and Jordan to Pakistan, and reimbursed those countries for them despite Congressional objections.

A collection of declassified US government documents, mostly consisting of communications between US officials in Washington, D.C. and in embassies and USIS centers in Dhaka and in India, show that US officials knew about these mass killings at the time and, in fact, used the terms "genocide" and "selective genocide," for example, in the " Blood Telegram." They also show that President Nixon, advised by Henry Kissinger, decided to downplay this secret internal advice, because he wanted to protect the interests of Pakistan as he was apprehensive of India's friendship with the USSR, and he was seeking a closer relationship with China, which supported Pakistan.

In his book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens elaborates on what he saw as the efforts of Kissinger to subvert the aspirations of independence on the part of the Bengalis. Hitchens not only claims that the term genocide is appropriate to describe the results of the struggle, but also points to the efforts of Henry Kissinger in undermining others who condemned the then ongoing atrocities as being a genocide. He also wrote "Kissinger was responsible for the killing of thousands of people, including Sheik Mujibur Rahman".

Some American politicians did speak out. Senator Ted Kennedy charged Pakistan with committing genocide and called for a complete cut-off of American military and economic aid to Pakistan.

War crimes trial attempts

As early as 22 December 1971, the Indian Army was conducting investigations of senior Pakistani Army officers connected to the massacre of intellectuals in Dhaka, with the aim of collecting sufficient evidence to have them tried as war criminals. They produced a list of officers who were in positions of command at the time, or were connected to the Inter-Services Screening Committee.

On 24 December 1971 Home minister of Bangladesh A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman said, "war criminals will not survive from the hands of law. Pakistani military personnel who were involved with killing and raping have to face tribunal." In a joint statement after a meeting between Sheikh Mujib and Indira Gandhi, the Indian government assured that it would give all necessary assistance for bringing war criminals into justice. In February 1972, the government of Bangladesh announced plans to put 100 senior Pakistani officers and officials on trial for crimes of genocide. The list included General A. K. Niazi and four other generals.

After the war, the Indian Army held 92,000 Pakistani prisoners of war, and 195 of those were suspected of committing war crimes. All 195 of them were released in April 1974 following the tripartite Delhi Agreement between Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, and repatriated to Pakistan, in return for Pakistan's recognition of Bangladesh. Pakistan expressed her interest to perform a trial against those 195 officials and furthermore fearing for the fate of 400,000 Bengalis trapped in Pakistan, Bangladesh agreed to handover them to Pakistani authority.

The Bangladeshi Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order of 1972 was promulgated to bring to trial those Bangladeshis who collaborated with and aided the Pakistani Armed forces during the Liberation War of 1971. There are conflicting accounts of the number of persons brought to trial under the 1972 Collaborators Order, ranging between 10,000 and 40,000. At the time, the trials were considered problematic by local and external observers, because they appear to have been used for carrying out political vendettas. R. MacLennan, a British MP who was an observer at the trials stated that 'In the dock, the defendants are scarcely more pitiable than the succession of confused prosecution witnesses driven (by the 88-year-old defence counsel) to admit that they, too, served the Pakistani government but are now ready to swear blindly that their real loyalty was to the government of Bangladesh in exile.' In May 1973 Pakistan government detained Bengali civil servants stranded in Pakistan and their family members in response to Bangladesh's attempt to try POWs for genocide. Pakistan unsuccessfully pleaded to the International Court of Justice five times to contest Bangladesh's application of the term "genocide".

The government of Bangladesh issued a general amnesty on 30 November 1973, applying it to all persons except those who were punished or accused of rape, murder, attempted murder or arson. The Collaborators Order of 1972 was revoked in 1975.

The International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973 was promulgated to prosecute any persons, irrespective of nationality, who were accused of committing crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, "violations of any humanitarian rules applicable in armed conflicts laid out in the Geneva Conventions of 1949" and "any other crimes under international law". Detainees held under the 1972 Collaborators order who were not released by the general amnesty of 1973 were going to be tried under this Act. However, no trials were held, and all activities related to the Act ceased after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.

There are no known instances of criminal investigations or trials outside Bangladesh of alleged perpetrators of war crimes during the 1971 war. Initial steps were taken by the Metropolitan Police to investigate individuals resident in the United Kingdom who were alleged to have committed war crimes according to a Channel 4 documentary film aired in 1995. To date, no charges have been brought against these individuals.

On 29 December 1991 Ghulam Azam, who was accused of being a collaborator with Pakistan in 1971, became the chairman or Ameer of the political party Jamaat-e-Islami of Bangladesh, which caused controversy. This prompted the creation of a 'National Committee for Resisting the Killers and Collaborators of 1971', in the footsteps of a proposal by writer and political activist Jahanara Imam. A mock people's court was formed which on 26 March 1992, found Ghulam Azam guilty in a trial that was criticised widely and sentenced him to death.

A case was filed in the Federal Court of Australia on 20 September 2006 for alleged crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and its collaborators. Raymond Solaiman & Associates acting for the plaintiff Mr. Solaiman, have released a press statement which among other things says:

We are glad to announce that a case has been filed in the Federal Magistrate's Court of Australia today under the Genocide Conventions Act 1949 and War Crimes Act. This is the first time in history that someone is attending a court proceeding in relation to the [alleged] crimes of Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and its collaborators. The Proceeding number is SYG 2672 of 2006. On 25 October 2006, a direction hearing will take place in the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia, Sydney registry before Federal Magistrate His Honor Nicholls.

On 21 May 2007, at the request of the applicant leave was granted to the applicant to discontinue his application filed on 20 September 2006.

2007-present

On 30 July 2009, the Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs of Bangladesh stated that no Pakistanis would be tried under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973. This decision has drawn criticism from international jurists, because it effectively gives immunity to the commanders of the Pakistani Army who are generally considered to be ultimately responsible for the majority of the crimes that were committed in 1971.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) is a war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh set up in 2009 to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan Army and their local collaborators, Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War. During the 2008 general election, the Awami League (AL) pledged to try war criminals.

The government set up the tribunal after the Awami League won the general election in December 2008 with more than two-thirds majority in parliament. The War Crimes Fact Finding Committee, tasked to investigate and find evidence, completed its report in 2008, identifying 1600 suspects. Prior to the formation of the ICT, the United Nations Development Programme offered assistance in 2009 on the tribunal's formation. In 2009 the parliament amended the 1973 act that authorised such a tribunal to update it.

Throughout the years, tens of thousands of mostly young demonstrators, including women, have called for the death penalty for those convicted of war crimes. Non-violent protests supporting this position have occurred in other cities as the country closely follows the trials. The first indictments were issued in 2010.

By 2012, nine leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party in the nation, and two of the Bangladesh National Party, had been indicted as suspects in war crimes. Three leaders of Jamaat were the first tried; each were convicted of several charges of war crimes. The first person convicted was Abul Kalam Azad, tried in absentia as he had left the country; he was sentenced to death in January 2013.

While human rights groups and various political entities initially supported the establishment of the tribunal, they have since criticised it on issues of fairness and transparency, as well as reported harassment of lawyers and witnesses representing the accused. Jamaat-e-Islami supporters and their student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, called a general strike nationwide on 4 December 2012, in proteat against the tribunal which erupted in nation-wide violence. They demanded that the tribunal be scrapped permanently and their leaders be released immediately.

One of the most high profile verdict was of Abdul Quader Molla, assistant secretary general of Jamaat, who was convicted in February 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment culminating in the massive Shahbag protests. The government although initially reluctant, eventually appealed the verdict in the Supreme Court which granted the death sentence. Abdul Quader Molla was subsequently executed on Thursday 12 December 2013 amidst controversies on the legitimacy of the war tribunal hearings drawing wide criticisms from countries such as US, UK and Turkey and also the UN. A period of unrest ensued. The majority of the population were however found to be in favour of the execution.

Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was convicted of war crimes due to his involvement in mass killings, rape, arson, looting and forced conversion of Hindus to Islam. He was sentenced to death by hanging; however his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

Motiur Rahman Nizami was hanged on 11 May 2015 for 16 charges of genocide, rape and torture.

Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, who had both been convicted of genocide and rape, were hanged in Dhaka Central Jail on 22 November 2015 around 12:45 am.

On 3 December 2016, business tycoon Mir Quasem Ali, convicted of crimes against humanity for torturing and killing suspected Bangladeshi liberationists, was hanged at Kashimpur Prison.

Of late, a draft of the Digital Security Act, 2016 has been finalized and has been placed for cabinet approval. The law proposes to declare any propaganda against the War of Liberation as cognizable and non-bailable.

Views in Pakistan

The Hamoodur Rahman Commission set up by the Pakistani government following the war noted various atrocities committed by the Pakistani military, including widespread arson and killings in the countryside, killing of intellectuals and professionals, killing of Bengali military officers and soldiers on the pretence of mutiny, killing Bengali civilian officials, businessmen and industrialists, raping numerous Bengali women as a deliberate act of revenge, retaliation and torture, deliberate killing of members of the Bengali Hindu minority and the creation of mass graves. The Hamoodur Rahman Commission wrote, "indiscriminate killing and looting could only serve the cause of the enemies of Pakistan. In the harshness, we lost the support of the silent majority of the people of East Pakistan.... The Comilla Cantonment massacre (on 27th/28th of March, 1971) under the orders of CO 53 Field Regiment, Lt. Gen. Yakub Malik, in which 17 Bengali Officers and 915 men were just slain by a flick of one Officer's fingers should suffice as an example". The commission's report and findings were suppressed by the Pakistani government for more than 30 years, but were leaked to the Indian and Pakistani media in 2000. However, the commission's lowly death toll of 26,000 was criticised as an attempt to whitewash the war.

Several former West Pakistani Army officers who served in Bangladesh during the 1971 war have admitted to large-scale atrocities by their forces.

The government of Pakistan continues to deny that the 1971 Bangladesh genocide took place under Pakistan's rule of Bangladesh ( East Pakistan) during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. They typically accuse Pakistani reporters (such as Anthony Mascarenhas) who reported on the genocide of being "enemy agents". According to Donald W. Beachler, professor of political science at Ithaca College:

The government of Pakistan explicitly denied that there was genocide. By their refusal to characterise the mass-killings as genocide or to condemn and restrain the Pakistani government, the US and Chinese governments implied that they did not consider it so.

Similarly, in the wake of the 2013 Shahbag protests against war criminals who were complicit in the genocide, English journalist Philip Hensher wrote

The genocide is still too little known about in the West. It is, moreover, the subject of shocking degrees of denial among partisan polemicists and manipulative historians.

In the 1974 Delhi Agreement, Bangladesh called on Pakistan to prosecute 195 military officers for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide under relevant provisions of international law. Pakistan responded that it "deeply regretted any crimes that may have been committed". It failed to bring the perpetrators to account on its own soil, as requested by Bangladesh. The position taken by Pakistan was reiterated by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974, when he simply expressed "regret" for 1971, and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2002, when he expressed regret for the "excesses" committed in 1971. By 2015, many of those 195 officers were deceased.

The International Crimes Tribunal set up by Bangladesh in 2009 to prosecute surviving collaborators of the pro-Pakistani militias in 1971 has been the subject of strong criticism in Pakistani political and military circles. On 30 November 2015, the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif retreated from earlier positions and said that it denies any role by Pakistan in atrocities in Bangladesh. A statement of the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, after summoning the Acting Bangladeshi High Commissioner, said that "Pakistan also rejected insinuation of complicity in committing crimes or war atrocities. Nothing could be further from the truth". The statement marked a growing trend of genocide denial in Pakistan, which picked up pace after controversial Indian academic Sarmila Bose accused the Mukti Bahini of war crimes. Bose has claimed that there is greater denial in Bangladesh of war crimes which were committed by Bengalis against Biharis.

Many in Pakistan's civil society have called for an unconditional apology to Bangladesh and an acknowledgement of the genocide, including noted journalist Hamid Mir, human rights activist Asma Jahangir, former Pakistan Air Force chief Asghar Khan, cultural activist Salima Hashmi, and defence analyst Muhammad Ali Ehsan. Asma Jahangir has called for an independent United Nations inquiry to investigate the atrocities. Jahangir also described Pakistan's reluctance to acknowledge the genocide a result of the Pakistani Army's dominant influence on foreign policy. She spoke of the need for closure on the 1971 genocide. Pakistani historian Yaqoob Khan Bangash described the actions of the Pakistani Army during the Bangladesh Liberation war as a "rampage".

Documentaries and films

References

1. ^ Beachler, Donald (1 December 2007). "The politics of genocide scholarship: the case of Bangladesh". Patterns of Prejudice. 41 (5): 467-492. doi:10.1080/00313220701657286. S2CID 220344166. Some scholars and other writers have denied that what took place in Bangladesh was a genocide.

2. ^ Baxter, Craig (1997). Bangladesh: From A Nation To A State. Westview Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-813-33632-9. The Pakistanis had armed some groups, Bihari and Bengali, that opposed separation.

3. ^ Bose, Sarmila (8 October 2005). "Anatomy of Violence: Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971" (PDF). Economic and Political Weekly. 40 (41): 4463-4471. JSTOR 4417267. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 December 2020.

4. Bose, Sarmila (November 2011). "The question of genocide and the quest for justice in the 1971 war" (PDF). Journal of Genocide Research. 13 (4): 398. doi:10.1080/14623528.2011.625750. S2CID 38668401. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 October 2017.

5. U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Sitrep: Army Terror Campaign Continues in Dacca; Evidence Military Faces Some Difficulties Elsewhere Archived 21 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine, 31 March 1971, Confidential, 3 pp

6. ^ Obermeyer, Ziad; et al. (June 2008). "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme". British Medical Journal. 336 (7659): 1482-1486. doi:10.1136/bmj.a137. PMC . PMID 18566045.

7. ^ DPA report (8 August 1999). "Mass grave found in Bangladesh". The Chandigarh Tribune. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020.

8. ^ "Cable from U.S. Consulate in Dacca: Selective Genocide" (PDF). National Security Archive. 27 March 1971. Archived from the original on 28 May 2009.

9. ^ LINTNER, BERTIL (2004). "Religious Extremism and Nationalism in Bangladesh" (PDF). p. 418. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019.

10. ^ "125 Slain in Dacca Area, Believed Elite of Bengal". The New York Times. New York, NY, USA. 19 December 1971. p. 1. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. At least 125 persons, believed to be physicians, professors, writers and teachers were found murdered today in a field outside Dacca. All the victims' hands were tied behind their backs and they had been bayoneted, garroted or shot. They were among an estimated 300 Bengali intellectuals who had been seized by West Pakistani soldiers and locally recruited

11. ^ Murshid, Tazeen M. (1997). "State, nation, identity: The quest for legitimacy in Bangladesh". South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 20 (2): 1-34. doi:10.1080/00856409708723294. ISSN 1479-0270.

12. Shaiduzzaman (14 December 2005), ^ "Martyred intellectuals: martyred history" Archived 1 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine, The Daily New Age, Bangladesh

13. Dr. M.A. Hasan, ^ Juddhaporadh, Gonohatya o bicharer anneshan, War Crimes Fact Finding Committee and Genocide archive & Human Studies Centre, Dhaka, 2001

14. Shahiduzzaman ^ No count of the nation's intellectual loss Archived 1 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine The New Age, 15 December 2005

15. ^ Islam, Kajalie Shehreen (2012). "Breaking Down the Birangona: Examining the (Divided) Media Discourse on the War Heroines of Bangladesh's Independence Movement". International Journal of Communication. 6: 2131. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020.

16. Debasish Roy Chowdhury ^ 'Indians are bastards anyway' Archived 17 July 2009 at the Portuguese Web Archive in Asia Times 23 June 2005 "In Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller likens it to the Japanese rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during World War II. "... 200,000, 300,000 or possibly 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped.""

17. Brownmiller, Susan, "Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape" ^ ISBN 0-449-90820-8, page 81

18. ^ Hamoodur Rahman Commission Archived 16 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Chapter 2 Archived 12 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Paragraphs 32,34

19. ^ "New impartial evidence debunks 1971 rape allegations against groups working for Pakistan and also some members of the Pakistani Army". Daily Times. 2 July 2005.

20. ^ Khatun, Salma. "Sarmila Bose rewrites history". Drishtipat. Archived from the original on 7 July 2007.

21. ^ Bose, Sarmila (2011). Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War. London: Hurst and Co. pp. 73, 122.

22. U.S. State Department, ^ Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XI, "South Asia Crisis, 1971", page 165

23. ^ Mascarenhas, Anthony (13 June 1971). "Genocide". The Times. London. The Government's policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements: 1. The Bengalis have proved themselves unreliable and must be ruled by West Pakistanis; 2. The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The - Islamization of the masses - this is the official jargon - is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan; 3. When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and flight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under privileged Muslim middle-class. This will provide the base for erecting administrative and political structures in the future.

24. ^ "Bangladesh: A Bengali Abbasi Lurking Somewhere?". South Asia Analysis Group. 23 April 2001. Archived from the original on 13 June 2010.

25. ^ Stanhope, Henry (20 December 1971). "Mukti Bahini Bayonet Prisoners After Prayers". The Times. London. p. 4. [Dateline: Dec 19] Four Razakar prisoners, who were bayoneted publicly after a rally yesterday ... The leader of the Mukti Bahini ... took part, casually beating the prisoners with has swagger stick before borrowing a bayonet to lunge at one of the trussed-up men. The leader, Mr Abdul Qader Siddiqui, the Mukti commander-in-chief for Dacca, Tangail, Mymensingh and Pusur, whose 'troops' are known as the Qaderi ... Mr Saddiqui's Mukti guards ... fixed bayonets and charged at the prisoners ... They stabed [sic] them through the neck, the chest, the stomach. One of the guards, dismayed at having no bayonet, shot one of the prisoners in the stomach with his sten gun. The crowd watched with interest and the photographers snapped away.

26. ^ Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. Transaction Publishers. p. 315. ISBN 978-1-56000-145-4. Archived from the original on 26 May 2019.

27. ^ Guinness World Records (2006). Guinness World Records 2007. London: Guinness World Records Ltd. pp. 118-119. ISBN 978-1-904994-12-1. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020.

28. Black, Conrad, "Richard Nixon: A Life in Full" (^ New York: PublicAffairs, 2007), p. 756.

29. ^ Linton, Suzannah (2010). "Completing the circle: accountability for the crimes of the 1971 Bangladesh war of liberation". Criminal Law Forum. 21 (2): 203. doi:10.1007/s10609-010-9119-8. hdl:10722/124770. S2CID 143939929. SSRN .

30. ^ "Torture in Bangladesh 1971-2004: Making International Commitments a Reality and Providing Justice and Reparations to Victims". REDRESS. August 2004. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020.

31. ^ Wierda, Marieke; Anthony Triolo (31 May 2012). Luc Reydams; Jan Wouters; Cedric Ryngaert (eds.). International Prosecutors. Oxford University Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0199554294.

32. ^ Kibria, Nazli (2011). Muslims in Motion: Islam and National Identity in the Bangladeshi Diaspora. Rutgers University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0813550565. The landslide victory of the Awami League in the 2008 election included a manifesto pledge to prosecute the war criminals of 1971.

33. ^ Adams, Brad (2 November 2011). "Bangladesh: Stop Harassment of Defense at War Tribunal". Thomson Reuters Foundation. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013.

34. ^ "Bangladesh war crimes trial: Delwar Hossain Sayeedi to die". BBC News. 28 February 2013.

35. ^ Haroon Habib (17 September 2014). "Top Jamaat leader Sayedee to be in prison until death". The Hindu.

36. "His article was - from Pakistan's point of view - a huge betrayal and he was accused of being an enemy agent. It still denies its forces were behind such atrocities as those described by Mascarenhas, and blames Indian propaganda."^ Mark Dummett (16 December 2011). "Bangladesh war: The article that changed history". BBC News. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020.

37. ^ Philip Hensher (19 February 2013). "The war Bangladesh can never forget". The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020.

38. ^ "Merciless Mayhem:The Bangladesh Genocide Through Pakistani Eyes (2018 TV Movie)". IMDB.

Bibliography

Abul Barkat, An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act: Framework for a Realistic Solution Publisher: PRIP Trust (2001) ASIN: B005PWD15O

Abul Barkat, Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living with Vested Property (Published English and Bengali languages 2008, 2009)

Ganguly, Sumit (2002). Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231123693.

Harder, Hans (2010). Werner Ende; Udo Steinbac (eds.). Islam in the World Today: A Handbook of Politics, Religion, Culture, and Society. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-4571-2.

Ḥaqqānī, Ḥusain (2005). Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military. Carnegie. ISBN 978-0-87003-214-1.

Payaslian, Simon. "20th Century Genocides". Oxford bibliographies. Archived from the original on 16 May 2020.

Sharlach, Lisa (2000). "Rape as Genocide: Bangladesh, the Former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda". New Political Science. 1 (22): 89-102. doi:10.1080/713687893. S2CID 144966485.

Shehabuddin, Elora (2010). "Bangladeshi civil society and Islamist politics". In Riaz, Ali; Fair, C. Christine (eds.). Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-57673-4.

Further reading

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The genocide in Bangladesh began on 26 March 1971 with the launch of Operation Searchlight, as West Pakistan (now Pakistan) began a military crackdown on the Eastern wing (now Bangladesh) of the nation to suppress Bengali calls for self-determination.

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Hungarian Revolution of 1956

Part of the Cold War and the anti-communist insurgencies in Central and Eastern Europe

The Hungarian flag (1949-1956) with the communist coat of arms cut out was a revolutionary symbol

Date

23 June - 11 November 195623 October - 4 November 1956 (main phase)

Location

Result

Soviet victory

Belligerents

Soviet Union
Until 28 October: HungaryFrom 4 November: Kádár government

Hungarian revolutionariesFrom 28 October: Hungary ( Nagy government)

Commanders and leaders

Units involved

Soviet Armed Forces KGB ÁVH Loyalist elements of the MN

Armed citizens Demonstrators Pro-Revolution elements of the MN

Strength

31,550 troops

1,130 tanks[nb 1]

Unknown

Political support

Socialist Workers' Party (from 4 November) Working People's Party (loyalists, to 28 October)

Working People's Party (dissidents, to 31 October) Smallholders' Party Socialist Workers' Party(to 4 November) Social Democratic Party Petőfi Party Democratic People's Party Independence Party Other reformed parties

Casualties and losses

722 killed

1,540 wounded[1]

2,500-3,000 killed

13,000 wounded

200,000 exiled[2]

3,000 civilians killed[3]

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October - 4 November 1956; Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949-1989) and the policies caused by the government's subordination to the Soviet Union (USSR). The uprising lasted 12 days before being crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on November 4, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country.

The Hungarian Revolution began on 23 October 1956 in Budapest when university students appealed to the civil populace to join them at the Hungarian Parliament Building to protest against the USSR's geopolitical domination of Hungary through the Stalinist government of Mátyás Rákosi. A delegation of students entered the building of Magyar Rádió to broadcast their sixteen demands for political and economic reforms to civil society, but were detained by security guards. When the student protestors outside the radio building demanded the release of their delegation, policemen from the ÁVH ( State Protection Authority) shot and killed several of them.

Consequently, Hungarians organized into revolutionary militias to fight against the ÁVH; local Hungarian communist leaders and ÁVH policemen were captured and summarily killed or lynched; and political prisoners were released and armed. To realize their political, economic, and social demands, local soviets (councils of workers) assumed control of municipal government from the Hungarian Working People's Party ( Magyar Dolgozók Pártja). The new government of Imre Nagy disbanded the ÁVH, declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October the intense fighting had subsided.

Although initially willing to negotiate the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Hungary, the USSR repressed the Hungarian Revolution on 4 November 1956, and fought the Hungarian revolutionaries until 10 November; repression of the Hungarian Uprising killed 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet Army soldiers, and compelled 200,000 Hungarians to seek political refuge abroad.

During the Second World War (1939-1945), the Kingdom of Hungary (1920-1946) was a member of the Axis powers - in alliance with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria. In 1941, the Royal Hungarian Army participated in the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia (6 April 1941) and in Operation Barbarossa (22 June 1941), the invasion of the USSR. In the event, by 1944, the Red Army were en route to the Kingdom of Hungary, after first having repelled the Royal Hungarian Army and the armies of the other Axis Powers from the territory of the USSR.

Fearful of the Red Army's occupation of the Kingdom of Hungary, the royal Hungarian government unsuccessfully sought an armistice with the Allies, which was a betrayal of the Axis powers. The Nazis launched Operation Margarethe (12 March 1944) to establish the Nazi Government of National Unity of Hungary; despite those politico-military efforts, the Red Army defeated the German and the Hungarian Nazis in late 1944. On 10 February 1947, a Paris peace treaty confirmed the military defeat of Nazi Hungary and stipulated the USSR's right to a military occupation of Hungary.

At the end of the Second World War (1939-1945), the Kingdom of Hungary was in the geopolitical sphere of influence of the USSR. In the political aftermath of the War, Hungary was a multiparty democracy, in which the 1945 Hungarian parliamentary election produced a coalition government composed of Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and the Civic Party, headed by President Zoltán Tildy and Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy. Nonetheless, on behalf of the USSR, the Hungarian Communist Party continually used salami tactics to wrest minor political concessions, which continually diminished the political authority of the coalition government - despite the Communist Party only having received 17 percent of the votes in the parliamentary election of 1945.

After the election in 1945, control of the State Protection Authority ( Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) was transferred from the Independent Smallholders Party of the coalition government to the Hungarian Communist party. The ÁVH repressed non‑communist political opponents with intimidation and false accusations, imprisonment and torture. The brief, four‑year period of multi-party democracy ended when the Hungarian Social Democratic Party merged with the Communist Party and became the Hungarian Working People's Party, whose candidate stood unopposed in the 1949 Hungarian parliamentary election. Afterwards, on 20 August 1949, the Hungarian People's Republic was proclaimed and established as a socialist state, with whom the USSR then concorded the COMECON treaty of mutual assistance, which allowed stationing troops of Red Army soldiers in Hungary.

Based upon the economic model of the USSR, the Hungarian Working People's Party established the socialist economy of Hungary with the nationalization of the means of production and of the natural resources of the country. Moreover, by 1955, the relatively free politics of Hungary allowed intellectuals and journalists to freely criticise the social and economic policies of the Rákosi government. In that vein of relative political freedom, on 22 October 1956, students from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics had reestablished the MEFESZ Students' union, which the Rákosi government earlier had banned for their politically incorrect politics.

Initially, the Hungarian People's Republic was a socialist state headed by the Communist government of Mátyás Rákosi (r. 1947-1956), a Stalinist who was beholden to the USSR. To ensure ideological compliance within his Stalinist government, Rákosi used the ÁVH ( State Protection Authority) to purge 7,000 politically incorrect " Titoists" and " Trotskyists" from the Communist Party of Hungary, for being "Western agents" whose participation in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) interfered with Stalin's long-term plans for world Communism. Among the Stalinist governments of the Eastern Bloc, the Rákosi government of the Hungarian People's Republic was most repressive of political, sexual, and religious minorities.

Stalin's man in Hungary: Mátyás Rákosi addresses an audience in Budapest, 1948.

In 1949, the Rákosi government arrested, tortured and convicted Cardinal József Mindszenty in a show trial for treason against Hungary, for collaboration with Nazi Germany in the Holocaust in Hungary - the religious persecution of Hungarian Jews, and the political persecutions of Hungarian communists and of Hungarian anti-Nazis.

In the 1950-1952 period, the ÁVH forcibly relocated more than 26,000 non-communist Hungarians, and confiscated their housing for members of the Communist Party of Hungary, and so eliminate the political threats posed by the nationalist and anti-communist intelligentsias and by the local bourgeoisie. According to their particular politics, anti-communist Hungarians were either imprisoned in concentration camps or were deported to the USSR or were killed, either summarily or after a show trial; the victims included the communist politician László Rajk, the minister of the interior who established the ÁVH secret police.

The Rákosi government politicised the education system with a toiling intelligentsia who would assist in the Russification of Hungary; thus the study of Russian language and communist political instruction were mandatory at school and at university; religious schools were nationalized and church leaders replaced with communist officials.

In the early 1950s, the Rákosi government's socialist economics increased the per capita income of the Hungarian people, yet their standard of living diminished because of the compulsory financial contributions towards the industrialisation of Hungary, which reduced the disposable and discretionary income of individual Hungarian workers. That poor economy was further diminished by the bureaucratic mismanagement of resources, which caused shortages of supplies, and the consequent rationing of bread and sugar, flour and meat, et cetera. The net result of those economic conditions, was that the Hungarian workers' disposable income in 1952 was two-thirds of the disposable income of Hungarian workers in 1938.

Besides paying for the Red Army occupation of socialist Hungary, the Hungarians also paid war reparations (US$300 million) to the USSR, to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1946, the Hungarian National Bank reported that the cost of war reparations was "between 19 and 22 per cent of the annual national income" of Hungary, an onerous national expense aggravated by the hyperinflation consequent to the post-war depreciation of the Hungarian pengő. Moreover, participation in the Soviet-sponsored Council of Mutual Economic Assistance ( COMECON) prevented direct trade with the countries of the West, and also prevented the Hungarian People's Republic from receiving American financial aid through the Marshall Plan (1948). Socially, the imposition of Soviet-style economic policies and the payment of war reparations angered the peoples of Hungary, whilst the cumulative effects of economic austerity fuelled anti-Soviet political discontent as the payment of foreign debt took precedence over the material needs of the Hungarian people.

De-Stalinization

On 5 March 1953, the death of Stalin allowed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to proceed with the de-Stalinization of the USSR, which was a relative liberalisation of politics that afterwards allowed most European communist parties and the communist parties of the Warsaw Pact to develop a reformist wing - within the structures of the Philosophy of Marxism and orders from Moscow. Hence, the reformist communist Imre Nagy became prime minister (1953-55) of the Hungarian People's Republic, in replacement of the Stalinist Mátyás Rákosi (1946-56), whose heavy-hand style of communist government had proved counter-productive to the interests of the USSR in Hungary.

Despite not being prime minister of Hungary, Rákosi remained politically powerful as the General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, and so undermined many of the Nagy government's political and socio-economic reforms; by 18 April 1955 Rákosi had so discredited Nagy that the USSR deposed Nagy as head-of-state of Socialist Hungary. Three months of plotting and conspiring rid Rákosi and the Hungarian Communist Party of Imre Nagy, who was reduced to a political non-person. On 14 April Prime Minister Imre Nagy was stripped of his Hungarian Communist Party offices and functions, and was sacked as prime minister on 18 April. Despite having been out of political favour with the USSR since January 1955, Nagy had refused to perform the requisite communist penance of ' self criticism', and refused to resign as PM of Hungary.

In February 1956, as the First Secretary of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev initiated the de-Stalinization of the USSR with the speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences, which catalogued and denounced the abuses of power committed by Josef Stalin and his inner-circle protégés, in Russia and abroad. Therefore, the de-Stalinization of Hungarian People's Republic featured Rákosi's dismissal as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Hungary, and his replacement by Ernő Gerő, on 18 July 1956.

From the Western perspective, the countries of western Europe co-operated with the CIA's propaganda radio network, Radio Free Europe, to broadcast the speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences to the countries of eastern Europe, expecting that, as Secretary of the CPSU, Khrushchev's anti-Stalinist speech would substantively contribute to the destabilisation of the internal politics of the Warsaw Pact countries.

On 14 May 1955, with the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, the USSR established the Warsaw Pact with seven countries of the Eastern Bloc, including the Hungarian People's Republic. The geopolitical principles of the Warsaw Pact defence treaty included "respect for the independence and [the] sovereignty of [the member] states" and the practise of "non-interference in their internal affairs". Then, on 15 May 1955, a day after the USSR established the Warsaw Pact, the Austrian State Treaty established Austria as a neutral country in the geopolitical cold war between the US and the USSR. Austria's declaration of geopolitical neutrality allowed the Communist government of PM Nagy to publicly consider "the possibility of Hungary adopting a neutral status on the Austrian pattern".

In June 1956, the Polish Army violently repressed the workers' uprising at Poznań against the economic policies of the Polish People's Republic. In October, the Polish government appointed the politically rehabilitated, reform communist Władysław Gomułka as First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party to deal with the USSR, and, by 19 October 1956, Gomułka had successfully negotiated greater trade agreements and fewer Red Army troops stationed in Poland. The USSR's concessions to Poland - known as the Polish October - emboldened Hungarians to demand from the USSR like concessions for the Hungarian People's Republic, which much contributed to the Hungarians' greatly idealistic politics in October 1956.

On 13 October 1956, a group of 12 students from the university faculties in Szeged met to play cards, and snubbed the DISZ, the official communist student union, by re-establishing the MEFESZ (Union of Hungarian University and Academy Students), the democratic student union banned by the Stalinist Rákosi government. The MEFESZ students distributed hand-written notes in classrooms to inform faculty and students of the time and place for the meeting on 16 October 1956. A professor of law was chairman of committee who formally reestablished the MEFESZ student union, with the proclamation and publication of a twenty-demand manifesto, ten demands about the MEFESZ, and ten anti-Soviet demands, e.g. free elections and the departure of Soviet troops from Hungary, etc.; days later, the university students at Pécs, Miskolc, and Sopron followed suit.

On 22 October, at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, one of the law students from the original group of twelve students, announced that the MEFESZ student union was again politically active, and then proclaimed the Sixteen Political, Economic, and Ideological Points against the USSR's geopolitical hegemony upon Hungary. The Hungarian Writers' Union ceremoniously proclaimed Hungary's anti-Soviet political solidarity with anti-communist reformers in Poland when they laid a commemorative wreath at the statue of the Polish hero Gen. Józef Zachariasz Bem who also was a hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848; likewise, the MEFESZ student union held a parallel demonstration of Hungarians' political solidarity with the Poles.

In the afternoon of 23 October 1956, approximately 20,000 protestors met beside the statue of General József Bem, a national hero of Poland and Hungary. To the amassed crowd of protestors, the intellectual Péter Veres, the president of the Writers' Union ( Írószövetség), read a manifesto demanding Hungarian independence from all foreign powers; a democratic socialist political system based upon land reform and (public) state ownership in the economy; Hungarian membership to the United Nations; and all freedoms and rights for the citizens of Hungary. After Veres proclaimed the manifesto demanding Hungarian sovereignty, the crowd chanted the Hungarian patriotic poem National Song (Nemzeti dal), which the Soviet-controlled Rákosi government of Hungary had banned from public performance; the crowd repeatedly chanted the refrain: "This we swear, this we swear, that we will no longer be slaves."[page range too broad ]

At 20:00 hrs, the first secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party, Ernő Gerő broadcast a hardline speech condemning the political demands of the intelligentsia and of the university students. Angered by Gerő's rejection, some protestors realised one of their demands, and demolished the Stalin Monument in Budapest, which had been erected in place of a razed church, in 1951; and, by 21:30 hrs - an hour and a half later - the nationalist and anti-communist protestors had destroyed the eight-metre-tall statue of Josef Stalin.

Also at 20:00 hrs, a crowd of nationalist and anti-communist protestors had gathered outside the Magyar Rádió building, which was guarded by the ÁVH secret police. Violence soon occurred between the sides when the protestors heard rumours of the arrest and detainment of a delegation of students who had entered the radio station in effort to broadcast their political demands to the entire country. The situation escalated after protestors heard rumours that the ÁVH had killed their delegation of comrades sent to broadcast the anti-Soviet message. In response, from the windows of the building, the ÁVH threw tear gas grenades at and fired upon the many anti-communist and nationalist protestors assembled outside the Magyar Rádió building, and soon required resupply and reinforcement.

In suppressing the Hungarians' anti-government protestations, the ÁVH smuggled weapons and ammunition in an ambulance for delivery to them at the Magyar Rádió building, but the protestors hijacked the ambulance and the weapons for themselves. The Hungarian Army sent soldiers to support the ÁVH policemen defending the Magyar Rádió building, but some of the soldiers tore off the red-star insignia on their caps and joined the side of the anti-government protestors.[page range too broad ] ÁVH policemen used guns and tear gas, while the protestors set police cars afire and distributed weapons captured from the military and police forces, and acted on their anti-Soviet politics by destroying the symbols of Russian communism in Hungary.

On 23 October 1956, the Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party, Ernő Gerő, asked for the USSR's military intervention in order "to suppress a demonstration that was reaching an ever-greater and unprecedented scale", which threatens the national security of the Hungarian People's Republic. To that end, the USSR already had planned the invasion and occupation of Hungary, and the political purging of Hungarian society. At 02.00 hrs., on 24 October 1956, Soviet defence minister Georgy Zhukov ordered the Red Army to occupy Budapest - the capital city of a Warsaw Pact country.

By 12.00 hrs of 24 October, Red Army tanks were stationed outside the parliament building, and Red Army soldiers held the bridges and crossroads that controlled access to Budapest, while Hungarian revolutionaries barricaded streets to defend their city from the Red Army. Also on that day, Imre Nagy became prime minister in place of András Hegedüs. In a national radio broadcast, PM Nagy asked a ceasefire between the Red Army and the Hungarian Revolutionaries, and agreed to initiate postponed political reforms decided in 1953. Despite the pleas of PM Nagy, groups of revolutionaries in Budapest armed themselves and continually fought the Red Army.

At the offices of the communist newspaper Szabad Nép, the ÁVH guards fired upon unarmed protestors; in turn, anti-communists attacked and drove out the ÁVH policemen from the newspaper building. The Hungarian revolutionaries then avenged themselves against the ÁVH policemen. On 25 October, a crowd gathered in Kossuth Square in front of the Hungarian parliament building, which was a mixed group of civilian demonstrators including women, children, and elderly. Most of them came from the mass demonstration outside the Astoria, accompanied by three Soviet tanks, which the demonstrators climbed on, fraternising with the crews. At the same time a column of Soviet tanks carrying two delegates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) sent to Hungary, Politburo members Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov, as well as KGB Chairman Ivan Serov and Mikhail Malinin, commander-in-chief of the Soviet forces in Hungary were on their way to the headquarters of the Hungarian Workers' Party (MDP) on Akadémia Street, where they were to attend a meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC), which was to begin at 10 a.m. Under pressure from the Soviet delegates, the CEC relieved Ernő Gerő of his position as party leader and elected János Kádár in his place. Meanwhile, the crowd demonstrating at Kossuth Square elected a delegation to deliver their demands in the Parliament, but government guards and a company of the Ministry of Defence's armoured regiment, backed by seven Soviet T-54 tanks lined up in front of the Parliament, kept the demonstrators away from the building. The events at Astoria were repeated, with demonstrators trying to make friends with the Soviet soldiers, handing out bilingual leaflets and some climbing on top of the guard tanks. At a few minutes after 11 a.m., General Serov decided to inspect the situation on Kossuth Square, accompanied by several Soviet and Hungarian officers and a tank. Seeing several Soviet soldiers fraternising with the demonstrators, Serov ordered the firing of warning shots, which caused a mass panic on the square. In the ensuing confusion, the Soviet tanks lined up in front of the Parliament building responded by targeting the buildings on the other side of the square. Another Soviet tank coming from a nearby street fired aimed shots at the demonstrators trying to take cover. This action claimed the most lives. The number of the dead is still disputed, with estimates ranging from 75 to 1000.

According to another version of the events, which already appeared during the revolution, but still unproven, the ÁVH policemen and/or communist partisans fired into the assembled protestors from the roof of the building of the Agricultural Ministry. In the fog of war, some Red Army soldiers mistakenly returned the fire towards the roof, having mistakenly believed themselves the targets.[page range too broad ] The Hungarian revolutionaries armed themselves with weapons captured from ÁVH policemen and with weapons donated by anti-communist soldiers who had deserted the Hungarian Army for the Hungarian Revolution against the USSR; from amongst the crowd outside the parliament, the armed revolutionaries shot at the roof-top ÁVH policemen.[page range too broad ]

Meanwhile, nationalist and anti-communist loyalties had fractured the chain of command of the Hungarian Army in response to the communist government's order to militarily repress the popular demonstrations against the Soviet control of Hungary. The Hungarian Army units in Budapest and in the countryside remained uninvolved in the Revolution, because local commanders avoided politics in order to avoid repressing the revolutionaries. Order was restored in the 24-29 October period after the Hungarian Army had fought 71 firefights with the nationalist and with the anti-communist revolutionaries in fifty communities. On 26 October, in the town of Kecskemét, outside the office of State Security and the local jail, Hungarian Army's Third Corps, led by Major General Lajos Gyurkó, shot seven anti-communist protestors and arrested the organizers of the anti-Soviet protest. On Gyurkó's order Hungarian Air Force fighter planes shot up demonstrators with cannon fire in various towns (see hu:Tiszakécskei_sortűz), earning the praise of János Kádár after the defeat of the "counter-revolution" as "the only division commander who, at the call of the party organisation, swept the Danube-Tisza Interfluve six times, smashing everything".

As Hungarian revolutionaries fought the soldiers and tanks of the Red Army with small arms and Molotov cocktails in the streets of Budapest, throughout Hungary, revolutionary workers' councils assumed government power and called general strikes to halt the economy and the functioning of civil society. In ridding Hungary of the influence of and control from the USSR, the revolutionaries destroyed the symbols of Communism, such as the red star and Red Army monuments, and burned communist literature. Moreover, Revolutionary militias, such as the 400-man militia led by József Dudás attacked and murdered pro-Soviet Hungarians and ÁVH policemen. The Hungarian Army armoured division stationed in Budapest, commanded by Pál Maléter led the Hungarian Revolution against the USSR's control of Hungary, and negotiated ceasefire agreements with the revolutionaries; nonetheless, the Hungarian Revolution took many communist prisoners who were registered to lists that identified the prisoner either for summary execution or as an enemy of the people.

In the Csepel area of Budapest, 250 communists defended the Csepel Iron and Steel Works, and, on 27 October, the Hungarian Army restored order in Csepel; two days later, the Hungarian Revolutionaries recaptured Csepel after the Hungarian Army's withdrawal on 29 October. In the Angyalföld area of Budapest, the communists and 350 armed workers and 380 communist soldiers defended the Láng factory. Anti-fascist Hungarian veterans of the Second World War participated in recapturing the offices of the Szabad Nép communist newspaper. At the town of Szarvas, armed guards defended the Hungarian Communist Party and the communist government of Hungary. In the event, the Revolutionaries' successful attacks upon the Parliament collapsed the communist government of Hungary; and First Secretary Ernő Gerő and ex-PM András Hegedüs fled Hungary to the USSR; Imre Nagy became prime minister, and János Kádár became the first secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party.

The Nagy government freed the political prisoner General Béla Király to restore order to Hungary with a National Guard force composed of policemen, soldiers, and Revolutionaries loyal to Hungary. On 30 October 1956, Gen. Király's National Guard attacked the building of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party and killed every pro-Soviet officer of the Hungarian Communist Party, ÁVH policeman, and pro-Soviet Hungarian soldier they encountered; and most Red Army troops withdrew from Budapest to garrisons in the Hungarian countryside.

Fighting ceased between 28 October and 4 November, as many Hungarians believed that Soviet military units were withdrawing from Hungary. According to post-revolution communist sources, there were approximately 213 Hungarian Working People's Party members lynched or executed during the period.

The new communist government of Prime Minister Imre Nagy was surprised by the rapidity with which the Hungarian Revolution extended from the streets of Budapest to all of Hungary, and the consequent collapse of the old Gerő-Hegedüs communist government. As head of government, PM Nagy asked every Hungarian to exercise political forbearance in order to restore civil order to Hungary. As the only Communist Hungarian leader with political credibility among Hungarians, the political actions of the Nagy government allowed the USSR to view the Hungarians' anti-Soviet protests as a popular uprising, rather than as an anti-communist counter-revolution. On 28 October 1956, the Nagy Communist government announced the ceasefire among the nationalist, the anti-communist, and the Communist Hungarians, and that, to resolve the national crisis, PM Nagy would:

consider the revolt as a "great, national and democratic event", and not an anti-communist counter-revolution

effect an unconditional ceasefire and grant political amnesty for the revolutionaries

negotiate with the revolutionaries

disband the ÁVH security police

establish a national guard for Hungary

arrange the immediate withdrawal of the Red Army from Budapest and from Hungary[citation needed ]

On 1 November, the Nagy government formally declared Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and Hungary's international status as a politically non-aligned country. Because of being in power for only ten days, the National Government did not explain their policies in detail; however, contemporary newspaper editorials stressed that Hungary should be a multiparty social democracy uninvolved in the Russo-American Cold War. About 8000 political prisoners were released, most notably Cardinal József Mindszenty. Banned political parties, such as the Independent Smallholders and the National Peasant Party ("Petőfi Party"), reappeared to join the coalition.

In 1,170 communities in Hungary, there were 348 cases of revolutionary councils dismissing the local administrators; 312 cases of revolutionary councils sacking the bosses; and 215 cases of the locals burning the communist administrative records of their communities. In 681 communities, anti-communist and nationalist Hungarians damaged and destroyed symbols of the hegemony of the USSR, such as the Red Star, and statues of Josef Stalin and of Lenin; 393 communities damaged Soviet war memorials; and 122 communities burned the books of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.

Local revolutionary councils formed throughout Hungary, generally without involvement from the preoccupied National Government in Budapest, and assumed various responsibilities of local government from the defunct Communist party. By 30 October, the councils had been officially sanctioned by the Hungarian Working People's Party, and the Nagy government asked for their support as "autonomous, democratic local organs formed during the Revolution". Likewise, workers' councils were established at industrial plants and mines, and many unpopular regulations such as production norms were eliminated. The workers' councils strove to manage the enterprise while protecting workers' interests, establishing a socialist economy free of rigid party control. Local control by the councils was not always bloodless; in Debrecen, Győr, Sopron, Mosonmagyaróvár and other cities, crowds of demonstrators were fired upon by the ÁVH, with many lives lost. The ÁVH were disarmed, often by force, in many cases assisted by the local police.

In total, there were approximately 2,100 local revolutionary and workers councils with over 28,000 members. The councils held a combined conference in Budapest that decided to end the nationwide labour strikes and to resume work on 5 November, with the more important councils sending delegates to the Parliament to assure the Nagy government of their support.

On 24 October 1956, the Politburo of the USSR discussed how to resolve the political revolts that had occurred in Warsaw Pact countries, specifically the Polish October and the Hungarian Revolt. Led by Vyacheslav Molotov, the hardline faction of the CPSU voted for military intervention, but were opposed by Khrushchev and Marshal Georgy Zhukov who sought a political resolution to the Hungarian revolt. In Budapest, the Soviet delegation reported to Moscow that the Hungarian political situation was less confrontational than reported during the revolt proper. In pursuit of political resolution, Khrushchev said that Ernő Gerő's 23 October request for Soviet intervention indicated that the Hungarian Communist Party retained the confidence of the Hungarian people, because the Hungarians were protesting unresolved socio-economic problems, not ideology. Meanwhile, in the West, the concurrent Suez Crisis (29 October - 7 November 1956) of the French and the British empires' seizure of the Suez Canal from Egypt voided the political possibility of Western military intervention to Hungary. On 28 October, Khrushchev said that Soviet military intervention to Hungary would be a mistaken imitation of the Anglo-French intervention to Egypt.

In Russia, on 30 October 1956, the Presidium of the CPSU decided to not depose the new Hungarian government. Marshal Zhukov said: "We should withdraw troops from Budapest, and, if necessary, withdraw from Hungary, as a whole. This is a lesson for us in the military-political sphere". The Presidium then adopted and published the Declaration of the Government of the USSR on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist States, which said that "The Soviet Government is prepared to enter into the appropriate negotiations with the government of the Hungarian People's Republic, and [with] other members of the Warsaw Treaty, on the question of the presence of Soviet troops in the territory of Hungary."

The Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution saw T-54 tanks patrolling the streets of Budapest, until the Red Army temporarily withdrew on 31 October 1956.

In Hungary, on 30 October, consequent to hearing rumours of that the secret police had anti-communist prisoners, and rumours of the ÁVH shooting anti-communist demonstrators in the city of Mosonmagyaróvár armed protestors attacked the ÁVH detachment guarding the headquarters building of the Hungarian Working People's Party in Köztársaság tér (Republic Square), in Budapest. The anti-communists killed more than 20 ÁVH officers and ÁVH conscripts; the head of the Budapest party committee, Imre Mező, also was killed. Within hours, news reportage and filmed scenes of the Hungarian anti-communist revolt that occurred in Republic Square were broadcast in the USSR; and the CPSU made propaganda of the images of the communist victims of the Hungarian Revolt. The leaders of the Hungarian Revolution condemned the attack upon the ÁVH headquarters and asked the protestors to cease and desist from mob violence.

On 30 October, at Budapest, Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov spoke with Prime Minister Imre Nagy who told them that Hungarian geopolitical neutrality was a long-term political objective for the Hungarian People's Republic, which he wanted to discuss with the presidium of the CPSU. Khrushchev considered the geopolitical options for the USSR's resolving the Hungarian anti-communist revolution, but Nagy's declaration of Hungarian neutrality decided his dispatching the Red Army into Hungary. The USSR invaded the Hungarian People's Republic, because:

Simultaneous political movements towards multi-party, parliamentary democracy, and a democratic national council of workers might "lead towards a capitalist state" in Hungary and Poland, each movement challenged the authority of communist parties in eastern Europe.

The militarists in the CPSU would not understand the USSR's failure to intervene in Hungary. That de-Stalinisation had alienated the hardline members of the CPSU, for whom anti-communist protests threatened Soviet hegemony in eastern Europe. That the workers' uprising in East Germany (17 June 1953) - the repression of which killed 84 protestors and produced 700 anti-communist prisoners - required a new Communist government for the German Democratic Republic. That the workers' protests at Poznań (June 1956) - the repression of which killed 57-78 anti-communist protestors - created the Polish October movement, which installed a Polish Communist government less dependent on orders from Moscow.

Hungarian geopolitical neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact breached the buffer zone of satellite states by which the USSR protected themselves from invasion.

In the People's Republic of Hungary, the anti-communist militants concluded that "the [Hungarian Communist] Party is the incarnation of bureaucratic despotism" and that "socialism can develop only on the foundations of direct democracy." For the anti-communists, the struggle of the Hungarian workers was "for the principle of direct democracy" and that "all power should be transferred to the Workers Committees of Hungary." In response, the Presidium broke the de facto ceasefire and repressed the Hungarian Revolution. The Soviet Union's plan was to declare a "Provisional Revolutionary Government" led by János Kádár, who would appeal for Soviet assistance to restore order to Hungary. Kádár was in Moscow in early November, and was in communication with the Soviet embassy whilst still a member of the Nagy government. The USSR sent diplomatic delegations to other communist governments in Eastern Europe and to the People's Republic of China in effort to avoid misunderstandings that might provoke to regional conflicts, and broadcast propaganda explaining their second Soviet intervention to Hungary. The Soviet diplomats disguised their intentions by engaging the Nagy government in talks about withdrawing the Red Army from Hungary.

Moreover, Mao Zedong influenced Khrushchev's decision to repress the Hungarian uprising. The deputy chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Liu Shaoqi, pressed Khrushchev to militarily repress the Hungarian Revolution. Although Sino-Soviet relations were unstable, the opinion of Mao carried great weight among the members of the Presidium of the CPSU. Initially, Mao opposed a second intervention, which was communicated to Khrushchev on 30 October, before the Presidium met and decided against a Hungarian intervention; later, Mao changed his mind and supported intervention to Hungary.

In the 1-3 November 1956 period, Khrushchev informed the USSR's Warsaw Pact allies of his decision to repress the Hungarian Revolution. Khrushchev met with the Polish communist politician Władysław Gomułka in Brest, Belarus; and then spoke with the Romanian, Czechoslovak, and Bulgarian leaders in Bucharest, Romania. Finally, Khrushchev went to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and spoke with Tito ( Josip Broz) who persuaded Khrushchev to install János Kádár as the new leader of the People's Republic of Hungary, instead of Ferenc Münnich. Two months after the USSR repressed the Hungarian Revolution, Tito told Nikolai Firiubin, the Soviet ambassador to Yugoslavia, that "[political] reaction raised its head, especially in Croatia, where the reactionary elements openly incited the employees of the Yugoslav security organs to violence."

Plaque commemorating Polish-Hungarian solidarity during the Hungarian revolution of 1956, at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street 5, in Warsaw.

The events in Hungary were met with a spontaneous reaction in Poland. Hungarian flags were displayed in many Polish towns and villages. After the Soviet invasion, the help given by the ordinary Poles to Hungarians took on a considerable scale. Citizen organizations and self-acting aid committees were established throughout Poland to distribute aid to the Hungarian population, e.g. the Social Civic Committee of Creative Associations (Bydgoszcz), the Student Committee for Aid to Hungarians ( Kraków), the Society of Friends of Hungarians (Tarnów), the Committee to Aid the Hungarians (Lublin), and the Committee for Aid to Hungarians (Człuchów). In addition to the official support coordinated by the Polish Red Cross, one convoy was dispatched - one organized by the Student Aid Committee for Hungarians from Kraków. Other such initiatives were prevented.

By 12 November, over 11,000 honorary blood donors had registered throughout Poland. Polish Red Cross statistics show that by air transport alone (15 aircraft), 44 tonnes of medication, blood, and other medical supplies were delivered to Hungary. Assistance sent using road and rail transport was much higher. Polish aid is estimated at a value of approximately US$2 million in 1956 dollars.

Dutch anti-communists march in support of the Hungarian Revolution. (Eindhoven, Netherlands, 5 November 1956)

On 24 October 1956, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (r. 1953-1959) recommended that the United Nations Security Council convene to discuss the USSR's invasion and occupation of the Hungarian People's Republic, without decisive result, because, despite the Protocol of Sèvres (22-24 October 1956), the Anglo-French intervention to Egyptian politics - the Suez Crisis caused by Britain and France seizing the Egyptian Suez Canal - prevented the West from criticizing the imperialism of the USSR; the U.S. vice president Richard Nixon said that: "We couldn't, on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary, and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against [Gamal Abdel] Nasser." Despite earlier demands for the rollback of communism and of the leftist liberation of eastern Europe, Dulles told the USSR that: "We do not see these states [Hungary and Poland] as potential military allies."

On 4 November 1956, the USSR vetoed the Security Council's resolution criticising the USSR's invasion of Hungary, and, in its stead, passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 120, which charged the General Assembly to demand that the USSR withdraw the Red Army from Hungary. Despite 50 votes for withdrawal, 8 votes against withdrawal, and 15 abstentions from the matter, the communist Kádár government of Hungary rejected the presence of UN observers in the Hungarian People's Republic.

In the U.S., two facts determined the inaction of the Eisenhower government: (i) the U.S. Army study, Hungary, Resistance Activities and Potentials (January 1956), which recommended against U.S. military intervention to Hungary on the side of the Hungarian revolutionists; and (ii) the secret warfare of the National Security Council that encouraged anti-communist political discontent in the Eastern Bloc only through psychological warfare, sabotage, and economic warfare.

According to A. Ross Johnson in the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence: "Contrary to allegations that continue to this day, RFE Hungarian broadcasts did not foment revolution, urge Hungarians to fight the Soviets, or promise Western assistance. They did criticize would-be reform leader Imre Nagy in personally vituperative terms and contained emotional bombast that Hungarian listeners could easily have interpreted as indicating Western solidarity and support." After the USSR defeated the anti-communist Hungarian Revolution, the revolutionists criticised the CIA and its RFE network for having deceived the Hungarians into believing that the West-NATO and the US-would expel the USSR from the Hungarian People's Republic. Although incitements to violence were officially against RFE policy, an internal analysis by RFE adviser William Griffith found, as summarized by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, that "RFE broadcasts in several cases had implied that foreign aid would be forthcoming if the Hungarians succeeded in establishing a 'central military command'" and "appealed to the Hungarians to 'continue to fight vigorously'". Griffith himself wrote that "There were relatively few real policy violations"-specifically four out of more than 300 broadcasts under review-but conceded that "summaries often failed to reflect the content of the program as it was finally written (this is not the case only with programs where policy violation occurred; the summaries during the period under review in many other cases proved to be very inaccurate descriptions of the programs finally produced)." László Borhi, writing in the Journal of Cold War Studies, states that the RFE broadcasts sanctioned by CIA official Cord Meyer were often "incautious, even reckless" and undermined parallel efforts by the Eisenhower administration to negotiate Hungarian independence in a framework similar to Finlandization: "These contradictory policies sabotaged the overall approach. The harder the insurgents fought, the less chance there was for a negotiated settlement. But the unwillingness of the United States to counter Soviet military action meant that the Hungarian quest for liberation was suicidal."

In 1998, the Hungarian ambassador Géza Jeszenszky criticised Western inaction in 1956 as disingenuous, recalling that the political influence of the United Nations readily applied to resolving the Korean War (1950-1953). Moreover, the study Hungary, 1956: Reviving the Debate over U.S. (In)action During the Revolution confirms that the Eisenhower government did not intervene to the Hungarian Revolution - which occurred in the Soviet sphere of influence - because the USSR would have responded with a nuclear war.

1 November newsreel about the situation in Hungary

On 1 November, Imre Nagy received reports that Soviet forces had entered Hungary from the east and were moving towards Budapest. Nagy sought and received assurances, which proved to be false, from Soviet Ambassador Yuri Andropov that the Soviet Union would not invade. The Cabinet, with János Kádár in agreement, declared Hungary's neutrality, withdrew from the Warsaw Pact and requested assistance from the diplomatic corps in Budapest and Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General, to defend Hungary's neutrality. Andropov was asked to inform his government that Hungary would begin negotiations on the removal of Soviet forces immediately.

On 3 November, a Hungarian delegation led by Defence Minister Pál Maléter was invited to attend negotiations on Soviet withdrawal at the Soviet Military Command at Tököl, near Budapest. At around midnight that evening, General Ivan Serov, Chief of the Soviet Security Police ( KGB) ordered the arrest of the Hungarian delegation, and the next day, the Soviet army again attacked Budapest.

A Soviet-built BTR-152 armored personnel carrier burns on a Budapest street, November 1956.

The second Soviet intervention, codenamed "Operation Whirlwind", was launched by Marshal Ivan Konev. The five Soviet divisions stationed in Hungary before 23 October were reinforced; Soviet forces soon reached a total strength of 17 divisions. The 8th Mechanized Army under command of Lieutenant General Hamazasp Babadzhanian and the 38th Army under Lieutenant General Hadzhi-Umar Mamsurov from the nearby Carpathian Military District were deployed to Hungary for the operation. Some rank-and-file Soviet soldiers reportedly believed they were being sent to East Berlin to fight German fascists. By 21:30 on 3 November, the Soviet Army had completely encircled Budapest.

At 03:00 on 4 November, Soviet tanks penetrated Budapest along the Pest side of the Danube in two thrusts: one up the Soroksári road from the south and the other down the Váci road from the north. Thus, before a single shot was fired, the Soviets had effectively split the city into two, controlled all bridgeheads and were shielded to the rear by the wide Danube River. Armoured units crossed into Buda and, at 04:25, fired the first shots at the army barracks on Budaörsi Road. Soon, Soviet artillery and tank fire were heard in all of the districts of Budapest. Operation Whirlwind combined air strikes, artillery, and the co-ordinated tank-infantry action of 17 divisions. The Soviet army deployed T-34-85 medium tanks as well as the new T-54s, heavy IS-3 tanks, 152mm ISU-152 mobile assault guns and open-top BTR-152 armored personnel carriers.

Two disabled Soviet ISU-152 assault guns in Budapest's 8th District with an abandoned T-34/85 tank in the background.

Between 4 and 9 November, the Hungarian Army put up sporadic and disorganised resistance, with Zhukov reporting the disarming of twelve divisions, two armoured regiments and the entire Hungarian Air Force. Hungarian fighters continued their most formidable resistance in various districts of Budapest (most famously the Battle of the Corvin Passage), in and around the city of Pécs in the Mecsek Mountains, and in the industrial centre of Dunaújváros (then called Sztálinváros). There were ten to fifteen thousand resistance fighters fighting in Budapest, with the heaviest fighting occurring in the working-class stronghold of Csepel on the Danube River. Although some very senior officers were openly pro-Soviet, rank-and-file soldiers were overwhelmingly loyal to the revolution and either fought the invasion or deserted. The UN reported that there were no recorded incidents of Hungarian Army units fighting for the Soviets.

At 05:20 on 4 November, Imre Nagy broadcast his final plea to the nation and the world, announcing that Soviet forces were attacking Budapest and that the government was remaining at its post. The radio station, Free Kossuth Rádió, stopped broadcasting at 08:07. An emergency Cabinet meeting was held in the Parliament but was attended by only three ministers. As Soviet troops arrived to occupy the building, a negotiated evacuation ensued, leaving Minister of State István Bibó as the last representative of the National Government remaining at his post. He wrote For Freedom and Truth, a stirring proclamation to the nation and the world.

Ruszkik haza! ("Russians go home!") slogan in Budapest

At 06:00, 4 November, in the town of Szolnok, János Kádár proclaimed the "Hungarian Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government". His statement declared: "We must put an end to the excesses of the counter-revolutionary elements. The hour for action has sounded. We are going to defend the interest of the workers and peasants and the achievements of the people's democracy."

Later that evening, Kádár called upon "the faithful fighters of the true cause of socialism" to come out of hiding and take up arms. But Hungarian support did not materialise, and fighting did not take the form of a civil war, but rather, in the words of a United Nations report, that of "a well-equipped foreign army crushing by overwhelming force a national movement and eliminating the Government".

By 08:00, organised defence of the city evaporated after the radio station had been seized, and many defenders fell back to fortified positions. Between 08:00 and 09:00, the parliamentary guard laid down its arms, and forces under Major General Kuzma Grebennik captured Parliament and liberated captured ministers of the Rákosi- Hegedüs government. Among the liberated were István Dobi and Sándor Rónai, both of whom became members of the re-established socialist Hungarian government. As Soviet troops also came under attack in civilian quarters, they were unable to differentiate military from civilian targets. For that reason, Soviet tanks often crept along main roads and fired indiscriminately into buildings. Hungarian resistance was strongest in the industrial areas of Budapest, with Csepel heavily targeted by Soviet artillery and air strikes.

The last holdouts against the Soviet assault were located in Csepel and in Dunaújváros, where fighting lasted until 11 November, before insurgents finally succumbed to the Soviets. When the fighting ended, Hungarian casualties totalled approximately 2,500 dead and 20,000 wounded. Budapest bore the brunt of the bloodshed, with 1,569 civilians killed. Approximately 53% of the dead were workers; half of all Hungarian casualties were people younger than thirty. On the Soviet side, 699 men were killed, 1,450 wounded, and 51 missing in action. An estimated 80% of all Soviet casualties occurred in the fighting against insurgents in the eighth and ninth districts of Budapest.

Soviet reports of the events surrounding, during and after the disturbance were remarkably consistent in their accounts, more so after the Second Soviet intervention cemented support for the Soviet position among international communist parties. published an account 36 hours after the outbreak of violence that set the tone for all further reports and subsequent Soviet historiography:

1. On 23 October, the honest socialist Hungarians demonstrated against mistakes made by the Rákosi and Gerő governments.

2. Fascist, Hitlerite, reactionary and counter-revolutionary hooligans financed by the imperialist West took advantage of the unrest to stage a counter-revolution.

3. The honest Hungarian people under Nagy appealed to Soviet (Warsaw Pact) forces stationed in Hungary to assist in restoring order.

4. The Nagy government was ineffective by allowing itself to be penetrated by counter-revolutionary influences, weakening and disintegrating, as proven by Nagy's culminating denouncement of the Warsaw Pact.

5. Hungarian patriots under Kádár broke with the Nagy government and formed a government of honest Hungarian revolutionary workers and peasants. The genuinely-popular government petitioned the Soviet command to help put down the counter-revolution.

6. Hungarian patriots, with Soviet assistance, smashed the counter-revolution.

The first Soviet report came out 24 hours after the first Western report. Nagy's appeal to the United Nations was not reported. After Nagy was arrested outside the Yugoslav embassy, his arrest was not reported. Also, accounts failed to explain how Nagy went from patriot to traitor. The Soviet press reported calm in Budapest, but the Western press reported a revolutionary crisis was breaking out. According to the Soviet account, Hungarians never wanted a revolution at all.

In January 1957, representatives of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania met in Budapest to review internal developments in Hungary since the establishment of the Soviet-imposed government. A communiqué on the meeting "unanimously concluded" that Hungarian workers, with the leadership of the Kádár government and the support of the Soviet army, defeated attempts "to eliminate the socialist achievements of the Hungarian people".

The Soviet, Chinese, and Warsaw Pact governments urged Kádár to proceed with the interrogation and trial of the ministers of the Nagy government, and asked for punitive measures against the "counter-revolutionists". In addition, the Kádár government published an extensive series of "white books" ( The Counter-Revolutionary Forces in the October Events in Hungary) that documented real incidents of violence against Communist Party and ÁVH members and the confessions of Nagy's supporters. The "white books" were widely distributed in several languages in most socialist countries and, while based in fact, they present factual evidence with a colouring and narrative that are not generally supported by non-Soviet-aligned historians.

In the immediate aftermath, many thousands of Hungarians were arrested. Eventually, 26,000 of these were brought before the Hungarian courts, 22,000 were sentenced and imprisoned, 13,000 interned, and 229 executed. Approximately 200,000 fled Hungary as refugees. Former Hungarian Foreign Minister Géza Jeszenszky estimated 350 were executed. Sporadic resistance and strikes by workers' councils continued until mid-1957, causing economic disruption. By 1963, most political prisoners from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution had been released.

With most of Budapest under Soviet control by 8 November, Kádár became Prime Minister of the "Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government" and General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party. Few Hungarians rejoined the reorganised Party, its leadership having been purged under the supervision of the Soviet Praesidium, led by Georgy Malenkov and Mikhail Suslov. Although Party membership declined from 800,000 before the uprising to 100,000 by December 1956, Kádár steadily increased his control over Hungary and neutralised dissenters. The new government attempted to enlist support by espousing popular principles of Hungarian self-determination voiced during the uprising, but Soviet troops remained. After 1956 the Soviet Union severely purged the Hungarian Army and reinstituted political indoctrination in the units that remained. In May 1957, the Soviet Union increased its troop levels in Hungary and by treaty Hungary accepted the Soviet presence on a permanent basis.

The Red Cross and the Austrian Army established refugee camps in Traiskirchen and Graz. Imre Nagy along with Georg Lukács, Géza Losonczy, and László Rajk's widow, Júlia, took refuge in the Embassy of Yugoslavia as Soviet forces overran Budapest. Despite assurances of safe passage out of Hungary by the Soviets and the Kádár government, Nagy and his group were arrested when attempting to leave the embassy on 22 November and taken to Romania. Losonczy died while on a hunger strike in prison awaiting trial when his jailers "carelessly pushed a feeding tube down his windpipe".

The remainder of the group was returned to Budapest in 1958. Nagy was executed, along with Pál Maléter and Miklós Gimes, after secret trials in June 1958. Their bodies were placed in unmarked graves in the Municipal Cemetery outside Budapest.

During the November 1956 Soviet assault on Budapest, Cardinal Mindszenty was granted political asylum at the United States embassy, where he lived for the next 15 years, refusing to leave Hungary unless the government reversed his 1949 conviction for treason. Because of poor health and a request from the Vatican, he finally left the embassy for Austria in September 1971.

Nicolas Krassó was one of the left leaders of the Hungarian uprising and member of the New Left Review editorial committee. In an interview he gave to Peter Gowan shortly before his death, Krassó summed up the meaning of the Hungarian Revolution with a recollection from Stalin's short speech in the 19th Congress of the Soviet Union in 1952: "Stalin kept silent throughout the Congress till the very end when he made a short speech that covers about two and a half printed pages. He said there were two banners that the progressive bourgeoisie had thrown away and which the working class should pick up - the banners of democracy and national independence. Certainly nobody could doubt that in 1956 the Hungarian workers raised these banners high."

Despite Cold War rhetoric from western countries espousing rollback of the Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and Soviet promises of socialism's imminent triumph, national leaders of this period (as well as later historians) saw the failure of the Hungarian Revolution as evidence that the Cold War had become a stalemate in Europe.

Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo, the Foreign Minister of West Germany, recommended that the people of Eastern Europe be discouraged from "taking dramatic action which might have disastrous consequences for themselves". The Secretary-General of NATO Paul-Henri Spaak called the Hungarian revolt "the collective suicide of a whole people". In a newspaper interview in 1957, Khrushchev commented "support by United States ... is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man".

Eleanor Roosevelt meets exiled Hungarian revolutionaries at Camp Roeder in Salzburg, 10 May 1957.

In January 1957, United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, acting in response to UN General Assembly resolutions requesting investigation and observation of the events in Soviet-occupied Hungary, established the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary. The committee, with representatives from Australia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Denmark, Tunisia and Uruguay, conducted hearings in New York, Geneva, Rome, Vienna and London. Over five months, 111 refugees were interviewed including ministers, military commanders and other officials of the Nagy government, workers, revolutionary council members, factory managers and technicians, communists and non-communists, students, writers, teachers, medical personnel, and Hungarian soldiers. Documents, newspapers, radio transcripts, photos, film footage, and other records from Hungary were also reviewed, as well as written testimony of 200 other Hungarians.

The governments of Hungary and Romania refused entry to the officials of this committee, and the government of the Soviet Union did not respond to requests for information. The 268-page Committee Report was presented to the General Assembly in June 1957, documenting the course of the uprising and Soviet intervention and concluding that "the Kádár government and Soviet occupation were in violation of the human rights of the Hungarian people". A General Assembly resolution was approved, deploring "the repression of the Hungarian people and the Soviet occupation", but no other action was taken.

The chairman of the Special Committee was Alsing Andersen, a Danish politician and leading figure of Denmark's Social Democratic Party, who had served in the Buhl government in 1942 during the Nazi German occupation of Denmark. He had defended collaboration with the occupation forces and denounced the resistance. The Committee Report and the motives of its authors were criticised by the delegations to the United Nations from the Soviet Union and Kádár government. The Hungarian representative disagreed with the report's conclusions, accusing it of falsifying the events, and argued that the establishment of the committee was illegal. The committee was accused of being hostile to Hungary and its social system. An article in the Soviet journal "International Affairs", published by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, carried an article in 1957 in which it denounced the report as a "collection of falsehoods and distortions".

named the Hungarian Freedom Fighter its Man of the Year for 1956. The accompanying Time article comments that this choice could not have been anticipated until the explosive events of the revolution, almost at the end of 1956. The magazine cover and accompanying text displayed an artist's depiction of a Hungarian freedom fighter, and used pseudonyms for the three participants whose stories are the subject of the article. In 2006, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány referred to this famous Time cover as "the faces of free Hungary" in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the uprising. Mr Gyurcsány (in a joint appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair) commented "It is an idealised image but the faces of the figures are really the face of the revolutionaries".

At the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, the Soviet handling of the Hungarian uprising led to a boycott by Spain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. A confrontation between Soviet and Hungarian teams occurred in the semi-final match of the water polo tournament on 6 December. The match was extremely violent, and was halted in the final minute to quell fighting among spectators. This match, now known as the " blood in the water match", became the subject of several films. The Hungarian team won the game 4-0 and later was awarded the Olympic gold medal. Norway declined an invitation to the inaugural Bandy World Championship in 1957, citing the presence of a team from the Soviet Union as the reason.

On Sunday, January 6, 1957, as millions of Americans watched Ed Sullivan's popular television variety show, with the nearly 22 year-old Elvis Presley headlining for the third time, Sullivan told viewers Presley felt "so keenly about Hungarian relief, he urges all of us through the country to remember that immediate aid is needed." The host followed this with Elvis singing an unrecorded number, the gospel song " Peace in the Valley," saying "he feels that this is sort of in the mood that he'd like to create." By the end of 1957, these contributions, distributed by the Geneva-based International Red Cross as food rations, clothing and other essentials, had amounted to some CHF 26 million (US$6 million in 1957 dollars), the equivalent of $62,500,000 in today's dollars. On 1 March 2011, István Tarlós, the mayor of Budapest, made Presley an honorary citizen posthumously, and a plaza located at the intersection of two of the city's most important avenues was named after Presley as a gesture of gratitude.

Meanwhile, as the 1950s drew to a close the events in Hungary produced fractures within the Communist political parties of Western European countries. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) suffered a split. According to the official newspaper of the PCI, , most ordinary members and the Party leadership, including Palmiro Togliatti and Giorgio Napolitano, supported the actions of the Soviet Union in suppressing the uprising. However, Giuseppe Di Vittorio, chief of the communist trade union CGIL, spoke out against the leadership's position, as did prominent party members Antonio Giolitti, Loris Fortuna, and many others influential in the Communist Party. Pietro Nenni of the Italian Socialist Party, a close ally of the PCI, opposed the Soviet intervention as well. Napolitano, elected in 2006 as President of the Italian Republic, wrote in his 2005 political autobiography that he regretted his justification of Soviet action in Hungary, stating at the time he believed that party unity and the leadership of Soviet Communism was more important.

The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) suffered the loss of thousands of party members following the events in Hungary. Though Peter Fryer, correspondent for the CPGB newspaper The Daily Worker, reported on the violent suppression of the uprising, his dispatches were heavily censored by the party leadership. Upon his return from Hungary Fryer resigned from the paper. He was later expelled by the Communist Party.

In France, moderate communists, such as historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, resigned, questioning the French Communist Party's policy of supporting Soviet actions. The French philosopher and writer Albert Camus wrote an open letter, The Blood of the Hungarians, criticising the West's lack of action. Even Jean-Paul Sartre, still a determined Communist, criticised the Soviets in his article Le Fantôme de Staline, in Situations VII. Left communists were particularly supportive of the revolution.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) viewed the events of the revolution in context of its concern with the Soviet de-Stalinization of 1956 and the sort of problems along the lines of the Eastern European uprisings that China might eventually have to face. Some Chinese leaders viewed the events, together with the protests in Poland, as demonstrating the dangers of overemphasizing development of heavy industry while underemphasizing people's livelihoods. Mao Zedong cited the repressions in Hungary as a lesson: "You forbid people to strike, to petition, or to make unfavorable comments, you simply resort to repression in every case, until one day you become a Rákosi." Later, as the CCP leadership became concerned with the degree of criticism from the lower levels of the party and from outside of the party during the Hundred Flowers campaign, Mao again cited the Hungarian revolution, describing China as at risk of a "Hungarian Incident" if it did not win this "major battle".

Memorial plaque at the Embassy of Serbia, Budapest in memory of Imre Nagy, who took sanctuary in what was the Yugoslav embassy during the Hungarian Revolution.

In the north-west corner of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, California, the Hungarian-American community built a commemorative statue to honour the Hungarian freedom fighters. Built in the late 1960s, the obelisk statue stands with an American eagle watching over the city of Los Angeles. There are several monuments dedicated to the Commemoration of the Hungarian Revolution throughout the United States. One such monument may be found in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Cardinal Mindszenty Plaza. There is also a monument of "A Boy From Pest" in the town of Szczecin, Poland. Denver has Hungarian Freedom Park, named in 1968 to commemorate the uprising.

Public discussion about the revolution was suppressed in Hungary for more than 30 years. Since the thaw of the 1980s, it has been a subject of intense study and debate. At the inauguration of the Third Hungarian Republic in 1989, 23 October was declared a national holiday.

On 16 June 1989, at the 31st commemoration of his execution, Imre Nagy's body was reburied with full honours. The Republic of Hungary was declared in 1989 on the 33rd anniversary of the Revolution, and 23 October is now a Hungarian national holiday.

In December 1991, the preamble of the treaties signed with the dismembered Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, and Russia, represented by Boris Yeltsin, officially apologised for the Soviet actions of 1956 in Hungary. Yeltsin made the apology in person during a 1992 speech to the Hungarian Parliament.

In 2000, the Hungarian government passed "Ilona Tóth's law", absolving those that were convicted for their involvement with the revolution, inspired by the case of Ilona Tóth.

On 13 February 2006, the U.S. State Department commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice commented on the contributions made by 1956 Hungarian refugees to the United States and other host countries, as well as the role of Hungary in providing refuge to East Germans during the 1989 protests against communist rule. U.S. President George W. Bush also visited Hungary on 22 June 2006 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary.

In August 2023, a history textbook written by former Minister of Culture of Russia Vladimir Medinsky, claimed that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was a fascist uprising organised by the West. On 25 September 2023, Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said "labelling these people as fascists is simply unacceptable".

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Gyáni, Gábor. "Revolution, uprising, civil war: the conceptual dilemmas of 1956". European Review of History - Revue européenne d'histoire. 15.5 (2008): 519-531. Online

Heller, Ágnes, and Ferenc Fehér. Hungary 1956 Revisited: The Message of a Revolution - a Quarter of a Century After (George Allen and Unwin, 1983).

Mark, James. "Antifascism, the 1956 Revolution and the politics of communist autobiographies in Hungary 1944-2000". Europe-Asia Studies 58.8 (2006): 1209-1240. Online

Nyyssönen, Heino, and Jussi Metsälä. "Building on legacy and tradition: commemorations of 1956 in Hungary". National Identities 21.4 (2019): 379-393. Online

Beke, Laszlo. A Student's Diary: Budapest, October 16 - November 1, 1956 (NY: Macmillan, 1957).

Granville, Johanna (1999) In the Line of Fire: New Archival Evidence on the Soviet Intervention in Hungary, 1956, Carl Beck Paper, no. 1307 (1999).

Haraszti-Taylor, Eva, ed. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: A Collection of Documents from the British Foreign Office (Nottingham: Astra Press, 1995).

Korda, Michael. Journey to a Revolution: A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Harper Perennial (2006). ISBN 978-0-06-077262-8

Lasky, Melvin J. The Hungarian Revolution; a White Book: The Story of the October Uprising As Recorded in Documents, Dispatches, Eye-Witness Accounts, and World-Wide Reactions (Books for Libraries Press, 1970).

Lomax, William, ed. Hungarian Workers' Councils in 1956 (East European Monographs, 1990).

Nagy, Imre. On Communism: In Defense of the New Course (Praeger, 1957).

United Nations: Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, General Assembly, Official Records, Eleventh Session, Supplement No. 18 (A/3592), New York, 1957 "(268 pages)" (PDF). (1.47 MB)

The Beast of Budapest, a 1958 American film

Freedom's Fury The 2005 documentary film depicting events surrounding the Hungarian-Soviet confrontation in the Olympic water polo tournament, now known as the "blood in the water match". Narrated by Mark Spitz, produced by Lucy Liu and Quentin Tarantino.

Torn from the flag Documentary film 2007. The significant global effects of the Hungarian revolution of 1956.

Freedom Dance Multi award-winning animated documentary produced by Steven Thomas Fischer and Craig Herron. The film retells the escape of Edward and Judy Hilbert from Communist Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The film is narrated by Golden Globe-winning actress Mariska Hargitay.

The Unburied Man Drama film on the life of Imre Nagy.

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Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - Wikipedia

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Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Part of the Cold War and the anti-communist insurgencies in Central and Eastern Europe The Hungarian flag (1949-1956) with the communist coat of arms cut out was a revolutionary symbol Date 23 June - 11 November 195623 October - 4 November 1956 (main phase) Location Result

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The Congo Crisis (French: Crise congolaise) was a period of political upheaval and conflict in the Republic of the Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo) between 1960 and 1965. The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis.

A nationalist movement in the Belgian Congo demanded the end of colonial rule: this led to the country's independence on 30 June 1960. Minimal preparations had been made and many issues, such as federalism, tribalism, and ethnic nationalism, remained unresolved. In the first week of July, a mutiny broke out in the army and violence erupted between black and white civilians. Belgium sent troops to protect fleeing whites. Katanga and South Kasai seceded with Belgian support. Amid continuing unrest and violence, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers, but UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld refused to use these troops to help the central government in Léopoldville fight the secessionists. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic leader of the largest nationalist faction, reacted by calling for assistance from the Soviet Union, which promptly sent military advisers and other support.

The involvement of the Soviets split the Congolese government and led to an impasse between Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Mobutu, in command of the army, broke this deadlock with a coup d'état, expelled the Soviet advisors and established a new government effectively under his own control. Lumumba was taken captive and subsequently executed in 1961. A rival government of the " Free Republic of the Congo" was founded in the eastern city of Stanleyville by Lumumba supporters led by Antoine Gizenga. It gained Soviet support but was crushed in early 1962. Meanwhile, the UN took a more aggressive stance towards the secessionists after Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in late 1961. Supported by UN troops, Léopoldville defeated secessionist movements in Katanga and South Kasai by the start of 1963.

With Katanga and South Kasai back under the government's control, a reconciliatory compromise constitution was adopted and the exiled Katangese leader, Moïse Tshombe, was recalled to head an interim administration while fresh elections were organised. Before these could be held, however, Maoist-inspired militants calling themselves the " Simbas" rose up in the east of the country. The Simbas took control of a significant amount of territory and proclaimed a communist "People's Republic of the Congo" in Stanleyville. Government forces gradually retook territory and, in November 1964, Belgium and the United States intervened militarily in Stanleyville to recover hostages from Simba captivity. The Simbas were defeated and collapsed soon after. Following the elections in March 1965, a new political stalemate developed between Tshombe and Kasa-Vubu, forcing the government into near-paralysis. Mobutu mounted a second coup d'état in November 1965, taking personal control of the country. Under Mobutu's rule, the Congo (renamed Zaire in 1971) was transformed into a dictatorship which would endure until his deposition in 1997.

Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium, frustrated by Belgium's lack of international power and prestige, attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. The Belgian government's ambivalence about the idea led Leopold to eventually create the colony on his own account. With support from a number of Western countries, who viewed Leopold as a useful buffer between rival colonial powers, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885. By the turn of the century, however, the violence of Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction had led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo.

Belgian rule in the Congo was based around the "colonial trinity" ( trinité coloniale) of state, missionary and private company interests. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that capital sometimes flowed back into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised. On many occasions, the interests of the government and private enterprise became closely tied and the state helped companies with strikebreaking and countering other efforts by the indigenous population to better their lot. The country was split into nesting, hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" ( politique indigène)-in contrast to the British and the French, who generally favoured the system of indirect rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial oversight. There was also a high degree of racial segregation. Large numbers of white immigrants who moved to the Congo after the end of World War II came from across the social spectrum, but were nonetheless always treated as superior to black people.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo experienced an unprecedented level of urbanisation and the colonial administration began various development programmes aimed at making the territory into a "model colony". One of the results of the measures was the development of a new middle class of Europeanised African "" in the cities. By the 1950s the Congo had a wage labour force twice as large as that in any other African colony. The Congo's rich natural resources, including uranium- much of the uranium used by the U.S. nuclear programme during World War II was Congolese-led to substantial interest in the region from both the Soviet Union and the United States as the Cold War developed.

An African nationalist movement developed in the Belgian Congo during the 1950s, primarily among the évolués. The movement was divided into a number of parties and groups which were broadly divided on ethnic and geographical lines and opposed to one another. The largest, the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), was a united front organisation dedicated to achieving independence "within a reasonable" time. It was created around a charter which was signed by, among others, Patrice Lumumba, Cyrille Adoula and Joseph Iléo, but others accused the party of being too moderate. Lumumba became a leading figure within the MNC, and by the end of 1959, the party claimed to have 58,000 members.

The MNC's main rival was the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, who advocated a more radical ideology than the MNC, based around calls for immediate independence and the promotion of regional identity. ABAKO's stance was more ethnic nationalist than the MNC's; it argued that an independent Congo should be run by the Bakongo as inheritors of the pre-colonial Kingdom of the Kongo. The Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga (CONAKAT), a localist party led by Moïse Tshombe, was the third major organisation; it advocated federalism and primarily represented the southern province of Katanga. These were joined by a number of smaller parties which emerged as the nationalist movement developed, including the radical Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA), and factions representing the interests of minor ethnic groups like the Alliance des Bayanzi (ABAZI).

Although it was the largest of the African nationalist parties, the MNC had many different factions within it that took differing stances on a number of issues. It was increasingly polarised between moderate évolués and the more radical mass membership. A radical faction headed by Iléo and Albert Kalonji split away in July 1959, but failed to induce mass defections by other MNC members. The dissident faction became known as the MNC-Kalonji (MNC-K), while the majority group became the MNC-Lumumba (MNC-L). The split divided the party's support base into those who remained with Lumumba, chiefly in the Stanleyville region in the north-east, and those who backed the MNC-K, which became most popular around the southern city of Élisabethville and among the Luba ethnic group.

Major riots broke out in Léopoldville, the Congolese capital, on 4 January 1959 after a political demonstration turned violent. The Force Publique, the colonial gendarmerie, used force against the rioters-at least 49 people were killed, and total casualties may have been as high as 500. The nationalist parties' influence expanded outside the major cities for the first time, and nationalist demonstrations and riots became a regular occurrence over the next year, bringing large numbers of black people from outside the évolué class into the independence movement. Many blacks began to test the boundaries of the colonial system by refusing to pay taxes or abide by minor colonial regulations. The bulk of the ABAKO leadership was arrested, leaving the MNC in an advantageous position.

These developments led to the white community also becoming increasing radicalised. Some whites planned to attempt a if a black majority government took power. As law and order began to break down, white civilians formed militia groups known as Corps de Voluntaires Européens ("European Volunteer Corps") to police their neighbourhoods. These militias frequently attacked the black population.

In the fallout from the Léopoldville riots, the report of a Belgian parliamentary working group on the future of the Congo was published in which a strong demand for "internal autonomy" was noted. August de Schryver, the Minister of the Colonies, launched a high-profile Round Table Conference in Brussels in January 1960, with the leaders of all the major Congolese parties in attendance. Lumumba, who had been arrested following riots in Stanleyville, was released in the run-up to the conference and headed the MNC-L delegation. The Belgian government had hoped for a period of at least 30 years before independence, but Congolese pressure at the conference led to 30 June 1960 being set as the date. Issues including federalism, ethnicity and the future role of Belgium in Congolese affairs were left unresolved after the delegates failed to reach agreement.

Belgians began campaigning against Lumumba, whom they wanted to marginalise; they accused him of being a communist and, hoping to fragment the nationalist movement, supported rival, ethnic-based parties like CONAKAT. Many Belgians hoped that an independent Congo would form part of a federation, like the French Community or British Commonwealth of Nations, and that close economic and political association with Belgium would continue. As independence approached, the Belgian government organised Congolese elections in May 1960. These resulted in an MNC relative majority.

The proclamation of the independent Republic of the Congo, and the end of colonial rule, occurred as planned on 30 June 1960. In a ceremony at the Palais de la Nation in Léopoldville, King Baudouin gave a speech in which he presented the end of colonial rule in the Congo as the culmination of the Belgian " civilising mission" begun by Leopold II. After the King's address, Lumumba gave an unscheduled speech in which he angrily attacked colonialism and described independence as the crowning success of the nationalist movement. Although Lumumba's address was acclaimed by figures such as Malcolm X, it nearly provoked a diplomatic incident with Belgium; even some Congolese politicians perceived it as unnecessarily provocative. Nevertheless, independence was celebrated across the Congo.

Politically, the new state had a semi-presidential constitution, known as the Loi Fondamentale, in which executive power was shared between President and Prime Minister in a system known as bicephalisme. Kasa-Vubu was proclaimed President, and Lumumba Prime Minister, of the Republic of the Congo. Despite the objections of CONAKAT and others, the constitution was largely centralist, concentrating power in the central government in Léopoldville, and did not devolve significant powers to provincial level.

Force Publique mutiny, racial violence and Belgian intervention

Despite the proclamation of independence, neither the Belgian nor the Congolese government intended the colonial social order to end immediately. The Belgian government hoped that whites might keep their position indefinitely. The Republic of the Congo was still reliant on colonial institutions like the Force Publique to function from day to day, and white technical experts, installed by the Belgians, were retained in the broad absence of suitably qualified black Congolese replacements (partly the result of colonial restrictions regarding higher education). Many Congolese people had assumed that independence would produce tangible and immediate social change, so the retention of whites in positions of importance was widely resented.

Extract from Émile Janssens' speech to the Force Publique on 5 July 1960

Lieutenant-General Émile Janssens, the Belgian commander of the Force Publique, refused to see Congolese independence as marking a change in the nature of command. The day after the independence festivities, he gathered the black non-commissioned officers of his Léopoldville garrison and told them that things under his command would stay the same, summarising the point by writing "Before Independence = After Independence" on a blackboard. This message was hugely unpopular among the rank and file-many of the men had expected rapid promotions and increases in pay to accompany independence. On 5 July 1960, several units mutinied against their white officers at Camp Hardy near Thysville. The insurrection spread to Léopoldville the next day and later to garrisons across the country.

Rather than deploying Belgian troops against the mutineers as Janssens had wished, Lumumba dismissed him and renamed the Force Publique the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC). All black soldiers were promoted by at least one rank. Victor Lundula was promoted directly from sergeant-major to major-general and head of the army, replacing Janssens. At the same time, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, an ex-sergeant-major and close personal aide of Lumumba, became Lundula's deputy as army chief of staff. The government attempted to stop the revolt-Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu intervened personally at Léopoldville and Thysville and persuaded the mutineers to lay down their arms-but in most of the country the mutiny intensified. White officers and civilians were attacked, white-owned properties were looted and white women were raped. The Belgian government became deeply concerned by the situation, particularly when white civilians began entering neighbouring countries as refugees. The international press expressed shock at the apparent sudden collapse of order in the Congo, as the world view of the Congolese situation prior to independence-due largely to Belgian propaganda-was one of peace, stability, and strong control by the authorities.

Lumumba's stance appeared to many Belgians to justify their prior concerns about his radicalism. On 9 July, Belgium deployed paratroopers, without the Congolese state's permission, in Kabalo and elsewhere to protect fleeing white civilians. The Belgian intervention divided Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu; while Kasa-Vubu accepted the Belgian operation, Lumumba denounced it and called for "all Congolese to defend our republic against those who menace it." At Lumumba's request, white civilians from the port city of Matadi were evacuated by the Belgian Navy on 11 July. Belgian ships then bombarded the city; at least 19 civilians were killed. This action prompted renewed attacks on whites across the country, while Belgian forces entered other towns and cities, including Léopoldville, and clashed with Congolese troops. The Belgian government subsequently announced that it would provide for Belgian bureaucrats back in the metropole, triggering an exodus of most of the Congo's 10,000 European civil servants and leaving the administration in disarray. Engulfed by the disorder spreading throughout the country, most of the government ministries were unable to function.

On 11 July 1960, Moïse Tshombe, the leader of CONAKAT, declared the Congo's southern province of Katanga independent as the State of Katanga, with Élisabethville as its capital and himself as president. The mineral-rich Katanga region had traditionally shared closer economic ties with the Copperbelt of neighbouring Northern Rhodesia (then part of the Central African Federation) than with the rest of the Congo, and because of its economic importance it had been administered separately from the rest of the country under the Belgians. CONAKAT furthermore contended that Katangese people were ethnically distinct from other Congolese. The secession was partly motivated by the Katangese separatists' desire to keep more of the wealth generated by the province's mining operations and to avoid sharing it with the rest of the Congo. Another major factor was what CONAKAT held to be the disintegration of law and order in the central and north-eastern Congo. Announcing Katanga's breakaway, Tshombe said "We are seceding from chaos."

The major mining company in Katanga, the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK), had begun supporting CONAKAT during the latter days of Belgian rule amid worries that the MNC might seek to nationalise the company's assets after independence. UMHK was largely owned by the Société Générale de Belgique, a prominent holding company based in Brussels that had close ties to the Belgian government. Encouraged by the UMHK, the Belgian government provided military support to Katanga and ordered its civil servants in the region to remain in their posts. Tshombe also recruited mercenaries, mainly whites from South Africa and the Rhodesias, to supplement and command Katangese troops. Although supported by the Belgians, Katanga never received formal diplomatic recognition from any country. The Katangese secession highlighted the "fundamental weakness" of the central government in Léopoldville, which had been the chief advocate of a unified state.

Less than a month after the Katangese secession, on 8 August, a section of Kasai Province situated slightly to the north of Katanga also declared its autonomy from the central government as the Mining State of South Kasai ( Sud-Kasaï) based around the city of Bakwanga. South Kasai was much smaller than Katanga, but was also a mining region. It was largely populated by the Luba ethnic group, and its president, Albert Kalonji, claimed that the secession was largely sparked by persecution of the Baluba in the rest of the Congo. The South Kasai government was supported by Forminière, another Belgian mining company, which received concessions from the new state in return for financial support. Without control over Katanga and South Kasai, the central government was deprived of approximately 40 percent of its revenues.

Disquiet about Belgium's support for the secessionist states led to calls within the United Nations (UN) to remove all Belgian troops from the country. The Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, believed that the crisis would provide the organisation with a chance to demonstrate its potential as a major peacekeeping force and encouraged the sending of a multinational contingent of peacekeepers to the Congo under UN command. On 14 July, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 143, calling for total Belgian withdrawal from the Congo and their replacement with a UN-commanded force.

The arrival of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) was initially welcomed by Lumumba and the central government who believed the UN would help suppress the secessionist states. ONUC's initial mandate, however, only covered the maintenance of law and order. Viewing the secessions as an internal political matter, Hammarskjöld refused to use UN troops to assist the central Congolese government against them; he argued that doing so would represent a loss of impartiality and breach Congolese sovereignty. Lumumba also sought the assistance of the United States government of Dwight D. Eisenhower, which refused to provide unilateral military support. Frustrated, he turned to the Soviet Union, which agreed to provide weapons, logistical and material support. Around 1,000 Soviet military advisors soon landed in the Congo. Lumumba's actions distanced him from the rest of the government, especially Kasa-Vubu, who feared the implications of Soviet intervention. The Americans also feared that a Soviet-aligned Congo could form the basis of a major expansion of communism into central Africa.

With Soviet support, 2,000 ANC troops launched a major offensive against South Kasai. The attack was extremely successful, but during the course of the offensive, the ANC became involved in infighting between the Baluba and Bena Lulua ethnic groups. and perpetrated a number of large massacres of Luba civilians. Around 3,000 were killed. The violence of the advance caused an exodus of thousands of Baluba civilians who fled their homes to escape the fighting.

The involvement of the Soviet Union alarmed the United States. The American government under Eisenhower, in line with Belgian criticism, had long believed that Lumumba was a communist and that the Congo could be on track to become a strategically placed Soviet client state. In August 1960, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in the region reported to their agency that "Congo [is] experiencing [a] classic communist ... takeover" and warned that the Congo might follow the same path as Cuba.

Lumumba's appeal for Soviet support split the government and led to mounting pressure from Western countries to remove him from power. In addition, both Tshombe and Kalonji appealed to Kasa-Vubu, whom they believed to be both a moderate and federalist, to move against Lumumba's centralism and resolve the secession issue. Meanwhile, Mobutu took effective control of the army, routing foreign aid and promotions to specific units and officers to secure their allegiance.

On 5 September 1960, Kasa-Vubu announced on national radio that he had unilaterally dismissed Lumumba, using the massacres in South Kasai as a pretext and with the promise of American backing. Andrew Cordier, the American UN representative in the Congo, used his position to block communications by Lumumba's faction and to prevent a coordinated MNC-L reaction to the news. Both chambers of Parliament, however, supported Lumumba and denounced Kasa-Vubu's action. Lumumba attempted to dismiss Kasa-Vubu from his position, but could not get support for this, precipitating a constitutional crisis. Ostensibly in order to resolve the deadlock, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu launched a bloodless coup and replaced both Kasa-Vubu and Lumumba with a College of Commissionaires-General ( Collège des Commissaires-généraux) consisting of a panel of university graduates, led by Justin Bomboko. Soviet military advisors were ordered to leave. Allegedly, the coup was intended to force the politicians to take a cooling-off period before they could resume control. In practice, however, Mobutu sided with Kasa-Vubu against Lumumba, who was placed under house arrest, guarded by Ghanaian UN troops and an outer ring of ANC soldiers. Kasa-Vubu was re-appointed President by Mobutu in February 1961. From the coup onwards, Mobutu was able to exert considerable power in Congolese politics behind the scenes.

Following Kasa-Vubu's reinstatement, there was an attempted rapprochement between the Congolese factions. Tshombe began negotiations for the end of the secession and the formation of a confederal Congo. Although a compromise agreement was reached, it was prevented from taking effect as negotiations broke down amid personal animosity between Kasa-Vubu and Tshombe. An attempted reconciliation in July 1961 led to the formation of a new government, led by Cyrille Adoula, which brought together deputies from both Lumumbist and South Kasai factions but failed to bring a reconciliation with Katanga.

Members of the MNC-L fled to Stanleyville where, led by Antoine Gizenga, they formed a rebel government in November 1960 in opposition to the central government in Léopoldville. The Gizenga government was recognised by some states, including the Soviet Union and China, as the official government of the Congo and could call on an approximate 5,500 troops compared to the central government's 7,000. Faced with UN pressure, the Gizenga government however collapsed in January 1962 after Gizenga was arrested.

Lumumba escaped house arrest and fled eastwards towards Stanleyville where he believed he could rally support. Pursued by troops loyal to Mobutu, he was captured at Lodi on 1 December 1960 and flown back to Léopoldville with his hands bound. Despite UN appeals to Kasa-Vubu for due legal process, the Soviet Union denounced the UN as responsible for the arrest and demanded his release. A meeting of the UN Security Council was called on 7 December 1960 to consider Soviet demands that the UN seek Lumumba's immediate release, his restoration to the head of the Congolese government and the disarming of Mobutu's forces. The pro-Lumumba resolution was defeated on 14 December 1960 by a vote of 8-2. Still in captivity, Lumumba was tortured and transported to Thysville and later to Katanga, where he was handed over to forces loyal to Tshombe. On 17 January 1961, Lumumba was executed by Katangese troops near Élisabethville.

News of the execution, released on 13 February, provoked international outrage. The Belgian Embassy in Yugoslavia was attacked by protesters in Belgrade, and violent demonstrations occurred in London and New York. Shortly thereafter seven Lumumbists, including the first President of Orientale Province, Jean-Pierre Finant, were executed in South Kasai for "crimes against the Baluba nation". Gizenga's soldiers then shot 15 political prisoners in retaliation, including Lumumba's dissident Minister of Communications, Alphonse Songolo.

Since its initial resolution of July 1960, the UN had issued further resolutions calling for the total withdrawal of Belgian and mercenary forces from Katanga in progressively stronger terms. By 1961, ONUC comprised nearly 20,000 men. Although their mandate prevented them from taking sides, ONUC had a mandate to arrest foreign mercenaries wherever they encountered them. In September 1961, an attempt to detain a group of Katangese mercenaries without violence during Operation Morthor went wrong and turned into a fire-fight. ONUC's claim to impartiality was undermined in mid-September when a company of Irish UN troops were captured by numerically superior Katangese forces following a six-day siege in Jadotville. Katanga proceeded to hold the Irishmen as prisoners of war, a development that deeply embarrassed the UN mission and its proponents.

On 18 September 1961, Hammarskjöld flew to Ndola, just across the border in Northern Rhodesia, to attempt to broker a cease-fire between UN and Katangese forces. His aircraft crashed before landing at Ndola Airport, killing him and everybody else on board. In stark contrast to Hammarskjöld's attempts to pursue a moderate policy in the Congo, his successor U Thant supported a more radical policy of direct involvement in the conflict. Katanga released the captured Irish soldiers in mid-October as part of a cease-fire deal in which ONUC agreed to pull its troops back-a propaganda coup for Tshombe. Restated American support for the UN mission, and the murder of ten Italian UN pilots in Port-Émpain in November 1961, strengthened international demands to resolve the situation. In April 1962, UN troops occupied South Kasai. On the night of 29/30 September 1962, South Kasai military commanders launched a coup d'état in Bakwanga against the Kalonjist regime. On 5 October 1962, central government troops again arrived in Bakwanga to support the mutineers and help suppress the last Kalonjist loyalists, marking the end of South Kasai's secession.

Resolution 169, issued in November 1961, called for ONUC to respond to the deteriorating human rights situation and prevent the outbreak of full-scale civil war. The resolution "completely rejected" Katanga's claim to statehood and authorised ONUC troops to use all necessary force to "assist the Central Government of the Congo in the restoration and maintenance of law and order". The Katangese made further provocations and, in response, ONUC launched Operation Unokat to dismantle Katangese roadblocks and seize strategic positions around Élisabethville. Faced with international pressure, Tshombe signed the Kitona Declaration in December 1961 in which he agreed in principle to accept the authority of the central government and state constitution and to abandon any claim to Katangese independence. Following the declaration, however, talks between Tshombe and Adoula reached a deadlock, while Katangese forces continued to harass UN troops. Diminishing support and Belgium's increasing reluctance to support Katanga demonstrated that the state could not survive indefinitely. On 11 December 1962, Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak declared that the Belgian government would support the UN or the central Congolese government should they attempt to end the Katangese secession through force.

On 24 December 1962, UN troops and the Katangese Gendarmerie clashed near Élisabethville and fighting broke out. After attempts to reach a ceasefire failed, UN troops launched Operation Grandslam and occupied Élisabethville, prompting Tshombe to leave the country. A ceasefire was agreed upon soon thereafter. Indian UN troops, exceeding their orders, then occupied Jadotville, preventing Katangese loyalists from regrouping. Gradually, the UN overran the rest of the Katanga and, on 17 January 1963, Tshombe surrendered his final stronghold of Kolwezi, effectively ending the Katangese secession.

Following the end of the Katanga secession, political negotiations began to reconcile the disparate political factions. The negotiations coincided with the formation of an émigré political group, the Conseil National de Libération (CNL), by dissident Lumumbists and others in neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville. The negotiations culminated in the creation of a new, revised constitution, known as the Luluabourg Constitution, after the city in which it was written, to create a compromise balance of power. The new constitution increased the power of the presidency, ending the system of joint consultation between President and Prime Minister, and appeased federalists by increasing the number of provinces from six to 21 while increasing their autonomy. The constitution also changed the name of the state from the Republic of the Congo to Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was ratified in a constitutional referendum in June 1964 and Parliament was dissolved to await new elections. Kasa-Vubu appointed Tshombe, the exiled Katangese leader, as interim Prime Minister. Although personally capable, and supported as an anti-communist by Western powers, Tshombe was denounced by other African leaders such as King Hassan II of Morocco as an imperialist puppet for his role in the Katangese secession.

Under Tshombe's interim government, fresh elections were scheduled for 30 March and the rebellion broke out in the central and eastern parts of the Congo.

The period of political crisis had led to widespread disenchantment with the central government brought in by independence. Demands for a "second independence" from kleptocracy and political infighting in the capital grew. The "second independence" slogan was taken up by Maoist-inspired Congolese revolutionaries, including Pierre Mulele who had served in the Lumumba government. The political instability of the Congo helped to channel wider discontentment into outright revolt.

Disruption in the rural Congo begun with agitation by Lumumbists, led by Mulele, among the Pende and Mbundu peoples. By the end of 1963, there was unrest in regions of the central and eastern Congo. The Kwilu Rebellion broke out on 16 January 1964 in the cities of Idiofa and Gungu in Kwilu Province. Further disruption and uprisings then spread to Kivu in the east and later to Albertville, sparking further insurrection elsewhere in the Congo and the outbreak of the larger Simba Rebellion. The rebels began to expand their territory and rapidly advance northwards, capturing Port-Émpain, Stanleyville, Paulis and Lisala between July and August.

The rebels, who called themselves "Simbas" (from the Kiswahili word for " lion"), had a populist but vague ideology, loosely based on communism, which prioritised equality and aimed to increase overall wealth. Most of the active revolutionaries were young men who hoped that the rebellion would provide them with opportunities which the government had not. The Simbas used magic to initiate members and believed that, by following a moral code, they could become invulnerable to bullets. Magic was also very important to the rebels who also made extensive use of witchcraft to protect themselves and also demoralise their ANC opponents. As they advanced, the rebels perpetrated numerous massacres in the territory they captured in order to remove political opposition and terrorise the population. ONUC was in the process of withdrawing when the rebellions started and had only 5,500 personnel, most whom were deployed in the eastern part of the country and stranded by the conflict. Straggling Western missionaries retreated to their respective embassies, which in turn requested UN assistance. A small force of peacekeepers was assembled and subsequently dispatched to the Kwilu region to retrieve fleeing missionaries. Rescue operations continued throughout March and April and resulted in the successful recovery of over 100 missionaries.

The rebels founded a state, the People's Republic of the Congo ( République populaire du Congo), with its capital at Stanleyville and Christophe Gbenye as president. The new state was supported by the Soviet Union and China, which supplied it with arms, as did various African states, notably Tanzania. It was also supported by Cuba, which sent a team of over 100 advisors led by Che Guevara to advise the Simbas on tactics and doctrine. The Simba rebellion coincided with a wide escalation of the Cold War amid the Gulf of Tonkin incident and it has been speculated that, had the rebellion not been rapidly defeated, a full-scale American military intervention could have occurred as in Vietnam.

After its early string of successes, the Simba rebellion began to encounter local resistance as it encroached on areas outside of the MNC-L's old domain. The People's Republic also suffered from a lack of coherent social and economic policy, contributing to an inability to administer its own territory. From the end of August 1964 the rebels began to lose ground to the ANC. Albertville and Lisala were recaptured in late August and early September. Tshombe, backed by Mobutu, recalled many of his former mercenaries from the Katangese secession to oppose the Simba. Mercenaries, led by "Mad Mike" Hoare and mostly whites from central and southern Africa, were formed into a unit known as 5 Commando ANC. The unit served as the spearhead of the ANC, but were known for widespread unsanctioned killing, torture, looting and mass rapes in recaptured rebel areas. In a press interview, Hoare himself described his men as "appalling thugs". The mercenaries were also materially supported by the CIA.

In November 1964, the Simbas rounded up the remaining white population of Stanleyville and its environs. The whites were held hostage in the Victoria Hotel in the city to use as bargaining tools with the ANC. In order to recover the hostages, Belgian parachute troops were flown to the Congo in American aircraft to intervene. On 24 November, as part of Operation Dragon Rouge, Belgian paratroopers landed in Stanleyville and quickly secured the hostages. In total, around 70 hostages and 1,000 Congolese civilians were killed but the vast majority were evacuated. The Belgian troops were only under orders to liberate the hostages, rather than push the Simbas out of the city, but the attack nevertheless "broke the back of the eastern insurrection, which never recovered." The Simba leadership went into exile in disarray and severe disagreement; Gbenye was shot in the shoulder by his general after dismissing him. Meanwhile, the Belgian paratroopers and the civilians returned to their country. In the aftermath of the intervention, Belgium itself was publicly accused of neocolonialism.

As a result of the intervention, Tshombe lost the support of Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu and was dismissed from his post as prime minister in October 1965. Soon after Dragon Rouge, ANC and mercenary troops captured Stanleyville, putting an end to the Simba rebellion. Pockets of Simba resistance continued to hold out in the eastern Congo, most notably in South Kivu, where Laurent-Désiré Kabila led a Maoist cross-border insurgency which lasted until the 1980s.

Second Mobutu coup d'état

In the scheduled March 1965 elections, Tshombe's Convention Nationale Congolaise (CONACO) won a large majority of the seats, but a large part of his party soon defected to form the new Front Démocratique Congolais (FDC), making the overall result unclear as CONACO controlled the Chamber of Deputies while the FDC controlled the Senate. Kasa-Vubu, attempting to use the situation to block Tshombe, appointed an anti-Tshombe leader, Évariste Kimba of the FDC, to be prime minister-designate in November 1965, but the largely pro-Tshombe Parliament refused to ratify the appointment. Instead of seeking a compromise candidate, Kasa-Vubu again unilaterally declared Kimba to be Prime Minister, which was again rejected, creating a political deadlock. With the government in near-paralysis, Mobutu seized power in a bloodless coup, ostensibly to stop the impasse, on 25 November 1965.

Under the auspices of a régime d'exception (the equivalent of a state of emergency), Mobutu assumed sweeping, almost absolute, power for five years, after which, he claimed, democracy would be restored. Mobutu's coup, which promised both economic and political stability, was supported by the United States and other Western governments, and his rule initially met widespread popularity. He increasingly took other powers, abolishing the post of Prime Minister in 1966 and dissolving Parliament in 1967.

Once established as the sole source of political power, Mobutu gradually consolidated his control in the Congo. The number of provinces was reduced, and their autonomy curtailed, resulting in a highly centralised state. Mobutu increasingly placed his supporters in the remaining positions of importance. In 1967, to demonstrate his legitimacy, he created a party, the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR), which until 1990, was the nation's only legal political party under Mobutu's new constitution. In 1971, the state was renamed Zaire and efforts were made to remove all colonial influences. He also nationalised the remaining foreign-owned economic assets in the country, including the UMHK which became . Despite initial successes, by the time of its disestablishment Mobutu's rule was characterised by widespread cronyism, corruption and economic mismanagement.

In the years after the Congo Crisis, Mobutu was able to remove many opposition figures from the crisis who might threaten his control. Tshombe was sent into a second exile in 1965 after being accused of treason. Between 1966 and 1967, two mutinies in Stanleyville broke out involving up to 800 Katangese gendarmes and former mercenaries of Tshombe. The mutinies were eventually repressed. In 1967, Tshombe was sentenced to death in absentia and the same year was kidnapped in an aeroplane hijacking and held under arrest in Algeria. His death in 1969, allegedly from natural causes, has provoked speculation that the Mobutu government may have been involved. Mulele was also lured back to the Congo from exile by the promise of an amnesty but was tortured and murdered.

The issues of federalism, ethnicity in politics and state centralisation were not resolved by the crisis and partly contributed to a decline in support for the concept of the state among Congolese people. Mobutu was strongly in favour of centralisation and one of his first acts, in 1965, were to reunify provinces and abolish much of their independent legislative capacity. Subsequent loss of faith in central government is one of the reasons that the Congo has been labeled as a failed state, and has contributed violence by factions advocating ethnic and localised federalism. Local insurgencies continued in the eastern Congo into the 1980s and left a legacy of instability along the Congo's eastern borders. Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had led an anti-Mobutu insurrection during the crisis, succeeded in deposing Mobutu in 1997 and becoming president of the restored Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila. Following the fall of Mobutu, Antoine Gizenga founded a political party, the Parti Lumumbiste Unifié (PALU), and was appointed Prime Minister following the 2006 general election.

The Congo Crisis holds great significance in the collective memory of the Congolese people. In particular, Lumumba's murder is viewed in the context of the memory as a symbolic moment in which the Congo lost its dignity in the international realm and the ability to determine its future, which has since been controlled by the West. Many Congolese view the problems of the crisis as unresolved, and believe that the Congo's self-determination has yet to be secured from Western machinations. The latter notion has largely shaped the political aspirations of a substantial number of Congolese.

The Congo Crisis is usually portrayed in historiography as a time of intense disorder and disarray; there is wide consensus that Congolese independence was a calamity. This interpretation often juxtaposes the crisis with the supposed stability of the Congo under Belgian rule before 1960 and under Mobutu's regime after 1965. In Belgium, allegations of Belgian complicity in the killing of Lumumba led to a state-backed inquiry and subsequent official apology in 2001 for "moral responsibility", though not direct involvement, in the assassination. Most academics have concluded that the United States intervened significantly in the crisis. The multi-volume official history of the American foreign service, Foreign Relations of the United States, was accused by academic David N. Gibbs of deliberately diminishing American involvement.

The turmoil of the Congo Crisis destabilised Central Africa and helped to ignite the Portuguese Colonial War, especially the war of independence in neighbouring Angola. Angolan nationalists had long had close ties with the Congo where many had lived as exiles. The União dos Povos de Angola (UPA), an Angolan nationalist organisation which drew support from the Angolan Bakongo, was supporting ABAKO politicians who had hopes of rebuilding the Kingdom of Kongo, altering the borders established during the colonial period. Believing that the independence of Congo was the first stage in this process, the UPA launched the Baixa de Cassanje revolt in 1961, igniting the conflict in Angola that would last until 1974. The Congolese, later Zairian, governments continued to provide support to Angolan rebels and even participated directly in the subsequent Angolan Civil War.

Sociologist Ludo De Witte

The crisis caused the newly independent African states to reconsider their allegiances and internal ties. In particular, it led to the division of African states into factions. Moderate-leaning states joined the Brazzaville Group, which called for a degree of unity between Francophone African states and the maintenance of ties with France. Radical states joined the Casablanca Group which called for a Pan-African federation. The chaotic violence of the crisis and the fate of the country's whites, many of whom entered Northern and Southern Rhodesia as refugees, contributed to the widespread belief among whites there that black nationalist politicians were not ready to govern, and prompted fears that immediate majority rule in Rhodesia might lead to a similar situation. After negotiations with Britain repeatedly broke down, Southern Rhodesia's predominantly white government declared independence unilaterally in 1965.

The Katangese secession would prove to be politically influential in Africa. During the Chadian Civil War between 1965 and 1979, the Front de Libération Nationale du Tchad (FROLINAT) explicitly rejected secessionism in its bid to remove the southern-backed government of François Tombalbaye following the experience of the Katanga secession, officially stating that "there will be no Katanga in Chad". In the Nigerian Civil War, between 1967 and 1970, the ethnically Igbo region of Biafra seceded from Nigeria, which it accused of privileging the interests of northern ethnic groups and discriminating against the Igbo. The secessions of Biafra and Katanga have frequently been compared in academic writing. Unlike Katanga, Biafra achieved limited official international recognition and rejected the support of Western multinational companies involved in the local oil industry. Biafra was defeated in 1970 and re-integrated into Nigeria.

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The Congo Crisis (French: Crise congolaise) was a period of political upheaval and conflict in the Republic of the Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo) between 1960 and 1965. The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.

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Salvadoran Civil War

Part of the Central American crisis and the Cold War

Clockwise: Guerrilla camp in Morazán in 1983; Salvadoran Armed Forces soldiers; Ronald Reagan and José Napoleón Duarte in 1985; The final offensive of 1981; Guerrillas in Perquín, Morazán in 1990.

Belligerents

Salvadoran government ( Revolutionary Government Junta until 1982)

FMLN ( CRM, FDR)

Commanders and leaders

Strength

Casualties and losses

7,000 killed

20,000 killed[29]

70,000-80,000 killed (in total)
8,000 disappeared
550,000 internally displaced
500,000 refugees in other countries[24][30][31]

The Salvadoran Civil War ( Spanish: guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve-year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or "umbrella organization" of left-wing groups backed by the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro as well as the Soviet Union. A coup on 15 October 1979 followed by government killings of anti-coup protesters is widely seen as the start of civil war. The war did not formally end until 16 January 1992 with the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City.

The United Nations (UN) reports that the war killed more than 75,000 people between 1979 and 1992, along with approximately 8,000 disappeared persons. Human rights violations, particularly the kidnapping, torture, and murder of suspected FMLN sympathizers by state security forces and paramilitary death squads - were pervasive.

The Salvadoran government was considered an ally of the U.S. in the context of the Cold War. During the Carter and Reagan administrations, the US provided 1 to 2 million dollars per day in economic aid to the Salvadoran government. The US also provided significant training and equipment to the military. By May 1983, it was reported that US military officers were working within the Salvadoran High Command and making important strategic and tactical decisions. The United States government believed its extensive assistance to El Salvador's government was justified on the grounds that the insurgents were backed by the Soviet Union.

Counterinsurgency tactics implemented by the Salvadoran government often targeted civilian noncombatants. Overall, the United Nations estimated that FMLN guerrillas were responsible for 5 percent of atrocities committed during the civil war, while 85 percent were committed by the Salvadoran security forces. Accountability for these civil war-era atrocities has been hindered by a 1993 amnesty law. In 2016, however, the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador ruled in case Incostitucionalidad 44-2013/145-2013 that the law was unconstitutional and that the Salvadoran government could prosecute suspected war criminals.

El Salvador has historically been characterised by extreme socioeconomic inequality. In the late 19th century, coffee became a major cash crop for El Salvador, bringing in about 95 percent of the country's income. This income was restricted to only 2 percent of the population, however, exacerbating a divide between a small but powerful land-owning elite and an impoverished majority. This divide grew through the 1920s and was compounded by a drop in coffee prices following the stock-market crash of 1929. In 1932, the Central American Socialist Party was formed and led an uprising of peasants and indigenous people against the government. The FMLN was named after Farabundo Martí, one of the leaders of the uprising. The rebellion was brutally suppressed in , during which approximately 30,000 civilians were murdered by the armed forces. La Matanza - 'the slaughter' in Spanish, as it came to be known - allowed military dictatorships to monopolize political power in El Salvador while protecting the economic dominance of the landed elite. Opposition to this arrangement among middle-class, working-class, and poor Salvadorans grew throughout the 20th century.

On 14 July 1969, an armed conflict erupted between El Salvador and Honduras over immigration disputes caused by Honduran land reform laws. The conflict (known as the Football War) lasted only four days but had major long-term effects for Salvadoran society. Trade was disrupted between El Salvador and Honduras, causing tremendous economic damage to both nations. An estimated 300,000 Salvadorans were displaced due to battle, many of whom were exiled from Honduras; in many cases, the Salvadoran government could not meet their needs. The Football War also strengthened the power of the military in El Salvador, leading to heightened corruption. In the years following the war, the government expanded its purchases of arms from sources such as Israel, Brazil, West Germany and the United States.

The 1972 Salvadoran presidential election was marred by massive electoral fraud, which favored the military-backed National Conciliation Party (PCN), whose candidate Arturo Armando Molina was a colonel in the Salvadoran Army. Opposition to the Molina government was strong on both the right and the left. Also in 1972, the Marxist-Leninist Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Farabundo Martí (FPL) - established in 1970 as an offshoot of the Communist Party of El Salvador - began conducting small-scale guerrilla operations in El Salvador. Other organizations such as the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) also began to develop.

The growth of left-wing insurgency in El Salvador occurred against a backdrop of rising food prices and decreased agricultural output exacerbated by the 1973 oil crisis. This worsened the existing socioeconomic inequality in the country, leading to increased unrest. In response, President Molina enacted a series of land reform measures, calling for large landholdings to be redistributed among the peasant population. The reforms failed, thanks to opposition from the landed elite, reinforcing the widespread discontent with the government.

Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, military president of El Salvador (1977-1979). His presidency was characterized by increased civil unrest and government repression.

On 20 February 1977, the PCN defeated the National Opposing Union (UNO) in the presidential elections. As was the case in 1972, the results of the 1977 election were fraudulent and favored a military candidate, General Carlos Humberto Romero. State-sponsored paramilitary forces - such as the infamous Organización Democrática Nacionalista (ORDEN) - reportedly strong-armed peasants into voting for the military candidate by threatening them with machetes. The period between the election and the formal inauguration of President Romero on 1 July 1977 was characterized by massive protests from the popular movement, which were met by state repression. On 28 February 1977, a crowd of political demonstrators gathered in downtown San Salvador to protest the electoral fraud. Security forces arrived on the scene and opened fire, resulting in a massacre as they indiscriminately killed demonstrators and bystanders alike. Estimates of the number of civilians killed range between 200 and 1,500. President Molina blamed the protests on "foreign Communists" and immediately exiled a number of top UNO party members from the country.

Repression continued after the inauguration of President Romero, with his new government declaring a state-of-siege and suspending civil liberties. In the countryside, the agrarian elite organized and funded paramilitary death squads, such as the infamous Regalado's Armed Forces (FAR) led by Hector Regalado. While the death squads were initially autonomous from the Salvadoran military and composed of civilians (the FAR, for example, had developed out of a Boy Scout troop), they were soon taken over by El Salvador's military intelligence service, National Security Agency of El Salvador (ANSESAL), led by Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, and became a crucial part of the state's repressive apparatus, murdering thousands of union leaders, activists, students and teachers suspected of sympathizing with the left. The Socorro Jurídico Cristiano (Christian Legal Assistance) - a legal aid office within the archbishop's office and El Salvador's leading human rights group at the time - documented the killings of 687 civilians by government forces in 1978. In 1979 the number of documented killings increased to 1,796. The repression prompted many in the Catholic Church to denounce the government, which responded by repressing the clergy.

Historian M. A. Serpas posits displacement and dispossession rates with respect to land as a major structural factor leading ultimately to civil war. El Salvador is an agrarian society, with coffee fueling its economy, where "77 percent of the arable land belonged to .01 percent of the population. Nearly 35 percent of the civilians in El Salvador were disfranchised from land ownership either through historical injustices, war or economic downturns in the commodities market. During this time frame, the country also experienced a growing population amidst major disruption in agrarian commerce and trade."

A threat to land change meant a challenge to a state where "marriages intertwined, making the wealthiest coffee processors and exporters (more so than the growers) also those with the highest ties in the military.

With tensions mounting and the country on the verge of an insurrection, the civil-military Revolutionary Government Junta (JRG) deposed Romero in a coup on 15 October 1979. The United States feared that El Salvador, like Nicaragua and Cuba before it, could fall to communist revolution. Thus, Jimmy Carter's administration supported the new military government with vigor, hoping to promote stability in the country. While Carter provided some support to the government, the subsequent Reagan administration significantly increased U.S. spending in El Salvador. By 1984 Ronald Reagan's government would spend nearly $1 billion on economic aid for the Salvadoran government.

The JRG enacted a land reform program that restricted landholdings to a 100-hectare maximum, nationalised the banking, coffee and sugar industries, scheduled elections for February 1982, and disbanded the paramilitary private death squad Organización Democrática Nacionalista (ORDEN) on 6 November 1979.

The land reform program was received with hostility from El Salvador's military and economic elites, however, which sought to sabotage the process as soon as it began. Upon learning of the government's intent to distribute land to the peasants and organize cooperatives, wealthy Salvadoran landowners began killing their own livestock and moving valuable farming equipment across the border into Guatemala, where many Salvadoran elites owned additional land. In addition, most co-op leaders in the countryside were assassinated or "disappeared" soon after being elected and becoming visible to the authorities. The Socorro Jurídico documented a jump in documented government killings from 234 in February 1980 to 487 the following month.

Aims of the junta's violent repression

"The immediate goal of the Salvadoran army and security forces-and of the United States in 1980, was to prevent a takeover by the leftist-led guerrillas and their allied political organizations. At this point in the Salvadoran conflict the latter were much more important than the former. The military resources of the rebels were extremely limited and their greatest strength, by far, lay not in force of arms but in their 'mass organizations' made up of labor unions, student and peasant organizations that could be mobilized by the thousands in El Salvador's major cities and could shut down the country through strikes."

Critics of US military aid charged that "it would legitimate what has become dictatorial violence and that political power in El Salvador lay with old-line military leaders in government positions who practice a policy of 'reform with repression.'" A prominent Catholic spokesman insisted that "any military aid you send to El Salvador ends up in the hands of the military and paramilitary rightist groups who are themselves at the root of the problems of the country."

"In one case that has received little attention", Human Rights Watch noted, "US Embassy officials apparently collaborated with the death squad abduction of two law students in January 1980. National Guard troops arrested two youths, Francisco Ventura and José Humberto Mejía, following an anti-government demonstration. The National Guard received permission to bring the youths onto Embassy grounds. Shortly thereafter, a private car drove into the Embassy parking lot. Men in civilian dress put the students in the trunk of their car and drove away. Ventura and Mejía were never seen again."

Death squad victims in San Salvador, (c. 1981)

As the government began to expand its violence towards its citizens, not only through death squads but also through the military, any group of citizens that attempted to provide any form of support whether physically or verbally ran the risk of death. Even so, many still chose to participate. But the violence was not limited to activists but also anyone who promoted ideas that "questioned official policy" were tacitly assumed to be subversive against the government. A marginalized group that metamorphosed into a guerilla force that would end up confronting these government forces manifested itself in campesinos or peasants. Many of these insurgents joined collective action campaigns for material gain; in the Salvadoran Civil War, however, many peasants cited reasons other than material benefits in their decision to join the fight.

Piety was a popular reason for joining the insurrection because they saw their participation as a way of not only advancing a personal cause but a communal sentiment of divine justice. Even prior to the civil war, numerous insurgents took part in other campaigns that tackled social changes much more directly, not only the lack of political representation but also the lack of economic and social opportunities not afforded to their communities.

While the FMLN can be characterized as an insurrectionist group, other scholars have classified it as an "armed group institution." Understanding the differentiation is crucial. Armed group institutions use tactics to reinforce their mission or ideology. Ultimately influencing the behavior and group norms of their combatants. In this regard, the FMLN had a more effective approach than El Salvador's army in politically educating their members about their mission. Individuals who aligned themselves with the FMLN were driven by a profound sense of passion and purpose. They demonstrated a willingness to risk their lives for the greater good of their nation. The FMLN strategy focused on community organization, establishing connections within the church and labor unions. In contrast, El Salvador's army had inadequate training, and many of its combatants reported joining out of job insecurity or under intimidation from the government.These disparities were notably reflected in their respective combat methods. Further, the Salvadorean military caused more civilian casualties than the FMLN.

In addition, the insurgents in the civil war viewed their support of the insurrection as a demonstration of their opposition to the powerful elite's unfair treatment of peasant communities that they experienced on an everyday basis, so there was a class element associated with these insurgencies. They reveled in their fight against injustice and in their belief that they were writing their own story, an emotion that Elisabeth Wood titled "pleasure of agency". The peasants' organization thus centered on using their struggle to unite against their oppressors, not only towards the government but the elites as well, a struggle that soon evolved into a political machine that came to be associated with the FMLN.

In the early months of 1980, Salvadoran guerilla groups, workers, communists, and socialists, unified to form the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The FMLN immediately announced plans for an insurrection against the government, which began on 10 January 1981, with the FMLN's first major attack. The attack established FMLN control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments for the war's duration. Attacks were also launched on military targets throughout the country, leaving hundreds of people dead. FMLN insurgents ranged from children to the elderly, both male and female, and most were trained in FMLN camps in the mountains and jungles of El Salvador to learn military techniques.

Much later, in November 1989, the FMLN launched a large offensive that caught Salvadoran military off guard and succeeded in taking control of large sections of the country and entering the capital, San Salvador. In San Salvador, the FMLN quickly took control of many of the poor neighborhoods as the military bombed their positions-including residential neighborhoods to drive out the FMLN. This large FMLN offensive was unsuccessful in overthrowing the government but did convince the government that the FMLN could not be defeated using force of arms and that a negotiated settlement would be necessary.

Archbishop Óscar Romero

In February 1980, Archbishop Óscar Romero published an open letter to US President Jimmy Carter in which he pleaded with him to suspend the United States' ongoing program of military aid to the Salvadoran regime. He advised Carter that "Political power is in the hands of the armed forces. They know only how to repress the people and defend the interests of the Salvadoran oligarchy." Romero warned that US support would only "sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights". On 24 March 1980, the Archbishop was assassinated while celebrating Mass, the day after he called upon Salvadoran soldiers and security force members to not follow their orders to kill Salvadoran civilians. President Carter stated this was a "shocking and unconscionable act". At his funeral a week later, government-sponsored snipers in the National Palace and on the periphery of the Gerardo Barrios Plaza were responsible for the shooting of 42 mourners.

On 7 May 1980, former army major, Roberto D'Aubuisson, was arrested with a group of civilians and soldiers at a farm. The raiders found documents connecting him and the civilians as organizers and financiers of the death squad who killed Archbishop Romero, and of plotting a coup d'état against the JRG. Their arrest provoked right-wing terrorist threats and institutional pressures forcing the JRG to release D'Aubuisson. In 1993, a U.N. investigation confirmed that D'Aubuisson ordered the assassination.

A week after the arrest of D'Aubuisson, the National Guard and the newly reorganized paramilitary ORDEN, with the cooperation of the Military of Honduras, carried out a large massacre at the Sumpul River on 14 May 1980, in which an estimated 600 civilians were killed, mostly women and children. Escaping villagers were prevented from crossing the river by the Honduran armed forces, "and then killed by Salvadoran troops who fired on them in cold blood". Over the course of 1980, the Salvadoran Army and three main security forces (National Guard, National Police and Treasury Police) were estimated to have killed 11,895 people, mostly peasants, trade unionists, teachers, students, journalists, human rights advocates, priests, and other prominent demographics among the popular movement. Human rights organizations judged the Salvadoran government to have among the worst human rights records in the hemisphere.

On 2 December 1980, members of the Salvadoran National Guard were suspected to have raped and murdered four American, Catholic church women (three religious women, or nuns, and a laywoman). Maryknoll missionary sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel, and laywoman Jean Donovan were on a Catholic relief mission providing food, shelter, transport, medical care, and burial to death squad victims. In 1980 alone, at least 20 religious workers and priests were murdered in El Salvador. Throughout the war, the murders of church figures increased. For example, the Jesuit University of Central America stated that two bishops, sixteen priests, three nuns, one seminarian, and at least twenty-seven lay workers were murdered. By killing Church figures, "the military leadership showed just how far its position had hardened in daring to eliminate those it viewed as opponents. They saw the Church as an enemy that went against the military and their rule." U.S. military aid was briefly cut off in response to the murders but was renewed within six weeks. The outgoing Carter administration increased military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces to $10 million, which included $5 million in rifles, ammunition, grenades and helicopters.

In justifying these arms shipments, the administration claimed that the regime had taken "positive steps" to investigate the murder of four American nuns, but this was disputed by US Ambassador, Robert E. White, who said that he could find no evidence the junta was "conducting a serious investigation". White was dismissed from the foreign service by the Reagan administration after he had refused to participate in a coverup of the Salvadoran military's responsibility for the murders at the behest of Secretary of State Alexander Haig.

Other countries allied with the United States also intervened in El Salvador. The military government in Chile provided substantial training and tactical advice to the Salvadoran Armed Forces, such that the Salvadoran high command bestowed upon General Augusto Pinochet the prestigious Order of José Matías Delgado in May 1981 for his government's avid support. The Argentine military dictatorship also supported the Salvadoran armed forces as part of Operation Charly.

During the same month, the JRG strengthened the state of siege, imposed by President Romero in May 1979, by declaring martial law and adopting a new set of curfew regulations. Between 12 January and 19 February 1981, 168 persons were killed by the security forces for violating curfew.

In its effort to defeat the insurgency, the Salvadoran Armed Forces carried out a " scorched earth" strategy, and adopted tactics similar to those being employed in neighboring Guatemala by its security forces. These tactics were inspired and adapted from U.S. counterinsurgency strategies used during the Vietnam War. An integral part of the Salvadoran Army's counterinsurgency strategy entailed "draining the sea" or "drying up the ocean," that is, eliminating the insurgency by eradicating its support base in the countryside. The primary target was the civilian population - displacing or killing them in order to remove any possible base of support for the rebels. The concept of "draining the sea" had its basis in a doctrine by Mao Zedong that emphasized that "The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea."

Aryeh Neier, the executive director of Americas Watch, wrote in a 1984 review about the scorched earth approach: "This may be an effective strategy for winning the war. It is, however, a strategy that involves the use of terror tactics-bombings, strafings, shellings and, occasionally, massacres of civilians."

Beginning in 1984, the Salvadoran Air Force was able to locate guerrilla strongholds reportedly using intelligence from U.S. Air Force planes flying over the country.

On 15 March 1981, the Salvadoran Army began a "sweep" operation in Cabañas Department in northern El Salvador near the Honduran border. The sweep was accompanied by the use of scorched earth tactics by the Salvadoran Army and indiscriminate killings of anyone captured by the army. Those displaced by the "sweep" who were not killed outright fled the advance of the Salvadoran Army; hiding in caves and under trees to evade capture and probable summary execution. On 18 March, three days after the sweep in Cabañas began, 4-8,000 survivors of the sweep (mostly women and children) attempted to cross the Rio Lempa into Honduras to flee violence. There, they were caught between Salvadoran and Honduran troops. The Salvadoran Air Force, subsequently bombed and strafed the fleeing civilians with machine gun fire, killing hundreds. Among the dead were at least 189 persons who were unaccounted for and registered as "disappeared" during the operation.

A second offensive was launched, also in Cabañas Department, on 11 November 1981 in which 1,200 troops were mobilized, including members of the Atlácatl Battalion. Atlácatl was a rapid response counter-insurgency battalion organized at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Panama in 1980. Atlácatl soldiers were trained and equipped by the U.S. military, and were described as "the pride of the United States military team in San Salvador. Trained in antiguerrilla operations, the battalion was intended to turn a losing war around."

The November 1981 operation was commanded by Lt. Col. Sigifredo Ochoa, a former Treasury Police chief with a reputation for brutality. Ochoa was close associate of Major Roberto D'Aubuisson and was alleged to have been involved in the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. D'Aubuisson and Ochoa were both members of La Tandona, the class of 1966 at the Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School. From the start, the invasion of Cabanas was described as a "cleansing" operation by official sources. Hundreds of civilians were massacred by the army as Col. Ochoa's troops moved through the villages. Col. Ochoa claimed that hundreds of guerrillas had been killed but was able to show journalists only fifteen captured weapons, half of them virtual antiques, suggesting that most of those killed in the sweep were unarmed.

This operation was followed by additional "sweeps" through Morazán Department, spearheaded by the Atlácatl Battalion. On 11 December 1981, one month after the "sweep" through Cabañas, the Battalion occupied the village of El Mozote and massacred at least 733 and possibly up to 1,000 unarmed civilians, including women and 146 children, in what became known as the El Mozote Massacre. The Atlácatl soldiers accused the adults of collaborating with the guerrillas. The field commander said they were under orders to kill everyone, including the children, who he asserted would just grow up to become guerrillas if they let them live. "We were going to make an example of these people," he said.

The US steadfastly denied the existence of the El Mozote massacre, dismissing reports of it as leftist "propaganda," until secret US cables were declassified in the 1990s. The US government and its allies in US media smeared reporters of American newspapers who reported on the atrocity and, more generally, undertook a campaign of whitewashing the human rights record of the Salvadoran military and the US role in arming, training and guiding it. The smears, according to journalists like Michael Massing writing in the Columbia Journalism Review and Anthony Lewis, made other American journalists tone down their reporting on the crimes of the Salvadoran regime and the US role in supporting the regime. As details became more widely known, the event became recognized as one of the worst atrocities of the conflict.

In its report covering 1981, Amnesty International identified "regular security and military units as responsible for widespread torture, mutilation and killings of noncombatant civilians from all sectors of Salvadoran society." The report also stated that the killing of civilians by state security forces became increasingly systematic with the implementation of more methodical killing strategies, which allegedly included use of a meat packing plant to dispose of human remains. Between 20 and 25 August 1981, eighty-three decapitations were reported. The murders were later revealed to have been carried out by a death squad using a guillotine.

The repression in rural areas resulted in the displacement of large portions of the rural populace, and many peasants fled. Of those who fled or were displaced, some 20,000 resided in makeshift refugee centers on the Honduran border in conditions of poverty, starvation and disease. The army and death squads forced many of them to flee to the United States, but most were denied asylum. A US congressional delegation that, on 17-18 January 1981, visited the refugee camps in El Salvador on a fact finding mission, submitted a report to Congress that found: "[T]he Salvadoran method of 'drying up the ocean' is to eliminate entire villages from the map, to isolate the guerrillas, and deny them any rural base off which they can feed."

In total, Socorro Jurídico registered 13,353 individual cases of summary execution by government forces over the course of 1981. Nonetheless, the true figure for the number of persons killed by the Army and security services could be substantially higher, due to the fact that extrajudicial killings generally went unreported in the countryside and many of the victims' families remained silent in fear of reprisal. An Americas Watch report described that the Socorro Jurídico figures "tended to be conservative because its standards of confirmation are strict"; killings of persons were registered individually and required proof of being "not combat related". Socorro Jurídico later revised its count of government killings for 1981 up to 16,000 with the induction of new cases.

Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Monterrosa was chosen to replace Colonial Jaime Flores and became military commander of the whole eastern zone of El Salvador. He was a rare thing: "pure, one-hundred-percent soldier, a natural leader, a born military man." Monterrosa did not want wholesale bloodshed, but he wanted to win the war at any costs. He tried to be more relatable and less arrogant to the local population in the way he presented his military. When he first executed massacres he didn't think much of it because it was part of his military training and because it was tactically approved by the High Command, but he didn't consider whether it would become a political problem. He was accused of responsibility for what happened at El Mozote, though he denied it. Monterrosa later began to date a Salvadoran woman who worked in the press corps, for an American television network. Monterrosa's girlfriend let her co-worker know that something had gone wrong at El Mozote, though she did not go into detail. But people knew that he had lost radio contact with his men and that it was unfortunate and something that later brought regrettable consequences. Although he says he lost contact with his men, the guerrillas did not believe it and said it was well known to everyone that he had ordered the massacre. In an interview with James LeMoyne, however, he stated that he did in fact order his men to "clean out" El Mozote.

José Napoleón Duarte at a Christian Democratic Party press conference during the Salvadoran war (1982)

In 1982, the FMLN began calling for a peace settlement that would establish a "government of broad participation". The Reagan administration said the FMLN wanted to create a Communist dictatorship. Elections were interrupted with right-wing paramilitary attacks and FMLN-suggested boycotts. El Salvador's National Federation of Lawyers, which represented all of the country's bar associations, refused to participate in drafting the 1982 electoral law. The lawyers said that the elections couldn't possibly be free and fair during a state of siege that suspended all basic rights and freedoms.

Attacks against military and economic targets by the FMLN began to escalate. The FMLN attacked the Ilopango Air Force Base in San Salvador, destroying six of the Air Force's 14 Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters, five of its 18 Dassault Ouragan aircraft and three C-47s. Between February and April, a total of 439 acts of sabotage were reported. The number of acts of sabotage involving explosives or arson rose to 782 between January and September. The United States Embassy estimated the damage to the economic infrastructure at US$98 million. FMLN also carried out large-scale operations in the capital city and temporarily occupied urban centres in the country's interior. According to some reports, the number of rebels ranged between 4,000 and 5,000; other sources put the number at between 6,000 and 9,000.

Pursuant to measures implemented by the JRG junta on 18 October 1979, elections for an interim government were held on 29 April 1982. The Legislative Assembly voted on three candidates nominated by the armed forces; Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja was elected by 36 votes to 17, ahead of the Party of National Conciliation and the hard right Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) candidates. Roberto D'Aubuisson accused Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez Avendaño of imposing on the Assembly "his personal decision to put Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja in the presidency" in spite of a "categorical no" from the ARENA deputies. Magana was sworn into office on 2 May.

Decree No. 6 of the National Assembly suspended phase III of the implementation of the agrarian reform, and was itself later amended. The Apaneca Pact was signed on 3 August 1982, establishing a Government of National Unity, whose objectives were peace, democratization, human rights, economic recovery, security and a strengthened international position. An attempt was made to form a transitional government that would establish a democratic system. Lack of agreement among the forces that made up the government and the pressures of the armed conflict prevented any substantive changes from being made during Magaña's presidency.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported that, on 24 May 1982, a clandestine cemetery containing the corpses of 150 disappeared persons was discovered near Puerta del Diablo, Panchimalco, approximately twelve kilometers from San Salvador. On 10 June 1982, almost 4,000 Salvadoran troops carried out a "cleanup" operation in the rebel-controlled Chalatenango province. Over 600 civilians were reportedly massacred during the Army sweep. The Salvadoran field commander acknowledged that an unknown number of civilian rebel sympathizers or "masas" were killed, while declaring the operation a success. Nineteen days later, the Army massacred 27 unarmed civilians during house raids in a San Salvador neighborhood. The women were raped and murdered. Everyone was dragged from their homes into the street and then executed. "The operation was a success," said the Salvadoran Defense Ministry communique. "This action was a result of training and professionalization of our officers and soldiers."

During 1982 and 1983, government forces killed approximately 8,000 civilians a year. Although the figure is substantially less than the figures reported by human rights groups in 1980 and 1981, targeted executions as well as indiscriminate killings nonetheless remained an integral policy of the army and internal security forces, part of what Professor William Stanley described as a "strategy of mass murder" designed to terrorize the civilian population as well as opponents of the government. General Adolfo Blandón, the Salvadoran armed forces chief of staff during much of the 1980s, has stated, "Before 1983, we never took prisoners of war."

In March 1983, Marianella García Villas, president of the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, was captured by army troops on the Guazapa volcano, and later tortured to death. Garcia Villas had been on Guazapa collecting evidence about the possible army use of white phosphorus munitions.

In April 1983, Melida Anaya Montes, a leader of the Popular Forces for Liberation (FPL) "Farabundo Martí", a communist party-affiliated militia, was murdered in Managua, Nicaragua. Salvador Cayetano Carpio, her superior in the FPL, was allegedly implicated in her murder. He committed suicide in Managua shortly after Anaya Montes' murder. Their deaths influenced the course within the FMLN of the FPL's Prolonged Popular War strategy.

On 7 February 1984, nine labor union leaders, including all seven top officials of one major labor federation, were arrested by the Salvadoran National Police and sent to be tried by a military court. The arrests were part of Duarte's moves to crack down on labor unions after more than 80 trade unionists were detained in a raid by the National Police. The police confiscated the union's files and took videotape mugshots of each union member.

During a 15-day interrogation, the nine labor leaders were beaten during late-night questioning and were told to confess to being guerrillas. They were then forced to sign a written confession while blindfolded. They were never charged with being guerrillas but the official police statement said they were accused of planning to "present demands to management for higher wages and benefits and promoting strikes, which destabilize the economy." A U.S. official said the embassy had "followed the arrests closely and was satisfied that the correct procedures were followed."

In 1984 elections, Christian Democrat José Napoleón Duarte won the presidency (with 54 percent of the votes) against Army Major Roberto d'Aubuisson of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). The elections were held under military rule amidst high levels of repression and violence, however, and candidates to the left of Duarte's brand of Christian Democrats were excluded from participating. Fearful of a d'Aubuisson presidency for public relations purposes, the CIA financed Duarte's campaign with some two million dollars. $10 million were put into the election as a whole, by the CIA, for electoral technology, administration and international observers.

U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Thomas Pickering and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick.

Following a proposal from Nils Thedin to UNICEF, "Days of tranquillity" were brokered between Government and rebel forces, under the direction of UNICEF Executive Director James Grant. For three days in 1985, all hostilities ceased to allow for mass-immunisation of any child against polio, measles, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. The program was successful. More than half of El Salvador's 400,000 children were immunised from 2,000 immunisation centres by 20,000 health workers, and the program was repeated in subsequent years until the conclusion of the war. Similar programs have since been instituted in Uganda, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Sudan.

While reforms were being made to the security forces, the army continued to massacre unarmed civilians in the country side. An Americas Watch report noted that the Atlácatl Battalion killed 80 unarmed civilians in Cabanas in July 1984, and carried out another massacre one month later, killing 50 displaced people in the Chalatenango province. The women were raped and then everyone was systematically executed.

Through 1984 and 1985, the Salvadoran Armed Forces enacted a series of "civic-action" programs in Chalatenango province, consisting of the establishment of "citizen defense committees" to guard plantations and businesses against attacks by insurgents and the establishment of a number of free-fire zones. These measures were implemented under former Cabanas commander, Lieutenant Colonel Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, who had previously been exiled to the US Army War College for mutiny. By January 1985 Ochoa's forces had established 12 free-fire zones in Chalatenango in which any inhabitants unidentified by the army were deemed to be insurgents. Ochoa stated in an interview that areas within the free fire zone were susceptible to indiscriminate bombings by the Salvadoran Air Force. Ochoa's forces were implicated in a massacre of about 40 civilians in an Army sweep through one of the free fire zones in August 1985. Ochoa refused to permit the Red Cross to enter these areas to deliver humanitarian aid to the victims. Ochoa's forces reportedly uprooted some 1,400 civilian rebel supporters with mortar fire between September and November 1984.

During the Central American Peace Accords negotiations in 1987, the FMLN demanded that all death squads be disbanded and the members be held accountable. In October 1987, the Salvadoran Assembly approved an amnesty for civil-war-related crimes. The Amnesty law required the release of all prisoners suspected of being guerrillas and guerrilla sympathizers. Pursuant to these laws, 400 political prisoners were released. Insurgents were given a period of fifteen days to turn themselves over to the security forces in exchange for amnesty. Despite amnesty being granted to guerillas and political prisoners, amnesty was also granted to members of the army, security forces and paramilitary who were involved in human rights abuses.

In October 1988, Amnesty International reported that death squads had abducted, tortured, and killed, hundreds of suspected dissidents in the preceding eighteen months. Most of the victims were trade unionists and members of cooperatives, human rights workers, members of the judiciary involved in efforts to establish criminal responsibility for human rights violations, returned refugees and displaced persons, and released political prisoners.

The squads comprised intelligence sections of the Armed Forces and the security services. They customarily wore plain clothes and made use of trucks or vans with tinted windows and without license plates. They were "chillingly efficient", said the report. Victims were sometimes shot from passing cars, in the daytime and in front of eyewitnesses. At other times, victims were kidnapped from their homes or on the streets and their bodies found dumped far from the scene. Others were forcefully "disappeared." Victims were "customarily found mutilated, decapitated, dismembered, strangled or showing marks of torture or rape." The death squad style was "to operate in secret but to leave mutilated bodies of victims as a means of terrifying the population."

President Alfredo Cristiani, September 1989

Outraged by the results of the 1988 fixed elections and the military's use of terror tactics and voter intimidation, the FMLN launched a major offensive known as the " final offensive of 1989" with the aim of unseating the government of President Alfredo Cristiani on 11 November 1989. This offensive brought the epicenter of fighting into the wealthy suburbs of San Salvador for essentially the first time in the history of the conflict, as the FMLN began a campaign of selective assassinations against political and military officials, civil officials, and upper-class private citizens.

On 13 February, the Atlácatl Battalion attacked a guerrilla field hospital and killed at least 10 people, including five patients, a physician and a nurse. Two of the female victims showed signs that they had been raped before they were executed.

Nearly two weeks earlier, US Vice President Dan Quayle on a visit to San Salvador told army leaders that human rights abuses committed by the military had to stop. Sources associated with the military said afterword that Quayle's warning was dismissed as propaganda for American consumption aimed at the US Congress and public. At the same time, critics argued US military advisors were possibly sending a different message to the Salvadoran military: "Do what you need to do to stop the commies, just don't get caught". A former US intelligence officer suggested the death squads needed to leave less visual evidence, that they should stop dumping bodies on the side of the road because "they have an ocean and they ought to use it". The School of the Americas, founded by the United States, trained many members of the Salvadoran military, including Roberto D'Aubuisson, organizer of death squads, and military officers linked to the murder of Jesuit priests.

In a 29 November 1989 press conference, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said he believed President Cristiani was in control of the army and defended the government's crackdown on opponents as "absolutely appropriate". The US Trade Representative told Human Rights Watch that the government's repression of trade unionists was justified on the grounds that they were guerrilla supporters.

In San Salvador on 1 October 1989, eight people were killed and 35 others were injured when a death squad bombed the headquarters of the leftist labor confederation, the National Trade Union Federation of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS).

Earlier the same day, another bomb exploded outside the headquarters of a victims' advocacy group, the Committee of Mothers and Family Members of Political Prisoners, Disappeared and Assassinated of El Salvador, injuring four others.

As early as the 1980s, the University of Central America fell under attack from the army and death squads. On 16 November 1989, five days after the beginning of the FMLN offensive, uniformed soldiers of the Atlácatl Battalion entered the campus of the University of Central America in the middle of the night and executed six Jesuit priests- Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Joaquín López y López, Juan Ramón Moreno, and Amando López-and their housekeepers (a mother and daughter, Elba Ramos and Celia Marisela Ramos). The priests were dragged from their beds on the campus, machine gunned to death and their corpses mutilated. The mother and daughter were found shot to death in the bed they shared. The Atlácatl Battalion was reportedly under the tutelage of U.S. special forces just 48 hours before the killings. One day later, six men and one youth were slaughtered by government soldiers in the capital, San Salvador. According to relatives and neighbors who witnessed the killings, the six men were lined up against a masonry wall and shot to death. The seventh youth who happened to be walking by at the time was also executed.

The Salvadoran government then began a campaign to dismantle a liberal Catholic church network that the army said were "front organizations" supporting the guerrillas. Church offices were raided and workers were arrested and expelled. Targets included priests, lay workers and foreign employees of humanitarian agencies, providing social services to the poor: food programs, healthcare, relief for the displaced. One church volunteer, who was a U.S. citizen, said she was blindfolded, tortured and interrogated in Treasury Police headquarters in San Salvador while a U.S. vice consul "having coffee with the colonel in charge" did nothing to intervene.

The murder of the six Jesuit priests and the November 1989 "final offensive" by the FMLN in San Salvador, however, were key turning points that increased international pressure and domestic pressure from war-weary constituents that alternatives to the military stalemate needed to be found. International support for the FMLN was declining with the end of the Cold War just as international support for the Salvadoran armed forces was weakening as the Reagan administration gave way to the less ideological Bush administration, and the end of the Cold War lessened the anti-Communist concerns about a potential domino effect in Central America.

By the late 1980s, 75 percent of the population lived in poverty. The living standards of most Salvadorans declined by 30 percent since 1983. Unemployment or underemployment increased to 50 percent. Most people, moreover, still didn't have access to clean water or healthcare. The armed forces were feared, inflation rose almost 40 percent, capital flight reached an estimated $1 billion, and the economic elite avoided paying taxes. Despite nearly $3 billion in American economic assistance, per capita income declined by one third.

American aid was distributed to urban businesses although the impoverished majority received almost none of it. The concentration of wealth was even higher than before the U.S.-administered land reform program. The agrarian law generated windfall profits for the economic elite and buried the cooperatives in debts that left them incapable of competing in the capital markets. The oligarchs often took back the land from bankrupt peasants who couldn't obtain the credit necessary to pay for seeds and fertilizer. Although, "few of the poor would dream of seeking legal redress against a landlord because virtually no judge would favor a poor man." By 1989, 1 percent of the landowners owned 41 percent of the tillable land, while 60 percent of the rural population owned 0 percent.

President Bush authorized the release of $42.5 million in military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces on 16 January 1991. In late January, the Usulután offices of the Democratic Convergence, a coalition of left-of-center parties, were attacked with grenades. On 21 February, a candidate for the Democratic National Unity (UDN) party and his pregnant wife were assassinated after ignoring death squad threats to leave the country or die. On the last day of the campaign, another UDN candidate was shot in her eye when Arena party gunmen opened fire on campaign activists putting up posters. Despite fraudulent elections orchestrated by Arena through voter intimidation, sabotage of polling stations by the Arena-dominated Central Elections Council and the disappearing of tens of thousands of names from the voting lists, the official U.S. observation team declared them "free and fair."

Death squad killings and disappearances remained steady throughout 1991 as well as torture, false imprisonment, and attacks on civilians by the Army and security forces. Opposition politicians, members of church and grassroots organizations representing peasants, women and repatriated refugees suffered constant death threats, arrests, surveillance and break-ins all year. The FMLN killed two wounded U.S. military advisers and carried out indiscriminate attacks, kidnappings and assassinations of civilians. The war intensified in mid-1991, as both the army and the FMLN attempted to gain the advantage in the United Nations-brokered peace talks prior to a cease-fire. Indiscriminate attacks and executions by the armed forces increased as a result. Eventually, by April 1991, negotiations resumed, resulting in a truce that successfully concluded in January 1992, bringing about the war's end. On 16 January 1992, the Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed in Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City, to bring peace to El Salvador. The Armed Forces were regulated, a civilian police force was established, the FMLN metamorphosed from a guerrilla army to a political party, and an amnesty law was legislated in 1993.

The peace process set up under the Chapultepec Accords was monitored by the United Nations from 1991 until June 1997 when it closed its special monitoring mission in El Salvador.

In 1996, U.S. authorities acknowledged for the first time that U.S. military personnel had died in combat during the civil war. Officially, American advisers were prohibited from participating in combat operations, but they carried weapons, and accompanied Salvadoran army soldiers in the field and were subsequently targeted by rebels. 21 Americans were killed in action during the civil war and more than 5,000 served.

During the 2004 elections, White House Special Assistant Otto Reich gave a phone-in press conference at ARENA party headquarters. He reportedly said he was worried about the impact an FMLN win could have on the country's "economic, commercial, and migratory relations with the United States." In February 2004, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega told voters to "consider what kind of a relationship they want a new administration to have with us." He met with all the candidates except Schafik Handal, the FMLN candidate. This prompted 28 US Congress members to send a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell saying Mr. Noriega "crossed a boundary" and that his remarks were perceived as "interference in Salvadoran electoral affairs." A week later, two US congressmen blasted Reich's comments as inflammatory.

At war's end, the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador registered more than 22,000 complaints of political violence in El Salvador, dating between January 1980 and July 1991, 60 percent about summary killing, 25 percent about kidnapping, and 20 percent about torture. These complaints attributed almost 85 percent of the violence to the Salvadoran Army and security forces alone. The Salvadoran Armed Forces, which were massively supported by the United States (4.6 billion dollars in 2009), were accused in 60 percent of the complaints, the security forces (i.e. the National Guard, Treasury Police and the National Police) in 25 percent, military escorts and civil defense units in 20 percent of complaints, the death squads in approximately 10 percent, and the FMLN in 5 percent. The Truth Commission could collect only a significant sample of the full number of potential complaints, having had only three months to collect it. The report concluded that more than 70,000 people were killed, many in the course of gross violation of their human rights. More than 25 per cent of the populace was displaced as refugees before the U.N. peace treaty in 1992.

The statistics presented in the Truth Commission's report are consistent with both previous and retrospective assessments by the international community and human rights monitors, which documented that the majority of the violence and repression in El Salvador was attributable to government agencies, primarily the National Guard and the Salvadoran Army. A 1984 Amnesty International report stated that many of the 40,000 people killed in the preceding five years had been murdered by government forces, who openly dumped their mutilated corpses in an apparent effort to terrorize the population.

The government mostly killed peasants, but many other opponents suspected of sympathy with the guerrillas-clergy (men and women), church lay workers, political activists, journalists, labor unionists (leaders, rank-and-file), medical workers, liberal students and teachers, and human-rights monitors were also killed. The killings were carried out by the security forces, the Army, the National Guard, and the Treasury Police; but it was the paramilitary death squads that gave the Government plausible deniability of, and accountability for the killings. Typically, a death squad dressed in civilian clothes and traveled in anonymous vehicles (dark windows, blank license plates). The deaths squads tactics included publishing future-victim death lists, delivering coffins to said future victims, and sending the target-person an invitation to his/her own funeral. Cynthia Arnson, a Latin American-affairs writer for Human Rights Watch, says: the objective of death-squad-terror seemed not only to eliminate opponents, but also, through torture and the gruesome disfigurement of bodies, to terrorize the population. In the mid-1980s, state terror against civilians became open with indiscriminate bombing from military airplanes, planted mines, and the harassment of national and international medical personnel. Author George Lopez writes that "although death rates attributable to the death squads have declined in El Salvador since 1983, non-combatant victims of the civil war have increased dramatically".

Though the violations of the FMLN accounted for five percent or less of those documented by the Truth Commission, the FMLN continuously violated the human rights of many Salvadorans and other individuals identified as right-wing supporters, military targets, pro-government politicians, intellectuals, public officials, and judges. These violations included kidnapping, bombings, rape, and killing.

In accordance with the peace agreements, the constitution was amended to prohibit the military from playing an internal security role except under extraordinary circumstances. During the period of fulfilling of the peace agreements, the Minister of Defense was General Humberto Corado Figueroa. Demobilization of Salvadoran military forces generally proceeded on schedule throughout the process. The Treasury Police and National Guard were abolished, and military intelligence functions were transferred to civilian control. By 1993-nine months ahead of schedule-the military had cut personnel from a wartime high of 63,000 to the level of 32,000 required by the peace accords. By 1999, ESAF's strength stood at less than 15,000, including uniformed and non-uniformed personnel, consisting of personnel in the army, navy, and air force. A purge of military officers accused of human rights abuses and corruption was completed in 1993 in compliance with the Ad Hoc Committee's recommendations.

The new civilian police force, created to replace the discredited public security forces, deployed its first officers in March 1993, and was present throughout the country by the end of 1994. In 1999, the PNC had over 18,000 officers. The PNC faced many challenges in building a completely new police force. With common crime rising dramatically since the end of the war, over 500 PNC officers had been killed in the line of duty by late 1998. PNC officers also have arrested a number of their own in connection with various high-profile crimes, and a "purification" process to weed out unfit personnel from throughout the force was undertaken in late 2000.

On 26 October 1987, Herbert Ernesto Anaya, head of the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (CDHES), was assassinated. His killing provoked four days' of political protest-during which his remains were displayed before the U.S. embassy and then before the Salvadoran armed forces headquarters. The National Union of Salvadoran Workers said: "Those who bear sole responsibility for this crime are José Napoleón Duarte, the U.S. embassy...and the high command of the armed forces". In its report the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, established as part of the El Salvador peace agreement, stated that it could not establish for sure whether the death squads, the Salvadoran Army or the FMLN was responsible for Anaya's death.

Moreover, the FMLN and the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) also protested Mr. Anaya's assassination by suspending negotiations with the Duarte government on 29 October 1987. The same day, Reni Roldán resigned from the Commission of National Reconciliation, saying: "The murder of Anaya, the disappearance of university labor leader Salvador Ubau, and other events do not seem to be isolated incidents. They are all part of an institutionalized pattern of conduct". Mr. Anaya's assassination evoked international indignation: the West German government, the West German Social Democratic Party, and the French government asked President Duarte to clarify the circumstances of the crime. United Nations Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Americas Watch, Amnesty International, and other organizations protested against the assassination of the leader of the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador.

Monsignor Óscar Romero Memorial Plaza in Los Angeles.

Groups seeking investigation or retribution for actions during the war have sought the involvement of other foreign courts. In 2008 the Spanish Association for Human Rights and a California organization called the Center for Justice and Accountability jointly filed a lawsuit in Spain against former President Cristiani and former defense minister Larios in the matter of the 1989 slaying of several Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter. The lawsuit accused Cristiani of a cover-up of the killings and Larios of participating in the meeting where the order to kill them was given; the groups asked the Spanish court to intervene on the principle of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity.

Long after the war, in a U.S. federal court, in the case of Ford vs. García the families of the murdered Maryknoll nuns sued the two Salvadoran generals believed responsible for the killings, but lost; the jury found Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, ex-National Guard Leader and Duarte's defense minister, and Gen. José Guillermo Garcia-defense minister from 1979 to 1984, not responsible for the killings; the families appealed and lost, and, in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their final appeal. A second case, against the same generals, succeeded in the same Federal Court; the three plaintiffs in Romagoza vs. García won a judgment exceeding US$54 million compensation for having been tortured by the military during El Salvador's Civil War.

The day after losing a court appeal in October 2009, the two generals were put into deportation proceedings by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), at the urging of U.S. Senators Richard Durbin (Democrat) and Tom Coburn (Republican), according to the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA). Those deportation proceedings had been stalled by May 2010.

The Spanish judge who issued indictments and arrest warrants for 20 former members of the Salvadoran military, charged with murder, Crimes Against Humanity and Terrorism requested that U.S. agencies declassify documents related to the killings of the Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter but were denied access. In his report, Judge Velasco writes:

"The agencies in charge of making the information public have identified 3,000 other documents that remain secret and are not available; the reasoning given is that privacy is needed to protect sources and methods. Many of the documents, from the CIA and the Defense Department, are not available..."

The Cold War with the Soviet Union and other communist nations at least partially explains the backdrop against which the U.S. government aided various pro-government Salvadoran groups and opposed the FMLN. The U.S. State Department reported on intelligence that the FMLN was receiving clandestine guidance and arms from the Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Soviet governments. While this White Paper on El Salvador later received criticism from some academics and journalists, it has also been largely substantiated based on the evidence available at the time. The closure of the Cold War between 1989 and 1991 reduced the incentive for ongoing U.S. involvement and invited broad international support for the negotiation process that would lead to the 1992 peace accords.

The political and economic divisions at play in El Salvador during the civil war were complex, which is often overlooked by scholars and analysts eager to vindicate one side or the other. More research is needed, for example, to shed light on Salvadorans that resisted as political independents or as part of pro-democracy coalitions. After a 2012 historians seminar at the University of El Salvador commemorating the 20th anniversary of the peace accords, Michael Allison concluded:

"Most postwar discourse has been driven by elites who participated in the conflict either on the part of the guerrillas or the government. It's not that these individuals' perspectives are wrong; it is just healthier if they are challenged or supplemented by outside views."

Bonner, Raymond (1984). Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador. New York, NY: Times Books. ISBN 9780812911084.

Commission on the Truth for El Salvador (1993). From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador (PDF). UN Security Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 January 2011.

Federal Research Division (1988). A Country Study: El Salvador. Washington, DC: US Library of Congress.

Guzman, John (2011). Reflections behind the retina. United States: Xlibris. ISBN 9781465309440.

LeoGrande, William M. (1998). Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807848579.

Binford, Leigh (1996). The El Mozote Massacre. University of Arizona Press.

Wright, Barbara. White Hands (Novel Excerpt). Stony Brook, NY: Southampton Review, Vol. IV, No. 1, Spring 2010. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011.

Lafeber, Walter (1993). Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New York City, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393309645. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America.

Carothers, Thomas (1993). In the Name of Democracy: U.S. Policy Toward Latin America in the Reagan Years. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520073197.

Lowenthal, Abraham (1991). Exporting democracy: the United States and Latin America : themes and issues. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801841323.

Anderson, Scott (1986). Inside the League: the shocking exposé of how terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American death squads have infiltrated the world Anti-Communist League. Dodd Mead. ISBN 9780396085171.

Grandin, Greg (2007). Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 9780805077384.

McClintock, Michael (1992). Instruments of statecraft: U.S. guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency, and counter-terrorism, 1940-1990. Pantheon Books.

Ugalde, A.; Selva-Sutter, E.; Castillo, C.; Paz, C.; Cañas, S. (2000). "The health costs of war: Can they be measured? Lessons from El Salvador". British Medical Journal. 321 (7254): 169-172. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7254.169. PMC . PMID 10894700.

Journals/academic studies

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Salvadoran Civil War Part of the Central American crisis and the Cold War Clockwise: Guerrilla camp in Morazán in 1983; Salvadoran Armed Forces soldiers; Ronald Reagan and José Napoleón Duarte in 1985; The final offensive of 1981; Guerrillas in Perquín, Morazán in 1990.

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The Eritrean War of Independence was a conflict fought between successive Ethiopian governments and Eritrean independence fighters from 1 September 1961 to 24 May 1991.

After the defeat of the Italians from Eritrea by the Allies in 1941, Eritrea became a British protectorate until 1951. The General Assembly of the United Nations held a meeting about the fate of Eritrea, in which the majority of the delegates voted for the federation of Eritrea with Ethiopia, and Eritrea became a constituent state of the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1952. The Federation was supposed to last for ten years in which Eritreans could have mini sovereign decisions such as a parliament and some autonomy, but under the Ethiopian crown for further ones. The Assembly also assigned commissioner Anzio Mattienzo to supervise the process. Eritreans were supposed to claim Eritrea as an independent sovereign state after the ten years of federation. However, Eritrea's declining autonomy and growing discontent with Ethiopian rule caused an independence movement led by the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in 1961. Hamid Idris Awate officially began the Eritrean armed struggle for independence on 1 September 1961 on the mountain of Adal, near the town of Agordat in south western Eritrea. Ethiopia annexed Eritrea the next year.

Following the Ethiopian Revolution in 1974, the Derg abolished the Ethiopian Empire and established a Marxist-Leninist communist state. The Derg enjoyed support from the Soviet Union and other communist nations in fighting against the Eritreans supported by the United States and various other nations. The Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) became the main liberation group in 1977, expelling the ELF from Eritrea, then exploiting the Ogaden War to launch a war of attrition against Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government under the Workers Party of Ethiopia lost Soviet support at the end of the 1980s and were overwhelmed by Ethiopian anti-government groups, allowing the EPLF to defeat Ethiopian forces in Eritrea in May 1991.

The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), with the help of the EPLF, defeated the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) when it took control of the capital Addis Ababa a month later. In April 1993, the Eritrean people voted almost unanimously in favour of independence in the Eritrean independence referendum, with formal international recognition of an independent, sovereign Eritrea in the same year.

The Italians colonised Eritrea in 1890. In 1936, Italy invaded Ethiopia and declared it part of their colonial empire, which they called Italian East Africa. Italian Somaliland was also part of that entity. There was a unified Italian administration.[citation needed ]

Conquered by the Allies in 1941, Italian East Africa was sub-divided. Ethiopia reoccupied its formerly Italian occupied lands in 1941. Italian Somaliland remained under Italian rule, but as a United Nations protectorate not a colony, until 1960 when it united with British Somaliland, to form the independent state of Somalia.

Eritrea was made a British protectorate from the end of World War II until 1951. However, there was debate as to what should happen with Eritrea after the British left. The British delegation to the United Nations proposed that Eritrea be divided along religious lines with the Christians to Ethiopia and the Muslims to Sudan. In 1952, the United Nations decided to federate Eritrea to Ethiopia, hoping to reconcile Ethiopian claims of sovereignty and Eritrean aspirations for independence. About nine years later, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie dissolved the federation and annexed Eritrea, triggering a thirty-year armed struggle in Eritrea.

During the 1960s, the Eritrean independence struggle was led by the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). The independence struggle can properly be understood as the resistance to the annexation of Eritrea by Ethiopia long after the Italians left the territory. Additionally, one may consider the actions of the Ethiopian Monarchy against Muslims in the Eritrean government as a contributing factor to the revolution. At first, this group factionalized the liberation movement along ethnic and geographic lines. The initial four zonal commands of the ELF were all lowland areas and primarily Muslim. Few Christians joined the organization in the beginning, fearing Muslim domination.

After growing disenfranchisement with Ethiopian occupation, highland Christians began joining the ELF. Typically these Christians were part of the upper class or university-educated. This growing influx of Christian volunteers prompted the opening of the fifth (highland Christian) command. Internal struggles within the ELF command coupled with sectarian violence among the various zonal groups splintered the organization.

The war started on 1 September 1961 with the Battle of Adal, when Hamid Idris Awate and his companions fired the first shots against the occupying Ethiopian Army and police. In 1962, Emperor Haile Selassie unilaterally dissolved the federation and the Eritrean parliament and annexed the country.

War (1961-1991)

In 1970 members of the group had a falling out, and several different groups broke away from the ELF. During this time, the ELF and the groups that later joined together to form the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) fought a bitter civil war. The two organizations were forced by popular will to reconcile in 1974 and participated in joint operations against Ethiopia.

In 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was ousted in a coup. The new Ethiopian government, called the Derg, was a Marxist military junta, which eventually came to be controlled by strongman Mengistu Haile Mariam. The new Derg regime took an additional three to four years to get complete control of both Ethiopia, Eritrea, and parts of Somalia. With this change of government and eventually widely known recognition, Ethiopia became directly under the influence of the Soviet Union.

Many of the groups that splintered from the ELF joined together in 1977 and formed the EPLF. By the late 1970s, the EPLF had become the dominant armed Eritrean group fighting against the Ethiopian government. The leader of the umbrella organization was Secretary-General of the EPLF Ramadan Mohammed Nour, while the Assistant Secretary-General was Isaias Afewerki. Much of the equipment used to combat Ethiopia was captured from the Ethiopian Army.

During this time, the Derg could not control the population by force alone. To supplement its garrisons, forces were sent on missions to instill fear in the population. An illustrative example of this policy was the village of Basik Dera in northern Eritrea. On 30 November 1970, the entire village was rounded up into the local mosque and the mosque's doors were locked. The building was then razed and the survivors were shot[citation needed ]. Similar massacres took place in primarily Muslim parts of Eritrea, including the villages of She'eb, Hirgigo, Elabared, and the town of Om Hajer; massacres also took place in predominately Christian areas as well. The advent of these brutal killings of civilians regardless of race, religion, or class was the final straw for many Eritreans who were not involved in the war, and at this point many either fled the country or went to the front lines.

From 1975 to 1977, the ELF and EPLF outnumbered the Ethiopian army and overran all of Eritrea except Asmara, Massawa, and Barentu. By 1977, the EPLF was poised to drive the Ethiopians out of Eritrea, by utilizing a simultaneous military invasion from the east by Somalia in the Ogaden to siphon off Ethiopian military resources. The Somali invasion surprised many experts in the west due to the initial successes, however the Soviet Union, Cuba and Yemen came to the government's aid allowing them to prevent the Somalis from coming to the capital. This turnaround was possible thanks mainly to a massive airlift of Soviet arms, the deployment of 18,000 Cubans and two Yemeni brigades to reinforce Harar. After that, using the considerable manpower and military hardware available from the Somali campaign, the Ethiopian Army regained the initiative and forced the EPLF to retreat. This was most notable in the Battle of Barentu and the Battle of Massawa.

Between 1978 and 1986, the Derg launched eight major offensives against the independence movements, but all failed to crush the guerrilla movement. In 1988, with the Battle of Afabet, the EPLF captured Afabet and its surroundings, then headquarters of the Ethiopian Army in northeastern Eritrea, prompting the Ethiopian Army to withdraw from its garrisons in Eritrea's western lowlands. EPLF fighters then moved into position around Keren, Eritrea's second-largest city. Meanwhile, other dissident movements were making headway throughout Ethiopia.

Throughout the conflict Ethiopia used "anti-personnel gas", napalm, and other incendiary devices.

At the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union informed Mengistu that it would not be renewing its defence and cooperation agreement. With the cessation of Soviet support and supplies, the Ethiopian Army's morale plummeted, and the EPLF, along with other Ethiopian rebel forces, began to advance on Ethiopian positions. The joint effort to overthrow the Mengistu, Marxist regime was a joint effort of mostly EPLF forces, united with other Ethiopian faction groups primarily consisting of tribal liberation fronts (for example: the Oromo Liberation Front, the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front - who were jointly in battles against the ELF and other key battles where many Tigrayans were lost in the Eritrean Civil Wars - and the EPRDF, a conglomerate of the current TPLF regime and the marxist Oromo People's Democratic Organization who became prominent for recruiting Derg defectors as the EPLF and EPRDF occupied parts of the provinces of Wollo and Shewa in Ethiopia).

The former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, with the help of some U.S. government officials and United Nation officials, attempted to mediate in peace talks with the EPLF, hosted by the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, Georgia in September 1989. Ashagre Yigletu, Deputy Prime Minister of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE), helped negotiate and signed a November 1989 peace deal with the EPLF in Nairobi, along with Jimmy Carter and Al-Amin Mohamed Seid. However, soon after the deal was signed, hostilities resumed. Yigletu also led the Ethiopian government delegations in peace talks with the TPLF leader Meles Zenawi in November 1989 and March 1990 in Rome. He also attempted again to lead the Ethiopian delegation in peace talks with the EPLF in Washington, D.C. until March 1991.

After the end of the Cold War, the United States played a facilitative role in the peace talks in Washington, D.C. during the months leading up to the May 1991 fall of the Mengistu regime. In mid-May, Mengistu resigned as head of the Ethiopian government and went into exile in Zimbabwe, leaving a caretaker government in Addis Ababa. A high-level U.S. delegation was present in Addis Ababa for the 1-5 July 1991 conference that established a transitional government in Ethiopia. Having defeated the Ethiopian forces in Eritrea, the EPLF attended as an observer and held talks with the new transitional government regarding Eritrea's relationship to Ethiopia. The outcome of those talks was an agreement in which the Ethiopians recognized the right of the Eritreans to hold a referendum on independence. The referendum was held in April 1993 and the Eritrean people voted almost unanimously in favour of independence, with the integrity of the referendum being verified by the UN Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (UNOVER). On 28 May 1993, the United Nations formally admitted Eritrea to its membership. Below are the results from the referendum:

Bibliography

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Eritrean War of Independence - Wikipedia

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The Eritrean War of Independence was a conflict fought between successive Ethiopian governments and Eritrean independence fighters from 1 September 1961 to 24 May 1991. After the defeat of the Italians from Eritrea by the Allies in 1941, Eritrea became a British protectorate until 1951.

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Angolan Civil War

Part of the Cold War (until 1991) and the First & Second Congo War (from 1996 onwards)

Clockwise from top left

Date

11 November 1975 - 4 April 2002
(26 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 3 days)

Location

Result

MPLA victory

Withdrawal of all foreign forces in 1989.

Transition towards a multiparty political system in 1991/92.

Dissolution of the armed forces of the FNLA.

Participation of UNITA and FNLA, as political parties, in the new political system, from 1991/92 onwards.

Jonas Savimbi, leader of UNITA, killed in 2002; UNITA abandoned armed struggle and participated in electoral politics.

Resistance of FLEC continued to this day

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

Agostinho Neto †
José Eduardo dos Santos
Iko Carreira
Kundi Paihama
João Lourenço
António Franca
Lúcio Lara
Fidel Castro
Antonio Batlle
Abelardo Colomé Ibarra
Arnaldo Ochoa
Raul Arguello †
Vasily Petrov
Valentin Varennikov
Sam Nujoma

Jonas Savimbi †
Jeremias Chitunda †
António Dembo
Paulo Lukamba
Demosthenes Chilingutila
Alberto Vinama
Kafundanga Chingunji
Arlindo Pena Ben-Ben
Holden Roberto
Daniel Chipenda (1975)
Luis Ranque Franque
Henrique N'zita Tiago
Rodrigues Mingas
Mobutu Sese Seko (1975)
B. J. Vorster (1975-1978)
P. W. Botha (1978-1989)

Strength

MPLA troops:

36,000 with 400 tanks (1976)[24]

35,000-37,000 (1982)[22]

60,000 (1988)[22]

337,033[25]-380,000[26] total (supported by 1,000 tanks, 600 armored vehicles and 1,600 artillery pieces)[27]

Altogether 11,000
(1975 to 1991)[28]

Classified with tens of aircraft (1999-2002)[15]

UNITA militants:

65,000 (1990, highest)[29]

FNLA militants:

22,000 (1975)[30]

4,000-7,000 (1976)[31]

7,000 (1975-1976)[32]

6,000 (1987-1988)[32]

Casualties and losses

Unknown
2,016-5,000 dead[33]
10,000-15,000 killed, wounded or missing[34][35]
56,000 deserters[36]
54 killed[37]

Unknown
Unknown
2,365[38]-2,500 dead[39] (including South African Border War deaths)
Unknown

800,000 killed and 4 million displaced[40]

Nearly 70,000 Angolans became amputees as a result of land mines[41]

The Angolan Civil War ( Portuguese: Guerra Civil Angolana) was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. It was a power struggle between two former anti-colonial guerrilla movements, the communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

The MPLA and UNITA had different roots in Angolan society and mutually incompatible leaderships, despite their shared aim of ending colonial rule. A third movement, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), having fought the MPLA with UNITA during the Angolan War of Independence, played almost no role in the Civil War. Additionally, the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), an association of separatist militant groups, fought for the independence of the province of Cabinda from Angola. With the assistance of Cuban soldiers and Soviet support, the MPLA managed to win the initial phase of conventional fighting, oust the FNLA from Luanda, and become the de facto Angolan government. The FNLA disintegrated, but the U.S.- and South Africa-backed UNITA continued its irregular warfare against the MPLA government from its base in the east and south of the country.

The 27-year war can be divided roughly into three periods of major fighting - from 1975 to 1991, 1992 to 1994 and from 1998 to 2002 - with fragile periods of peace. By the time the MPLA achieved victory in 2002, between 500,000 and 800,000 people had died and over one million had been internally displaced. The war devastated Angola's infrastructure and severely damaged public administration, the economy, and religious institutions.

The Angolan Civil War was notable due to the combination of Angola's violent internal dynamics and the exceptional degree of foreign military and political involvement. The war is widely considered a Cold War proxy conflict, as the Soviet Union and the United States, with their respective allies Cuba and South Africa, assisted the opposing factions. The conflict became closely intertwined with the Second Congo War in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo and the South African Border War. Land mines still litter the countryside and contribute to the ongoing civilian casualties.

Main combatants

Angola's three rebel movements had their roots in the anti-colonial movements of the 1950s. The MPLA was primarily an urban-based movement in Luanda and its surrounding area. It was largely composed of Mbundu people. By contrast, the other two major anti-colonial movements, the FNLA and UNITA, were rural groups. The FNLA primarily consisted of Bakongo people from Northern Angola. UNITA, an offshoot of the FNLA, was mainly composed of Ovimbundu people, Angola's largest ethnic group, from the Bié Plateau.

Since its formation in the 1950s, the MPLA's main social base has been among the Ambundu people and the multiracial intelligentsia of cities such as Luanda, Benguela and Huambo. During its anti-colonial struggle of 1962-1974, the MPLA was supported by several African countries and the Soviet Union. Cuba became the MPLA's strongest ally, sending significant combat and support personnel contingents to Angola. This support, as well as that of several other countries of the Eastern Bloc, e.g. East Germany, was maintained during the Civil War. Yugoslavia provided financial military support for the MPLA, including $14 million in 1977, as well as Yugoslav security personnel in the country and diplomatic training for Angolans in Belgrade. The United States Ambassador to Yugoslavia wrote of the Yugoslav relationship with the MPLA and remarked, " Tito clearly enjoys his role as patriarch of guerrilla liberation struggle." Agostinho Neto, MPLA's leader during the civil war, declared in 1977 that Yugoslav aid was constant and firm and described the help as extraordinary. According to a November 1978 special communique, Portuguese troops were among the 20,000 MPLA troops that participated in a major offensive in central and southern Angola.

The FNLA formed parallel to the MPLA and was initially devoted to defending the interests of the Bakongo people and supporting the restoration of the historical Kongo Empire. It rapidly developed into a nationalist movement, supported in its struggle against Portugal by the government of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. During 1974, the FNLA was also briefly supported by the People's Republic of China; but the aid was quickly withdrawn since China mainly supported the UNITA during the Angolan War of Independence. The United States refused to support the FNLA during the movement's war against Portugal, a NATO member but agreed during the civil war.

UNITA's main social basis were the Ovimbundu of central Angola, who constituted about one-third of the country's population, but the organization also had roots among several less numerous peoples of eastern Angola. UNITA was founded in 1966 by Jonas Savimbi, who until then had been a prominent leader of the FNLA. During the anti-colonial war, UNITA received some support from the People's Republic of China. With the onset of the civil war, the United States decided to support UNITA and considerably augmented their aid to UNITA in the following decades. In the latter period, UNITA's main ally was the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Roots of the conflict

Angola, like most African countries, became constituted as a nation through colonial intervention. Angola's colonial power was Portugal, which was present and active in the territory, in one way or another, for over four centuries.

Ethnic divisions

Map of Angola's major ethnic groups, c.1970

The original population of this territory were dispersed Khoisan groups. These were absorbed or pushed southwards, where residual groups still exist, by a massive influx of Bantu people who came from the north and east.

The Bantu influx began around 500 BC, and some continued their migrations inside the territory well into the 20th century. They established a number of major political units, of which the most important was the Kongo Empire, whose centre was located in the northwest of what today is Angola and which stretched northwards into the west of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the south and west of the contemporary Republic of Congo and even the southernmost part of Gabon.

Also of historical importance were the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms to the south of the Kongo Empire, in the Ambundu area. Additionally, the Lunda Empire occupied a portion of north-eastern Angola in the south-east of the present-day DRC. In the south of the territory, and the north of present-day Namibia, lay the Kwanyama kingdom, along with minor realms on the central highlands. All these political units were a reflection of ethnic cleavages that slowly developed among the Bantu populations and were instrumental in consolidating these cleavages and fostering the emergence of new and distinct social identities.

Portuguese colonialism

At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese settlers made contact with the Kongo Empire, maintaining a continuous presence in its territory and enjoying considerable cultural and religious influence after that. In 1575, Portugal established a settlement and fort called Saint Paul of Luanda on the coast south of the Kongo Empire, in an area inhabited by Ambundu people. Another fort, Benguela, was established on the coast further south, in a region inhabited by ancestors of the Ovimbundu people.

Neither of these Portuguese settlement efforts was launched for the purpose of territorial conquest. Both gradually came to occupy and farm a broad area around their initial bridgeheads (in the case of Luanda, mostly along the lower Kwanza River). Their main function was in the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves were bought from African intermediaries and sold to Portuguese colonies in Brazil and the Caribbean. In addition, Benguela developed commerce in ivory, wax, and honey, which they bought from Ovimbundu caravans which fetched these goods from among the Ganguela peoples in the eastern part of what is now Angola.

Portuguese colonies in Africa at the time of the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974)

Nonetheless, the Portuguese presence on the Angolan coast remained limited for much of the colonial period. The degree of real colonial settlement was minor, and, with few exceptions, the Portuguese did not interfere by means other than commercial in the social and political dynamics of the native peoples. There was no real delimitation of territory; Angola, to all intents and purposes, did not yet exist.

In the 19th century, the Portuguese began a more serious program of advancing into the continental interior. They wanted a de facto overlordship that allowed them to establish commercial networks and a few settlements. In this context, they also moved further south along the coast and founded the "third bridgehead" of Moçâmedes. In the course of this expansion, they entered into conflict with several of the African political units.

Territorial occupation only became a central concern for Portugal in the last decades of the 19th century, during the European powers' " Scramble for Africa", especially following the 1884 Berlin Conference. Several military expeditions were organized as preconditions for obtaining territory, which roughly corresponded to present-day Angola. By 1906, about 6% of that territory was effectively occupied, and the military campaigns had to continue. By the mid-1920s, the limits of the territory were finally fixed, and the last "primary resistance" was quelled in the early 1940s. It is thus reasonable to talk of Angola as a defined territorial entity from this point onwards.

Build-up to independence and rising tensions

Portuguese Army soldiers operating in the Angolan jungle in the early 1960s

In 1961, the FNLA and the MPLA, based in neighbouring countries, began a guerrilla campaign against Portuguese rule on several fronts. The Portuguese Colonial War, which included the Angolan War of Independence, lasted until the Portuguese regime's overthrow in 1974 through a leftist military coup in Lisbon. When the timeline for independence became known, most of the roughly 500,000 ethnic Portuguese Angolans fled the territory during the weeks before or after that deadline. Portugal left behind a newly independent country whose population was mainly composed of Ambundu, Ovimbundu, and Bakongo peoples. The Portuguese that lived in Angola accounted for the majority of the skilled workers in public administration, agriculture, and industry; once they fled the country, the national economy began to sink into depression.

The South African government initially became involved in an effort to counter the Chinese presence in Angola, which was feared might escalate the conflict into a local theatre of the Cold War. In 1975, South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster authorized Operation Savannah, which began as an effort to protect engineers constructing the dam at Calueque after unruly UNITA soldiers took over. The dam, paid for by South Africa, was felt to be at risk. The South African Defence Force (SADF) dispatched an armoured task force to secure Calueque. From this, Operation Savannah escalated; no formal government was in place and thus, no clear lines of authority. The South Africans came to commit thousands of soldiers to the intervention and ultimately clashed with Cuban forces assisting the MPLA.

Independence

After the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon and the end of the Angolan War of Independence, the parties of the conflict signed the Alvor Accords on 15 January 1975. In July 1975, the MPLA violently forced the FNLA out of Luanda, and UNITA voluntarily withdrew to its stronghold in the south. By August, the MPLA had control of 11 of the 15 provincial capitals, including Cabinda and Luanda. South Africa intervened on 23 October, sending between 1,500 and 2,000 troops from Namibia into southern Angola in order to support the FNLA and UNITA. Zaire, in a bid to install a pro- Kinshasa government and thwart the MPLA's drive for power, deployed armored cars, paratroopers, and three infantry battalions to Angola in support of the FNLA. Within three weeks, South African and UNITA forces had captured five provincial capitals, including Novo Redondo and Benguela. In response to the South African intervention, Cuba sent 18,000 soldiers as part of a large-scale military intervention nicknamed Operation Carlota in support of the MPLA. Cuba had initially provided the MPLA with 230 military advisers prior to the South African intervention. The Cuban intervention proved decisive in repelling the South African-UNITA advance. The FNLA were likewise routed at the Battle of Quifangondo and forced to retreat towards Zaire. The defeat of the FNLA allowed the MPLA to consolidate power over the capital Luanda.

Burning MPLA staff car destroyed in the fighting outside Novo Redondo, late 1975

Agostinho Neto, the leader of the MPLA, declared the independence of the Portuguese Overseas Province of Angola as the People's Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975. UNITA declared Angolan independence as the Social Democratic Republic of Angola based in Huambo, and the FNLA declared the Democratic Republic of Angola based in Ambriz. FLEC, armed and backed by the French government, declared the independence of the Republic of Cabinda from Paris. The FNLA and UNITA forged an alliance on 23 November, proclaiming their own coalition government, the Democratic People's Republic of Angola, based in Huambo with Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi as co-Presidents, and José Ndelé and Johnny Pinnock Eduardo as co-Prime Ministers.

In early November 1975, the South African government warned Savimbi and Roberto that the South African Defence Force (SADF) would soon end operations in Angola despite the failure of the coalition to capture Luanda and therefore secure international recognition for their government. Savimbi, desperate to avoid the withdrawal of South Africa, asked General Constand Viljoen to arrange a meeting for him with Prime Minister of South Africa John Vorster, who had been Savimbi's ally since October 1974. On the night of 10 November, the day before the formal declaration of independence, Savimbi secretly flew to Pretoria to meet Vorster. In a reversal of policy, Vorster not only agreed to keep his troops in Angola through November, but also promised to withdraw the SADF only after the OAU meeting on 9 December. While Cuban officers led the mission and provided the bulk of the troop force, 60 Soviet officers in the Congo joined the Cubans on 12 November. The Soviet leadership expressly forbade the Cubans from intervening in Angola's civil war, focusing the mission on containing South Africa.

In 1975 and 1976 most foreign forces, with the exception of Cuba, withdrew. The last elements of the Portuguese military withdrew in 1975 and the South African military withdrew in February 1976. Cuba's troop force in Angola increased from 5,500 in December 1975 to 11,000 in February 1976.

Sweden provided humanitarian assistance to both the SWAPO and the MPLA in the mid-1970s, and regularly raised the issue of UNITA in political discussions between the two movements.

Cuban intervention

Cuban logistics were primitive, relying on a few aging commercial aircraft, small cargo ships, and large fishing vessels to support a major, long-range military operation.

In early September 1975, the Cuban merchant ships Viet Nam Heroico, Isla Coral, and La Plata, loaded with troops, vehicles, and 1,000 tons of gasoline, crossed the Atlantic and sailed to Angola. The United States held a secret, high-level talk with Cuba to express its consternation over Cuba's actions, but this had little effect. The Cuban troops landed in early October. On 7 November, Cuba began a thirteen-day airlift of a 650-man special forces battalion. The Cubans used old Bristol Britannia turboprop aircraft, making refueling stops in Barbados, Guinea-Bissau, and the Congo before landing in Luanda. The troops traveled as "tourists," carrying machine guns in briefcases. They packed 75mm cannons, 82mm mortars, and small arms into the aircraft's cargo holds.

On 14 October, four South African columns totaling 3,000 troops launched Operation Savannah in an attempt to capture Luanda from the south. The Cubans suffered major reversals, including one at Catofe, where South African forces surprised them and caused numerous casualties. However, the Cubans ultimately halted the South African advance by 26 November. Later, another 4,000 South African soldiers entered southern Angola to establish a buffer zone along the Namibian border. The MPLA received support from 3,000 Katangan exiles, a Mozambican battalion, 3,000 East German personnel, and 1,000 Soviet advisors. The pivotal intervention came from 18,000 Cuban troops, who defeated the FNLA in the north and UNITA in the south, concluding the conventional war by 12 February 1976. In Cabinda, the Cubans launched a series of successful operations against the FLEC separatist movement.

By March 1977, the MPLA controlled enough of the country to permit Castro to pay a state visit. However, in May, Nito Alves and José Van Dunem attempted an unsuccessful coup against Agostinho Neto. Cuban troops helped defeat the rebels. In May 1978, South Africa initiated Operation Reindeer, during which an airstrike on a Cuban convoy resulted in the loss of 150 Cuban troops. By July 1978, Cuba had suffered 5,600 casualties in its African wars (Angola and Ethiopia), including 1,000 killed in Angola and 400 killed against Somali forces in the Ethiopian Ogaden. In 1987, 6,000 South African soldiers reentered the Angolan war, clashing with Cuban forces. They defeated four MPLA brigades at the Lomba River in September and laid siege to Cuito Cuanavale for months until 12,000 Cuban troops broke the blockade in March 1988. On 26 June, South African forces engaged Cuban forces at Techipa, killing several Cuban troops. In response, Cuba launched an air strike on SADF positions the following day, killing nearly a dozen South African troops. Both sides promptly withdrew to prevent further escalation of hostilities.

Clark Amendment

President of the United States Gerald Ford approved covert aid to UNITA and the FNLA through Operation IA Feature on 18 July 1975, despite strong opposition from officials in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Ford told William Colby, the Director of Central Intelligence, to establish the operation, providing an initial US$ 6 million. He granted an additional $8 million on 27 July and another $25 million in August.

Senator Dick Clark

Two days before the program's approval, Nathaniel Davis, the Assistant Secretary of State, told Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State, that he believed maintaining the secrecy of IA Feature would be impossible. Davis correctly predicted the Soviet Union would respond by increasing involvement in the Angolan conflict, leading to more violence and negative publicity for the United States. When Ford approved the program, Davis resigned. John Stockwell, the CIA's station chief in Angola, echoed Davis' criticism saying that success required the expansion of the program, but its size already exceeded what could be hidden from the public eye. Davis' deputy, former U.S. ambassador to Chile Edward Mulcahy, also opposed direct involvement. Mulcahy presented three options for U.S. policy towards Angola on 13 May 1975. Mulcahy believed the Ford administration could use diplomacy to campaign against foreign aid to the communist MPLA, refuse to take sides in factional fighting, or increase support for the FNLA and UNITA. He warned that supporting UNITA would not sit well with Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of Zaire.

Dick Clark, a Democratic Senator from Iowa, discovered the operation during a fact-finding mission in Africa, but Seymour Hersh, a reporter for The New York Times, revealed IA Feature to the public on 13 December 1975. Clark proposed an amendment to the Arms Export Control Act, barring aid to private groups engaged in military or paramilitary operations in Angola. The Senate passed the bill, voting 54-22 on 19 December 1975, and the House of Representatives passed the bill, voting 323-99 on 27 January 1976. Ford signed the bill into law on 9 February 1976. Even after the Clark Amendment became law, then- Director of Central Intelligence, George H. W. Bush, refused to concede that all U.S. aid to Angola had ceased. According to foreign affairs analyst Jane Hunter, Israel stepped in as a proxy arms supplier for South Africa after the Clark Amendment took effect. Israel and South Africa established a longstanding military alliance, in which Israel provided weapons and training, as well as conducting joint military exercises.

The U.S. government vetoed Angolan entry into the United Nations on 23 June 1976. Zambia forbade UNITA from launching attacks from its territory on 28 December 1976 after Angola under MPLA rule became a member of the United Nations. According to Ambassador William Scranton, the United States abstained from voting on the issue of Angola becoming a UN member state "out of respect for the sentiments expressed by its [our] African friends".

Shaba invasions

Shaba Province, Zaire

About 1,500 members of the Congolese National Liberation Front (FNLC) invaded the Shaba Province (modern-day Katanga Province) in Zaire from eastern Angola on 7 March 1977. The FNLC wanted to overthrow Mobutu, and the MPLA government, suffering from Mobutu's support for the FNLA and UNITA, did not try to stop the invasion. The FNLC failed to capture Kolwezi, Zaire's economic heartland, but took Kasaji and Mutshatsha. The Zairean army (the Forces Armées Zaïroises) was defeated without difficulty and the FNLC continued to advance. On 2 April, Mobutu appealed to William Eteki of Cameroon, Chairman of the Organization of African Unity, for assistance. Eight days later, the French government responded to Mobutu's plea and airlifted 1,500 Moroccan troops into Kinshasa. This force worked in conjunction with the Zairean army, the FNLA and Egyptian pilots flying French-made Zairean Mirage fighter aircraft to beat back the FNLC. The counter-invasion force pushed the last of the militants, along with numerous refugees, into Angola and Zambia in April 1977.

Mobutu accused the MPLA, Cuban and Soviet governments of complicity in the war. While Neto did support the FNLC, the MPLA government's support came in response to Mobutu's continued support for Angola's FNLA. The Carter Administration, unconvinced of Cuban involvement, responded by offering a meager $15 million-worth of non-military aid. American timidity during the war prompted a shift in Zaire's foreign policy towards greater engagement with France, which became Zaire's largest supplier of arms after the intervention. Neto and Mobutu signed a border agreement on 22 July 1977.

John Stockwell, the CIA's station chief in Angola, resigned after the invasion, explaining in the April 1977 The Washington Post article "Why I'm Leaving the CIA" that he had warned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that continued American support for anti-government rebels in Angola could provoke a war with Zaire. He also said that covert Soviet involvement in Angola came after, and in response to, U.S. involvement.

The FNLC invaded Shaba again on 11 May 1978, capturing Kolwezi in two days. While the Carter Administration had accepted Cuba's insistence on its non-involvement in Shaba I, and therefore did not stand with Mobutu, the U.S. government now accused Castro of complicity. This time, when Mobutu appealed for foreign assistance, the U.S. government worked with the French and Belgian militaries to beat back the invasion, the first military cooperation between France and the United States since the Vietnam War. The French Foreign Legion took back Kolwezi after a seven-day battle and airlifted 2,250 European citizens to Belgium, but not before the FNLC massacred 80 Europeans and 200 Africans. In one instance, the FNLC killed 34 European civilians who had hidden in a room. The FNLC retreated to Zambia, vowing to return to Angola. The Zairean army then forcibly evicted civilians along Shaba's border with Angola. Mobutu, wanting to prevent any chance of another invasion, ordered his troops to shoot on sight.

U.S.-mediated negotiations between the MPLA and Zairean governments led to a peace accord in 1979 and an end to support for insurgencies in each other's respective countries. Zaire temporarily cut off support to the FLEC, the FNLA and UNITA, and Angola forbade further activity by the FNLC.

By the late 1970s, Interior Minister Nito Alves had become a powerful member of the MPLA government. Alves had successfully put down Daniel Chipenda's Eastern Revolt and the Active Revolt during Angola's War of Independence. Factionalism within the MPLA became a major challenge to Neto's power by late 1975 and Neto gave Alves the task of once again clamping down on dissent. Alves shut down the Cabral and Henda Committees while expanding his influence within the MPLA through his control of the nation's newspapers and state-run television. Alves visited the Soviet Union in October 1976, and may have obtained Soviet support for a coup against Neto. By the time he returned, Neto had grown suspicious of Alves' growing power and sought to neutralize him and his followers, the Nitistas. Neto called a plenum meeting of the Central Committee of the MPLA. Neto formally designated the party as Marxist-Leninist, abolished the Interior Ministry (of which Alves was the head), and established a Commission of Enquiry. Neto used the commission to target the Nitistas, and ordered the commission to issue a report of its findings in March 1977. Alves and Chief of Staff José Van-Dunem, his political ally, began planning a coup d'état against Neto.

Agostinho Neto, MPLA leader and Angola's first president, meets with Poland's ambassador in Luanda, 1978

Alves and Van-Dunem planned to arrest Neto on 21 May before he arrived at a meeting of the Central Committee and before the commission released its report on the activities of the Nitistas. The MPLA changed the location of the meeting shortly before its scheduled start, throwing the plotters' plans into disarray. Alves attended anyway. The commission released its report, accusing him of factionalism. Alves fought back, denouncing Neto for not aligning Angola with the Soviet Union. After twelve hours of debate, the party voted 26 to 6 to dismiss Alves and Van-Dunem from their positions.

In support of Alves and the coup, the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) 8th Brigade broke into São Paulo prison on 27 May, killing the prison warden and freeing more than 150 Nitistas. The 8th brigade then took control of the radio station in Luanda and announced their coup, calling themselves the MPLA Action Committee. The brigade asked citizens to show their support for the coup by demonstrating in front of the presidential palace. The Nitistas captured Bula and Dangereaux, generals loyal to Neto, but Neto had moved his base of operations from the palace to the Ministry of Defence in fear of such an uprising. Cuban troops loyal to Neto retook the palace and marched to the radio station. The Cubans succeeded in taking the radio station and proceeded to the barracks of the 8th Brigade, recapturing it by 1:30 pm. While the Cuban force captured the palace and radio station, the Nitistas kidnapped seven leaders within the government and the military, shooting and killing six.

The MPLA government arrested tens of thousands of suspected Nitistas from May to November and tried them in secret courts overseen by Defense Minister Iko Carreira. Those who were found guilty, including Van-Dunem, Jacobo "Immortal Monster" Caetano, the head of the 8th Brigade, and political commissar Eduardo Evaristo, were shot and buried in secret graves. At least 2,000 followers (or alleged followers) of Nito Alves were estimated to have been killed by Cuban and MPLA troops in the aftermath, with some estimates claiming as high as 90,000 dead. Amnesty International estimated 30,000 died in the purge.

The coup attempt had a lasting effect on Angola's foreign relations. Alves had opposed Neto's foreign policy of non-alignment, evolutionary socialism, and multiracialism, favoring stronger relations with the Soviet Union, which Alves wanted to grant military bases in Angola. While Cuban soldiers actively helped Neto put down the coup, Alves and Neto both believed the Soviet Union opposed Neto. Cuban Armed Forces Minister Raúl Castro sent an additional four thousand troops to prevent further dissension within the MPLA's ranks and met with Neto in August in a display of solidarity. In contrast, Neto's distrust of the Soviet leadership increased and relations with the USSR worsened. In December, the MPLA held its first party Congress and changed its name to the MPLA-Worker's Party (MPLA-PT). The Nitista attempted coup took a toll on the MPLA's membership. In 1975, the MPLA had reached 200,000 members, but after the first party congress, that number decreased to 30,000.

Replacing Neto

The Soviets tried to increase their influence, wanting to establish permanent military bases in Angola, but despite persistent lobbying, especially by the Soviet chargé d'affaires, G. A. Zverev, Neto stood his ground and refused to allow the construction of permanent military bases. With Alves no longer a possibility, the Soviet Union backed Prime Minister Lopo do Nascimento against Neto for the MPLA's leadership. Neto moved swiftly, getting the party's Central Committee to fire Nascimento from his posts as Prime Minister, Secretary of the Politburo, Director of National Television, and Director of Jornal de Angola. Later that month, the positions of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were abolished.

Neto diversified the ethnic composition of the MPLA's political bureau as he replaced the hardline old guard with new blood, including José Eduardo dos Santos. When he died on 10 September 1979, the party's Central Committee unanimously voted to elect dos Santos as President.

Under dos Santos's leadership, Angolan troops crossed the border into Namibia for the first time on 31 October, going into Kavango. The next day, dos Santos signed a non-aggression pact with Zambia and Zaire. In the 1980s, fighting spread outward from southeastern Angola, where most of the fighting had taken place in the 1970s, as the National Congolese Army (ANC) and SWAPO increased their activity. The South African government responded by sending troops back into Angola, intervening in the war from 1981 to 1987, prompting the Soviet Union to deliver massive amounts of military aid from 1981 to 1986. The USSR gave the MPLA more than US$2 billion in aid in 1984. In 1981, newly elected United States President Ronald Reagan's U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester Crocker, developed a linkage policy, tying Namibian independence to Cuban withdrawal and peace in Angola.

Beginning with 1979, Romania trained Angolan guerrillas. Every 3-4 months, Romania sent two airplanes to Angola, each returning with 166 recruits. These were taken back to Angola after they completed their training. In addition to guerrilla training, Romania also instructed young Angolans as pilots. In 1979, under the command of Major General Aurel Niculescu, Romania founded an air academy in Angola. There were around 100 Romanian instructors in this academy, with about 500 Romanian soldiers guarding the base, which supported 50 aircraft used to train Angolan pilots. The aircraft models used were: IAR 826, IAR 836, EL-29, MiG-15 and AN-24. Designated as the "Commander Bula National Military Aviation School", it was set up on 11 February 1981 in Negage. The facility trained air force pilots, technicians and General Staff officers. The Romanian teaching staff was gradually replaced by Angolans.

The South African military attacked insurgents in Cunene Province on 12 May 1980. The Angolan Ministry of Defense accused the South African government of wounding and killing civilians. Nine days later, the SADF attacked again, this time in Cuando-Cubango, and the MPLA threatened to respond militarily. The SADF launched a full-scale invasion of Angola through Cunene and Cuando-Cubango on 7 June, destroying SWAPO's operational command headquarters on 13 June, in what Prime Minister Pieter Willem Botha described as a "shock attack". The MPLA government arrested 120 Angolans who were planning to set off explosives in Luanda, on 24 June, foiling a plot purportedly orchestrated by the South African government. Three days later, the United Nations Security Council convened at the behest of Angola's ambassador to the UN, E. de Figuerido, and condemned South Africa's incursions into Angola. President Mobutu of Zaire also sided with the MPLA. The MPLA government recorded 529 instances in which they claim South African forces violated Angola's territorial sovereignty between January and June 1980.

Cuba increased its troop force in Angola from 35,000 in 1982 to 40,000 in 1985. South African forces tried to capture Lubango, capital of Huíla province, in Operation Askari in December 1983.

On 2 June 1985, American conservative activists held the Democratic International, a symbolic meeting of anti-Communist militants, at UNITA's headquarters in Jamba. Primarily funded by Rite Aid founder Lewis Lehrman and organized by anti-communist activists Jack Abramoff and Jack Wheeler, participants included Savimbi, Adolfo Calero, leader of the Nicaraguan Contras, Pa Kao Her, Hmong Laotian rebel leader, U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, South African security forces, Abdurrahim Wardak, Afghan Mujahideen leader, Jack Wheeler, American conservative policy advocate, and many others. The Reagan administration, although unwilling to publicly support the meeting, privately expressed approval. The governments of Israel and South Africa supported the idea, but both respective countries were deemed inadvisable for hosting the conference.

The participants released a communiqué stating,

We, free peoples fighting for our national independence and human rights, assembled at Jamba, declare our solidarity with all freedom movements in the world and state our commitment to cooperate to liberate our nations from the Soviet Imperialists.

The United States House of Representatives voted 236 to 185 to repeal the Clark Amendment on 11 July 1985. The MPLA government began attacking UNITA later that month from Luena towards Cazombo along the Benguela Railway in a military operation named Congresso II, taking Cazombo on 18 September. The MPLA government tried unsuccessfully to take UNITA's supply depot in Mavinga from Menongue. While the attack failed, very different interpretations of the attack emerged. UNITA claimed Portuguese-speaking Soviet officers led FAPLA troops while the government said UNITA relied on South African paratroopers to defeat the MPLA attack. The South African government admitted to fighting in the area, but said its troops fought SWAPO militants.

War intensifies

By 1986, Angola began to assume a more central role in the Cold War, with the Soviet Union, Cuba and other Eastern bloc nations enhancing support for the MPLA government, and American conservatives beginning to elevate their support for Savimbi's UNITA. Savimbi developed close relations with influential American conservatives, who saw Savimbi as a key ally in the U.S. effort to oppose and rollback Soviet-backed, undemocratic governments around the world. The conflict quickly escalated, with both Washington and Moscow seeing it as a critical strategic conflict in the Cold War.

The Soviet Union gave an additional $1 billion in aid to the MPLA government and Cuba sent an additional 2,000 troops to the 35,000-strong force in Angola to protect Chevron oil platforms in 1986. Savimbi had called Chevron's presence in Angola, already protected by Cuban troops, a "target" for UNITA in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine on 31 January.

In Washington, Savimbi forged close relationships with influential conservatives, including Michael Johns ( The Heritage Foundation's foreign policy analyst and a key Savimbi advocate), Grover Norquist (President of Americans for Tax Reform and a Savimbi economic advisor), and others, who played critical roles in elevating escalated U.S. covert aid to Savimbi's UNITA and visited with Savimbi in his Jamba, Angola headquarters to provide the Angolan rebel leader with military, political and other guidance in his war against the MPLA government. With enhanced U.S. support, the war quickly escalated, both in terms of the intensity of the conflict and also in its perception as a key conflict in the overall Cold War.

In addition to escalating its military support for UNITA, the Reagan administration and its conservative allies also worked to expand recognition of Savimbi as a key U.S. ally in an important Cold War struggle. In January 1986, Reagan invited Savimbi to a meeting at the White House. Following the meeting, Reagan spoke of UNITA as winning a victory that "electrifies the world". Two months later, Reagan announced the delivery of Stinger surface-to-air missiles as part of the $25 million in aid UNITA received from the U.S. government. Jeremias Chitunda, UNITA's representative to the U.S., became the Vice President of UNITA in August 1986 at the sixth party congress. Fidel Castro made Crocker's proposal-the withdrawal of foreign troops from Angola and Namibia-a prerequisite to Cuban withdrawal from Angola on 10 September.

UNITA forces attacked Camabatela in Cuanza Norte province on 8 February 1986. ANGOP alleged UNITA massacred civilians in Damba in Uíge Province later that month, on 26 February. The South African government agreed to Crocker's terms in principle on 8 March. Savimbi proposed a truce regarding the Benguela railway on 26 March, saying MPLA trains could pass through as long as an international inspection group monitored trains to prevent their use for counter-insurgency activity. The government did not respond. In April 1987, Fidel Castro sent Cuba's Fiftieth Brigade to southern Angola, increasing the number of Cuban troops from 12,000 to 15,000. The MPLA and American governments began negotiating in June 1987.

Cuito Cuanavale and New York Accords

UNITA and South African forces attacked the MPLA's base at Cuito Cuanavale in Cuando Cubango province from 13 January to 23 March 1988, in the second-largest battle in the history of Africa, after the Battle of El Alamein, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa since World War II. Cuito Cuanavale's importance came not from its size or its wealth but its location. South African Defence Forces maintained an overwatch on the city using new, G5 artillery pieces. Both sides claimed victory in the ensuing Battle of Cuito Cuanavale.

After the indecisive results of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, Fidel Castro claimed that the increased cost of continuing to fight for South Africa had placed Cuba in its most aggressive combat position of the war, arguing that he was preparing to leave Angola with his opponents on the defensive. According to Cuba, the political, economic and technical cost to South Africa of maintaining its presence in Angola proved too much. Conversely, the South Africans believe that they indicated their resolve to the superpowers by preparing a nuclear test that ultimately forced the Cubans into a settlement.

Cuban troops were alleged to have used nerve gas against UNITA troops during the civil war. Belgian criminal toxicologist Dr. Aubin Heyndrickx, studied alleged evidence, including samples of war-gas "identification kits" found after the battle at Cuito Cuanavale, claimed that "there is no doubt anymore that the Cubans were using nerve gases against the troops of Mr. Jonas Savimbi."

The Cuban government joined negotiations on 28 January 1988, and all three parties held a round of negotiations on 9 March. The South African government joined negotiations on 3 May and the parties met in June and August in New York and Geneva. All parties agreed to a ceasefire on 8 August. Representatives from the governments of Angola, Cuba, and South Africa signed the New York Accords, granting independence to Namibia and ending the direct involvement of foreign troops in the civil war, in New York City on 22 December 1988. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 626 later that day, creating the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM), a peacekeeping force. UNAVEM troops began arriving in Angola in January 1989.

As the Angolan Civil War began to take on a diplomatic component, in addition to a military one, two key Savimbi allies, The Conservative Caucus' Howard Phillips and the Heritage Foundation's Michael Johns visited Savimbi in Angola, where they sought to persuade Savimbi to come to the United States in the spring of 1989 to help the Conservative Caucus, the Heritage Foundation and other conservatives in making the case for continued U.S. aid to UNITA.

President Mobutu invited 18 African leaders, Savimbi, and dos Santos to his palace in Gbadolite in June 1989 for negotiations. Savimbi and dos Santos met for the first time and agreed to the Gbadolite Declaration, a ceasefire, on 22 June, paving the way for a future peace agreement. President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia said a few days after the declaration that Savimbi had agreed to leave Angola and go into exile, a claim Mobutu, Savimbi, and the U.S. government disputed. Dos Santos agreed with Kaunda's interpretation of the negotiations, saying Savimbi had agreed to temporarily leave the country.

On 23 August, dos Santos complained that the U.S. and South African governments continued to fund UNITA, warning such activity endangered the already fragile ceasefire. The next day Savimbi announced UNITA would no longer abide by the ceasefire, citing Kaunda's insistence that Savimbi leave the country and UNITA disband. The MPLA government responded to Savimbi's statement by moving troops from Cuito Cuanavale, under MPLA control, to UNITA-occupied Mavinga. The ceasefire broke down with dos Santos and the U.S. government blaming each other for the resumption in armed conflict.

Political changes abroad and military victories at home allowed the government to transition from a nominally communist state to a nominally democratic one. Namibia's declaration of independence, internationally recognized on 1 April, eliminated the threat to the MPLA from South Africa, as the SADF withdrew from Namibia. The MPLA abolished the one-party system in June and rejected Marxist-Leninism at the MPLA's third Congress in December, formally changing the party's name from the MPLA-PT to the MPLA. The National Assembly passed law 12/91 in May 1991, coinciding with the withdrawal of the last Cuban troops, defining Angola as a "democratic state based on the rule of law" with a multi-party system. Observers met such changes with skepticism. American journalist Karl Maier wrote: "In the New Angola ideology is being replaced by the bottom line, as security and selling expertise in weaponry have become a very profitable business. With its wealth in oil and diamonds, Angola is like a big swollen carcass and the vultures are swirling overhead. Savimbi's former allies are switching sides, lured by the aroma of hard currency." Savimbi also reportedly purged some of those within UNITA whom he may have seen as threats to his leadership or as questioning his strategic course. Among those killed in the purge were Tito Chingunji and his family in 1991. Savimbi denied his involvement in the Chingunji killing and blamed it on UNITA dissidents.

Black, Manafort, and Stone

Government troops wounded Savimbi in battles in January and February 1990, but not enough to restrict his mobility. He went to Washington, D.C., in December and met with President George H. W. Bush again, the fourth of five trips he made to the United States. Savimbi paid Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, a lobbying firm based in Washington, D.C., $5 million to lobby the Federal government for aid, portray UNITA favorably in Western media, and acquire support among politicians in Washington. Savimbi was highly successful in this endeavour. The weapons he would gain from Bush helped UNITA survive even after U.S. support stopped.

Senators Larry Smith and Dante Fascell, a senior member of the firm, worked with the Cuban American National Foundation, Representative Claude Pepper of Florida, Neal Blair's Free the Eagle, and Howard Phillips' Conservative Caucus to repeal the Clark Amendment in 1985. From the amendment's repeal in 1985 to 1992 the U.S. government gave Savimbi $60 million per year, a total of $420 million. A sizable amount of the aid went to Savimbi's personal expenses. Black, Manafort filed foreign lobbying records with the U.S. Justice Department showing Savimbi's expenses during his U.S. visits. During his December 1990 visit he spent $136,424 at the Park Hyatt hotel and $2,705 in tips. He spent almost $473,000 in October 1991 during his week-long visit to Washington and Manhattan. He spent $98,022 in hotel bills, at the Park Hyatt, $26,709 in limousine rides in Washington and another $5,293 in Manhattan. Paul Manafort, a partner in the firm, charged Savimbi $19,300 in consulting and additional $1,712 in expenses. He also bought $1,143 worth of "survival kits" from Motorola. When questioned in an interview in 1990 about human rights abuses under Savimbi, Black said, "Now when you're in a war, trying to manage a war, when the enemy ... is no more than a couple of hours away from you at any given time, you might not run your territory according to New Hampshire town meeting rules."

Bicesse Accords

President dos Santos met with Savimbi in Lisbon, Portugal and signed the Bicesse Accords, the first of three major peace agreements, on 31 May 1991, with the mediation of the Portuguese government. The accords laid out a transition to multi-party democracy under the supervision of the United Nations' UNAVEM II mission, with a presidential election to be held within a year. The agreement attempted to demobilize the 152,000 active fighters and integrate the remaining government troops and UNITA rebels into a 50,000-strong Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). The FAA would consist of a national army with 40,000 troops, navy with 6,000, and air force with 4,000. While UNITA largely did not disarm, the FAA complied with the accord and demobilized, leaving the government disadvantaged.

Angola held the first round of its 1992 presidential election on 29-30 September. Dos Santos officially received 49.57% of the vote and Savimbi won 40.6%. As no candidate received 50% or more of the vote, election law dictated a second round of voting between the top two contenders. Savimbi, along with eight opposition parties and many other election observers, said the election had been neither free nor fair. An official observer wrote that there was little UN supervision, that 500,000 UNITA voters were disenfranchised and that there were 100 clandestine polling stations. Savimbi sent Jeremias Chitunda, Vice President of UNITA, to Luanda to negotiate the terms of the second round. The election process broke down on 31 October, when government troops in Luanda attacked UNITA. Civilians, using guns they had received from police a few days earlier, conducted house-by-house raids with the Rapid Intervention Police, killing and detaining hundreds of UNITA supporters. The government took civilians in trucks to the Camama cemetery and Morro da Luz ravine, shot them, and buried them in mass graves. Assailants attacked Chitunda's convoy on 2 November, pulling him out of his car and shooting him and two others in their faces. The MPLA massacred over ten thousand UNITA and FNLA voters nationwide in a few days in what was known as the Halloween Massacre. Savimbi said the election had neither been free nor fair and refused to participate in the second round. He then proceeded to resume armed struggle against the MPLA.

Then, in a series of stunning victories, UNITA regained control over Caxito, Huambo, M'banza Kongo, Ndalatando, and Uíge, provincial capitals it had not held since 1976, and moved against Kuito, Luena, and Malange. Although the U.S. and South African governments had stopped aiding UNITA, supplies continued to come from Mobutu in Zaire. UNITA tried to wrest control of Cabinda from the MPLA in January 1993. Edward DeJarnette, Head of the U.S. Liaison Office in Angola for the Clinton Administration, warned Savimbi that, if UNITA hindered or halted Cabinda's production, the U.S. would end its support for UNITA. On 9 January, UNITA began a 55-day battle over Huambo, the "War of the Cities". Hundreds of thousands fled and 10,000 were killed before UNITA gained control on 7 March. The government engaged in an ethnic cleansing of Bakongo, and, to a lesser extent Ovimbundu, in multiple cities, most notably Luanda, on 22 January in the Bloody Friday massacre. UNITA and government representatives met five days later in Ethiopia, but negotiations failed to restore the peace. The United Nations Security Council sanctioned UNITA through Resolution 864 on 15 September 1993, prohibiting the sale of weapons or fuel to UNITA.

Perhaps the clearest shift in U.S. foreign policy emerged when President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12865 on 23 September, labeling UNITA a "continuing threat to the foreign policy objectives of the U.S." By August 1993, UNITA had gained control over 70% of Angola, but the government's military successes in 1994 forced UNITA to sue for peace. By November 1994, the government had taken control of 60% of the country. Savimbi called the situation UNITA's "deepest crisis" since its creation. It is estimated that perhaps 120,000 people were killed in the first eighteen months following the 1992 election, nearly half the number of casualties of the previous sixteen years of war. Both sides of the conflict continued to commit widespread and systematic violations of the laws of war with UNITA in particular guilty of indiscriminate shelling of besieged cities resulting in large death toll to civilians. The MPLA government forces used air power in indiscriminate fashion also resulting in high civilian deaths. The Lusaka Protocol of 1994 reaffirmed the Bicesse Accords.

Lusaka Protocol

Savimbi, unwilling to personally sign an accord, had former UNITA Secretary General Eugenio Manuvakola represent UNITA in his place. Manuvakola and Angolan Foreign Minister Venancio de Moura signed the Lusaka Protocol in Lusaka, Zambia on 31 October 1994, agreeing to integrate and disarm UNITA. Both sides signed a ceasefire as part of the protocol on 20 November. Under the agreement the government and UNITA would cease fire and demobilize. 5,500 UNITA members, including 180 militants, would join the Angolan national police, 1,200 UNITA members, including 40 militants, would join the rapid reaction police force, and UNITA generals would become officers in the Angolan Armed Forces. Foreign mercenaries would return to their home countries and all parties would stop acquiring foreign arms. The agreement gave UNITA politicians homes and a headquarters. The government agreed to appoint UNITA members to head the Mines, Commerce, Health, and Tourism ministries, in addition to seven deputy ministers, ambassadors, the governorships of Uige, Lunda Sul, and Cuando Cubango, deputy governors, municipal administrators, deputy administrators, and commune administrators. The government would release all prisoners and give amnesty to all militants involved in the civil war. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and South African President Nelson Mandela met in Lusaka on 15 November 1994 to boost support symbolically for the protocol. Mugabe and Mandela both said they would be willing to meet with Savimbi and Mandela asked him to come to South Africa, but Savimbi did not come. The agreement created a joint commission, consisting of officials from the Angolan government, UNITA, and the UN with the governments of Portugal, the United States, and Russia observing, to oversee its implementation. Violations of the protocol's provisions would be discussed and reviewed by the commission. The protocol's provisions, integrating UNITA into the military, a ceasefire, and a coalition government, were similar to those of the Alvor Agreement that granted Angola independence from Portugal in 1975. Many of the same environmental problems, mutual distrust between UNITA and the MPLA, loose international oversight, the importation of foreign arms, and an overemphasis on maintaining the balance of power, led to the collapse of the protocol.

Arms monitoring

Decommissioned UNITA BMP-1 and BM-21 Grads at an assembly point.

In January 1995, U.S. President Clinton sent Paul Hare, his envoy to Angola, to support the Lusaka Protocol and impress the importance of the ceasefire onto the Angolan government and UNITA, both in need of outside assistance. The United Nations agreed to send a peacekeeping force on 8 February. Savimbi met with South African President Mandela in May. Shortly after, on 18 June, the MPLA offered Savimbi the position of Vice President under dos Santos with another Vice President chosen from the MPLA. Savimbi told Mandela he felt ready to "serve in any capacity which will aid my nation," but he did not accept the proposal until 12 August. The United States Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency's Angola operations and analysis expanded in an effort to halt weapons shipments, a violation of the protocol, with limited success. The Angolan government bought six Mil Mi-17 from Ukraine in 1995. The government bought L-39 attack aircraft from the Czech Republic in 1998 along with ammunition and uniforms from Zimbabwe Defence Industries and ammunition and weapons from Ukraine in 1998 and 1999. U.S. monitoring significantly dropped off in 1997 as events in Zaire, the Congo and then Liberia occupied more of the U.S. government's attention. UNITA purchased more than 20 FROG-7 transporter erector launchers (TEL) and three FOX 7 missiles from the North Korean government in 1999.

The UN extended its mandate on 8 February 1996. In March, Savimbi and dos Santos formally agreed to form a coalition government. The government deported 2,000 West African and Lebanese Angolans in Operation Cancer Two, in August 1996, on the grounds that dangerous minorities were responsible for the rising crime rate. In 1996 the Angolan government bought military equipment from India, two Mil Mi-24 attack helicopters and three Sukhoi Su-17 from Kazakhstan in December, and helicopters from Slovakia in March.

The international community helped install a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation in April 1997, but UNITA did not allow the regional MPLA government to take up residence in 60 cities. The UN Security Council voted on 28 August 1997, to impose sanctions on UNITA through Resolution 1127, prohibiting UNITA leaders from traveling abroad, closing UNITA's embassies abroad, and making UNITA-controlled areas a no-fly zone. The Security Council expanded the sanctions through Resolution 1173 on 12 June 1998, requiring government certification for the purchase of Angolan diamonds and freezing UNITA's bank accounts.

During the First Congo War, the Angolan government joined the coalition to overthrow Mobutu's government due to his support for UNITA. Mobutu's government fell to the opposition coalition on 16 May 1997. The Angolan government chose to act primarily through Katangese gendarmes called the Tigres, which were proxy groups formed from the descendants of police units who had been exiled from Zaire and thus were fighting for a return to their homeland. Luanda did also deploy regular troops. In early October 1997, Angola invaded the Republic of the Congo during its civil war, and helped Sassou Nguesso's rebels overthrow the government of Pascal Lissouba. Lissouba's government had allowed UNITA the use of cities in the Republic of Congo in order to circumvent sanctions. Between 11 and 12 October 1997, Angolan air force fighter jets conducted a number of air strikes on government positions within Brazzaville. On 16 October 1997 rebel militia supported by tanks and a force of 1,000 Angolan troops cemented their control of Brazzaville forcing Lisouba to flee. Angolan troops remained in the country fighting militia forces loyal to Lissouba engaged in a guerrilla war against the new government.

The UN spent $1.6 billion from 1994 to 1998 in maintaining a peacekeeping force. The Angolan military attacked UNITA forces in the Central Highlands on 4 December 1998, the day before the MPLA's fourth Congress. Dos Santos told the delegates the next day that he believed war to be the only way to ultimately achieve peace, rejected the Lusaka Protocol, and asked MONUA to leave. In February 1999, the Security Council withdrew the last MONUA personnel. In late 1998, several UNITA commanders, dissatisfied with Savimbi's leadership, formed UNITA Renovada, a breakaway militant group. Thousands more deserted UNITA in 1999 and 2000.

The Angolan military (with the help of the Brazilian air force) launched Operation Restore, a massive offensive, in September 1999, recapturing N'harea, Mungo and Andulo and Bailundo, the site of Savimbi's headquarters just one year before. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1268 on 15 October, instructing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to update the Security Council to the situation in Angola every three months. Dos Santos offered an amnesty to UNITA militants on 11 November. By December, Chief of Staff General João de Matos said the Angolan Armed Forces had destroyed 80% of UNITA's militant wing and captured 15,000 tons of military equipment. Following the dissolution of the coalition government, Savimbi retreated to his historical base in Moxico and prepared for battle. In order to isolate UNITA, the government forced civilians in countryside areas subject to UNITA influence to relocate to major cities. The strategy was successful isolating in UNITA but had adverse humanitarian consequences.

Diamond trade

UNITA's ability to mine diamonds and sell them abroad provided funding for the war to continue even as the movement's support in the Western world and among the local populace withered away. De Beers and Endiama, a state-owned diamond-mining monopoly, signed a contract allowing De Beers to handle Angola's diamond exports in 1990. According to the United Nation's Fowler Report, Joe De Deker, a former stockholder in De Beers, worked with the government of Zaire to supply military equipment to UNITA from 1993 to 1997. De Deker's brother, Ronnie, allegedly flew from South Africa to Angola, directing weapons originating in Eastern Europe. In return, UNITA gave Ronnie bushels of diamonds worth $6 million. De Deker sent the diamonds to De Beer's buying office in Antwerp, Belgium. De Beers openly acknowledges spending $500 million on legal and illegal Angolan diamonds in 1992 alone. The United Nations estimates Angolans made between three and four billion dollars through the diamond trade between 1992 and 1998. The UN also estimates that out of that sum, UNITA made at least $3.72 billion, or 93% of all diamond sales, despite international sanctions.

Executive Outcomes (EO), a South African private military company, played a major role in turning the tide for the MPLA, with one U.S. defence expert calling the EO the "best fifty or sixty million dollars the Angolan government ever spent." Heritage Oil and Gas, and allegedly De Beers, hired EO to protect their operations in Angola. Executive Outcomes trained up to 5,000 troops and 30 combat pilots in camps in Lunda Sul, Cabo Ledo, and Dondo.

Cabinda separatism

The territory of Cabinda is north of Angola proper, separated by a strip of territory 60 km (37.3 mi) long in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Portuguese Constitution of 1933 designated Angola and Cabinda as overseas provinces. In the course of administrative reforms during the 1930s to 1950s, Angola was divided into districts, and Cabinda became one of the districts of Angola. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) formed in 1963 during the broader war for independence from Portugal. Contrary to the organization's name, Cabinda is an exclave, not an enclave. FLEC later split into the Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC) and FLEC-Renovada (FLEC-R). Several other, smaller FLEC factions later broke away from these movements, but FLEC-R remained the most prominent because of its size and its tactics. FLEC-R members cut off the ears and noses of government officials and their supporters, similar to the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone in the 1990s. Despite Cabinda's relatively small size, foreign powers and the nationalist movements coveted the territory for its vast reserves of petroleum, the principal export of Angola then and now.

In the war for independence, the division of assimilados versus indigenas peoples masked the inter-ethnic conflict between the various native tribes, a division that emerged in the early 1970s. The Union of Peoples of Angola, the predecessor to the FNLA, only controlled 15% of Angola's territory during the independence war, excluding MPLA-controlled Cabinda. The People's Republic of China openly backed UNITA upon independence despite the mutual support from its adversary South Africa and UNITA's pro-Western tilt. The PRC's support for Savimbi came in 1965, a year after he left the FNLA. China saw Holden Roberto and the FNLA as the stooge of the West and the MPLA as the Soviet Union's proxy. With the Sino-Soviet split, South Africa presented the least odious of allies to the PRC.

Savimbi meeting the European Parliament deputies in 1989

Throughout the 1990s, Cabindan rebels kidnapped and ransomed off foreign oil workers to in turn finance further attacks against the national government. FLEC militants stopped buses, forcing Chevron Oil workers out, and set fire to the buses on 27 March and 23 April 1992. A large-scale battle took place between FLEC and police in Malongo on 14 May, in which 25 mortar rounds accidentally hit a nearby Chevron compound. The government, fearing the loss of their prime source of revenue, began to negotiate with representatives from Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda-Renewal (FLEC-R), Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC), and the Democratic Front of Cabinda (FDC) in 1995. Patronage and bribery failed to assuage the anger of FLEC-R and FLEC-FAC and negotiations ended. In February 1997, FLEC-FAC kidnapped two Inwangsa SDN-timber company employees, killing one and releasing the other after receiving a $400,000 ransom. FLEC-FAC kidnapped eleven people in April 1998, nine Angolans and two Portuguese, released for a $500,000 ransom. FLEC-R kidnapped five Byansol-oil engineering employees, two Frenchman, two Portuguese, and an Angolan, in March 1999. While militants released the Angolan, the government complicated the situation by promising the rebel leadership $12.5 million for the hostages. When António Bento Bembe, the President of FLEC-R, showed up, the Angolan army arrested him and his bodyguards. The Angolan army later forcibly freed the other hostages on 7 July. By the end of the year the government had arrested the leadership of all three rebel organizations.

Illicit arms trading characterized much of the later years of the Angolan Civil War, as each side tried to gain the upper hand by buying arms from Eastern Europe and Russia. Israel continued in its role as a proxy arms dealer for the United States. On 21 September 2000, a Russian freighter delivered 500 tons of Ukrainian 7.62 mm ammunition to Simportex, a division of the Angolan government, with the help of a shipping agent in London. The ship's captain declared his cargo "fragile" to minimize inspection. The next day, the MPLA began attacking UNITA, winning victories in several battles from 22 to 25 September. The government gained control over military bases and diamond mines in Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul, hurting Savimbi's ability to pay his troops.

Angola agreed to trade oil to Slovakia in return for arms, buying six Sukhoi Su-17 attack aircraft on 3 April 2000. The Spanish government in the Canary Islands prevented a Ukrainian freighter from delivering 636 tons of military equipment to Angola on 24 February 2001. The captain of the ship had inaccurately reported his cargo, falsely claiming the ship carried automobile parts. The Angolan government admitted Simportex had purchased arms from Rosvooruzhenie, the Russian state-owned arms company, and acknowledged the captain might have violated Spanish law by misreporting his cargo, a common practice in arms smuggling to Angola.

More than 700 villagers trekked 60 kilometres (37 mi) from Golungo Alto to Ndalatando (red dot), fleeing a UNITA attack. They remained uninjured.

UNITA carried out several attacks against civilians in May 2001 in a show of strength. UNITA militants attacked Caxito on 7 May, killing 100 people and kidnapping 60 children and two adults. UNITA then attacked Baia-do-Cuio, followed by an attack on Golungo Alto, a city 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of Luanda, a few days later. The militants advanced on Golungo Alto at 2:00 pm on 21 May, staying until 9:00 pm on 22 May when the Angolan military retook the town. They looted local businesses, taking food and alcoholic beverages before singing drunkenly in the streets. More than 700 villagers trekked 60 kilometres (37 mi) from Golungo Alto to Ndalatando, the provincial capital of Cuanza Norte, without injury. According to an aid official in Ndalatando, the Angolan military prohibited media coverage of the incident, so the details of the attack are unknown. Joffre Justino, UNITA's spokesman in Portugal, said UNITA only attacked Gungo Alto to demonstrate the government's military inferiority and the need to cut a deal. Four days later UNITA released the children to a Catholic mission in Camabatela, a city 200 kilometres (124 mi) from where UNITA kidnapped them. The national organization said the abduction violated their policy towards the treatment of civilians. In a letter to the bishops of Angola, Jonas Savimbi asked the Catholic Church to act as an intermediary between UNITA and the government in negotiations. The attacks took their toll on Angola's economy. At the end of May 2001, De Beers, the international diamond mining company, suspended its operations in Angola, ostensibly on the grounds that negotiations with the national government reached an impasse.

Militants of unknown affiliation fired rockets at United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) planes on 8 June near Luena and again near Kuito a few days later. As the first plane, a Boeing 727, approached Luena someone shot a missile at the aircraft, damaging one engine but not critically as the three-man crew landed successfully. The plane's altitude, 5,000 metres (16,404 ft), most likely prevented the assailant from identifying his target. As the citizens of Luena had enough food to last them several weeks, the UNFWP temporarily suspended their flights. When the flights began again a few days later, militants shot at a plane flying to Kuito, the first attack targeting UN workers since 1999. The UNWFP again suspended food aid flights throughout the country. While he did not claim responsibility for the attack, UNITA spokesman Justino said the planes carried weapons and soldiers rather than food, making them acceptable targets. UNITA and the Angolan government both said the international community needed to pressure the other side into returning to the negotiating table. Despite the looming humanitarian crisis, neither side guaranteed UNWFP planes safety. Kuito, which had relied on international aid, only had enough food to feed their population of 200,000 until the end of the week. The UNFWP had to fly in all aid to Kuito and the rest of the Central Highlands because militants ambushed trucks. Further complicating the situation, potholes in the Kuito airport strip slowed aid deliveries. Overall chaos reduced the amount of available oil to the point at which the UN had to import its jet fuel.

Government troops captured and destroyed UNITA's Epongoloko base in Benguela province and Mufumbo base in Cuanza Sul in October 2001. The Slovak government sold fighter jets to the Angolan government in 2001 in violation of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.

Death of Savimbi

Government troops killed Jonas Savimbi on 22 February 2002, in Moxico province. UNITA Vice President António Dembo took over, but, weakened by wounds sustained in the same skirmish that killed Savimbi, died from diabetes 12 days later on 3 March, and Secretary-General Paulo Lukamba Gato became UNITA's leader. After Savimbi's death, the government came to a crossroads over how to proceed. After initially indicating the counter-insurgency might continue, the government announced it would halt all military operations on 13 March. Military commanders for UNITA and the MPLA met in Cassamba and agreed to a cease-fire. Carlos Morgado, UNITA's spokesman in Portugal, said the UNITA's Portugal wing had been under the impression General Kamorteiro, the UNITA general who agreed to the ceasefire, had been captured more than a week earlier. Morgado did say that he had not heard from Angola since Savimbi's death. The military commanders signed a Memorandum of Understanding as an addendum to the Lusaka Protocol in Luena on 4 April, with Santos and Lukambo observing.

The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1404 on 18 April, extending the monitoring mechanism of sanctions by six months. Resolutions 1412 and 1432, passed on 17 May and 15 August respectively, suspended the UN travel ban on UNITA officials for 90 days each, finally abolishing the ban through Resolution 1439 on 18 October. UNAVEM III, extended an additional two months by Resolution 1439, ended on 19 December.

UNITA's new leadership declared the rebel group a political party and officially demobilized its armed forces in August 2002. That same month, the United Nations Security Council replaced the United Nations Office in Angola with the United Nations Mission in Angola, a larger, non-military, political presence.

The civil war spawned a disastrous humanitarian crisis in Angola, internally displacing 4.28 million people - one-third of Angola's total population. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that 80% of Angolans lacked access to basic medical care, 60% lacked access to water, and 30% of Angolan children would die before the age of five, with an overall national life expectancy of less than 40 years of age. Over 100,000 children were separated from their families.

There was an exodus from rural areas in most of the country. Today the urban population represents slightly more than half of the population, according to the latest census. In many cases, people went into cities outside the traditional area of their ethnic group. There are now important Ovimbundu communities in Luanda, Malanje, and Lubango. There has been a degree of return, but at a slow pace, while many younger people are reluctant to go to a rural life that they never knew.

In rural areas, one problem is that some were for years under the control of the MPLA-government, while others were controlled by UNITA. Some of the population fled to neighbouring countries, while others went into remote mountainous areas.

Over 156 people have died since 2018 from 70 landmine accidents and other blasts resulting from explosives installed during the Angolan civil war. The landmine victims do not receive any government support.

On the 44th anniversary of the May 27, 1977 attempted coup by Nito Alves, Angolan president João Lourenço apologized for the execution of thousands of Alves' followers by the MPLA in the aftermath of the failed coup and promised to return the remains of the victims to their families.

Humanitarian efforts

The government spent $187 million settling internally displaced persons (IDPs) between 4 April 2002, and 2004, after which the World Bank gave $33 million to continue the settling process. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that fighting in 2002 displaced 98,000 people between 1 January and 28 February alone. IDPs comprised 75% of all landmine victims. The IDPs, unacquainted with their surroundings, frequently and predominantly fell victim to these weapons. Militant forces laid approximately 15 million landmines by 2002. The HALO Trust began demining Angola in 1994, and had destroyed 30,000 landmines by July 2007. 1,100 Angolans and seven foreign workers are employed by the HALO Trust in Angola, with demining operations expected to finish by 2014.

Child soldiers

Human Rights Watch estimates UNITA and the government employed more than 6,000 and 3,000 child soldiers, respectively, some forcibly impressed, during the war. Additionally, human rights analysts found that between 5,000 and 8,000 underage girls were married to UNITA militants. Some girls were ordered to go and forage for food to provide for the troops - the girls were denied food if they did not bring back enough to satisfy their commander. After victories, UNITA commanders would be rewarded with women, who were often then sexually abused. The Angolan government and UN agencies identified 190 child soldiers in the Angolan army, and had relocated 70 of them by November 2002, but the government continued to knowingly employ other underage soldiers.

In popular culture

In John Milius's 1984 film , Bella, one of the Cuban officers who takes part in a joint Cuban-Soviet invasion of the United States, is said to have fought in the conflicts in Angola, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

Jack Abramoff wrote and co-produced the film Red Scorpion with his brother Robert in 1989. In the film, Dolph Lundgren plays Nikolai, a Soviet agent sent to assassinate an African revolutionary in a fictional country modeled on Angola. The South African government financed the film through the International Freedom Foundation, a front-group chaired by Abramoff, as part of its efforts to undermine international sympathy for the African National Congress. While working in Hollywood, Abramoff was convicted for fraud and other offenses that he had committed during his concurrent career as a lobbyist. Lundgren also starred in the 1998 film Sweepers as a demolitions expert clearing minefields in Angola.

The war provides a more comedic background story in the South African comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 as a Cuban and an Angolan soldier repeatedly try to take each other prisoner, but ultimately part on (more or less) amicable terms.

The Cuban classic film Caravana was produced on the fictionalized exploits of a Cuban caravan (a military mechanized column) sent to reinforce an isolated Cuban position against an impeding UNITA attack. On the way they need to clear mines and repel continued attacks of Cobra, a special operations section of UNITA troops indirectly monitored by CIA handlers. The film received substantial support from Cuban Armed Forces, included many famous Cuban actors of the time and became a classic of Cuban Cinema.

Three additional Cuban films were produced in a loose trilogy, each focused in one significant battle of the war: Kangamba, Sumbe and Cuito Cuanavale.

The 2004 film , produced by Fernando Vendrell and directed by Zézé Gamboa, depicts the life of average Angolans in the aftermath of the civil war. The film follows the lives of three individuals: Vitório, a war veteran crippled by a landmine who returns to Luanda; Manu, a young boy searching for his soldier father; and Joana, a teacher who mentors the boy and begins a love affair with Vitório. The Hero won the 2005 Sundance World Dramatic Cinema Jury Grand Prize. A joint Angolan, Portuguese, and French production, The Hero was filmed entirely in Angola.

The Swedish-German 2010 documentary film My Heart of Darkness, about the Angolan Civil War was filmed in 2007.

The Angolan Civil War is featured in the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II, in which the player (Alex Mason) assists Jonas Savimbi in a battle against MPLA forces.

In the video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the main character known as " Venom Snake" ventures into the Angola- Zaire border region during the Angolan Civil War in order to track down the men responsible for the destruction of his private military organization.

The conflict is featured in first three episodes of the 2018 German television series Deutschland 86.

References

Further reading

"Angola Retrospective: Long Road to Peace." New African, February 2016, 50+.

Nelson Mandela & Fidel Castro, How Far We Slaves Have Come!, New York:Pathfinder Press, 1991

Adunbi, Omolade. Oil Wealth and Insurgency in Nigeria (Indiana UP, 2015).

Brittain, Victoria, and Peter Whittaker. "Death of Dignity: Angola's Civil War." New Internationalist (August 1998). MPLA viewpoint.

Collelo, Thomas. Angola, a Country Study (3rd ed. US State Dept. 1991).

Fernando Andresen Guimarães, The Origins of the Angolan Civil War: Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict, Houndsmills & London: Macmillan, 1998

French, Howard H. "How America Helped Savimbi and Apartheid South Africa. (for the Record: Angola)." New African (June 2002) .

Gleijeses, Piero. "Moscow's Proxy? Cuba and Africa 1975-1988." Journal of Cold War Studies 8.4 (2006): 98-146. online

Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (U of North Carolina Press, 2002).

Gleijeses, Piero. Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991 (U of North Carolina Press, 2013).

Hanhimaki, Jussi M. The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (2004) pp 398=426.

Hill, Alexander (2021). ""We Carried Out Our [International] Duty!": The Soviet Union, Cuito Cuanavale, and Wars of National Liberation in Southern Africa". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 34 (1): 139-158. doi:10.1080/13518046.2021.1923993. S2CID 235689406.

Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography (2005) pp 672-92. online free to borrow

W. Martin James III (2011). A Political History of the Civil War in Angola 1974-1990. Piscataway: Transaction Publishers. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-4128-1506-2.

Kennes, Erik, and Miles Larmer. The Katangese Gendarmes and War in Central Africa: Fighting Their Way Home (Indiana UP, 2016).

Klinghoffer, Arthur J. The Angolan War: A study of Soviet policy in the Third World, (Westview Press, 1980).

Malaquias, Assis. Rebels and Robbers: Violence in Post-Colonial Angola, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2007

McCormick, Shawn H. The Angolan Economy: Prospects for Growth in a Postwar Environment. (Westview Press, 1994).

McFaul, Michael. "Rethinking the 'Reagan Doctrine' in Angola." International Security 14.3 (1989): 99-135. online

Minter, William. Apartheid's Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand Press, 1994

Niederstrasser, R. O. "The Cuban Legacy in Africa." Washington Report on the Hemisphere, (30 November 2017) .

Onslow, Sue. "The battle of Cuito Cuanavale: Media space and the end of the Cold War in Southern Africa" in Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Sergey Radchenko. eds., The End of the Cold War and the Third World: New Perspectives on Regional Conflict (2011) pp 277-96.

Pazzanita, Anthony G, "The Conflict Resolution Process in Angola." The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 29 No 1(March 1991): pp. 83-114.

Saney, Isaac, "African Stalingrad: The Cuban Revolution, Internationalism and the End of Apartheid," Latin American Perspectives 33#5 (2006): pp. 81-117.

Saunders, Chris. "The ending of the Cold War and Southern Africa" in Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Sergey Radchenko. eds., The End of the Cold War and the Third World: New Perspectives on Regional Conflict (2011) pp 264-77.

Sellström, Tor, ed. Liberation in Southern Africa: Regional and Swedish Voices : Interviews from Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the Frontline and Sweden (Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2002). * Stockwell, John. In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, New York: W.W. Norton, 1978. by CVIA official

Thornton, Richard. Nixon Kissinger Years: Reshaping America's Foreign Policy (2md ed. 2001) pp 356-92.

Tvedten, Inge. Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction (Westview Press, 1997) a major scholarly history.

UN. "Security Council Again Condemns South Africa for 'Unprovoked Aggression' against Angola." UN Chronicle, November-December 1985, 12+.

Windrich, Elaine. The Cold War Guerrilla: Jonas Savimbi, the U. S. Media, and the Angolan War (Greenwood Press, 1992).

Wolfers, Michael, & Bergerol, Jane. Angola in the Front Line (London: Zed Books, 1983)

Wright, George The Destruction of a Nation: United States Policy Towards Angola Since 1945, (London: Pluto Press, 1997).

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Angolan Civil War Part of the Cold War (until 1991) and the First & Second Congo War (from 1996 onwards) Clockwise from top left Date 11 November 1975 - 4 April 2002(26 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 3 days) Location Result MPLA victory Withdrawal of all foreign forces in 1989.

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Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66

Part of Transition to the New Order

Location
Indonesia

Date

1965-1966

Target

PKI members, sympathisers, Gerwani members, ethnic Javanese Abangan,[1] atheists, " unbelievers" and " ethnic Chinese"[2]

Politicide, mass murder, genocide[2]

Deaths

500,000[3]:3 to 1,200,000[3]:3 [4][5][6]

Perpetrators

Indonesian Army and various death squads, facilitated and encouraged by the United States and other Western governments[7][8][9][10][11]

The Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 ( Indonesian genocide, Indonesian Communist Purge, Indonesian politicide) ( Indonesian: Pembunuhan Massal Indonesia & Pembersihan G.30.S/PKI) were large-scale killings and civil unrest that occurred in Indonesia over several months, targeting Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) party members, Communist sympathisers, Gerwani women, ethnic Javanese Abangan, ethnic Chinese and alleged leftists, often at the instigation of the armed forces and government, which were supported by the United States and other Western countries. It began as an anti-communist purge following a controversial attempted by the 30 September Movement. The most widely published estimates were that 500,000 to more than one million people were killed, with some more recent estimates going as high as two to three million. The purge was a pivotal event in the transition to the "New Order" and the elimination of PKI as a political force, with impacts on the global Cold War. The upheavals led to the fall of President Sukarno and the commencement of Suharto's three-decade authoritarian presidency.

The claims of a coup attempt by Communists released pent-up communal hatreds; these were fanned by the Indonesian Army, which quickly blamed the PKI. Communists were purged from political, social, and military life, and the PKI itself was disbanded and banned. The massacres began in October 1965, in the weeks following the coup attempt, and reached their peak over the remainder of the year before subsiding in the early months of 1966. They started in the capital, Jakarta, and spread to Central and East Java, and later Bali. Thousands of local vigilantes and Army units killed actual and alleged PKI members. Killings occurred across the country, with the worst in the PKI strongholds of Central Java, East Java, Bali, and northern Sumatra. It is possible that over one million people were imprisoned at one time or another.

Sukarno's balancing act of " Nasakom" ( nationalism, religion, and communism) had unravelled. His most significant pillar of support, the PKI, was effectively eliminated by the other two pillars-the Army and political Islam; and the Army was on the way to unchallenged power. In March 1967, Sukarno was stripped of his remaining power by Indonesia's provisional parliament, and Suharto was named Acting President. In March 1968, Suharto was formally elected president.

The killings are skipped over in most Indonesian history textbooks and have received little introspection by Indonesians due to their suppression under the Suharto regime. The search for satisfactory explanations for the scale and frenzy of the violence has challenged scholars from all ideological perspectives. The possibility of returning to similar upheavals is cited as a factor in the "New Order" administration's political conservatism and tight control of the political system. Vigilance and stigma against a perceived communist threat remained a hallmark of Suharto's doctrine, and it is still in force even today.

Despite a consensus at the highest levels of the U.S. and British governments that it would be necessary "to liquidate Sukarno", as related in a CIA memorandum from 1962, and the existence of extensive contacts between anti-communist Army officers and the U.S. military establishment - training of over 1,200 officers, "including senior military figures", and providing weapons and economic assistance - the CIA denied active involvement in the killings. Declassified U.S. documents in 2017 revealed that the U.S. government had detailed knowledge of the mass killings from the beginning and was supportive of the actions of the Indonesian Army. US complicity in the killings, which included providing extensive lists of PKI officials to Indonesian death squads, has previously been established by historians and journalists. A top-secret CIA report from 1968 stated that the massacres "rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century, along with the Soviet purges of the 1930s, the Nazi mass murders during the Second World War, and the Maoist bloodbath of the early 1950s."

Support for Sukarno's presidency under his " Guided Democracy" depended on his forced and unstable " Nasakom" coalition between the military, religious groups, and communists. The rise in influence and increasing militancy of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), and Sukarno's support for it, was a serious concern for Muslims and the military, and tension grew steadily in the early and mid-1960s. The third-largest communist party in the world, the PKI had approximately 300,000 cadres and full membership of around two million. The party's assertive efforts to speed up land reform frightened those who controlled the land and threatened the social position of Muslim clerics. Sukarno required government employees to study his Nasakom principles as well as Marxist theory. He had met with Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China, and after this meeting had decided to create a militia, called a Fifth Force, which he intended to control personally. Sukarno ordered weapons from China to equip this Fifth Force. He declared in a speech that he favoured revolutionary groups whether they were nationalist, religious or communist, stating, "I am a friend of the Communists because the Communists are revolutionary people." He said at a Non-Aligned Movement summit meeting in Cairo in October 1964 that his current purpose was to drive all of Indonesian politics to the left and thereby to neutralise the "reactionary" elements in the Army that could be dangerous for the revolution. Sukarno's international policies increasingly reflected his rhetoric.

Sukarno hosted the Bandung Conference in 1955 (in Bandung, Indonesia). It was a conference of mostly former colonised countries throughout Asia and Africa (including China, North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). The conference was the predecessor to the Non-Aligned Movement and was not a communist convention. However, this was enough for the U.S. to be very suspicious of Sukarno and suspect him of deep communist sympathies.

The PKI became very popular in Indonesia and performed better and better in elections throughout the 1950s. They were less corrupt than other political parties and followed through on their promises.

As early as 1958, Western powers-in particular the U.S. and the U.K.-pushed for policies that would encourage the Indonesian Army to act forcefully against the PKI and the Left, which included a covert propaganda campaign designed to damage the reputation of Sukarno and the PKI, and secret assurances along with military and financial support to anti-communist leaders within the Army. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) considered assassinating Sukarno and selected an "asset" to do the job, but instead produced a porn video with an actor portraying Sukarno and a Soviet flight attendant to delegitimise him and paint him as a communist. However, the video was not released because the agency could not put together a convincing enough film.

On the evening of 30 September 1965, a group of militants, known as the 30 September Movement, captured and executed six of Indonesia's top military generals. The movement proclaimed itself as Sukarno's protectors, issuing a pre-emptive strike to prevent a possible by the "anti-Sukarno", pro-Western Council of Generals.

Following the execution, the movement's forces occupied Merdeka Square in Jakarta and the presidential palace. Shortly afterwards, however, President Sukarno refused to commit to the movement, for it had captured and assassinated many of his top generals. As the night continued, its poor leadership began to show, starting with a series of incoherent radio messages. The movement mainly aimed to occupy the main telecommunications building; however, it ignored the east side of the square, which was the location of , the armed forces strategic reserve. At the time, Major General Suharto was in control of the reserve, and upon hearing the news of the takeover, he quickly capitalised on the movement's weaknesses, regaining control of the square without resistance. Following the surrender, the movement's troops did not take further action. At the same time, the Indonesian military slowly gained influence as Sukarno's waned, and within days, the government was under the control of Suharto. He immediately deployed troops and dispersed the movement while trumpeting the movement's actions as a "danger" to the nation.

A military propaganda campaign to link the coup attempt with the PKI, masterminded by Suharto and the military, began to sweep the country on 5 October. (the Armed Forces Day and the day of the six generals' state funeral). Graphic images and descriptions of the murdered, tortured, and even castrated generals began to circulate the country. The campaign was successful despite falsified information, convincing both Indonesian and international audiences that the murders were a PKI attempt to undermine the government under President Sukarno. Though the PKI denied involvement, pent-up tension and hatred that had built up over the years were released.

Even though the 30 September Movement killed 12 people, Suharto ultimately presented it as a nationwide conspiracy to commit mass murder. Millions of people associated with the PKI, even illiterate peasants from remote villages, were presented as murderers and accomplices of the movement. Already in early 1966, two Indonesian specialists at Cornell University, Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey, observed in their Cornell Paper that Suharto's Army began the anti-communist campaign well after the 30 September Movement had collapsed. Between the moment that the movement ended and the moment that the Army's mass arrests began, three weeks had elapsed in which no violence or trace of civil war occurred, even according to the Army itself. Sukarno constantly protested the purge, stating that the Army was "burning down a house to kill a rat", but he was powerless as Suharto commanded a firm hold on the military.

The Army removed top civilian and military leaders it thought sympathetic to the PKI. The parliament and cabinet were purged of Sukarno loyalists. Leading PKI members were immediately arrested, some summarily executed. Army leaders organised demonstrations in Jakarta during which on 8 October, the PKI Jakarta headquarters was burned down. Anti-Communist youth groups were formed, including the Army-backed Indonesian Students' Action Front ( KAMI), the Indonesian Youth and Students' Action Front (KAPPI), and the Indonesian University Alumni Action Front (KASI). In Jakarta and West Java, over 10,000 PKI activists and leaders were arrested, including famed novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

The initial deaths occurred during organised clashes between the Army and the PKI, including some Indonesian armed forces units who were sympathetic to communism and were resisting General Suharto's crackdown. For example, much of the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Police Mobile Brigade Corps were infiltrated up to commander level by the PKI. In early October, forces of the Strategic Command (Suharto's Kostrad) and the RPKAD para-commandos led by Colonel Sarwo Edhie Wibowo were sent to Central Java, a region with strong PKI support, while troops of uncertain loyalty were ordered out. At the same time, the Siliwangi Division was deployed to guard Jakarta and West Java, both of which, unlike Central and East Java, remained relatively immune to the mass killings. Early fighting in the Central Java highlands and around Madiun suggested the PKI might be able to establish a rival regime centred on these regions. However, widespread fears of a civil war between factions supported by the United States and China, respectively, quickly evaporated as the forces sent by Suharto took control. Many rebel commanders chose not to fight as Suharto-deployed forces arrived, although resistance came from some, like General Supardjo, for a few more weeks.

As the Sukarno presidency began to unravel and Suharto began to assert control following the coup attempt, the PKI's top national leadership was hunted and arrested, with some summarily executed. In early October, PKI chairman Dipa Nusantara Aidit had flown to Central Java, where the coup attempt had been supported by leftist officers in Yogyakarta, Salatiga, and Semarang. 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 that.

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, including Sumatra. The communal tensions and hatreds that had built up were played upon by the Army leadership, which characterised Communists as villains, and many Indonesian civilians took part in the killings. The worst massacres were in Aceh, Bali, Central and East Java where PKI support was at its strongest. The situation varied across the country, and the role of the Army has never been fully explained. In some areas, the Army organised, encouraged, trained, and supplied civilian groups and local militias. In other areas, communal vigilante action preceded the Army, although in most cases, killings did not commence before military units had sanctioned violence by instruction or example. It was in the earlier stages of the killings that the Army's direct involvement in clashes with the PKI occurred. By the end of October, groups of devout Muslims joined the purge of Communists, claiming it was their duty to cleanse Indonesia of atheism.

In some areas, civilian militia knew where to find known Communists and their sympathisers, while in others, the Army demanded lists of Communists from village heads. There was no disguise associated with PKI membership, and most suspects were easy to identify within communities. The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta supplied the Indonesian military with lists of up to 5,000 suspected Communists. Although some PKI branches organised resistance and reprisal killings, most went passively to their deaths. Not all victims were PKI members. Often the label "PKI" was used to include anyone to the left of the Indonesian National Party (PNI). In other cases, victims were suspected or simply alleged Communists or were victims of grievance settling with little or no political motive. Anti-Communist killings were then instigated with youths, assisted by the Army. Most of the victims were not major political figures and were mostly among the poor and the lower middle-class such as farmers, plantation labourers, factory workers, students, teachers, artists and civil servants. They were often targeted because they or someone they knew, such as a friend or family member, had joined the PKI or affiliated organisation.

With very few exceptions, the killings were not spontaneous but carried out with a high degree of organisation. Most of the victims were also detainees of the Indonesian Army, making the killings summary executions. Initially, many leftists willingly turned themselves in to the military and the police, believing they would be safe and, therefore, the reasonable thing to do. The killings were carried out 'face to face' as in Rwanda or Cambodia, unlike the mechanical methods of killing used by Nazi Germany. The methods of non-mechanised violence and killing included shooting, dismembering alive, stabbing, disembowelment, castration, impaling, strangling and beheading with Japanese-style samurai swords. Firearms and automatic weapons were used on a limited scale, with most of the killings being carried out with knives, sickles, machetes, swords, ice picks, bamboo spears, iron rods and other makeshift weapons. Islamic extremists often paraded severed heads on spikes. Corpses were often thrown into rivers, and at one point, officials complained to the Army of congested rivers that run into the city of Surabaya due to the bodies. In areas such as Kediri in East Java, Nahdlatul Ulama youth wing ( Ansor Youth Movement) members lined up Communists, cut their throats and disposed of the bodies in rivers. Rows of severed penises were often left behind as a reminder to the rest. The killings left whole sections of villages empty, and the houses of victims or the interned were looted and often handed over to the military.

Local Chinese Indonesians were killed in some areas, and their properties looted and burned as a result of anti-Chinese racism, on the excuse that D.N. Aidit had brought the PKI closer to China. In the predominantly Christian islands of Nusa Tenggara, Christian clergy and teachers suffered at the hands of Muslim youth.

Although there were occasional and isolated flare-ups until 1969, the killings mostly subsided by March 1966, when either there were no more suspects or authorities intervened. Solo residents said that exceptionally high flooding in March 1966 of the Solo River, considered mystical by the Javanese, signalled the end of the killings.

In Java, much of the killing was along aliran (cultural stream) loyalties; the Army encouraged (more devout and orthodox Muslims) among the Javanese to seek out PKI members among the (less orthodox) Javanese. The conflict that had broken out in 1963 between the Muslim party Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the PKI turned into killings in the second week of October. The Muslim group Muhammadiyah proclaimed in early November 1965 that the extermination of "Gestapu/PKI" constituted Holy War ("Gestapu" being the military's name for the "30 September Movement"), a position that was supported by other Islamic groups in Java and Sumatra. For many youths, killing Communists became a religious duty. Where there had been Communist centres in Central and East Java, Muslim groups portraying themselves as victims of Communist aggression justified the killings by evoking the Madiun Affair of 1948. Roman Catholic students in the Yogyakarta region left their hostels at night to join in the execution of truckloads of arrested Communists.

Although the killings subsided in early 1966 for most of the country, they went on for years in parts of East Java. In Blitar, guerrilla action was maintained by surviving PKI members until they were defeated in 1967 and 1968. The mystic Mbah Suro, along with devotees of his Communist-infused traditional mysticism, built an army, but he and his 80 followers were killed in a war of resistance against the Indonesian Army.

Mirroring the widening of social divisions across Indonesia in the 1950s and early 1960s, the island of Bali saw conflict between supporters of the traditional Balinese caste system and those rejecting these traditional values, particularly the PKI. Communists were publicly accused of working towards destroying the island's culture, religion, and character, and the Balinese, like the Javanese, were urged to destroy the PKI. Government jobs, funds, business advantage and other spoils of office had gone to the Communists during the final years of Sukarno's presidency. Disputes over land and tenants' rights led to land seizures and killings when the PKI promoted "unilateral action". As Indonesia's only Hindu-majority island, Bali did not have the Islamic forces involved in Java, and it was upper-caste PNI landlords who instigated the elimination of PKI members. High Hindu priests called for sacrifices to satisfy spirits angered by past sacrilege and social disruption. Balinese Hindu leader Ida Bagus Oka told Hindus: "There can be no doubt [that] the enemies of our revolution are also the cruellest enemies of religion, and must be eliminated and destroyed down to the roots." Like parts of East Java, Bali experienced a state of near civil war as Communists regrouped.

The balance of power was shifted in favour of anti-Communists in December 1965, when personnel from both the Army Para-commando Regiment and 5th Brawijaya Military Region units arrived in Bali after having carried out killings in Java. Led by Suharto's principal troubleshooter, Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, Javanese military commanders permitted Balinese squads to kill until reined in. In contrast to Central Java, where the Army encouraged people to kill the "Gestapu", Bali's eagerness to kill was so tremendous and spontaneous that, having provided logistic support initially, the Army eventually had to step in to prevent chaos. Sukarno's choice of Bali's provincial governor, Suteja, was recalled from office and accused of preparing a communist uprising, and his relatives were tracked down and killed. A series of killings similar to those in Central and East Java were led by black-shirted PNI youth. For several months, militia death squads went through villages capturing suspects and taking them away. Hundreds of houses belonging to communists and their relatives were burnt down within one week of the reprisal crusade, with occupants being butchered as they ran from their homes. An early estimate suggested that 50,000 people, including women and children, were killed in this operation alone. The population of several Balinese villages were halved in the last months of 1965. All the Chinese shops in the towns of Singaraja and Denpasar were destroyed, and many of their owners who were alleged to have financially supported the "Gestapu" killed. Between December 1965 and early 1966, an estimated 80,000 Balinese were killed, roughly 5% of the island's population at the time, and proportionally more than anywhere else in Indonesia.

PKI-organised movements and campaigns against foreign businesses in Sumatra's plantations provoked quick reprisals against communists following the coup attempt. In Aceh, as many as 40,000 were killed, part of the possibly 200,000 deaths across Sumatra. Ethnic Javanese migrants were slaughtered en masse in South Sumatra. The regional revolts of the late 1950s complicated events in Sumatra as many former rebels were forced to affiliate themselves with Communist organisations to prove their loyalty to the Indonesian Republic. The quelling of the 1950s revolts and 1965 killings were seen by most Sumatrans as a "Javanese occupation". In Lampung, another factor in the killings seems to have been Javanese immigration. In West Kalimantan, after the killings ended in 1967, indigenous pagan Dayaks expelled 45,000 ethnic Hakka Chinese from rural areas, killing as many as 2,000 to 5,000. The Hakka Chinese refused to fight back since they considered themselves "a guest on other people's land" with the intention of trading only.

Islam in Java was divided between Abangan, who mixed Islam with other religions like Hinduism and native religious practices, and the Santri, who followed standard orthodox Islam. Many Abangans were supporters of the Communist Party, and their interests were thus supported by the PKI. They subsequently made up most of the people who were slaughtered in the killings. Abangans were targeted for attacks by Ansor, the youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama and the Santri with help from the Indonesian Army. To avoid being classified as atheist and communists, Abangan Muslims were forced by the Indonesian government to convert to Hinduism and Christianity in the aftermath of the slaughter.

In Sumatra, anti-Javanese Sumatran youths massacred the ethnic Javanese plantation labourers and PKI members throughout North Sumatra. In Lombok, natives slaughtered mostly ethnic Balinese all across the region.

The targeting of ethnic Chinese played an important role in the killings in Sumatra and Kalimantan, which have been called genocide. Charles A. Coppel is sharply critical of this characterisation, in which he sees a western media and academics unwilling to face the consequences of an anti-communist agenda that they endorsed, instead scapegoating Indonesian racism and indulging in extravagant and false claims of hundreds of thousands or millions of Chinese killed. Charles Coppel wrote of the distorted coverage in an article titled: "A genocide that never was: explaining the myth of anti-Chinese massacres in Indonesia, 1965-66". Coppel sees the same bias in coverage of the May 1998 riots, where the Volunteer Team for Humanity noted non-Chinese looters made up the majority of those who were killed. His thesis continues to inspire debate.

An estimate is that around 2,000 Chinese Indonesians were killed (out of a total estimated death toll of between 500,000 and 3 million people), with documented massacres taking place in Makassar, Medan and Lombok island. Robert Cribb and Charles A. Coppel noted that "relatively few" Chinese were actually killed during the purge while most of the dead were native Indonesians. The death toll of the Chinese was in the thousands, while the death toll of native Indonesians was in the hundreds of thousands. Ethnic Balinese and Javanese made up the vast majority of people who were massacred.

Although the general outline of events is known, much is unknown about the killings, and an accurate and verified count of the dead is unlikely ever to be known. There were few Western journalists or academics in Indonesia at the time; the military was one of the few sources of information, travel was difficult and dangerous, and the regime that approved and oversaw the killings remained in power for three decades. The Indonesian media at the time had been undermined by restrictions under "Guided Democracy" and by the "New Order's" takeover in October 1966. With the killings occurring at the height of Western fears over communism during the Cold War, there was little investigation internationally, which would have risked complicating the West's preference for Suharto and the "New Order" over the PKI and the "Old Order".

In the first 20 years following the killings, 39 serious estimates of the death toll were attempted. Before the killings had finished, the Indonesian Army estimated 78,500 had been killed, while the PKI put the figure at two million. The Indonesian Army later[when? ] estimated the number killed to be one million. In 1966, Benedict Anderson had set the death toll at 200,000. By 1985 he concluded that a total of 500,000 to 1 million people had been killed. Most scholars now agree that at least half a million were killed, thus more than in any other event in Indonesian history. An armed forces security command[which? ] estimate from December 1976 put the number at between 450,000 and 500,000. Robert Cribb suggests the most accurate figure is 500,000, though he notes it is incredibly difficult to determine the precise number of people killed. However, Jan Walendouw, one of Suharto's confidants, admitted that about 1.2 million Indonesians were killed. Vincent Bevins estimates the numbers killed at up to a million or perhaps more.

Arrests and imprisonment continued for ten years after the purge. A 1977 Amnesty International report suggested "about one million" PKI cadres and others identified or suspected of party involvement were detained. Between 1981 and 1990, the Indonesian government estimated that there were between 1.6 and 1.8 million former prisoners "at large" in society. It is possible that in the mid-1970s, 100,000 were still imprisoned without trial. It is thought that as many as 1.5 million were imprisoned at one stage or another. Those PKI members not killed or imprisoned went into hiding while others tried to hide their past. Those arrested included leading politicians, artists and writers such as Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and peasants and soldiers. Those incarcerated in the vast network of prisons and concentration camps, which rivalled the worst camps of the USSR, faced "extraordinarily inhumane conditions." Many did not survive this first period of detention, dying from malnutrition and beatings. As people revealed the names of underground Communists, often under torture, the numbers imprisoned rose from 1966-68. Methods of torture included severe beatings with makeshift materials like electric cable and large pieces of wood, breaking fingers and crushing toes and feet under the legs of tables and chairs, pulling out fingernails, electric shocks, and burning with molten rubber or cigarettes. Detainees were sometimes forced to watch or listen to the torture of others, including relatives such as spouses or children. Both men and women were subjected to sexual violence while in detention, including rape and electric shocks to the genitals. Women, in particular, were subjected to brutal gendered violence, including being forced to ingest the urine of their captors and having genitals and breasts mutilated. Myriad instances of torture and rape, with victims including girls younger than 13, were reported to Amnesty International. Those released were often placed under house arrest, had to report to the military regularly, or were banned from Government employment, as were their children.

Sukarno's balancing act of "Nasakom" (nationalism, religion, communism) had been unravelled. His most significant pillar of support, the PKI, had been effectively eliminated by the other two pillars-the Army and political Islam; and the Army was on the way to unchallenged power. Many Muslims were no longer trusting of Sukarno, and by early 1966, Suharto began to defy Sukarno openly , a policy that Army leaders had previously avoided. Sukarno attempted to cling to power and mitigate the Army's new-found influence, although he could not bring himself to blame the PKI for the coup as demanded by Suharto. On 1 February 1966, Sukarno promoted Suharto to the rank of lieutenant general. The Supersemar decree of 11 March 1966 transferred much of Sukarno's power over the parliament and Army to Suharto, ostensibly allowing Suharto to do whatever was needed to restore order. On 12 March 1967, Sukarno was stripped of his remaining power by Indonesia's provisional parliament, and Suharto named Acting President. On 21 March 1968, the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly formally elected Suharto as president.

Several hundred or thousand Indonesian leftists travelling abroad were unable to return to their homeland. For example, Djawoto, the ambassador to China, refused to be recalled and spent the rest of his life outside of Indonesia. Some of these exiles, writers by trade, continued writing. This Indonesian exile literature was full of hatred for the new government and written simply, for general consumption, but necessarily published internationally.

In December 1965, the U.S. embassy in Jakarta had sent a telegram to Washington stating that without the uprising, "removal of foreign oil companies would have been a certainty." In late 1968, the National Intelligence Estimate for Indonesia reported: "An essential part of the Suharto government's economic program ... has been to welcome foreign capital back to Indonesia. Already about 25 American and European firms have recovered control of mines, estates, and other enterprises nationalized under Sukarno. Liberal legislation has been enacted to attract new private foreign investment. ... There is substantial foreign investment in relatively untapped resources of nickel, copper, bauxite, and timber. The most promising industry ... is oil."

The killings served as a direct precedent for the genocidal invasion and occupation of East Timor. The same generals oversaw the killing in both situations and encouraged equally brutal methods-with impunity.

The killings in Indonesia were so effective and enjoyed such prestige among Western powers that they inspired similar anti-communist purges in countries such as Chile and Brazil. Vincent Bevins found evidence that indirectly linked the metaphor "Jakarta" to eleven countries.

To Western governments, the killings and purges were seen as victory over communism at the height of the Cold War. Western governments and much of the West's media preferred Suharto and the "New Order" to the PKI and the increasingly leftist "Old Order". The British ambassador, Andrew Gilchrist, wrote to London: "I never concealed from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change." News of the massacre was carefully controlled by Western intelligence agencies. Journalists, prevented from entering Indonesia, relied on the official statements from Western embassies. The British embassy in Jakarta advised intelligence headquarters in Singapore on how the news should be presented: "Suitable propaganda themes might be: PKI brutality in murdering Generals, ... PKI subverting Indonesia as agents of foreign Communists. ... British participation should be carefully concealed."

A headline in U.S. News & World Report read: "Indonesia: Hope... where there was once none". Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt commented in The New York Times, "With 500,000 to 1 million Communist sympathizers knocked off, I think it is safe to assume a reorientation has taken place." The right-wing oilman H. L. Hunt proclaimed Indonesia the sole bright spot for the United States in the Cold War and called the ouster of Sukarno the "greatest victory for freedom since the last decisive battle of World War II." described the suppression of the PKI as "The West's best news for years in Asia," and praised Suharto's regime as "scrupulously constitutional." "It was a triumph for Western propaganda," Robert Challis, a BBC reporter in the area, later reflected. Many Western media reports repeated the Indonesian Army's line by downplaying its responsibility for and the rational, organised nature of the mass killing. They emphasised the role of civilians instead, invoking the orientalist stereotype of Indonesians as primitive and violent. A New York Times journalist wrote an article titled "When a Nation Runs Amok" explaining that the killings were hardly surprising since they occurred in "violent Asia, where life is cheap."

U.S government officials were "almost uniformly celebratory" of the mass killings. In recalling their attitudes regarding the killings, State Department intelligence officer Howard Federspiel said that "no one cared, as long as they were Communists, that they were being butchered." Within the United States, Robert F. Kennedy was one of the only prominent individuals to condemn the massacres. He said in January 1966: "We have spoken out against the inhuman slaughters perpetrated by the Nazis and the Communists. But will we speak out also against the inhuman slaughter in Indonesia, where over 100,000 alleged Communists have not been perpetrators, but victims?" U.S. economic elites were also pleased with the outcome in Indonesia. Following Suharto's consolidation of power in 1967, many companies, including Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, General Electric, American Express, Caterpillar Inc., StarKist, Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin, went to explore business opportunities in the country.

USSR's Andrei Sakharov called the killings a 'tragic event' and described it as "an extreme case of reaction, racism and militarism", but otherwise, the Soviet response was relatively muted. It was likely in response to the PKI siding with China in the Sino-Soviet split. Other Communist states issued sharp criticism of the killings. The Chinese government stated they were "heinous and diabolical crimes ... unprecedented in history." China also offered refuge to Indonesian leftists fleeing the violence. One Yugoslav diplomat commented that "even assuming the guilt of the politburo [PKI leadership], which I do not, does this justify genocide? Kill the Central Committee, but do not kill 100,000 people who do not know and had no part in it [the 30 September Plot]." The killings perhaps provided a justification for the Cultural Revolution in China, as Chinese communist leaders were fearful that "hidden bourgeois elements" could infiltrate or destroy leftist movements and organisations, and it was built around this narrative. The Suharto government was condemned as a "military fascist regime" by the government of North Korea.

The United Nations avoided commenting on the killings. When Suharto returned Indonesia to the UN, communist Albania was the only member state to protest.

-Robert J. Martens, political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, who provided lists of communists to the Indonesian military.

While the exact role of the U.S. government during the massacres remains obscured by still-sealed government archives on Indonesia for this period, it is known that "at a minimum," the U.S. government supplied money and communications equipment to the Indonesian Army that facilitated the mass killings, gave fifty million rupiah to the KAP-Gestapu death squad, and provided targeted names of thousands of alleged PKI leaders to the Indonesian Army. Robert J. Martens, political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta from 1963 to 1966, told journalist Kathy Kadane in 1990 that he led a group of State Department and CIA officials who drew up the lists of roughly 5,000 Communist Party operatives, which he provided to an Army intermediary. Kadane asserts that approval for the release of names came from top U.S. Embassy officials, including U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Marshall Green, deputy chief of mission Jack Lydman and political section chief Edward Masters, who all later denied involvement. Martens claimed he acted without approval to avoid red tape at a critical time. The State Department volume Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, which the CIA attempted to suppress in 2001, acknowledges that the U.S. Embassy provided lists of communist leaders to Indonesians involved in the purges, and notes that Marshall Green stated in a 1966 airgram to Washington, which was drafted by Martens and approved by Masters, that the lists of communists were "apparently being used by Indonesian security authorities who seem to lack even the simplest overt information on PKI leadership." Scholars have also corroborated the claim that U.S. Embassy officials provided lists of communists to Suharto's forces, who, according to Mark Aarons, "ensured that those so named were eliminated in the mass killing operations." Geoffrey B. Robinson, professor of history at UCLA, asserts that U.S. government officials, among them Marshall Green, "published memoirs and articles that sought to divert attention from any possible U.S. role, while questioning the integrity and political loyalties of scholars who disagreed with them."

Vincent Bevins writes that this was not the first instance of U.S. officials providing lists of suspected communists to members of a foreign government to be rounded up and killed, as they had done so in Guatemala in 1954 and Iraq in 1963. Besides U.S. officials, managers of U.S.-owned corporate plantations also provided the Indonesian Army with lists of "troublesome" communists and union leaders who were subsequently hunted down and killed.

Robert Cribb, writing in 2002, claims "there is considerable evidence that the U.S. encouraged the killings, by both providing funds to anti-communist forces and supplying the Indonesian Army with the names of people whom it believed were PKI members. There is no evidence, however, that U.S. intervention significantly increased the scale of the killings." Vincent Bevins says that the Indonesian military bears "prime responsibility for the massacres and concentration camps," but adds that "Washington was the prime mover" of the operation and "shares guilt for every death." Mark Aarons contends that Marshall Green is "long seen as one of the principal officials involved in encouraging the slaughter." Kai Thaler asserts that declassified documents show that "U.S. officials were accessories to this mass murder" and "helped create the conditions for the killings." Bradley Simpson, Director of the Indonesia/East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, contends that "Washington did everything in its power to encourage and facilitate the Army-led massacre of alleged PKI members, and U.S. officials worried only that the killing of the party's unarmed supporters might not go far enough, permitting Sukarno to return to power and frustrate the [Johnson] Administration's emerging plans for a post-Sukarno Indonesia." He claims that documents show "the United States was directly involved to the extent that they provided the Indonesian Armed Forces with assistance that they introduced to help facilitate the mass killings," which included the CIA providing small arms from Thailand, and the U.S. government providing monetary assistance and limited amounts of communications equipment, medicine and a range of other items, including shoes and uniforms, to the Indonesian military. Geoffrey B. Robinson posits that, based on documentary evidence, powerful foreign states, in particular the United States, Great Britain and their allies, were instrumental in facilitating and encouraging the Indonesian Army's campaign of mass killing, and without such support, the killings would not have happened. He elaborates in his 2018 book The Killing Season:

The United States and other Western states have steadfastly denied any responsibility for the terrible violence that followed the alleged coup of October 1, 1965. That violence, they have maintained, was the product of domestic political forces over which outside powers had little, if any, influence. That claim is untrue. There is now clear evidence that in the crucial six months after the alleged coup, Western powers encouraged the army to move forcefully against the Left, facilitated widespread violence including mass killings, and helped to consolidate the political power of the army, In doing so, they helped to bring about the political and physical destruction of the PKI and its affiliates, the removal of Sukarno and his closest associates from political power, their replacement by an army elite led by General Suharto, and a seismic shift in Indonesia's foreign policy towards the West and the capitalist model it advanced.

Western support for the Indonesian Army solidified as it demonstrated its "resolve" through the mass killing campaigns. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy reported to the president that the events since 1 October had been "a striking vindication of U.S. policy towards Indonesia in recent years: a policy of keeping our hand in the game for the long-term stakes despite recurrent pressure to pull out" and that it was made clear to the Indonesian Army via U.S. Embassy's deputy chief of mission, Francis Joseph Galbraith, that "Embassy and the USG generally sympathetic with and admiring of what Army doing." The primary concerns of U.S. officials by December 1965 were that Sukarno had yet to be removed and that plans to nationalise U.S. oil companies had yet to be reversed and warned the emerging Indonesian leadership that Washington would withhold support if threats to U.S. investments were not halted. Professor Ruth Blakeley writes "the case of Indonesia reveals the extent to which the U.S. state prioritised its elite interests over the human rights of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians."

The United States, along with Great Britain and Australia, also played an active role in "black propaganda operations" during the killings, which included clandestine radio broadcasts being transmitted into the country that repeated Indonesian Army propaganda as part of a psychological warfare campaign designed to encourage support for the killings and to discredit the PKI.

Of all countries, Swedish arms supplies seem to have been the most substantial. According to a report by an Indonesian refugee in Japan, from early December 1965, Indonesia signed "a contract with Sweden for an emergency purchase of $10,000,000 worth of small arms and ammunition to be used for annihilating elements of the PKI." The Swedish Embassy's concerns about the slaughter did grow some months later, with Sweden's ambassador openly critical of the campaign of violence, but apparently after the fact.

Documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), called on the U.S. to account for its role in the killings during a screening of the former for U.S. Congress members. On 10 December 2014, the same day The Look of Silence was released in Indonesia, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced a "Sense of the Senate Resolution" which condemned the killings and called for the declassification of all documents on U.S. involvement in the events, noting that "the U.S. provided financial and military assistance during this time and later, according to documents released by the State Department."

Declassified documents released by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta in October 2017 show that the U.S. government had detailed knowledge of the massacres from the start and specifically refer to mass killings ordered by Suharto. The documents also reveal that the U.S. government actively encouraged and facilitated the Indonesian Army's massacres to further its geopolitical interests in the region and that U.S. officials and diplomats at the embassy kept detailed records of which PKI leaders were being killed. U.S. officials, dismayed at Indonesia's shift towards the left, were "ecstatic" over the seizure of power by right-wing generals who proceeded to exterminate the PKI, and were determined to avoid doing anything that might thwart the efforts of the Indonesian Army. The U.S. also withheld credible information which contradicted the Indonesian Army's version of events regarding the abortive coup by junior officers on 30 September 1965, which triggered the killings. On 21 December 1965, the Embassy's first secretary, Mary Vance Trent, sent a cable to the State Department which provided an estimate of 100,000 people killed, and referred to the events as a "fantastic switch which has occurred over 10 short weeks." Bradley Simpson said these previously secret cables, telegrams, letters, and reports "contain damning details that the U.S. was willfully and gleefully pushing for the mass murder of innocent people."

-John Roosa, Department of History, University of British Columbia

Discussion of the killings was heavily tabooed in Indonesia and, if mentioned at all, usually called peristiwa enam lima, the incident of '65. Inside and outside Indonesia, public discussion of the killings increased during the 1990s and especially after 1998 when the New Order government collapsed. Jailed and exiled members of the Sukarno regime, as well as ordinary people, told their stories in increasing numbers. Foreign researchers felt more empowered to publish on the topic, with the end of intimidation by the military regime.

The killings are skipped over in most Indonesian histories and have received little introspection by Indonesians as well as comparatively little international attention. Indonesian textbooks typically depict the killings as a "patriotic campaign" that resulted in less than 80,000 deaths. In 2004, the textbooks were briefly changed to include the events, but this new curriculum discontinued in 2006 following protests from the military and Islamic groups. The textbooks which mentioned the mass killings were subsequently burnt by order of Indonesia's Attorney General. John Roosa's Pretext for Mass Murder (2006) was initially banned by the Attorney General's Office. The Indonesian parliament set up a truth and reconciliation commission to analyse the killings, but it was suspended by the Indonesian High Court. An academic conference regarding the killings was held in Singapore in 2009. A hesitant search for mass graves by survivors and family members began after 1998, although little has been found. Over three decades later, great enmity remains in Indonesian society over the events.

The Supardjo Document is a copy of the personal notes of General Supardjo regarding the 30 September Movement. It is one of the few primary sources of this event and gives insight into the movement from a military perspective, including Supardjo's opinion on what may have caused the movement to fail.

Satisfactory explanations for the scale and frenzy of the violence have challenged scholars from all ideological perspectives. One view attributes the communal hatreds behind the killings to the forcing of parliamentary democracy onto Indonesian society, claiming that such changes were culturally unsuitable and unnecessarily disruptive in the post-independence 1950s. A contrasting view is that when Sukarno and the military replaced the democratic process with authoritarianism, competing interests-i.e., the Army, political Islam, and Communism-could not be openly debated. They were suppressed instead and could only be expressed through violence. Conflict resolution methods have broken down, and Muslim groups and the military adopted an "us or them attitude" and that when the killings were over, many Indonesians dismissed as something the Communists had deserved. The possibility of returning to similar upheavals is cited as a factor in the "New Order" administration's political conservatism and tight control of the political system. Vigilance against a Communist threat remained a hallmark of Suharto's three-decade presidency.

Although mostly unknown in the West compared to the Vietnam War and various right-wing coups in Latin America, the massacres and Suharto's rise to power are considered by historians to be a significant turning point in the Cold War. The massacres were also crucial to the expansion of capitalism in Indonesia, with Suharto rapidly implementing the economic policies of the " Berkeley Mafia", whose training had been funded by the Ford Foundation, to liberalise the economy. Given U.S. foreign policy goals of stopping the spread of communism and bringing nations into its sphere of influence, the bloody purge which decimated the PKI, the third-largest Communist Party in the world at the time, was considered a huge victory. After viewing declassified documents released in 2017, historian John Roosa notes that much "of the U.S. foreign policy establishment viewed it as a great victory that they were able to sort of 'flip' Indonesia very quickly." He also asserts that the U.S. did not simply "stand by" and allow the killings to happen, stating "it's easy for American commentators to fall into that approach, but the U.S. was part and parcel of the operation, strategising with the Indonesian Army and encouraging them to go after the PKI."

In surveying the most recent histories of the events, along with declassified documents and witness statements, Vincent Bevins posits that the mass killings in mid-1960s Indonesia were not necessarily an isolated incident and serves as the apex of "a loose network of U.S.-backed anti-communist extermination programs" which emerged around the world from 1945 to 1990 (such as Operation Condor), and "carried out mass murder in at least 22 countries." He argues that, unlike the violence unleashed by communist leaders such as Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot, the violence of the anti-communist crusade of the United States has deeply shaped the world we live in today, a "worldwide capitalist order with the United States as its leading military power and center of cultural production." He argues that contrary to the popular notion that much of the developing world peacefully and willingly adopted the capitalist system advocated by the United States and its allies, it's possible that without this violence, "many of these countries would not be capitalist at all.":200-206; 238-243

Geoffrey B. Robinson asserts that while there is no consensus on the matter, some scholars have described the mass killings as genocide. Jess Melvin claims the 1965-66 massacre constitutes genocide under the legal definition as particular religious and ethnic groups were targeted collectively for their relations to the PKI. She cites Matthew Lippman and David Nersessian stating atheists are covered under the genocide convention and argues the Indonesian military prescribed the elimination of "atheists" and "unbelievers" collectively for their association with communism and the PKI, and thus these killings would constitute genocide. Melvin also emphasises the extermination of the PKI as an act of genocide by pointing out that the PKI themselves identified with a particular religious denomination known as "Red Islam" that mixed Islam with communism. She further argues the killings constitute genocide because the PKI constitute an ideologically based "national group."

International People's Tribunal 1965

In November 2015, the International People's Tribunal on 1965 Crimes Against Humanity in Indonesia, presided over by seven international judges, was held in The Hague, Netherlands. It was formally established in 2014 by human rights activists, academics, and Indonesian exiles in response to an "absence of an official domestic process of transitional justice based on truth finding." In July 2016, chief judge Zak Yacoob publicly read the tribunal's findings, which called the state of Indonesia directly responsible for the events and guilty of crimes against humanity, blamed Suharto for spreading false propaganda and laying the grounds for the massacres, and concluded that the massacres "intended to annihilate a section of the population and could be categorised as genocide". The report also highlighted other allegations which the panel found to be well-founded, including enslavement in labour camps, ruthless torture, systematic sexual violence and forced disappearance. Indonesia rejected the tribunal's ruling; Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan said the killings were "none of their business, they are not our superiors and Indonesia has its own system." The court has no legal authority to issue binding decisions or rulings.

Judge Yacoob stated that "the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Australia were all complicit to differing degrees in the commission of these crimes against humanity." The judges conclude that the U.S. supported the Indonesian military "knowing well that they were embarked upon a programme of mass killings," which included providing lists of alleged communist party officials to the Indonesian security forces with a "strong presumption that these would facilitate the arrest and/or the execution of those that were named", whereas the UK and Australia repeated false propaganda from the Indonesian Army, even after it became "abundantly clear that killings and other crimes against humanity were taking place." Australia's foreign affairs ministry rejected the tribunal's conclusion, which it described as a "human rights NGO", and denies the country was in any way complicit in the killings. The U.S. and the U.K. have not responded to the tribunal's findings. Indonesian human-rights lawyer Nursyahbani Katjasungkana(Indonesian) called on all three countries to admit their complicity, stating that it had been proved from their various diplomatic communications and could no longer be denied.

Films, Documentaries, and Museums

-Adi Zulkadry, death squad leader quoted in The Act of Killing.

During Suharto's regime, the media was heavily influenced and censored to show a 'certain' history of the 1965 incident: a history which purely and undoubtedly blamed the PKI for this political tragedy. However, in recent articles such as by 'The Jakarta Post', a more in-depth and complex story is recognised by the media offering conflicting views on whom the blame should really fall. A film supporting the New Order's version of events, Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI ( Betrayal of Indonesia Communist Party) was broadcast annually on the government television station TVRI every 30 September. This version was the only one allowed in open discourse in the country. After Suharto's removal from power, many people, including those involved, told other versions of the events in various books and films. One, the documentary film The Act of Killing, included interviews with individuals who had participated in the mass killings, and its companion piece The Look of Silence follows one grieving family trying to understand why it happened and exposes how those behind the massacres still revel in their crimes 50 years on, including boasting on camera how they dismembered, eviscerated, castrated and beheaded alleged communists. The film The Year of Living Dangerously, based around events leading up to the killings, internationally released in 1982, was banned in Indonesia until 2000.

A museum called the Museum Pengkhianatan PKI (Komunis), the "Museum of Communist Betrayal", was established in Jakarta to buttress the narrative that the PKI were traitors and deserved to be eradicated.

The killings inspired many novelists to write their own rendition of the event, either on a more local, socio-cultural level, or on a national, political level. Books that were written in Indonesia during the New Order often faced censorship of certain concepts, while books written and published abroad were banned from the country.

John Roosa's Pretext for Mass Murder traces a historical path through the 1965 event, painting a scenario of explanations for what preceded, caused and followed the coup. It focuses on several aspects of the coup such as the incoherence of facts and the incompetence of coup organisers to provide four main interpretations of the coup:(1) the movement as an attempted coup d'état by the PKI, (2) the movement as a mutiny of junior officers, (3) the movement as an alliance of Army officers and the PKI, and (4) the movement as a frame-up of the PKI. It also looks at material previously left unexplored in traditional discussions of the incident to give a reconstruction of the chaos that surrounds this period in Indonesian history.

Ahmad Tohari's trilogy novel The Dancer (Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk) depicts a village community caught in a revolution, giving readers a perspective less acknowledged in the more popular account of the massacres. By having its two main characters, Srintil and Rasus, on opposite ends of the revolution, the novel sketches not only the circumstances that could have drawn the greater rural public into communist practices but also the mindset of the people who were tasked with carrying out the killings. As the novel was published in 1981, certain aspects were censored by the New Order, but all the same, the trilogy provides valuable insight into the grass-root level of the anti-communist coup and the tragedies that followed.

The nights at the beginning of the dry season of 1966 were very cold, and there was widespread anxiety amongst the people. Wild dogs roamed the area, savage, aroused by the smell of blood and corpses that had not been buried properly. The southeasterly breeze carried the smell of rotting carrion. The stillness of the nights was broken by the sounds of the heavy footfalls of boots and the occasional reports of gunshots.

Eka Kurniawan's Beauty is a Wound (2002) weaves history into satire, tragedy and the supernatural to depict the state of the nation before, during and after 1965. There is less focus on the military aspect of the coup, but a good deal of focus on the communists themselves through the form of interpersonal relationships and communist ghosts who could not find peace. Without meaning to, perhaps, the novel also gives readers a glimpse of the economy of Indonesia at the time using the example of a flourishing prostitute business and a temporary swimsuit business, among others. Kurniawan projects his feelings about the revolution and coup by constructing a story of theatrical characters around it and delivers a history of the nation all the way from Dutch occupation to Suharto.

Revolution is nothing more than a collective running amok, organized by one particular party.

Louise Doughty's Black Water (2016) deals with the 1965 event by exploring them from a European viewpoint. Shifting between California and Indonesia as settings for the novel, the book is written from the perspective of a single man working as an operative for an international company. The novel focuses more on foreign reactions to the coup rather than the coup itself, especially from the foreign journalist community.

The Jakarta Method (2020) by Vincent Bevins builds upon his writing for The Washington Post employing recently declassified records, archival probes, and primary eye-witness interviews gathered from one dozen countries to expose the frightening and astonishing legacy of the killings.

Alham, Asahan, ed. (2002). Di Negeri Orang: Puisi Penyair Indonesia Eksil [In Another Person's Country: Poems By Exiled Indonesian Poets] (in Indonesian). Jakarta: Lontar Foundation. ISBN 978-979-8083-42-6.

Allan, Stuart; Zeilzer, Barbie (2004). Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime. London and New York: Routledge.

Bellamy, Alex J. (2012). Massacres and Morality: Mass Atrocities in an Age of Civilian Immunity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199288429.

Bevins, Vincent (2020). The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1541742406.

Blakeley, Ruth (2009). State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South. Routledge. ISBN 0415686172

Blumenthal, David A. and McCormack, Timothy L. H. (2007). The Legacy of Nuremberg: Civilising Influence or Institutionalised Vengeance? (International Humanitarian Law). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 9004156917

Crouch, Harold (1978). The army and politics in Indonesia, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press ISBN 0801411556 (A revision of the author's thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, 1975, entitled: The Indonesia Army in politics, 1960-1971.) pp. 65-66. Cited in Cribb (1990).

Cribb, Robert (1990), "Introduction: Problems in the historiography of the killings in Indonesia", in Cribb, Robert (ed.), Monash papers on Southeast Asia - No 21. The Indonesian killings of 1965-1966: studies from Java and Bali, Clayyton, Victoria: Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 1-43

Cribb, Robert; Coppel, Charles (2009). "A genocide that never was: explaining the myth of anti-Chinese massacres in Indonesia, 1965-66". Journal of Genocide Research. Taylor & Francis. 11 (4): 447-465. doi:10.1080/14623520903309503. ISSN 1469-9494. S2CID 145011789.

Hill, David (2008). Knowing Indonesia from Afar: Indonesian Exiles and Australian Academics (PDF) (Paper delivered at the 17th Biennial Conference on the Asian Studies Association of Australia). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 March 2012.

Mehr, Nathaniel (2009). Constructive Bloodbath in Indonesia: The United States, Great Britain and the Mass Killings of 1965-1966. Spokesman Books. ISBN 0851247679

Oey Hong Lee, (1971) Indonesian government and press during Guided Democracy Hull: University of Hull, Hull monographs on South-East Asia; no. 4 . Zug, Switzerland : Inter Documentation Co.

Ricklefs, M. C. (1991). A History of Modern Indonesia since c.1300, Second Edition. MacMillan. ISBN 0-333-57689-6.

Robinson, Geoffrey (1995). The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Views in Bali. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. Chapter 11. cited here from Friend (2003).

Roosa, John (2020). Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965-1966 in Indonesia. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299327309.

Simpson, Bradley (2010). Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804771820

Tan, Mely G. (2008). Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia: Kumpulan Tulisan [Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia: A Collection of Writings] (in Indonesian). Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia. ISBN 978-979-461-689-5.

Taylor, Jean Gelman (2003). Indonesia: Peoples and Histories. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10518-5.

Vittachi, Tarzie (1967). The Fall of Sukarno. Andre Deutsch Ltd.

Weiner, Tim (2007). Legacy of Ashes - The History of the CIA. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1-84614-064-8.

Westad, Odd Arne (2005). The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-64382-5.

Final Report of the IPT 1965: Findings and Documents of the IPT 1965. International People's Tribunal 1965.

Accomplices in Atrocity. The Indonesian killings of 1965 (transcript). Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 7 September 2008

Lessons of the 1965 Indonesian Coup Terri Cavanagh, World Socialist Web Site, 1998.

The Forgotten Massacres. 2 June 2015.

Suharto's Purge, Indonesia's Silence. Joshua Oppenheimer for The New York Times, 29 September 2015.

Indonesia takes step toward reckoning with '65-66 atrocities. The Associated Press. 18 April 2016

Indonesia challenged to admit existence of mass graves from anti-communist purges. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 23 May 2016.

Indonesia Takes a Step Back From Reckoning With a Past Atrocity. The New York Times, 29 September 2017.

In Indonesia, the 'fake news' that fueled a Cold War massacre is still potent five decades later. The Washington Post. 30 September 2017.

There's now proof that Soeharto orchestrated the 1965 killings by Jess Melvin. Indonesia at Melbourne at the University of Melbourne, 26 June 2018.

A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-1966 by Gregory Elich

LIFE Magazine article, 1 July 1966

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Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 - Wikipedia

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Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 Part of Transition to the New Order Location Indonesia Date 1965-1966 Target PKI members, sympathisers, Gerwani members, ethnic Javanese Abangan,[1] atheists, " unbelievers" and " ethnic Chinese"[2] Politicide, mass murder, genocide [2] Deaths 500,000[3] :3 to 1,200,000[3] :3 [4] [5] [6] Perpetrators Indonesian Army and

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The 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état (Golpe de Estado en Guatemala de 1954) was the result of a CIA covert operation code-named PBSuccess. It deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.

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The Cuban Revolution ( Spanish: Revolución cubana) was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in court, Fidel Castro organized an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. The rebels were arrested and while in prison formed the 26th of July Movement. After gaining amnesty the M-26-7 rebels organized an expedition from Mexico on the Granma yacht to invade Cuba. In the following years the M-26-7 rebel army would slowly defeat the Cuban army in the countryside, while its urban wing would engage in sabotage and rebel army recruitment. Over time the originally critical and ambivalent Popular Socialist Party would come to support the 26th of July Movement in late 1958. By the time the rebels were to oust Batista the revolution was being driven by the Popular Socialist Party, 26th of July Movement, and the Revolutionary Directorate of March 13.

The rebels finally ousted Batista on 1 January 1959, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución (from Spanish: "Day of the Revolution"). The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist-Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.

The Cuban Revolution had powerful domestic and international repercussions. In particular, it transformed Cuba-United States relations, although efforts to improve diplomatic relations, such as the Cuban thaw, gained momentum during the 2010s. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Castro's government began a program of nationalization, centralization of the press and political consolidation that transformed Cuba's economy and civil society. The revolution also heralded an era of Cuban intervention in foreign conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Several rebellions occurred in the six years following 1959, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, which were suppressed by the revolutionary government.

The Republic of Cuba at the turn of the 20th century was largely characterized by a deeply ingrained tradition of corruption where political participation resulted in opportunities for elites to engage in wealth accumulation. Cuba's first presidential period under Don Tomás Estrada Palma from 1902 to 1906 was considered to uphold the best standards of administrative integrity in the history of the Republic of Cuba. However, a United States intervention in 1906 resulted in Charles Edward Magoon, an American diplomat, taking over the government until 1909. Although Magoon's government did not condone corrupt practices, there is debate as to how much was done to stop what was widespread especially with the surge of American money coming into the small country. Hugh Thomas suggests that while Magoon disapproved of corrupt practices, corruption still persisted under his administration and he undermined the autonomy of the judiciary and their court decisions. On January 29, 1909, the sovereign government of Cuba was restored, and José Miguel Gómez became president. No explicit evidence of Magoon's corruption ever surfaced, but his parting gesture of issuing lucrative Cuban contracts to U.S. firms was a continued point of contention. Cuba's subsequent president, José Miguel Gómez, was the first to become involved in pervasive corruption and government corruption scandals. These scandals involved bribes that were allegedly paid to Cuban officials and legislators under a contract to search the Havana harbour, as well as the payment of fees to government associates and high-level officials. Gómez's successor, Mario García Menocal, wanted to put an end to the corruption scandals and claimed to be committed to administrative integrity as he ran on a slogan of "honesty, peace and work". Despite his intentions, corruption actually intensified under his government from 1913 to 1921. Instances of fraud became more common while private actors and contractors frequently colluded with public officials and legislators. Charles Edward Chapman attributes the increase of corruption to the sugar boom that occurred in Cuba under the Menocal administration. Furthermore, the advent of World War One enabled the Cuban government to manipulate sugar prices, the sales of exports and import permits. While in office, García Menocal hosted his college fraternity, in the 1920 Delta Kappa Epsilon National Convention, the first international fraternity conference outside the US, which took place in Cuba. He was responsible for creating the Cuban Peso; until his presidency Cuba used both the Spanish Real and US Dollar. President Menocal left the Cuban national treasury in overdraft and therefore in precarious financial situation. Menocal supposedly spent $800 million during his 8 years in office and left a floating debt of $40 million.

Alfredo Zayas succeeded Menocal from 1921 to 1925 and engaged in what Calixto Masó refers to as the "maximum expression of administrative corruption". Both petty and grand corruption spread to nearly all aspects of public life and the Cuban administration became largely characterized by nepotism as Zayas relied on friends and relatives to illegally gain greater access to wealth. Gerardo Machado succeeded Zayas from 1925 to 1933, and entered the presidency with widespread popularity and support from the major political parties. However, his support declined over time. Due to Zayas' previous policies, Gerardo Machado aimed to diminish corruption and improve the public sector's performance under his successive administration from 1925 to 1933. While he was successfully able to reduce the amounts of low level and petty corruption, grand corruption still largely persisted. Machado embarked on development projects that enabled the persistence of grand corruption through inflated costs and the creation of "large margins" that enabled public officials to appropriate money illegally. Under his government, opportunities for corruption became concentrated into fewer hands with "centralized government purchasing procedures" and the collection of bribes among a smaller number of bureaucrats and administrators. Through the development of real estate infrastructures and the growth of Cuba's tourism industry, Machado's administration was able to use insider information to profit from private sector business deals. Many people objected to his running again for re-election in 1928, as his victory violated his promise to serve for only one term. As protests and rebellions became more strident, his administration curtailed free speech and used repressive police tactics against opponents. Machado unleashed a wave of violence against his critics, and there were numerous murders and assassinations committed by the police and army under Machado's administration. The extent of his involvement in these is disputed, but in the end, Machado is described as a dictator. In May 1933, Machada was forced out as newly appointed US ambassador Sumner Welles arrived in Cuba and initiated negotiation with the opposition groups for a government to succeed Machado's. A provisional government headed by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada (son of Cuban independence hero Carlos Manuel de Céspedes) and including members of the ABC was brokered; it took power in August 1933 amidst a general strike in Havana.

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada subsequently was offered the position of President by ambassador Sumner Welles. He took office on August 13, 1933, and Welles proposed that "general elections may be held approximately 3 months from now so that Cuba may once more have a constitutional government in the real sense of the word." Céspedes agreed, and declared that a general election would be held on February 24, 1934, for a new presidential term to begin on May 20, 1934. However, on September 4-5, 1933, the Sergeants' Revolt took place while Céspedes was in Matanzas and Santa Clara after a hurricane had ravaged those regions. The junta of officers led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista and students proclaimed that it had taken power in order to fulfill the aims of the revolution; it briefly described a program which included economic restructuring, punishment of wrongdoers, recognition of public debts, creation of courts, political reorganization, and any other actions necessary to construct a new Cuba based on justice and democracy. Only five days after the coup, Batista and the Student Directory promoted Ramón Grau to the role of President. The ensuing One Hundred Days Government issued a number of reformist declarations but never gained diplomatic recognition from the US; it was overthrown in January 1934 under pressure from Batista and the US ambassador. Grau was replaced by Carlos Mendieta, and within five days the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government. The corruption was not curtailed under Mendieta and he resigned in 1935 after unrest continued, and their followed a number of interim and weak presidents under the guidance of Batista and the US. Batista, supported by the Democratic Socialist Coalition which included Julio Antonio Mella's Communist Party, defeated Grau in the first presidential election under the new Cuban constitution in the 1940 election, and served a four-year term as President of Cuba. Batista was endorsed by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), which at the time had little significance and no probability of an electoral victory. This support was primarily due to Batista's labor laws and his support for labor unions, with which the Communists had close ties. In fact, Communists attacked the anti-Batista opposition, saying Grau and others were "fascists" and " reactionaries".

Senator Eduardo Chibás dedicated himself to exposing corruption in the Cuban government, and formed the Partido Ortodoxo in 1947 to further this aim. Argote-Freyre points out that Cuba's population under the Republic had a high tolerance for corruption. Furthermore, Cubans knew and criticized who was corrupt, but admired them for their ability to act as "criminals with impunity". Corrupt officials went beyond members of congress to also include military officials who granted favours to residents and accepted bribes. The establishment of an illegal gambling network within the military enabled army personnel such as Lieutenant Colonel Pedraza and Major Mariné to engage in extensive illegal gambling activities. Mauricio Augusto Font and Alfonso Quiroz, authors of The Cuban Republic and José Martí, say that corruption pervaded in public life under the administrations of Presidents Ramón Grau and Carlos Prío Socarrás. Prío was reported to have stolen over $90 million in public funds, which was equivalent to one fourth of the annual national budget. Prior to the Communist revolution, Cuba was ruled under the elected government of Fulgencio Batista from 1940 to 1944. Throughout this time period, Batista's support base consisted mainly of corrupt politicians and military officials. Batista himself was able to heavily profit from the regime before coming into power through inflated government contracts and gambling proceeds. In 1942, the British Foreign Office reported that the U.S. State Department was "very worried" about corruption under President Fulgencio Batista, describing the problem as "endemic" and exceeding "anything which had gone on previously". British diplomats believed that corruption was rooted within Cuba's most powerful institutions, with the highest individuals in government and military being heavily involved in gambling and the drug trade. In terms of civil society, Eduardo Saenz Rovner writes that corruption within the police and government enabled the expansion of criminal organizations in Cuba. Batista refused U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's offer to send experts to help reform the Cuban Civil Service. Batista didn't run in the 1944 election, and Partido Auténtico party member Ramón Grau was elected president, and oversaw extensive corruption during his administration. He had Carlos Prío Socarrás serve turns as Minister of Public Works, Minister of Labor and Prime Minister. On the next election July 1, 1948, Prio was elected president of Cuba as a member of the Partido Auténtico which presided over corruption and irresponsible government of this period. Prío was assisted by Chief of the Armed Forces General Genobebo Pérez Dámera and Colonel José Luis Chinea Cardenas, who had previously been in charge of the Province of Santa Clara.

The eight years under Grau and Prío, were marked by violence among political factions and reports of theft and self-enrichment in the government ranks. The Prío administration increasingly came to be perceived by the public as ineffectual in the face of violence and corruption, much as the Grau administration before it.

With elections scheduled for the middle of 1952, rumors surfaced of a planned military coup by long-shot presidential contender Fulgencio Batista. Prío, seeing no constitutional basis to act, did not do so. The rumors proved to be true. On March 10, 1952, Batista and his collaborators seized military and police commands throughout the country and occupied major radio and TV stations. Batista assumed power when Prío, failing to mount a resistance, boarded a plane and went into exile.

Batista, after his military coup against Prío Socarras, again took power and ruled until 1959. Under his rule, Batista led a corrupt dictatorship that involved close links with organized crime organizations and the reduction of civil freedoms of Cubans. This period resulted in Batista engaging in more "sophisticated practices of corruption" at both the administrative and civil society levels. Batista and his administration engaged in profiteering from the lottery as well as illegal gambling. Corruption further flourished in civil society through increasing amounts of police corruption, censorship of the press as well as media, and creating anti-communist campaigns that suppressed opposition with violence, torture and public executions. The former culture of toleration and acceptance towards corruption also dissolved with the dictatorship of Batista. For instance, one citizen wrote that "however corrupt Grau and Prío were, we elected them and therefore allowed them to steal from us. Batista robs us without our permission." Corruption under Batista further expanded into the economic sector with alliances that he forged with foreign investors and the prevalence of illegal casinos and criminal organizations in the country's capital of Havana.

In the decades following the United States' invasion of Cuba in 1898, and formal independence from the U.S. on 20 May 1902, Cuba experienced a period of significant instability, enduring a number of revolts, coups and a period of U.S. military occupation. Fulgencio Batista, a former soldier who had served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, became president for the second time in 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and canceling the 1952 elections. Although Batista had been relatively progressive during his first term, in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns. While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure, Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organized crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy, especially sugar-cane plantations and other local resources. Although the US armed and politically supported the Batista dictatorship, later US president John F. Kennedy recognized its corruption and the justifiability of removing it.

During his first term as president, Batista was supported by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), but during his second term he became strongly anti-communist. Batista developed a rather weak security bridge as an attempt to silence political opponents. In the months following the March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro's constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts. After deciding that the Cuban regime could not be replaced through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as "The Movement", stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana's disgruntled working class by the end of 1952.

Early stages: 1953-1955

Striking their first blow against the Batista government, Fidel and Raúl Castro gathered 70 fighters and planned a multi-pronged attack on several military installations. On 26 July 1953, the rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo, only to be decisively defeated by the far more numerous government soldiers. It was hoped that the staged attack would spark a nationwide revolt against Batista's government. After an hour of fighting most of the rebels and their leader fled to the mountains. The exact number of rebels killed in the battle is debatable; however, in his autobiography, Fidel Castro claimed that nine were killed in the fighting, and an additional 56 were executed after being captured by the Batista government. Due to the government's large number of men, Hunt revised the number to be around 60 members taking the opportunity to flee to the mountains along with Castro. Among the dead was Abel Santamaría, Castro's second-in-command, who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed on the same day as the attack.

Numerous key Movement revolutionaries, including the Castro brothers, were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, Fidel spoke for nearly four hours in his defense, ending with the words "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." Castro's defense was based on nationalism, the representation and beneficial programs for the non-elite Cubans, and his patriotism and justice for the Cuban community. Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in the Presidio Modelo prison, located on Isla de Pinos, while Raúl was sentenced to 13 years. However, in 1955, under broad political pressure, the Batista government freed all political prisoners in Cuba, including the Moncada attackers. Fidel's Jesuit childhood teachers succeeded in persuading Batista to include Fidel and Raúl in the release.

Soon, the Castro brothers joined with other exiles in Mexico to prepare for the overthrow of Batista, receiving training from Alberto Bayo, a leader of Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. In June 1955, Fidel met the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who joined his cause. Raúl and Fidel's chief advisor Ernesto aided the initiation of Batista's amnesty. The revolutionaries named themselves the "26th of July Movement", in reference to the date of their attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.

By late 1955, student riots and demonstrations became more common, and unemployment became problematic as new graduates could not find jobs. These protests were dealt with increasing repression. All young people were seen as possible revolutionaries. Due to its continued opposition to the Cuban government and much protest activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on 30 November 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government).

While the Castro brothers and the other 26 July Movement guerrillas were training in Mexico and preparing for their amphibious deployment to Cuba, another revolutionary group followed the example of the Moncada Barracks assault. On 29 April 1956 at 12:50 pm during Sunday mass, an independent guerrilla group of around 100 rebels led by Reynol García attacked the Domingo Goicuria army barracks in Matanzas province. The attack was repelled with ten rebels and three soldiers killed in the fighting, and one rebel summarily executed by the garrison commander, Pilar García. Florida International University historian Miguel A. Brito was in the nearby cathedral when the firefight began. He writes, "That day, the Cuban Revolution began for me and Matanzas."

Insurgency: 1956-1957

Map of Cuba showing the location of the arrival of the rebels on the Granma in late 1956, the rebels' stronghold in the Sierra Maestra, and Guevara and Cienfuegos' route towards Havana via Las Villas Province in December 1958

The yacht departed from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, on 25 November 1956, carrying the Castro brothers and 80 others including Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, even though the yacht was only designed to accommodate 12 people with a maximum of 25. On 2 December, it landed in Playa Las Coloradas, in the municipality of Niquero, arriving two days later than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the practice sailing runs. This dashed any hopes for a coordinated attack with the llano wing of the Movement. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in southeastern Cuba. Three days after the trek began, Batista's army attacked and killed most of the Granma participants - while the exact number is disputed, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial encounters with the Cuban army and escaped into the Sierra Maestra mountains.

On 13 March 1957, a separate group of revolutionaries - the anticommunist Student Revolutionary Directorate (RD) (Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, DRE), composed mostly of students - stormed the Presidential Palace in Havana, attempting to assassinate Batista and overthrow the government. The attack ended in utter failure. The RD's leader, student José Antonio Echeverría, died in a shootout with Batista's forces at the Havana radio station he had seized to spread the news of Batista's anticipated death. The handful of survivors included Dr. Humberto Castello (who later became the Inspector General in the Escambray), Rolando Cubela and Faure Chomon (both later Comandantes of the 13 March Movement, centered in the Escambray Mountains of Las Villas Province).

The plan, as explained by Faure Chaumón Mediavilla, was to attack the Presidential Palace and occupy the radio station Radio Reloj at the Radiocentro CMQ Building in order to announce the death of Batista and call for a general strike. The Presidential Palace was to be captured by fifty men under the direction of Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo and Faure Chomón, with support from a group of 100 armed men occupying the tallest buildings in the surrounding area of the Presidential Palace (La Tabacalera, the Sevilla Hotel, the Palace of Fine Arts). However this secondary support operation was not carried out, as the men failed to arrive at the scene due to last-minute hesitation. Although the attackers reached the third floor of the palace, they did not locate or execute Batista.

The Humboldt 7 massacre occurred on 20 April 1957 at apartment 201 of the Humboldt 7 residential building when the National Police led by Lt. Colonel Esteban Ventura Novo assassinated four participants who had survived the assault on the Presidential Palace and in the seizure of the Radio Reloj station at the Radiocentro CMQ Building.

Juan Pedro Carbó was sought by police for the assassination of Col. Antonio Blanco Rico, Chief of Batista's secret service. Marcos Rodríguez Alfonso (also known as "Marquitos") began arguing with Fructuoso, Carbó and Machadito; Joe Westbrook had not yet arrived. Marquitos, who gave the airs to be a revolutionary, was strongly against the revolution and was thus resented by the others. On the morning of 20 April 1957, Marquitos met with Lt. Colonel Esteban Ventura and revealed the location of where the young revolutionaries were, Humboldt 7. After 5:00 pm on 20 April, a large contingent of police officers arrived and assaulted apartment 201, where the four men were staying. The men were not aware that the police were outside. The police rounded up and executed the rebels, who were unarmed.

The incident was covered up until a post-revolution investigation in 1959. Marquitos was arrested and, after a double trial, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to the penalty of death by firing squad in March 1964.

Frank País was a revolutionary organizer who had built an extensive urban network, who had been tried and acquitted for his role in organizing an unsuccessful uprising in Santiago de Cuba in support of Castro's landing. On 30 June 1957, Frank's younger brother, Josué País, was killed by the Santiago police. During the latter part of July 1957, a wave of systematic police searches forced Frank País into hiding in Santiago de Cuba. On 30 July he was in a safe house with Raúl Pujol, despite warnings from other members of the Movement that it was not secure. The Santiago police under Colonel José Salas Cañizares surrounded the building. Frank and Raúl attempted to escape. However, an informant betrayed them as they tried to walk to a waiting getaway car. The police officers drove the two men to the Callejón del Muro (Rampart Lane) and shot them in the back of the head. In defiance of Batista's regime, País was buried in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the olive green uniform and red and black armband of 26 July Movement.

In response to the death of País, the workers of Santiago declared a spontaneous general strike. This strike was the largest popular demonstration in the city up to that point. The mobilization of 30 July 1957 is considered one of the most decisive dates in both the Cuban Revolution and the fall of Batista's dictatorship. This day has been instituted in Cuba as the Day of the Martyrs of the Revolution. The Frank País Second Front, the guerrilla unit led by Raúl Castro in the Sierra Maestra was named for the fallen revolutionary. His childhood home at 226 San Bartolomé Street was turned into The Santiago Frank País García House Museum and designated as a national monument. The international airport in Holguín, Cuba also bears his name.

On 6 September 1957 elements of the Cuban navy in the Cienfuegos Naval Base staged a rising against the Batista regime. Led by junior officers in sympathy with the 26th of July Movement, this was originally intended to coincide with the seizure of warships in Havana harbour. Reportedly individual officials within the U.S. Embassy were aware of the plot and had promised U.S. recognition if it were successful.

By 5:30am the base was in the hands of the mutineers. Most of the 150 naval personnel sleeping at the base joined with the twenty-eight original conspirators, while eighteen officers were arrested. About two hundred 26th of July Movement members and other rebel supporters entered the base from the town and were given weapons. Cienfuegos was in rebel hands for several hours. By the afternoon Government motorised infantry had arrived from Santa Clara, supported by B-26 bombers. Armoured units followed from Havana. After street fighting throughout the afternoon and night the last of the rebels, holding out in the police headquarters, were overwhelmed. Approximately 70 mutineers and rebel supporters were executed and reprisals against civilians added to the estimated total death toll of 300 men.

The use of bombers and tanks recently provided under a US-Cuban arms agreement specifically for use in hemisphere defence, now raised tensions between the two governments.

The United States supplied Cuba with planes, ships, tanks, and other technology such as napalm, which was used against the rebels. This would eventually come to an end due to a later arms embargo in 1958.

According to Tad Szulc, the United States began funding the 26th of July Movement around October or November 1957 and ending around middle 1958. "No less than $50,000" would be delivered to key leaders of the 26th of July Movement, the purpose being to instill sympathies to the United States amongst the rebels in case the movement succeeded.

While Batista increased troop deployments to the Sierra Maestra region to crush the 26 July guerrillas, the Second National Front of the Escambray kept battalions of the Constitutional Army tied up in the Escambray Mountains region. The Second National Front was led by former Revolutionary Directorate member Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo and the "Comandante Yanqui" William Alexander Morgan. Gutiérrez Menoyo formed and headed the guerrilla band after news had broken out about Castro's landing in the Sierra Maestra, and José Antonio Echeverría had stormed the Havana Radio station. Though Morgan was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army, his recreating features from Army basic training made a critical difference in the Second National Front troops battle readiness.

Thereafter, the United States imposed an economic embargo on the Cuban government and recalled its ambassador, weakening the government's mandate further. Batista's support among Cubans began to fade, with former supporters either joining the revolutionaries or distancing themselves from Batista. Once Batista started making drastic decisions concerning Cuba's economy, he began to nationalize U.S. oil refineries and other U.S. properties. Nonetheless, the Mafia and U.S. businessmen maintained their support for the regime.

Batista's government often resorted to brutal methods to keep Cuba's cities under control. However, in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro, aided by Frank País, Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small garrisons of Batista's troops. Castro was joined by CIA connected Frank Sturgis who offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro accepted the offer, but he also had an immediate need for guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner. Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from CIA weapons expert Samuel Cummings' International Armament Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught Che Guevara and other 26 July Movement rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare.

In addition, poorly armed irregulars known as escopeteros harassed Batista's forces in the foothills and plains of Oriente Province. The escopeteros also provided direct military support to Castro's main forces by protecting supply lines and by sharing intelligence. Ultimately, the mountains came under Castro's control.

In addition to armed resistance, the rebels sought to use propaganda to their advantage. A pirate radio station called Radio Rebelde ("Rebel Radio") was set up in February 1958, allowing Castro and his forces to broadcast their message nationwide within enemy territory. Castro's affiliation with the New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews created a front page-worthy report on anti-communist propaganda. The radio broadcasts were made possible by Carlos Franqui, a previous acquaintance of Castro who subsequently became a Cuban exile in Puerto Rico.

During this time, Castro's forces remained quite small in numbers, sometimes fewer than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force had a manpower of around 37,000. Even so, nearly every time the Cuban military fought against the revolutionaries, the army was forced to retreat. An arms embargo - imposed on the Cuban government by the United States on 14 March 1958 - contributed significantly to the weakness of Batista's forces. The Cuban air force rapidly deteriorated: it could not repair its airplanes without importing parts from the United States.

Final offensives: 1958-1959

Batista finally responded to Castro's efforts with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano ( Summer), known to the rebels as la Ofensiva. The army sent some 12,000 soldiers, half of them untrained recruits, into the mountains, along with his own brother Raúl. In a series of small skirmishes, Castro's determined guerrillas defeated the Cuban army. In the Battle of La Plata, which lasted from 11 to 21 July 1958, Castro's forces defeated a 500-man battalion, capturing 240 men while losing just three of their own.

However, the tide nearly turned on 29 July 1958, when Batista's troops almost destroyed Castro's small army of some 300 men at the Battle of Las Mercedes. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and received, a temporary cease-fire on 1 August. Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By 8 August, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.

The Battle of Las Mercedes (29 July-8 August 1958) was the last battle of Operation Verano. The battle was a trap, designed by Cuban General Eulogio Cantillo to lure Fidel Castro's guerrillas into a place where they could be surrounded and destroyed. The battle ended with a cease-fire which Castro proposed and which Cantillo accepted. During the cease-fire, Castro's forces escaped back into the hills. The battle, though technically a victory for the Cuban army, left the army dispirited and demoralized. Castro viewed the result as a victory and soon launched his own offensive.

Battalion 17 began its pull back on 29 July 1958. Castro sent a column of men under René Ramos Latour to ambush the retreating soldiers. They attacked the advance guard and killed some 30 soldiers but then came under attack from previously undetected Cuban forces. Latour called for help and Castro came to the battle scene with his own column of men. Castro's column also came under fire from another group of Cuban soldiers that had secretly advanced up the road from the Estrada Palma Sugar Mill.

As the battle heated up, General Cantillo called up more forces from nearby towns and some 1,500 troops started heading towards the fighting. However, this force was halted by a column under Che Guevara's command. While some critics accuse Che for not coming to the aid of Latour, Major Bockman argues that Che's move here was the correct thing to do. Indeed, he called Che's tactical appreciation of the battle "brilliant".

By the end of July, Castro's troops were fully engaged and in danger of being wiped out by the vastly superior numbers of the Cuban army. He had lost 70 men, including René Latour, and both he and the remains of Latour's column were surrounded. The next day, Castro requested a cease-fire with General Cantillo, even offering to negotiate an end to the war. This offer was accepted by General Cantillo for reasons that remain unclear.

Batista sent a personal representative to negotiate with Castro on 2 August. The negotiations yielded no result but during the next six nights, Castro's troops managed to slip away unnoticed. On 8 August when the Cuban army resumed its attack, they found no one to fight.

Castro's remaining forces had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.

In 1958, Fidel Castro ordered his revolutionary army to go on the offensive against Batista's army. While Castro led one force against Guisa, Masó and other towns, another major offensive was directed at the capture of the city of Santa Clara, the capital of what was then Las Villas Province.

Three columns were sent against Santa Clara under the command of Che Guevara, Jaime Vega, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Vega's column was caught in an ambush and completely destroyed. Guevara's column took up positions around Santa Clara (near Fomento). Cienfuegos's column directly attacked a local army garrison at Yaguajay. Initially numbering just 60 men out of Castro's hardened core of 230, Cienfuegos's group had gained many recruits as it crossed the countryside towards Santa Clara, eventually reaching an estimated strength of 450 to 500 fighters.

The garrison consisted of some 250 men under the command of a Cuban captain of Chinese ancestry, Alfredo Abon Lee. The attack seems to have started around 19 December.

Convinced that reinforcements would be sent from Santa Clara, Lee put up a determined defense of his post. The guerrillas repeatedly attempted to overpower Lee and his men, but failed each time. By 26 December Camilo Cienfuegos had become quite frustrated; it seemed that Lee could not be overpowered, nor could he be convinced to surrender. In desperation, Cienfuegos tried using a homemade tank against Lee's position. The "tank" was actually a large tractor encased in iron plates with attached makeshift flamethrowers on top. It, too, proved unsuccessful.

Finally, on 30 December Lee ran out of ammunition and was forced to surrender his force to the guerrillas. The surrender of the garrison was a major blow to the defenders of the provincial capital of Santa Clara. The next day, the combined forces of Cienfuegos, Guevara, and local revolutionaries under William Alexander Morgan captured the city in a fight of vast confusion. Panicked by news of the defeat at Santa Clara and other losses, Batista fled Cuba the next day.

On the morning of 20 November 1958, a convoy of the Batista soldiers began its usual journey from Guisa. Shortly after leaving that town, located in the northern foothills of the Sierra Maestra, the rebels attacked the caravan.

Guisa was 12 kilometers from the Command Post of the Zone of Operations, located on the outskirts of the city of Bayamo. Nine days earlier, Fidel Castro had left the La Plata Command, beginning an unstoppable march east with his escort and a small group of combatants.

On 19 November, the rebels arrived in Santa Barbara. By that time, there were approximately 230 combatants. Fidel gathered his officers to organize the siege of Guisa, and ordered the placement of a mine on the Monjarás bridge, over the Cupeinicú river. That night the combatants made a camp in Hoyo de Pipa. In the early morning, they took the path that runs between the Heliografo hill and the Mateo Roblejo hill, where they occupied strategic positions. In the meeting on the 20th, the army lost a truck, a bus, and a jeep. Six were killed and 17 prisoners were taken, three of them wounded. At around 10:30 am, the military Command Post located in the Zone of Operations in Bayamo sent a reinforcement made up of Co. 32, plus a platoon from Co. L and another platoon from Co. 22. This force was unable to advance for the resistance of the rebels. Fidel ordered the mining of another bridge over a tributary of the Cupeinicú River. Hours later the army sent a platoon from Co. 82 and another platoon from Co. 93, supported by a T-17 tank.

The enemy soldier in the Cuban example which at present concerns us, is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the last crumb left by a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are important to him. His salary and his pension are worth some suffering and some dangers, but they are never worth his life. If the price of maintaining them will cost it, he is better off giving them up; that is to say, withdrawing from the face of the guerrilla danger.

On 21 August 1958, after the defeat of Batista's Ofensiva, Castro's forces began their own offensive. In the Oriente province (in the area of the present-day provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Guantánamo and Holguín), Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida Bosque directed attacks on four fronts. Descending from the mountains with new weapons captured during the Ofensiva and smuggled in by plane, Castro's forces won a series of initial victories. Castro's major victory at Guisa, and the successful capture of several towns including Maffo, Contramaestre, and Central Oriente, brought the Cauto plains under his control.

Meanwhile, three rebel columns, under the command of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Jaime Vega, proceeded westward toward Santa Clara, the capital of Villa Clara Province. Batista's forces ambushed and destroyed Jaime Vega's column, but the surviving two columns reached the central provinces, where they joined forces with several other resistance groups not under the command of Castro. When Che Guevara's column passed through the province of Las Villas, and specifically through the Escambray Mountains - where the anticommunist Revolutionary Directorate forces (who became known as the 13 March Movement) had been fighting Batista's army for many months - friction developed between the two groups of rebels. Nonetheless, the combined rebel army continued the offensive, and Cienfuegos won a key victory in the Battle of Yaguajay on 30 December 1958, earning him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay".

General elections were held in Cuba on 3 November 1958. The three major presidential candidates were Carlos Márquez Sterling of the Partido del Pueblo Libre, Ramón Grau of the Partido Auténtico and Andrés Rivero Agüero of the Coalición Progresista Nacional. There was also a minor party candidate on the ballot, Alberto Salas Amaro for the Union Cubana party. Voter turnout was estimated at 50% of eligible voters. Although Andrés Rivero Agüero won the presidential election with 70% of the vote, he was unable to take office due to the Cuban Revolution.

Rivero Agüero was due to be sworn in on 24 February 1959. In a conversation between him and the American ambassador Earl E. T. Smith on 15 November 1958, he called Castro a "sick man" and stated it would be impossible to reach a settlement with him. Rivero Agüero also said that he planned to restore constitutional government and would convene a Constitutional Assembly after taking office.

This was the last competitive election in Cuba, the 1940 Constitution of Cuba, the Congress and the Senate of the Cuban Republic, were quickly dismantled shortly thereafter. The rebels had publicly called for an election boycott, issuing its Total War Manifesto on 12 March 1958, threatening to kill anyone that voted.

On 31 December 1958, the Battle of Santa Clara took place in a scene of great confusion. The city of Santa Clara fell to the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos, and Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes Rolando Cubela, Juan ("El Mejicano") Abrahantes, and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba by air for the Dominican Republic just hours later on 1 January 1959. Comandante William Alexander Morgan, leading RD rebel forces, continued fighting as Batista departed and had captured the city of Cienfuegos by 2 January.

Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On 2 January, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight, and Castro's forces took over the city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about the same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from Santa Clara to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on 8 January after a long victory march. His initial choice of president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó, took office on 3 January.

Manuel Urrutia Lleó (8 December 1901 - 5 July 1981) was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. He campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the first revolutionary government of 1959. Urrutia resigned his position after seven months, owing to a series of disputes with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and emigrated to the United States shortly afterward.

Once in power, Urrutia swiftly began a program of closing all brothels, gambling outlets and the national lottery, arguing that these had long been a corrupting influence on the state. The measures drew immediate resistance from the large associated workforce. The disapproving Castro, then commander of Cuba's new armed forces, intervened to request a stay of execution until alternative employment could be found.

Disagreements also arose in the new government concerning pay cuts, which were imposed on all public officials on Castro's demand. The disputed cuts included a reduction of the $100,000 a year presidential salary Urrutia had inherited from Batista. By February, following the surprise resignation of Miró, Castro had assumed the role of prime minister; this strengthened his power and rendered Urrutia increasingly a figurehead president. As Urrutia's participation in the legislative process declined, other unresolved disputes between the two leaders continued to fester. His belief in the restoration of elections was rejected by Castro, who felt that they would usher in a return to the old discredited system of corrupt parties and fraudulent balloting that had marked the Batista era.

Urrutia was then accused by the newspaper of buying a luxury villa, which was portrayed as a frivolous betrayal of the revolution and led to an outcry from the general public. He denied the allegation issuing a writ against the newspaper in response. The story further increased tensions between the various factions in the government, though Urrutia asserted publicly that he had "absolutely no disagreements" with Fidel Castro. Urrutia attempted to distance the Cuban government (including Castro) from the growing influence of the communists within the administration, making a series of critical public comments against the latter group. Whilst Castro had not openly declared any affiliation with the Cuban communists, Urrutia had been a declared anti-communist since they had refused to support the insurrection against Batista, stating in an interview, "If the Cuban people had heeded those words, we would still have Batista with us ... and all those other war criminals who are now running away".

The Cuban Revolution was a crucial turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Although the United States government was initially willing to recognize Castro's new government, it soon came to fear that Communist insurgencies would spread through the nations of Latin America, as they had in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Castro's government resented the Americans for providing aid to Batista's government during the revolution. After the revolutionary government nationalized all U.S. property in Cuba in August 1960, the American Eisenhower administration froze all Cuban assets on American soil, severed diplomatic ties and tightened its embargo of Cuba. The Key West-Havana ferry shut down. In 1961, the U.S. government launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion, in which Brigade 2506 (a CIA-trained force of 1,500 soldiers, mostly Cuban exiles) landed on a mission to oust Castro; the attempt to overthrow Castro failed, with the invasion being repulsed by the Cuban military. The U.S. embargo against Cuba is still in force as of 2020, although it underwent a partial loosening during the Obama administration, only to be strengthened in 2017 under Trump. The U.S. began efforts to normalize relations with Cuba in the mid-2010s, and formally reopened its embassy in Havana after over half a century in August 2015. The Trump administration reversed much of the Cuban Thaw by severely restricting travel by US citizens to Cuba and tightening the US government's embargo against the country.

I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.

Following the American embargo, the Soviet Union became Cuba's main ally. The Soviet Union did not initially want anything to do with Cuba or Latin America until the United States had taken an interest in dismantling Castro's communist government. At first, many people in the Soviet Union did not know anything about Cuba, and those that did saw Castro as a "troublemaker" and the Cuba Revolution as "one big heresy". There were three big reasons why the Soviet Union changed their attitudes and finally took interest in the island country. First was the success of the Cuban Revolution, to which Moscow responded with great interest as they understood that if a communist revolution was successful for Cuba, it could be successful elsewhere in Latin America. So from then on the Soviets began looking into foreign affairs in Latin America. Second, after learning about the United States' aggressive plan to deploy another Guatemala scenario in Cuba, the Soviet opinion quickly changed feet. Third, Soviet leaders saw the Cuban Revolution as first and foremost an anti-North American revolution which of course whet their appetite as this was during the height of the cold war and the Soviet, US battle for global dominance was at its apex.

The Soviets' attitude of optimism changed to one of concern for the safety of Cuba after it was excluded from the inter-American system at the conference held at Punta del Este in January 1962 by the Organization of American States. This coupled with the threat of a United States invasion of the island was really the turning point for Soviet Concern, the idea was that should Cuba be defeated by the United States it would mean defeat for the Soviet Union and for Marxism-Leninism. If Cuba were to fall, "other Latin American countries would reject us, claiming that for all our might the Soviet Union had not been able to do anything for Cuba except to make empty protests to the United Nations" wrote Khrushchev. The Soviet attitude towards Cuba changed to concern for the safety of the island nation because of increased US tensions and threats of invasion making the Soviet-Cuban relationship superficial insofar as it only cared about denying the US power in the region and maintaining Soviet supremacy. All of these events led to the two countries quickly developing close military and intelligence ties, which culminated in the stationing of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, an act which triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

The aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis saw embarrassment for the Soviet Union, and many countries including Soviet countries were quick to criticize Moscow's handling of the situation. In a letter that Khrushchev writes to Castro in January of the following year (1963), after the end of conflict, he talks about wanting to discuss the issues in the two countries' relations. He writes attacking voices from other countries, including socialist ones, blaming the USSR of being opportunistic and self-serving. He explained the decision to withdraw missiles from Cuba, stressing the possibility of advancing Communism through peaceful means. Khrushchev underlined the importance of guaranteeing against an American attack on Cuba and urged Havana to focus on economic, cultural, and technological development to become a shining beacon of socialism in Latin America. In closing he invites Fidel Castro to visit Moscow and discuss the preparations for such a trip.

The following two decades in the 1970s and 1980s were somewhat of an enigma in the sense that the 1970s and 1980s were filled with the most prosperity in Cuba's history, yet the revolutionary government hit full stride in achieving its most organized form, and it adopted and enacted several brutal features of socialist regimes from the Eastern Bloc. Despite this it seems to be a time of prosperity. In 1972 Cuba joined COMECON, officially joining their trade with the Soviet Union's socialist trade bloc. That along with increased Soviet subsidies, better trade terms, and better, more practical domestic policy led to several years of prosperous growth. This period also sees Cuba strengthening its foreign policy with other communistic anti-US imperial countries like Nicaragua. This period is marked as the Sovietization of the 1970s and 1980s.

Cuba maintained close links to the Soviets until the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The end of Soviet economic aid and the loss of its trade partners in the Eastern Bloc led to an economic crisis and period of shortages known as the Special Period in Cuba.

Current day relations with Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, ended in 2002 after the Russian Federation closed an intelligence base in Cuba over budgetary concerns. However, in the last decade, relations have increased in recent years after Russia faced international backlash from the West over the situation in Ukraine in 2014. In retaliation for NATO expansion towards the east, Russia has sought to create these same agreements in Latin America. Russia has specifically sought greater ties with Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico. Currently, these countries maintain close economic ties with the United States. In 2012, Putin decided that Russia focus its military power in Cuba like it had in the past. Putin is quoted saying "Our goal is to expand Russia's presence on the global arms and military equipment market. This means expanding the number of countries we sell to and expanding the range of goods and services we offer."

The greatest threat presented by Castro's Cuba is as an example to other Latin American states which are beset by poverty, corruption, feudalism, and plutocratic exploitation ... his influence in Latin America might be overwhelming and irresistible if, with Soviet help, he could establish in Cuba a Communist utopia.

Castro's victory and post-revolutionary foreign policy had global repercussions as influenced by the expansion of the Soviet Union into Eastern Europe after the 1917 October Revolution. In line with his call for revolution in Latin America and beyond against imperial powers, laid out in his Declarations of Havana, Castro immediately sought to "export" his revolution to other countries in the Caribbean and beyond, sending weapons to Algerian rebels as early as 1960. In the following decades, Cuba became heavily involved in supporting Communist insurgencies and independence movements in many developing countries, sending military aid to insurgents in Ghana, Nicaragua, Yemen, and Angola, among others. Castro's intervention in the Angolan Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s was particularly significant, involving as many as 60,000 Cuban soldiers.

At the time of the revolution various sectors of society supported the revolutionary movement from communists to business leaders and the Catholic Church.

At the time of the revolution the 26th of July Movement involved people of various political persuasions, but most were in agreement and desired the reinstatement of the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and supported the ideals of Jose Marti. Che Guevara commented to Jorge Masetti in an interview during the revolution that "Fidel isn't a communist" also stating "politically you can define Fidel and his movement as 'revolutionary nationalist'. Of course he is anti-American, in the sense that Americans are anti-revolutionaries".

Raúl Castro, Vilma Espín, Jorge Risquet and José Nivaldo Causse in 1958

The importance of women's contributions to the Cuban Revolution is reflected in the very accomplishments that allowed the revolution to be successful, from the participation in the Moncada Barracks, to the Mariana Grajales all-women's platoon that served as Fidel Castro's personal security detail. Tete Puebla, second in command of the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon, has said:

Women in Cuba have always been on the front line of the struggle. At Moncada we had Yeye ( Haydée Santamaría) and Melba (Hernández). With the Granma (yacht) and November 30, we had Celia, Vilma, and many other compañeras. There were many women comrades who were tortured and murdered. From the beginning there were women in the Revolutionary Armed Forces. First they were simple soldiers, later sergeants. Those of us in the Mariana Grajales Platoon were the first officers. The ones who ended the war with officers' ranks stayed in the armed forces.

Before the Mariana Grajales Platoon was established, the revolutionary women of the Sierra Maestra were not organized for combat and primarily helped with cooking, mending clothes, and tending to the sick, frequently acting as couriers, as well as teaching guerrillas to read and write. Haydée Santamaría and Melba Hernández were the only women who participated in the attack on the Moncada Barracks, afterward acting alongside Natalia Revuelta, and Lidia Castro (Fidel Castro's sister) to form alliances with anti-Batista organizations, as well as the assembly and distribution of "History Will Absolve Me". Celia Sánchez and Vilma Espin were leading strategists and highly skilled combatants who held essential roles throughout the revolution. Tete Puebla, founding member and second in command of the Mariana Grajales Platoon, said of Celia Sánchez, "When you speak of Celia, you've got to speak of Fidel, and vice versa. Celia's ideas touched almost everything in the Sierra."

There were many foreign presences in Cuba during this time. Esther Brinch was a Danish translator for the Danish government in 1960's Cuba. Brinch's work covered the Cuban Revolution and Cuban Missile Crisis. A collection of Brinch's archival materials is housed at the George Mason University Special Collections Research Center.

Brown, Gates; Tucker, Spencer C. (2013). "Cuban Revolution". In Tucker, Spencer C. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A New Era of Modern Warfare: A New Era of Modern Warfare. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-280-9.

Castro, Fidel (2007). Ignacio Ramonet (ed.). Fidel Castro: My Life. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-102626-8.

Clark, Juan (1992). Cuba: Mito y Realidad: Testimonios de un Pueblo. Miami: Saeta Ediciones. ISBN 978-0-917049-16-3.

Coltman, Leycester (2003). . New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10760-9.

English, T. J. (2008). Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-06-114771-5.

Font, Fabián Escalante (1995). The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62. Ocean Front. ISBN 1875284869.

Faria, Miguel A. Jr (2002). Cuba in Revolution: Escape from a Lost Paradise. Milledgeville, GA: Hacienda Pub Inc. ISBN 0-9641077-3-2.

Lazo, Mario (1968). Dagger in the heart: American policy failures in Cuba. New York: Twin Circle.

Quirk, Robert E. (1993). "The Political End of President Urrutia - Fidel Castro".

Thomas, Hugh (1998). Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80827-7.

Pirjevec, Jože (2018). Tito. Die Biografie [Tito. The biography]. Translated by Klaus Detlef Olof. Munich: Kunstmann. ISBN 978-3956142420.

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The Cuban Revolution ( Spanish: Revolución cubana) was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed.

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The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état ( Portuguese: Golpe de estado no Brasil em 1964), colloquially known in Brazil as the Coup of 64 (Golpe de 64), was a series of events in Brazil from March 31 to April 1 that led to the overthrow of President João Goulart by members of the Brazilian Armed Forces, supported by the United States government. The following day, with the military already in control of the country, the speaker of the Brazilian Congress came out in support of the coup and endorsed it by declaring vacant the office of the presidency (though Goulart never officially resigned). The coup put an end to the government of Goulart (also known as 'Jango'), a member of the Brazilian Labour Party, who had been democratically elected vice president in the same election in which conservative Jânio Quadros, from the National Labour Party and backed by the National Democratic Union, won the presidency.

Quadros had resigned in 1961, the same year of his inauguration, in a clumsy political maneuver to increase his popularity. Quadros anticipated that mass demonstrations would demand his return to office and strengthen his position, but he miscalculated. With the presidency vacant and according to the Brazilian Constitution, Quadros should have automatically been replaced by Goulart. Goulart, however, was on a diplomatic trip to the People's Republic of China at the time and, although a moderate nationalist, Goulart was accused of being a communist by right-wing militants, who tried to prevent him from taking office. After lengthy negotiations, led mainly by Tancredo Neves, Goulart's supporters and the right-wing reached an agreement under which the parliamentary system would replace the presidential system in the country. Goulart would continue as head of state, although weakened, and Neves would be named the prime minister.

In 1963, however, a referendum re-established the presidential system with Goulart as president. He took office with full powers, and during his rule several problems in Brazilian politics became evident, as well as disputes in the context of the Cold War, which helped destabilize his government. The Basic Reforms Plan ( Reformas de Base) proposed by Goulart had the potential to socialize the profits of large companies. It was labelled as a " socialist threat" by right-wing sectors of society and of the military, which organized major demonstrations against the government in the Marches of the Family with God for Freedom ( Marchas da Família com Deus pela Liberdade).

The coup brought to Brazil a military regime politically aligned to the interests of the United States government. This military dictatorship in Brazil lasted for 21 years, until 1985, when Neves was indirectly elected the first civilian president of Brazil since the 1960 elections.

Jânio Quadros resigned on August 25, 1961. At the time of his resignation, João Goulart was in the People's Republic of China on a foreign relations trip. On August 29, the Brazilian Congress heard and vetoed a motion to stop Goulart from being named the president, brought by the heads of the three branches of the military and some politicians, who claimed Goulart's inauguration would put the country "on the road to civil war." A compromise was reached. Brazil would become a parliamentary democracy, with Goulart as president. As such, he would be head of state, but with limited powers of head of government. Tancredo Neves was named as the new prime minister.

On January 6, 1963, Goulart successfully changed the system of government back to a presidential democracy in a referendum in which he won by a large margin. Goulart found himself back in power with a rapidly deteriorating political and economic situation. During this period, Goulart was politically isolated, with a foreign policy which was independent of any alignment. He openly criticized the Bay of Pigs invasion by the US, but criticized the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The country's economic situation deteriorated rapidly. Attempts to stabilize the currency were financed by aid packages from the International Monetary Fund. His failure to secure foreign investment and curb domestic inflation put the country in a difficult situation which exacerbated social conflicts.

On March 13, 1964, Goulart gave a speech where he promised to nationalize the country's oil refineries, as well as carry out "basic reforms" including rent control. This was followed by a large demonstration on March 19, where a conservative group marched on Praça da Sé, São Paulo, in a demonstration called " March of the Family with God for Freedom" against Goulart and his policies.

The Sailors' Revolt

The friction between the military and Goulart boiled over with his intervention in a revolt by sailors of the Brazilian Navy led by José Anselmo dos Santos, historically known as Cabo Anselmo, and later exposed as an agent provocateur. On March 25, 1964, nearly 2,000 sailors assembled in Rio de Janeiro, petitioning for better living conditions and pledging their support for Goulart's reforms. The Minister of the Navy, Sílvio Mota, ordered the arrest of the sailors leading the assembly. Mota sent a detachment of marines to arrest the leaders and break up the assembly, led by Rear Admiral Cândido Aragão. These marines ended up joining the assembly and remained with the other sailors.

Shortly after Aragão's refusal to arrest the leaders, Goulart issued orders prohibiting any invasion of the assembly location (the headquarters of the local metalworker's union), and sacked Sílvio Mota as Minister of the Navy. The following day, March 26, the Minister of Labor, Amauri Silva, negotiated a compromise, and the sailors agreed to leave the assembly building. They were promptly arrested for mutiny.

Goulart pardoned the sailors shortly afterward, provoking a public rift with the military. Soon after this, on March 30, 1964, the day before the coup, Goulart gave a speech to a gathering of sergeants, where he asked for the military's support for his reforms.

In the United States, concerns over the state of the Brazilian President, Goulart, started as early as July 1962. A private meeting was set up between John F. Kennedy, Richard N. Goodwin, and Lincoln Gordon to discuss Goulart's activity in the military, and their concern over whether or not he was leading the country towards Communism. The discussion concluded that they would support paramilitary forces in opposition to Goulart and that they would send a "fellow" who was fluent in Portuguese to be their contact within the military.

On December 11, 1962, the Executive Committee (EXCOMM) of the National Security Council met to evaluate three policy alternatives on Brazil: to do nothing and allow the present drift to continue, to collaborate with Brazilian elements hostile to Goulart who were in favor of a coup, and to seek to change the political and economic orientation of Goulart and his government. At the time the U.S. felt the third option was the best selection, and would be tried before shifting to the second option. The attempt to reform Goulart's policy was selected as having the only feasible chance of success at the time. The choice to give support to the Goulart administration without political confrontation might be justified by the fact that there was an expectation that events in Brazil would lead to Goulart's early ouster or a change in his policies. At first, the U.S. attempted to work with President Goulart and convince him to change his political views and policies to a more pro-Western system of governance.

In December 1962, Bobby Kennedy flew to Brazil to meet with Goulart. Goulart and Kennedy spoke for three hours, with Kennedy outlining "the presence of Communists, ultranationalists (read nationalists), extreme leftists (read leftists) and anti-Americans in Goulart's government" as the main American objection to his government.

In March 1963, the Kennedy administration gave Goulart a choice: either he could remove the anti-American politicians from political power in Brazil, or the United States would put economic pressure on Brazil. On March 8, the CIA released a memorandum listing the current efforts within the Brazilian military to organize and attempt a coup. The document identifies that "conservative elements of the Brazilian military [were] formulating plans for a possible effort to depose President Joao Goulart." The report identifies Odylio Denys as having the "best-developed plan." Denys's plan relied on the "cooperation by military commanders in key state against the central government with recalcitrant governors being arrests by local commanders who would then replace them." However, no military action would be taken unless prompted by Goulart because, as the report states, "the Brazilian military prides itself in the belief that... it does not act unconstitutionally." The report continues that if a coup were to happen too soon it would ruin any further attempts; additionally, more support must be proved to Denys in the form of governmental sabotage. Ultimately, the CIA expressed their belief that Denys could bring about a coup "by putting together a luck combination of well-placed military commanders."

During the final months of 1963, the Kennedy administration began to search for paramilitary forces capable of overthrowing the Goulart government. The coup was foreseen by both pro- and anti-Goulart forces. In Rio de Janeiro, Leonel Brizola, Goulart's brother-in-law and ally, had organized as far back as October 1963 so-called "Groups of Eleven", or groups of eleven people who would work in supporting Goulart's reforms, but could theoretically be converted to a form of militia in defense of Goulart's presidency.

On the other side, on March 20, 1964, 11 days before the coup, Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, chief of staff for the army, circulated a letter to the highest echelons of the military warning of the dangers of communism. Two cables from the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon reveal his suspicions of President Goulart's communist sympathies, and his urging of the CIA to prepare to aid the revolt. The first, dated March 27, 1964, accuses Goulart of actively working with the Brazilian Communist Party, and recommends that the U.S. prepare to support anti-Goulart forces with arms and fuel, especially the General Castello Branco. In the same cable, Gordon mentions that several anti-Goulart groups had approached him in the past two years about the U.S. supporting a coup. He says that, out of all of them, General Branco was easily the best. In Gordon's opinion, he was the one that the U.S. should put their weight behind. He is very urgent in his message, saying that he is afraid of Brazil becoming "The China of the 1960s". Finally, he urges for arms to be sent via an unmarked submarine at night as soon as possible. In a second cable, sent two days later on March 29, he takes a more urgent tone as Ambassador Gordon reports that the situation had "worsened" and "possibly shortened time factors", and advised that "earliest possible action would achieve optimum results." Retired Marshal Odylio Denys was Minister of War during president Janio Quadros' term and was a leader of the anti-Goulart group was in charge of developing the plan to overthrow Goulart. Denys and many Brazilian military men who were strongly against Goulart, however, would not initiate a revolutionary plan unless Goulart started any "attacks" that would win him support. The whole purpose was to protect their constitution, which they felt that Goulart disobeyed.

On March 30, the American military attaché in Brazil, Colonel Vernon A. Walters, telegraphed the State Department. In that telegraph, he confirmed that Brazilian army generals had committed themselves to act against Goulart within a week of the meeting, but no date was set. An Intelligence Information Cable from the same day reiterates the likelihood of a revolution "probably within the next few days", and outlines the movement of troops from São Paulo and Minas Gerais towards Rio de Janeiro once the revolt begins. They felt there would be no problems in Minas Gerais. The cable reports anticipation of problems in São Paulo, and warns that the revolution will be long and bloody, noting that "the position of the navy is uncertain and could add to the difficulties of the anti-Goulart forces." The air force base in Belo Horizonte had little to offer. They believed there would be no resistance or bloodshed. However, the cable also cites the division of the air force as beneficial to the aid of anti-Goulart forces. This included the commander Col. Afranio Aguiar who usually favored Goulart. These two documents reflect the planning and premeditation for the coup by both the CIA and Brazilian anti-Goulart bodies.

In the early hours of March 31, 1964, General Olímpio Mourão Filho, Commander of the 4th Military Region, headquartered in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, ordered his troops to start moving towards Rio de Janeiro. The move was not coordinated with the other main generals in the plot, namely General Amaury Kruel of the 2nd Army (based in São Paulo) and Castello Branco, the deposed army chief of staff. The troop movement took them by surprise, as they felt it was too soon for a successful coup. Less than two hours after receiving news of Mourão's march, Kruel was reported saying "This is nothing more than a quartelada (military adventure, from quartel, Portuguese for "barracks") by General Mourão, and I will not join it." In the morning, Castello Branco would twice try to stop Mourão's march on Rio de Janeiro. At the same time, news of the march had reached General Argemiro Assis Brasil, João Goulart's military aide, who felt confident he could put the rebellion down. As the day progressed, minor revolts and military actions ensued, such as Castello Branco's barricades at the Ministry of War building, and at the Escola de Comando do Estado Maior in Rio de Janeiro. Despite this, the crucial support needed for the coup (that of General Kruel's 2nd Army) had not yet been implemented. At around 10:00 pm, General Kruel called João Goulart. In the call, Kruel asked the president to break with the left-wing by sacking his Minister of Justice and Chief of Staff and outlaw the Comando Geral dos Trabalhadores (Worker's General Command), a major workers' organization. Goulart replied that doing so would be a humiliating defeat for him, making him a "decorative president". Goulart told Kruel: "General, I don't abandon my friends. (...) I would rather stick with my grassroots. You should stick to your convictions. Put your troops out on the street and betray me, publicly."

After the 10:00 pm call, Kruel called Goulart two more times, repeating his demands, and receiving the same answer from Goulart. Goulart's attempt to revoke the generals was disastrous. Two of his three military chiefs of staff were out of action for various reasons. His military aide was a newly promoted Brigadier General, General Assis Brasil. His greatest base of military support was located in his native Southern Brazil. His reaction, orchestrated by Assis Brasil, consisted of shifting a general from the southern 3rd Army to the southeast, to replace Castello Branco (he never arrived). Of his other generals, in the states of Paraná and the Rio Grande do Sul, four were on vacation, while two others were returning to their posts in Curitiba when they were forced to land in Porto Alegre due to bad weather, and thus away from their commands.

A telegram dated March 31, 1964, details some decisions the United States made in response to the coup being underway. The details highlighted the dispatch of US Navy tankers from Aruba, an immediate dispatch of a naval task force to go to Brazil, and initiation of a shipment of 110 tons of ammunition as well as other light equipment such as tear gas. Furthermore, the telegram also states that the actual deployment of these resources requires more discussion. The first tanker is to be off Santos between April 8 and 13, followed by three tankers at intervals of one day. An aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal (CV-59) is to arrive on April 10, with four destroyers, two destroyer escorts, and task force tankers to arrive four days later.

On April 1, at 12:45 pm, João Goulart left Rio de Janeiro for the capital, Brasília, in an attempt to stop the coup. He arrived at about 4:30 pm. Reservists were called up earlier in the day by the local military commander and were brought to the anti-aircraft headquarters in Brasília to try to protect Goulart. It was believed that their defense would only be able to delay his overthrow by about one day. At the same time, General Kruel and the 2nd Army began to march towards the Vale do Paraíba, between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In the southeast, only the 1st Army, commanded by General Âncora and based in Rio de Janeiro, had not enlisted in the coup. General Artur da Costa e Silva called Âncora and demanded his surrender. Âncora replied he would honor a promise to Goulart and first meet to discuss the situation with General Kruel, who was marching in his direction. The meeting would take place later in the day at the Academia Militar de Agulhas Negras, in Resende, between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. At that meeting, Âncora surrendered the 1st Army. Goulart had no military support outside of the south. When he reached Brasília, Goulart realized he lacked any political support. The Senate president, Auro de Moura Andrade, was already articulating for congressional support of the coup. Goulart stayed for a short time in Brasília, gathering his wife and two children, and flying to Porto Alegre in an Air Force Avro 748 aircraft. Soon after Goulart departed, Auro Moura Andrade declared the position of President of Brazil "vacant". Seven people would die during the events of April 1. Casualties included two students who were shot amidst a demonstration against the troops encircling the Governor's palace in Recife, three in Rio and two in Minas Gerais. A telegram from the CIA on April 2 states that "the national council of government on 1 April approved a resolution to receive Goulart as president unless he had resigned before leaving Brazil." The telegram also reports that President Goulart had fled Brazil for Uruguay.

In the early hours of April 2 the National Congress declared the presidency to be vacant and Senate president Auro de Moura Andrade, along with the president of the Supreme Federal Tribunal, swore in Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli, the speaker of the house, as president. This move was arguably unconstitutional at the time, as João Goulart was still in the country. At the same time Goulart, now in the headquarters of the 3rd Army in Porto Alegre (which was still loyal to him at the time), contemplated resistance and counter-moves with Leonel Brizola, who argued for armed resistance. In the morning, General Floriano Machado informed the president that troops loyal to the coup were moving from Curitiba to Porto Alegre and that he had to leave the country, risking arrest otherwise. At 11:45 am, Goulart boarded a Douglas C-47 transport for his farm bordering Uruguay. Goulart would stay at his farm until April 4, when he finally boarded the plane for the last time, heading for Montevideo. Mazzilli would continue as president while the generals jockeyed for power. On April 11, 1964, General Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco was elected President by the National Congress. Upon taking power, Castello Branco promised to "deliver, in 1966, to my successor legitimately elected by the people, a united nation." In 1967, he delivered what journalist Elio Gaspari dubbed "a fractured nation" to a president elected by 295 people.

Within two years, in accord with concessions promised to the U.S. government for its financial support of the overthrow, foreign companies gained control of about half of the Brazilian industry. This type of foreign intrusion was often accomplished through combined fiscal and monetary measures, "constructive bankruptcy" that caused the choice of selling out or going broke. By 1971, of the 19 of Brazil's 27 largest companies that were not state-owned, 14 were foreign-owned.

The US ambassador at the time, Lincoln Gordon, and the military attaché, Colonel Vernon A. Walters, kept in constant contact with President Lyndon B. Johnson as the crisis progressed. Johnson urged taking action to support the overthrow of João Goulart by the military, as action against the "left-wing" Goulart government.

Operation Brother Sam was the codename given to Kennedy's plan to "prevent Brazil from becoming another China or Cuba". Kennedy believed Goulart was getting too friendly with anti-American radicals in the Brazilian government. Declassified transcripts of communications between Lincoln Gordon and the US government show that predicting an all-out civil war, and with the opportunity to get rid of a left-wing government in Brazil, Johnson authorized logistical materials to be in place and a US Navy task force led by an aircraft carrier to support the coup against Goulart. These included ammunition, motor oil, gasoline, aviation gasoline, and other materials to help in a potential civil war in sending US Navy tankers that were coming from Aruba. About 110 tons of ammunition and CS gas were made ready in New Jersey for a possible airlift to Viracopos Airport in Campinas. Potential support was also made available in the form of an "aircraft carrier ( USS Forrestal) and two guided missile destroyers (expected arrive in area by April 10), (and) four destroyers", which sailed to Brazil under the guise of a military exercise.

In the telegraphs, Gordon also acknowledges US involvement in "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies...and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor, and student groups, church, and business" and that he "may be requesting modest supplementary funds for other covert action programs in the near future.".

The actual operational files of the CIA remain classified, preventing historians from accurately gauging the CIA's direct involvement in the coup.

On March 28, 1964, several US government officials including Ralph Burton, Richard Helms, McGeorge Bundy, and Alexis Johnson met to discuss the situation in Brazil. The conversation emphasized discussion concerning Ambassador Gordon's message the day before. The memorandum of the conversation expressed the dilemma of Brazil's election. While it was considered preferable to "waffle through to the next election" the decision concluded that the US government did not want to "watch Brazil dribble down the drain while [waiting for the next election]." Concerning the Brazilian military, Bundy felt that it was a cause for worry if the military did not react. The principle concern was the military's response to Goulart. In response to Ambassador Gordon's request for military action, the officials at the meeting felt puzzled because they believed the Brazilian military to be adequately equipped.

The memorandum discusses further details of Gordon's request, but concludes with three action items. One of the plans of action was to immediately to get relevant information and to set up an arrangement for a tanker to be located within one to three days steaming time of São Paulo, to supply the Brazilian Military with POL. Another item gave orders to Mr. Burton to explore the possibility of getting the NY Times to publish a satisfactory editorial calling attention to the situation in Brazil, and try to determine what the NY Times has said about Goulart in the past.

March 31, 1964

A Department of the State telegram to US Ambassador to Brazil, Lincoln Gordon, in Rio shows the US preparing to aid anti-Goulart forces. The US informs Gordon that three things have occurred. Four American Navy tankers were directed to Brazil and expected between April 8 and the 13th. The US dispatched a naval task force to Brazil which included: an aircraft carrier, four destroyers, two destroyer escorts, and task force tankers. This was later corrected to one aircraft carrier, two guided missile destroyers, four destroyers, and task force tankers. The US assembled 110 tons of ammunition and sent it to São Paulo via airlift, as well as tear gas (later corrected to CS Agent). This airlift would incorporate ten cargo planes, six tankers, six fighters. Later, the number of cargo planes was reduced to six. The airlift would take 24-25 hours to occur upon request while involving ten cargo planes.

At the bottom of the document, the reports claim "Dispatch of tankers from Aruba and of naval task force does not immediately involve us in the Brazilian situation and is regarded by us as normal naval exercise." The CIA did intend to involve themselves in the Brazilian coup, but wanted to do so in secrecy until it was necessary.

In a telephone conversation, President Johnson spoke on the phone from his Texas ranch with Undersecretary of State George Ball and Assistant Secretary for Latin America, Thomas Mann. Ball briefed Johnson on that status of military moves in Brazil to overthrow the government of Joao Goulart who U.S. officials view as a leftist closely associated with the Brazilian Communist Party. Johnson gave Ball the go ahead to actively support the coup if U.S. backing is needed. Johnson stated, "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do." He also stated, "I'd get right on top of it and stick my neck out a little."

April 1, 1964

At a White House Meeting on April 1, 1964, Colonel King of the CIA began the briefing stating that the latest intelligence gathered showed a more favorable situation for the insurgents. This was largely due to indications that General Kruel was moving Second Army troops to the São Paulo Border. Secretary of State Dean Rusk claimed that the Ambassador to Brazil, Lincoln Gordon was not advising that the United States should support Brazil at the time. Despite the proclamation, the two men had previously agreed to provide Brazil support. Instead, this declaration was intended to signal that the United States would not overtly support Brazil. This was because Rusk was concerned that if the United States intervened in Brazil, that would provide Goulart with a reason to become opposed to the United States. However the rebel residents of São Paulo - referred to as the Paulistas - had asked the United States for aid, but had not requested specific items or funds.

At the same meeting Secretary of Defense, Robert Strange McNamara reported that the United States had military aid waiting for the proper Brazilian request. McNamara noted the existence of arms and ammunition waiting to be airlifted to Brazil from New Jersey, a Navy tanker that was being diverted from Aruba to Brazil, and American financed Norwegian boat headed to Buenos Aires with aviation fuel. This demonstrates the United States' tacit willingness to support the Brazilian cause despite Rusk's desire to keep this secret.

A White House memorandum also dated April 1, 1964, highlighted that the White House knew that Goulart had gone into hiding and that the White House was unsure of his location due to the different intelligence reports that it had received about the situation. At the time of the memo, Gordon believed that the coup was "95% over" and that General Branco had "taken over Rio." Gordon reported that Branco "told us he doesn't need our help." The memo also stated that the White House had evidence that Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli would become Brazil's temporary leader until an election could be conducted.

A Washington Daily News article, titled "Castro Plots in Brazil Confirmed", asserts that "Brazil's new anticommunist regime has discovered hard evidence that Castro's Cuba was aiding subversion in their country." The article's premise is that this news firmly classifies Brazil as newly anti-Castro/Cuba. The author of the piece, Virginia Prewett, does not detail how this information was obtained, nor how (or whether) it was independently verified. Rather, the piece extrapolates from this initial statement implication for other Organization of American States (OAS: the world's oldest regional organization, dating back to ... 1948 ... established in order to achieve among its member states..."an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence") member states. Prewett mentions two upcoming OAS meetings; the first was slated to deal with a "showdown over Cuban subversion," the second dealing with "the problem of coups." The article goes on to describe Venezuela as being highly involved in OAS proceedings. Confusingly, though, the article says that Venezuela does not recognize the governments of Haiti, Guatemala, Ecuador, or the Dominican Republic, as they were the products of coups; the new Brazilian government, however, was likely to be deemed as legitimate by Venezuela. The article concludes by commenting on other OAS member states' reactions to Brazil's anti-Cuban stance: Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico will look to Brazil for leadership, rather than listening to the United States or Venezuela; Argentina and Uruguay, though fence-straddlers, were expected to back Brazil and its new government (rather than Cuba or Venezuela), too.

By May 1964, Brazil's break with Cuba was being recognized on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Representative Paul G. Rogers of Florida addressed the Speaker of the House on May 14, 1964, saying that "credit is due the new Government of Brazil for ending diplomatic relations with the Communist regime of Cuba." His speech says that "the fall of leftist Joao Goulart's regime" helped Brazil reverse its course, "which seemed to be taking it away from the democratic community of the hemisphere." His remarks seem to collaborate the aforementioned Washington Daily News article, which considers the reaction of other countries. Specifically, Rogers predicts that Brazil will become a leader in "our sister continent," disregarding Cuba. Rogers calls out four other countries as being Cuba supporters-Chile, Bolivia, Mexico, and Uruguay-and publicly ask the OAS to utilize "stepped-up measures...to isolate Communist Cuba in this hemisphere."

In July 1972, a three-page telegram from the American Embassy in Brasilia to the US Secretary of State's office outlined the "Allegation of Torture in Brazil." The memo alludes to the "peak" of "allegations" of torture, as acknowledged by "high Brazilian officials," stretched from 1968 until the "first half of 1971." The memo credits the marked "reduction" in torture or allegations of torture to the "great part of GOB success in substantially reducing [the] number of active terrorists," but the memo acknowledges that "ample evidence" continues to reveal "harsh interrogation techniques are still being employed at regional and local levels, in some areas and by some security units more flagrantly than in others." "Rightly or wrongly," the telegram continued, "many Brazilians attribute the success of anti-terrorism program to the strength of measures employed against subversives and there are indications that most Brazilians exercising influence upon the regime are prepared to accept international criticism so long as the government considers these measures to be necessary." The American Embassy warned through the memo that US relations with Brazil remained fragile, arguing that "efforts by any branch of US government or by US political figures to bring pressure on Brazil would not only damage our general relations but, by equating reduction in anti-terror measures with weakness under pressure, could produce opposite of intended result." "[With] respect to new formulation contained in state 117951," the memo predicts, "it obviously would be impossible now or at any time in the future to be in a position realistically to certify that the GOB is not engaged in torture of political prisoners."

A number of reports reveal the numbers of suspects arrested in Brazil and the different techniques used to torture suspects during the process of interrogation. A report written on April 16, 1973 to the U.S. Department of State, "Widespread Arrests And Psychophysical Interrogation Of Suspected Subversive," gave specific details that accounted for what happened in Brazil. According to the report, there had been a dramatic increase in arrests in 1973, with a specific week period. The majority of the suspects were university students. These students were arrested within several weeks in the Rio area. When arrested and interrogated, the suspects were "submitted to the old methods of physical violence, which sometimes cause death." The increase in the number of suspects stemmed from the police report, especially on individuals who were jailed before.

Another report, dated April 18, 1973, highlighted that over 300 individuals were arrested for subversive activities. Though the report listed students as the most substantial portion of the arrests, individuals such as university professors, journalists, and physicians were also detained. The method for torture upon a suspect who was picked up usually began with the suspect being forced into a car at gunpoint by an undercover policeman. A veil was then placed over the detainee's head and he was then instructed to lie down in the back of the police vehicle while he was being transported. Upon arrival the captive was stripped naked and forced to sit in either a refrigerated or darken cell for several hours, with loudspeakers broadcasting screaming, sirens, and whistles at high-decibel levels. The suspect was then interrogated by agents, who informed him of the charges and told him how far they would go to extract the information from him. If the detainee was still unco-operative, he was subjected to increasingly-painful physical and mental torture, such as being placed in a room nude with a metal floor that hd an electrical current pulsating through it. The suspect would be kept in that room for several hours. If the suspect did not yet confess, he would be transferred to other "special effects" room, all while he was denied food and water. Though the document references trials by military tribunals and arrests made by members of the military, the document also makes note of the use of the Brazilian police in the interrogation and torture process. Individuals labeled as hardened terrorists or known radical subversives usually faced an expedited execution process. A common practice for executions was to use a technique known as "the shootout technique," in which the executed subject was deemed to have died in a "shootout" with the police.

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The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état ( Portuguese: Golpe de estado no Brasil em 1964), colloquially known in Brazil as the Coup of 64 (Golpe de 64 ), was a series of events in Brazil from March 31 to April 1 that led to the overthrow of President João Goulart by members of the Brazilian Armed Forces, supported by the United States government.

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The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile, led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon. On September 11, 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. In 2000, the CIA admitted his role in the 1970 kidnapping of a top general who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the coup and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.

Following the coup, a military junta was established, and suspended all political activities in Chile and suppressed left-wing movements, particularly communist and socialist parties, such as the Communist Party of Chile and the Socialist Party of Chile, as well as the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). Pinochet swiftly consolidated power and was officially declared president of Chile in late 1974. The Nixon administration, which had played a role in creating favorable conditions for the coup, promptly recognized the junta government and supported its efforts to consolidate power. During the air raids and ground attacks preceding the coup, Allende delivered his final speech, expressing his determination to remain at Palacio del La Moneda and rejecting offers of safe passage for exile. Although he died in the palace, the exact circumstances of Allende's death are still disputed.

Chile had previously been regarded as a symbol of democracy and political stability in South America, while other countries in the region suffered under military juntas and caudillismo; the Chilean period prior to the coup is known as the Presidential Republic (1925-1973) era. At the time, Chile was a middle-class country, with about 30% or 9 million Chileans being middle class. The collapse of Chilean democracy marked the end of a series of democratic governments that had held elections since 1932. Historian Peter Winn described the 1973 coup as one of the most violent events in Chilean history. It led to a series of human rights abuses in Chile under Pinochet, who initiated a brutal and long-lasting campaign of political suppression through torture, murder, and exile, which significantly weakened leftist opposition to the military dictatorship of Chile (1973-1990). The internationally-supported 1989 Chilean constitutional referendum held under the military junta led to the peaceful Chilean transition to democracy. Due to the coup's occurrence on the same date as the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, it has sometimes been referred to as "the other 9/11".

Allende contested the 1970 Chilean presidential election with Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez of the National Party and Radomiro Tomic of the Christian Democratic Party. Allende received 36.6% of the vote, while Alessandri was a very close second with 35.3%, and Tomic third with 28.1%, in what was a close three-way election. Although Allende received the highest number of votes, according to the Chilean constitution and since none of the candidates won by an absolute majority, the National Congress had to decide among the candidates.

The Chilean Constitution of 1925 did not allow a person to be president for consecutive terms. The incumbent president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, was therefore ineligible as a candidate. The CIA's "Track I" operation was a plan to influence the Congress to choose Alessandri, who would resign after a short time in office, forcing a second election. Frei would then be eligible to run. Alessandri announced on 9 September that if Congress chose him, he would resign. Allende signed a Statute of Constitutional Guarantees, which stated that he would follow the constitution during his presidency trying to shore up support for his candidacy. Congress then decided on Allende. The U.S. feared the example of a "well-functioning socialist experiment" in the region and exerted diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure upon Chile's elected socialist government. At the end of 1971, the Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro made a four-week state visit to Chile, alarming American observers worried about the "Chilean Way to Socialism".

In 1972, Economics Minister Pedro Vuskovic adopted monetary policies that increased the amount of circulating currency and devalued the escudo, which increased inflation to 140 percent in 1972 and engendered a black market economy. In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the participants were small-scale businessmen, some professional unions, and student groups. Its leaders - Vilarín, Jaime Guzmán, Rafael Cumsille, Guillermo Elton, Eduardo Arriagada - expected to depose the elected government. Other than damaging the national economy, the principal effect of the 24-day strike was drawing Army head, General Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister, an appeasement to the right wing. replacing General René Schneider, who had been assassinated (Schneider had been shot on 22 October 1970 by a group led by General Roberto Viaux, whom the Central Intelligence Agency had not attempted to discourage, and died three days later.) General Prats supported the legalist Schneider Doctrine and refused military involvement in a coup d'état against President Allende.

Despite the declining economy, President Allende's Popular Unity coalition increased its vote to 43.2% in the March 1973 parliamentary elections; but, by then, the informal alliance between Popular Unity and the Christian Democrats ended. The Christian Democrats allied with the right-wing National Party, who were opposed to Allende's government; the two right-wing parties formed the Confederation of Democracy (CODE). The internecine parliamentary conflict between the legislature and the executive branch paralyzed the activities of government.

Allende began to fear his opponents, convinced they were plotting his assassination. Using his daughter[which? ] as a messenger, he explained the situation to Fidel Castro. Castro gave four pieces of advice: convince technicians to stay in Chile, sell only copper for US dollars, do not engage in extreme revolutionary acts which would give opponents an excuse to wreck or seize control of the economy, and maintain a proper relationship with the Chilean military until local militias could be established and consolidated. Allende attempted to follow Castro's advice, but the latter two recommendations proved difficult.

Prior to the coup, the Chilean military had undergone a process of de-politicization since the 1920s, when military officers had held cabinet positions. Subsequently, most military officers remained under-funded, having only subsistence salaries. Because of the low salaries, the military spent much time in military leisure-time facilities (e.g., country clubs) where they met other officers and their families. The military remained apart from society and was to some degree an endogamous group as officers frequently married the sisters of their comrades or the daughters of high-ranked older officers. Many officers also had relatives in the military. In 1969 elements of the military made their first act of rebellion in 40 years when they participated in the Tacnazo insurrection. The Tacnazo was not a proper coup, but a protest against under-funding. In retrospect General Carlos Prats considered that Christian Democrats who were in power in 1969 committed the error of not taking the military's grievances seriously.

Throughout the 1960s, the governments of Brazil ( 1964), Argentina ( 1966), Peru ( 1968), and Bolivia ( 1969) were overthrown in US-backed coups and replaced by military governments. In June 1973 Uruguay joined the coup d'état wave that swept through the region. The poor conditions of the Chilean military contrasted with the change of fortune the military of neighboring countries experienced as they came to power in coups.

During the decades prior to the coup, the military became influenced by the United States' anti-communist ideology in the context of various cooperation programs, including the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

On 29 June 1973, Colonel Roberto Souper surrounded the La Moneda presidential palace with his tank regiment and failed to depose the Allende Government. That failed coup d'état - known as the Tanquetazo tank putsch - had been organized by the nationalist " Fatherland and Liberty" paramilitary group.

In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred; the Supreme Court publicly complained about the government's inability to enforce the law of the land. On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies (with the Christian Democrats united with the National Party) accused the government of unconstitutional acts and called upon the military to enforce constitutional order.

For months, the government had feared calling upon the Carabineros national police, suspecting them of disloyalty. On 9 August, Allende appointed General Carlos Prats as Minister of Defense. He was forced to resign both as defense minister and as the Army commander-in-chief on 24 August 1973, embarrassed by the Alejandrina Cox incident and a public protest of the wives of his generals at his house. General Augusto Pinochet replaced him as Army commander-in-chief the same day. In late August 1973, 100,000[disputed ] Chilean women congregated at Plaza de la Constitución to protest against the government for the rising cost and increasing shortages of food and fuels, but they were dispersed with tear gas.

On 23 August 1973, with the support of the Christian Democrats and National Party members, the Chamber of Deputies passed 81-47 a resolution that asked "the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces" to "put an immediate end" to "breach[es of] the Constitution . . . with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans".

The resolution declared that the Allende government sought "to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state ... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system", claiming it had made "violations of the Constitution ... a permanent system of conduct". Essentially, most of the accusations were about the government disregarding the separation of powers, and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government. Finally, the resolution condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups, which ... are headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces". President Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterised as "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks".

It can be argued that the resolution called upon the armed forces to overthrow the government if it did not comply, as follows: "To present the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces with the grave breakdown of the legal and constitutional order ... it is their duty to put an immediate end to all situations herein referred to that breach the Constitution and the laws of the land with the aim of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law". The resolution was later used by Pinochet a way to justify the coup, which occurred two weeks later.

Salvador Allende's response

On 24 August 1973, two days after the resolution, Allende responded. He accused the opposition of trying to incite a military coup by encouraging the armed forces to disobey civilian authorities. He described the Congress's declaration as "destined to damage the country's prestige abroad and create internal confusion", and predicted: "It will facilitate the seditious intention of certain sectors." He observed that the declaration (passed 81-47 in the Chamber of Deputies) had not obtained the two-thirds Senate majority "constitutionally required" to convict the president of abuse of power, thus the Congress was "invoking the intervention of the armed forces and of Order against a democratically-elected government" and "subordinat[ing] political representation of national sovereignty to the armed institutions, which neither can nor ought to assume either political functions or the representation of the popular will."

Allende argued that he had obeyed constitutional means for including military men to the cabinet at the service of civic peace and national security, defending republican institutions against insurrection and terrorism. In contrast, he said that Congress was promoting a coup d'état or a civil war with a declaration full of affirmations that had already been refuted beforehand and which in substance and process (directly handing it to the ministers rather than directly handing it to the president) violated a dozen articles of the then-current constitution. He further argued that the legislature was usurping the government's executive function.

Allende wrote: "Chilean democracy is a conquest by all of the people. It is neither the work nor the gift of the exploiting classes, and it will be defended by those who, with sacrifices accumulated over generations, have imposed it ... With a tranquil conscience ... I sustain that never before has Chile had a more democratic government than that over which I have the honor to preside ... I solemnly reiterate my decision to develop democracy and a state of law to their ultimate consequences...Congress has made itself a bastion against the transformations ... and has done everything it can to perturb the functioning of the finances and of the institutions, sterilizing all creative initiatives." Adding that economic and political means would be needed to relieve the country's current crisis, and that the Congress was obstructing said means; having already paralyzed the state, they sought to destroy it. He concluded by calling upon the workers and all democrats and patriots to join him in defending the Chilean constitution and the revolutionary process.

In mid-July, a month before the resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, there was general agreement in the heart of the Army's high command on the desirability of terminating the Unidad Popular "experiment." How to do it was still nebulous. The constitutional generals, gathered around Army Commander-in-Chief General Carlos Prats, were facing pressure from an increasingly hardline anti-Allende faction within the Army. Prats had coined the idea of an Allende-Armed Forces government, including a "political peace treaty" with the Christian Democrats and restricted participation of the Chilean Communist party and a group of Socialists. Prats argued that "only thus will we prevent the extremist workers from rebelling." This idea had the support of Generals Joaquin Lagos Osorio, Herman Brady Roche, Washington Carrasco Fernandez, Hector Bravo Munoz, Mario Sepulveda Squella, Guillermo Pickering, and Orlando Urbina Herrera, but with variations. While Lagos Osorio and Urbina Herrera did not object to the Prats plan, the other five generals thought the Allende-Armed Forces government ought to be "transitional" and of "short duration," to prepare conditions for a "purely military government including the military police." The hardline faction, consisting of Generals Oscar Bonilla, Sergio Arellano Stark, and Javier Palacios formed another group, joined by Augusto Pinochet, which posited that the Allende-Armed Forces phase was not necessary.

After Prats' resignation on 24 August caused by the Alejandrina Cox incident, the hardline anti-Allende, anti-constitutional faction that disregarded the Schneider Doctrine and opted for a full-fledged military coup, gained the upper hand in the Army leadership. The original members of the faction, Arellano (who later headed the infamous Caravan of Death) and Palacios (who on September 11 led the tank regiment that besieged La Moneda), were joined by Pinochet, Generals Mendoza, Leigh, Benavides and Admirals Merino and Carvajal. Constitutionalist General Urbina also joined the coup faction. Orlando Letelier, Allende's last Defense Minister, later wrote: "Urbina also joined Pinochet's double game and acted in terms of a great traitor. He had a reputation as an Allendista military man, but he had been Pinochet's classmate and even his confidant during the Unidad Popular government."

At noon on Sunday, September 9, Pinochet, together with General Orlando Urbina, met with President Allende. The president requested that they draw up an emergency plan in the event of a coup riot. Pinochet promised to have it by the next day."

On the day of the coup, the only high-ranking military officers to remain loyal to Chile's Constitution were Admiral Montero of the Navy and General Sepúlveda of the Carabineros.

"Like Caesar peering into the colonies from distant Rome, Nixon said the choice of government by the Chileans was unacceptable to the president of the United States. The attitude in the White House seemed to be, "If in the wake of Vietnam I can no longer send in the Marines, then I will send in the CIA."-Senator Frank Church, 1976

Many people in different parts of the world immediately suspected the U.S. of foul play. In early newspaper reports, the U.S. denied any involvement or previous knowledge of the coup. Prompted by an incriminating New York Times article, the U.S. Senate opened an investigation into U.S. interference in Chile. A report prepared by the United States Intelligence Community in 2000, at the direction of the National Intelligence Council, that echoed the Church committee, states that:

Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and-because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970-probably appeared to condone it.

The report stated that the CIA "actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency." After a review of recordings of telephone conversations between Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Robert Dallek concluded that both of them used the CIA to actively destabilize the Allende government. In one particular conversation about the news of Allende's overthrow, Kissinger complained about the lack of recognition of the American role in the overthrow of a "communist" government, upon which Nixon remarked, "Well, we didn't - as you know - our hand doesn't show on this one." A later CIA report contended that US agents maintained close ties with the Chilean military to collect intelligence but no effort was made to assist them and "under no circumstances attempted to influence them."

Historian Peter Winn found "extensive evidence" of United States complicity in the coup. He states that its covert support was crucial to engineering the coup, as well as for the consolidation of power by the Pinochet regime following the takeover. Winn documents an extensive CIA operation to fabricate reports of a coup against Allende, as justification for the imposition of military rule. Peter Kornbluh asserts that the CIA destabilized Chile and helped create the conditions for the coup, citing documents declassified by the Clinton administration. Other authors point to the involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency, agents of which allegedly secured the missiles used to bombard the La Moneda Palace.

The U.S. Government's hostility to the election of Allende in 1970 in Chile was substantiated in documents declassified during the Clinton administration, which show that CIA covert operatives were inserted in Chile in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda. As described in the Church Committee report, the CIA was involved in multiple plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate. The first, non-military, approach involved attempting a constitutional coup. This was known as the Track I approach, in which the CIA, with the approval of the 40 Committee, attempted to bribe the Chilean legislature, tried to influence public opinion against Allende, and provided funding to strikes designed to coerce him into resigning. It also attempted to get congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri as the winner of the presidential election. Alessandri, who was an accessory to the conspiracy, was ready to then resign and call for fresh elections. This approach completely failed in 1970 and was not attempted again.

The other approach of the CIA in 1970 (but not later), also known as the Track II approach, was an attempt to encourage a military coup by creating a climate of crisis across the country. A CIA telegram sent to the Chile station on October 16, 1970, stated:

It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden."

False flag operatives contacted senior Chilean military officers and informed them that the U.S. would actively support a coup, but would revoke all military aid if such a coup did not happen. In addition, the CIA gave extensive support for black propaganda against Allende, channeled mostly through El Mercurio. Financial assistance was also given to Allende's political opponents, and for organizing strikes and unrest to destabilize the government. By 1970, the U.S. manufacturing company ITT Corporation owned 70% of Chitelco (the Chilean Telephone Company), and also funded El Mercurio. The CIA used ITT as a means of disguising the source of the illegitimate funding Allende's opponents received. On 28 September 1973, the Weather Underground bombed ITT's headquarters in New York City in retaliation.

According to an article written by lifelong CIA operative Jack Devine, although it was widely reported that the CIA was directly involved in orchestrating and carrying out the coup, subsequently released sources suggest a much reduced role of the US government.

In September 2020, Declassified UK revealed that the UK government had interfered in Chile's democracy as well:

Under the Labour government of Harold Wilson (1964-1970), a secret Foreign Office unit initiated a propaganda offensive in Chile aiming to prevent Allende, Chile's leading socialist figure, winning power in two presidential elections, in 1964 and 1970.

The unit - the Information Research Department (IRD) - gathered information designed to damage Allende and lend legitimacy to his political opponents, and distributed material to influential figures within Chilean society.

The IRD also shared intelligence about left-wing activity in the country with the US government. British officials in Santiago assisted a CIA-funded media organisation which was part of extensive US covert action to overthrow Allende, culminating in the 1973 coup.

An Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) station was established in Chile at the Australian embassy in July 1971 at the request of the CIA and authorised by then Liberal Party Foreign Minister William McMahon. Newly elected Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was informed of the operation in February 1973 and signed a document ordering the closure of the operation several weeks later. It appears, however, the last ASIS agent did not leave Chile until October 1973, one month after the coup d'état had brought down the Allende Government. There were also two officers of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Australia's internal security service, who were based in Santiago working as migration officers during this period. The failure of timely closure of Australia's covert operations was one of the reasons for the sacking of the Director of ASIS on 21 October 1975. This took effect on 7 November, just four days before Prime Minister's Whitlam's own dismissal in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis with allegations of CIA political interference.

In June 2021, Clinton Fernandes, a former intelligence analyst, announced that he was trying to confirm the rumours of Australia's involvement in the coup by fighting for the declassification of key documents. On 10 September 2021, the day before the 48th anniversary of the coup, declassified documents confirmed that McMahon did indeed approve the CIA's request to conduct covert operations in Chile.

By 7:00 am on 11 September 1973, a date chosen to match a historical 1924 coup, the Navy captured Valparaíso, strategically stationing ships and marine infantry in the central coast and closed radio and television networks. The Province Prefect informed President Allende of the Navy's actions; immediately, the president went to the presidential palace with his bodyguards, the " Group of Personal Friends" (GAP). By 8:00 am, the Army had closed most radio and television stations in Santiago city; the Air Force bombed the remaining active stations; the President received incomplete information and was convinced that only a sector of the Navy conspired against him and his government.

President Allende and Defense Minister Orlando Letelier were unable to communicate with military leaders. Admiral Montero, the Navy's commander and an Allende loyalist, was rendered incommunicado; his telephone service was cut, and his cars were sabotaged before the coup d'état, to ensure he could not thwart the opposition. Leadership of the Navy was transferred to José Toribio Merino, planner of the coup d'état and executive officer to Adm. Montero. Augusto Pinochet, General of the Army, and Gustavo Leigh, General of the Air Force, did not answer Allende's telephone calls to them. The General Director of the Carabineros (uniformed police), José María Sepúlveda, and the head of the Investigations Police (plain clothes detectives), Alfredo Joignant answered Allende's calls and immediately went to the La Moneda presidential palace. When Defense Minister Letelier arrived at the Ministry of Defense, controlled by Adm. Patricio Carvajal, he was arrested as the first prisoner of the coup d'état.

Despite evidence that all branches of the Chilean armed forces were involved in the coup, Allende hoped that some units remained loyal to the government. Allende was convinced of Pinochet's loyalty, telling a reporter that the coup d'état leaders must have imprisoned the general. Only at 8:30 am, when the armed forces declared their control of Chile and that Allende was deposed, did the president grasp the magnitude of the military's rebellion. Despite the lack of any military support, Allende refused to resign his office.

At approx. 9:00 the carabineros of the La Moneda left the building. By 9:00 am, the armed forces controlled Chile, except for the city centre of the capital, Santiago. Allende refused to surrender, despite the military's declaring they would bomb the La Moneda presidential palace if he resisted being deposed. The Socialist Party along with his Cuban advisors proposed to Allende that he escape to the San Joaquín industrial zone in southern Santiago, to later re-group and lead a counter- coup d'état; the president rejected the proposition. According to Tanya Harmer, Allende's refusal to lead an insurgency against the coup is evidence of his unrelenting desire to bring about change through non-violent methods. The military attempted negotiations with Allende, but the President refused to resign, citing his constitutional duty to remain in office. Finally, Allende gave a farewell speech, telling the nation of the coup d'état and his refusal to resign his elected office under threat.

Leigh ordered the presidential palace bombed but was told the Air Force's Hawker Hunter jet aircraft would take forty minutes to arrive. Pinochet ordered an armoured and infantry force under General Sergio Arellano to advance upon the La Moneda presidential palace. When the troops moved forward, they were forced to retreat after coming under fire from GAP snipers perched on rooftops. General Arellano called for helicopter gunship support from the commander of the Chilean Army Puma helicopter squadron and the troops were able to advance again. Chilean Air Force aircraft soon arrived to provide close air support for the assault (by bombing the Palace), but the defenders did not surrender until nearly 2:30 pm. First reports said the 65-year-old president had died fighting troops, but later police sources reported he had committed suicide.

The facilities of the National Stadium were used as a detention and torture center after the coup.

In the first months after the coup d'état, the military killed thousands of Chilean leftists, both real and suspected, or forced their " disappearance". The military imprisoned 40,000 political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile; among the tortured and killed desaparecidos (disappeared) were the U.S. citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. In October 1973, the Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara was murdered, along with 70 other people in a series of killings perpetrated by the death squad Caravan of Death ( Caravana de la Muerte).

The government arrested some 130,000 people in a three-year period; the dead and disappeared numbered thousands in the first months of the military government. Those include the British physician Sheila Cassidy, who survived to publicize in the UK the human rights violations in Chile. Among those detained was Alberto Bachelet (father of future Chilean President Michelle Bachelet), an Air Force official; he was tortured and died on 12 March 1974, the right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio, reported that Mr Bachelet died after a basketball game, citing his poor cardiac health. Michelle Bachelet and her mother were imprisoned and tortured in the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture centre on 10 January 1975.

After Gen. Pinochet lost the election in the 1988 plebiscite, the Rettig Commission, a multi-partisan truth commission, in 1991 reported the location of torture and detention centers, among others, Colonia Dignidad, the tall ship Esmeralda and Víctor Jara Stadium. Later, in November 2004, the Valech Report confirmed the number as fewer than 3,000 killed and reduced the number of cases of forced disappearance; but some 28,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. Sixty individuals died as a direct result of fighting on 11 September, although the MIR and GAP continued to fight the following day. In all, 46 of Allende's guard (the GAP, Grupo de Amigos Personales) were killed, some of them in combat with the soldiers that took the Moneda. Allende's Cuban-trained guard would have had about 300 elite commando-trained GAP fighters at the time of the coup, but the use of brute military force, especially the use of Hawker Hunters, may have handicapped many GAP fighters from further action.

According to official reports prepared after the return of democracy, at La Moneda only two people died: President Allende and the journalist Augusto Olivares (both by suicide). Two more were injured, Antonio Aguirre and Osvaldo Ramos, both members of President Allende's entourage; they would later be allegedly kidnapped from the hospital and disappeared. In November 2006, the Associated Press noted that more than 15 bodyguards and aides were taken from the palace during the coup and are still unaccounted for; in 2006 Augusto Pinochet was indicted for two of their deaths.

On the military side, there were 34 deaths: two army sergeants, three army corporals, four army privates, 2 navy lieutenants, 1 navy corporal, 4 naval cadets, 3 navy conscripts and 15 carabineros. In mid-September, the Chilean military junta claimed its troops suffered another 16 dead and 100 injured by gunfire in mopping-up operations against Allende supporters, and Pinochet said: "sadly there are still some armed groups who insist on attacking, which means that the military rules of wartime apply to them." A press photographer also died in the crossfire while attempting to cover the event. On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old army corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, who was serving with the Cazadores, became the first fatal casualty of the counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia after being shot by a sniper. The Chilean Army suffered 12 killed in various clashes with MIR guerrillas and GAP fighters in October 1973.

While fatalities in the battle during the coup might have been relatively small, the Chilean security forces sustained 162 dead in the three following months as a result of continued resistance, and tens of thousands of people were arrested during the coup and held in the National Stadium. An estimated 40,000 Chileans were tortured under the Pinochet regime in the years following the coup.

Allende's death

President Allende died in La Moneda during the coup. The junta officially declared that he committed suicide with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro, two doctors from the infirmary of La Moneda stated that they witnessed the suicide, and an autopsy labelled Allende's death a suicide. Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal, one of the primary instigators of the coup, claimed that "Allende committed suicide and is dead now".[This quote needs a citation ] Patricio Guijon, one of the president's doctors, had testified to witnessing Allende shoot himself under the chin with the rifle while seated on a sofa.

At the time, few of Allende's supporters believed the explanation that Allende had killed himself. Allende's body was exhumed in May 2011. The exhumation was requested by members of the Allende family, including his daughter Isabel who viewed the question of her father's death as "an insult to scientific intelligence". A scientific autopsy was performed, and the autopsy team delivered a unanimous finding on 19 July 2011 that Allende committed suicide using an AK-47 rifle. The team was composed of international forensic experts to assure an independent evaluation.

However, on 31 May 2011, Chile's state television station reported that a top-secret military account of Allende's death had been discovered in the home of a former military justice official. The 300-page document was found only when the house was destroyed in the 2010 Chilean earthquake. After reviewing the report, two forensic experts told Televisión Nacional de Chile "that they are inclined to conclude that Allende was assassinated". Two forensics experts said they believed he was shot with a small-calibre weapon prior to the AK-47. One expert, Luis Ravanal, noted the lack of blood on his collar, sweater and throat suggested someone else fired the AK-47 when he was already dead.

Allende's widow and family escaped the military government and were accepted for exile in Mexico, where they remained for 17 years.

Original members of the Government Junta of Chile (1973)

On 13 September, the Junta dissolved Congress, outlawed the parties that had been part of the Popular Unity coalition, and all political activity was declared "in recess". The military government took control of all media, including the radio broadcasting that Allende attempted to use to give his final speech to the nation. It is not known how many Chileans actually heard the last words of Allende as he spoke them, but a transcript and audio of the speech survived the military government. Chilean scholar Lidia M. Baltra details how the military took control of the media platforms and turned them into their own "propaganda machine". The only two newspapers that were allowed to continue publishing after the military takeover were El Mercurio and La Tercera de la Hora, both of which were anti-Allende under his leadership. The dictatorship's silencing of the leftist point of view extended past the media and into "every discourse that expressed any resistance to the regime". An example of this is the torturing and death of folk singer Victor Jara. The military government detained Jara in the days following the coup. He, along with many other leftists, was held in Estadio Nacional, or the National Stadium of Chile in the capital of Santiago. Initially, the Junta tried to silence him by crushing his hands, but ultimately, he was murdered. Immediately after the coup the military sought television host Don Francisco to have him report on the events. Don Francisco declined the offer, encouraging the captain that had approached him to take the role of reporter himself.

Initially, there were four leaders of the junta: In addition to General Augusto Pinochet, from the Army, there were General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, of the Air Force; Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro, of the Navy (who replaced Constitutionalist Admiral Raúl Montero); and General Director César Mendoza Durán, of the National Police ( Carabineros de Chile) (who replaced Constitutionalist General Director José María Sepúlveda). Coup leaders soon decided against a rotating presidency and named General Pinochet permanent head of the junta.

In the months that followed the coup, the junta, with authoring work by historian Gonzalo Vial and Admiral Patricio Carvajal, published a book titled El Libro Blanco del cambio de gobierno en Chile (commonly known as El Libro Blanco, "The White Book of the Change of Government in Chile"), where they attempted to justify the coup by claiming that they were in fact anticipating a self-coup (the alleged , or Plan Z) that Allende's government or its associates were purportedly preparing. Historian Peter Winn states that the Central Intelligence Agency had an extensive part to play in fabricating the conspiracy and in selling it to the press, both in Chile and internationally. Although later discredited and officially recognized as the product of political propaganda, Gonzalo Vial has pointed to the similarities between the alleged Plan Z and other existing paramilitary plans of the Popular Unity parties in support of its legitimacy.

A document from September 13 shows that Jaime Guzmán was by then already tasked to study the creation of a new constitution. One of the first measures of the dictatorship was to set up a Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud (SNJ, National Youth Office). This was done on 28 October 1973, even before the Declaration of Principles of the junta made in March 1974. This was a way of mobilizing sympathetic elements of the civil society in support for the dictatorship.

Pictures of persons missing after the 1973 Chilean coup

The newspaper published on its front page a photograph showing prisoners at the Quiriquina Island Camp who had been captured during the fighting in Concepción. The photograph's caption stated that some of the detained were local leaders of the " Unidad Popular" while others were "extremists who had attacked the armed forces with firearms". The photo is reproduced in Docuscanner. This is consistent with reports in newspapers and broadcasts in Concepción about the activities of the Armed Forces, which mentioned clashes with "extremists" on several occasions from 11 to 14 September. Nocturnal skirmishes took place around the Hotel Alonso de Ercilla in Colo Colo and San Martín Street, one block away from the Army and military police administrative headquarters. A recently published testimony about the clashes in Concepcion offers several plausible explanations for the reticence of witnesses to these actions.

Besides political leaders and participants, the coup also affected many everyday Chilean citizens. Thousands were killed, went missing, and were injured. Because of the political instability in their country, many relocated elsewhere. Canada, among other countries, became a main point of refuge for many Chilean citizens. Through an operation known as "Special Movement Chile", more than 7,000 Chileans were relocated to Canada in the months following 11 September 1973. These refugees are now known as Chilean Canadian people and have a population of over 38,000.

The U.S. view of the coup continues to spark controversy. Beginning in late 2014 in response to a request by then Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS), located at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., has been under investigation by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. Insider national security whistleblower complaints included that the Center knowingly protected a CHDS professor from Chile who was a former top advisor to Pinochet after belonging to the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional / DINA state terrorist organization (whose attack against a former Chilean foreign minister in 1976 in Washington, D.C. resulted in two deaths, including that of an American). "Reports that NDU hired foreign military officers with histories of involvement in human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings of civilians, are stunning, and they are repulsive", said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the author of the "Leahy Law" prohibiting U.S. assistance to military units and members of foreign security forces that violate human rights.

Roberto Thieme, the military leader of Fatherland and Liberty, who was imprisoned on 11 September was shocked to hear about the degree of violence the coup was carried out with. Despite being an arduous opponent of Unidad Popular he had expected a cleaner coup.

President of Argentina Juan Domingo Perón condemned the coup calling it a "fatality for the continent". Before the coup Perón had warned the more radical of his followers to stay calm and "not do as Allende". Argentine students protested the coup at the Chilean embassy in Buenos Aires, where part of them chanted that they were "ready to cross the Andes" ( dispuestos a cruzar la cordillera).

A number of cargo shipments involving trade with Cuba were affected by government policy decisions, and subsequently performance of the trade contracts underlying the shipping deliveries was made illegal under Cuban law. The Chilean company Iansa had purchased sugar from the Cuban business entity, Cubazukar, and several shipments were at different stages of the shipping and delivery process. The ships involved included:

Playa Larga (delivery in Chile was underway but was not completed before the ship left)

The Marble Island (the ship was en route for Chile but was diverted elsewhere)

Aegis Fame (hire was cancelled before the cargo had been loaded).

The shipping contracts used c.i.f. trade terms. Iansa sued Cubazukar for non-delivery. The High Court (in England) ruled that IANSA was entitled to damages in respect of the undelivered balance of the Playa Larga cargo and to restitution of the price paid for the Marble Island cargo. Subsequent appeals by both parties were dismissed. In regard to the Aegis Fame shipping, the contract was frustrated and therefore Cubazukar were not in breach.

The commemoration of the coup is associated to competing narratives on its cause and effects. The coup has been commemorated by detractors and supporters in various ways.

On 11 September 1975 Pinochet lit the Llama de la Libertad (lit. Flame of Liberty) to commemorate the coup. This flame was extinguished in 2004. Avenida Nueva Providencia in Providencia, Santiago, was renamed Avenida 11 de Septiembre in 1980. In the 30th anniversary of the coup President Ricardo Lagos inaugurated the Morandé 80 entrance to La Moneda. This entrance to the presidential palace had been erased during the repairs the dictatorship did to the building after the bombing.

The 40th anniversary of the coup in 2013 was particularly intense. That year the name of Avenida 11 de Septiembre was reversed to the original Avenida Nueva Providencia. The Association of Chilean Magistrates issued a public statement in early September 2013 recognizing the past unwillingness of judges to protect those persecuted by dictatorship. On 11 September 2013 hundreds of Chileans posed as dead in the streets of Santiago in remembrance of the ones "disappeared" by the dictatorship.

The centre-left opposition refused to attend the commemoration event organized by Sebastián Piñera's right-wing government organizing instead a separate event. Osvaldo Andrade of the Socialist Party explained that attendance was not viable as Piñera's government was "packed with passive accomplices" of the dictatorship. Some right-wing politicians also declined the invitation. Presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet planned to spend the day visiting Museum of Memory and Human Rights. President Piñera held an unusual speech in which he denounced "passive accomplices" like news reporters who deliberately changed or omitted the truth and judges who rejected recursos de amparos that could have saved lives. People who knew things or could have known things but decided to stay quiet were also criticized as passive accomplices in Piñera's speech.

A number of new films, theatre plays, and photography expositions were held to cast light on the abuses and censorship of the dictatorship. The number of new books published on the subject in 2013 was such that it constituted an editorial boom. The Museum of Memory and Human Rights also displayed a collection of declassified CIA, FBI, Defense Department, and White House records illustrating the U.S. role in the dictatorship and the coup. Conferences and seminaries on the subject of coup were also held. Various series and interviews with politicians on the subject of the coup and the dictatorship were aired on Chilean TV in 2013.

1. ^ Lawson, George (2005). Negotiated Revolutions. p. 182. The only armed resistance came in a handful of factories, the La Legua poblacion in Santiago and in isolated gunfights with MIR activists.

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3. Walter L. Hixson (2009). ^ The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy. Yale University Press. p. 223. ISBN 0300151314

4. ^ Cohen, Youssef (1994). Radicals, Reformers, and Reactionaries: The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Collapse of Democracy in Latin America. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. pp. 98-118. ISBN 978-0-2261-1271-8 - via Google Books.

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6. ^ "Chile: The Bloody End of a Marxist Dream". Time. September 24, 1973. ISSN 0040-781X. Allende's downfall had implications that reached far beyond the borders of Chile. His had been the first democratically elected Marxist government in Latin America.

7. ^ Ross, Jen (December 12, 2006). "Controversial legacy of former Chilean dictator". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Chile's democratically elected Communist government in a 1973 coup and ruled for 17 years, died Sunday without ever having been condemned for the human rights abuses committed during his rule.

8. ^ "Allende and Chile: 'Bring Him Down'". National Security Archive. November 3, 2020 - via The George Washington University.

9. ^ Peter Kornbluh (11 September 2013). The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. The New Press. ISBN 1595589120

10. Lubna Z. Qureshi. ^ Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende: U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile. Lexington Books, 2009. ISBN 0739126563

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13. ^ Winn, Peter (2010). "Furies of the Andes". In Grandin & Joseph, Greg & Gilbert (ed.). A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America's Long Cold War. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. p. 259. doi:10.1215/9780822392859. ISBN 978-0-8223-9285-9.

14. ^ François, David (2018). Chile 1973, the Other 9/11: The Downfall of Salvador Allende. Solihull, West Midlands: Helion & Company. ISBN 978-1-912174-95-9. OCLC 1001447543.

15. ^ Osborn, Catherine (September 10, 2021). "The Other 9/11". Foreign Policy. In the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States this month, a leading Chilean university, the University of Concepción, held a series of panel discussions on their legacy. The program referred to the events as 'the other Sept. 11.'
'Other' because, in Chile, Sept. 11 is best known as the date of the country's own national tragedy: the 1973 U.S.-backed coup against leftist President Salvador Allende that ushered in over 16 years of military rule.

16. ^ "CIA Activities in Chile". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on June 12, 2007. The political action program under consideration called for the Embassy and Station to influence the Chilean Congress as it took up the matter. This involved encouraging Congress to vote for Alessandri for President in spite of the fact Allende received a slightly higher popular vote. Allende's 36.3 percent of the vote on 4 September was a plurality, not the majority required by the Constitution to prevent Congressional reaffirmation of the victory. The Station and the Embassy, working through intermediaries, urged Frei to use his influence with Congress to convince non-leftist forces to vote for Alessandri. The scenario was to have Congress elect Alessandri as President; he would then resign, thereby allowing Frei to run as a candidate against Allende in a new election.

17. ^ "Castro speech database" Archived 30 May 2004 at the Wayback Machine, University of Texas: English translations of Castro speeches based upon the records of the (United States) Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). See locations of speeches for November-December 1971. Retrieved 22 September 2006.

18. "Comienzan los problemas" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on August 2, 2007., part of series "Icarito > Enciclopedia Virtual > Historia > Historia de Chile > Del gobierno militar a la democracia" on LaTercera.cl. Retrieved 22 September 2006.

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20. González 2013, p. 35.

21. , originally on RebelYouth.ca. Unsigned, but with citations. Archived on ^ Internet Archive 13 October 2004.

22. "el Presidente de la República y a los señores Ministros de Estado y miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas y del Cuerpo de Carabineros" Acuerdo de la Cámara de Diputados).

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25. ^ Bill D. Moyers; Henry Steele Commager (December 1990). The secret government: the Constitution in crisis : with excerpts from "An essay on Water-gate". Seven Locks Press. ISBN 978-0-932020-85-7.

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28. ^ CIA Activities in Chile, September 18, 2000, archived from the original on June 12, 2007, To respond to Section 311 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 (referred to hereafter as the Hinchey Amendment), the Intelligence Community (IC), led by the National Intelligence Council, reviewed [...]

29. ^ Shane, Scott (April 18, 2007), "Robert Dallek on Nixon and Kissinger", The New York Times, archived from the original on January 14, 2014, [...] phone call reacting to news of the 1973 coup in Chile [...] Kissinger grumbled [...] that American newspapers, 'instead of celebrating,' were 'bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.' 'Isn't that something?' Nixon remarked. 'In the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes,' Kissinger said. 'Well, we didn't - as you know - our hand doesn't show on this one,' the president said.

30. ^ The Pinochet File: How U.S. Politicians, Banks and Corporations Aided Chilean Coup, Dictatorship. Democracy Now! 10 September 2013.

31. pp78-92, 2015 in ^ 40 Years are Nothing: History and memory of the 1973 coups d'état in Uruguay and Chile Edited by Pablo Leighton and Fernando López, ISBN 1443876429

32. ^ Pérez de Arce, Hermógenes (January 15, 2006). "Michelle Bachelet, ¿quién es realmente usted?". El Mercurio.

33. ^ Hilton, Ronald (December 22, 1997). "Chile: The Continuing Historical Conflict". World Association of International Studies. Archived from the original on October 26, 2006.

34. ^ Rojas, Róbinson (1975). The murder of Allende and the end of the Chilean way to socialism. Harper and Row, Fitzhenry & Whiteside - via RRojasDatabank.info.

35. ^ "Mexico dio asilo a la viuda de Allende". La Nacion. September 14, 1973 - via Google Newspapers.

36. ^ Cucurella, Paula (2014). "A Weak Force: On the Chilean Dictatorship and Visual Arts". The New Centennial Review. 14 (1): 99-127. doi:10.14321/crnewcentrevi.14.1.0099. S2CID 144977347.

37. ^ Hinchey Report on CIA Activities in Chile (Report). September 18, 2000. Archived from the original on October 20, 2009.

38. ^ "III Contexto". Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (PDF). Government of Chile. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 20, 2005.

39. ^ Vial Correa, Gonzalo (September 23, 2003). "Carlos Altamirano, el Plan Z y la "Operación Blanqueo"". La Segunda.

40. ^ González, Yanko (2015). "El "Golpe Generacional" y la Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud: purga, disciplinamiento y resocialización de las identidades juveniles bajo Pinochet (1973-1980)" [The "Generational Putsch" and the National youth Office: Purge, disciplining and resocialization of youth identities under Pinochet (1973-1980)]. (in Spanish). 512 (512): 10.4067/S0718-04622015000200006. doi:10.4067/S0718-04622015000200006.

41. ^ Chilean 70's torture survivor seeks justice. McClatchy Washington Bureau. March 12, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021 - via YouTube.

42. ^ DiFilm (March 10, 2014). "DiFilm - Protesta de estudiantes en la Embajada de Chile 1973". Archived from the original on November 2, 2021 - via YouTube.

43. Todd, P. N., Empresa Exportadora de Azucar v. Industria Azucarera Nacional S.A. (The Playa Larga and Marble Islands), n.d., archived 4 May 2014, accessed 27 May 2021

44. ^ Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Empresa Exportadora de Azucar (Cubazucar) v Industria Azucarera Nacional SA (IANSA) (England, Court of Appeal, Civil Division.), 2 Lloyd's Rep. 171, accessed 27 November 2022

45. ^ Waldman, Gilda (2014). "A cuarenta años del golpe militar en Chile. Reflexiones en torno a conmemoraciones y memorias". Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales (in Spanish). 59 (221): 243-265. doi:10.1016/S0185-1918(14)70823-2.

46. "Municipio cambia de señalética de avenida por "Nueva Providencia"". 24 Horas (in Spanish). July 14, 2013.

John R. Bawden (2016). The Pinochet Generation: The Chilean Military in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

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Julio Faundez (1988). Marxism and democracy in Chile: From 1932 to the fall of Allende, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ignacio González Camus, ed. (1988). El día en que murió Allende (The day that Allende Died), Chilean Institute of Humanistic Studies (ICHEH) / CESOC.

González, Mónica (2013). La Conjura: Los mil y un días del golpe (in Spanish) (3rd ed.). Santiago de Chile: Catalonia. ISBN 978-956-324-134-1.

Anke Hoogvelt (1997). Globalisation and the postcolonial world, London: Macmillan.

Thomas Karamessines (1970). Operating guidance cable on coup plotting in Chile, Washington: National Security Council.

Jeane Kirkpatrick (1979). "Dictatorships and Double Standards", Commentary, November, pp 34-45.

Henry Kissinger (1970). National Security Decision 93: Policy Towards Chile, Washington: National Security Council.

Richard Norton-Taylor (1999). "Truth will out: Unearthing the declassified documents in America which give the lie to Lady Thatcher's outburst", The Guardian, 8 July 1999, London.

Alec Nove (1986). Socialism, Economics and Development, London: Allen & Unwin.

James F. Petras & Morris H. Morley (1974). How Allende fell: A study in U.S.-Chilean relations, Nottingham: Spokesman Books.

Sigmund, P.E. (1986). "Development Strategies in Chile, 1964-1983: The Lessons of Failure", Chapter 6 in I.J. Kim (Ed.), Development and Cultural Change: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, New York: Paragon House Publishers, pp. 159-178.

Valenzuela, J.S., & Valenzuela, A. (1993). "Modernisation and Dependency: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin-American Underdervelopment", in M.A. Seligson & J.T. Pass-Smith (Eds.), Development and Underdevelopment: The Political Economy of Inequality, Boulder: Lynnes Rienner, pp. 203-216.

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The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile, led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon.

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Vietnam War

Part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War in Asia

Clockwise from top left:

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

Strength

≈860,000 (1967)

North Vietnam:
690,000 (1966, including PAVN and Viet Cong).[A 5]

Viet Cong:
~200,000 (estimated, 1968) [7]

China:
170,000 (1968)
320,000 total[8][9][10]

Khmer Rouge:
70,000 (1972)[11]: 376

Pathet Lao:
48,000 (1970)[12]

Soviet Union: ~3,000[13]

North Korea: 200[14]

≈1,420,000 (1968)

South Vietnam:
850,000 (1968)
1,500,000 (1974-1975)[15]

United States:
2,709,918 serving in Vietnam total
Peak: 543,000 (April 1969)[11]: xlv

Khmer Republic:
200,000 (1973)[citation needed ]

Laos:
72,000 (Royal Army and Hmong militia)[16][17]

South Korea:
48,000 per year (1965-1973, 320,000 total)

Thailand: 32,000 per year (1965-1973)
(in Vietnam[18] and Laos)[citation needed ]

Australia: 50,190 total
(Peak: 8,300 combat troops)[19]

New Zealand: Peak: 552 in 1968[20]: 158

Philippines: 2,061

Casualties and losses

North Vietnam & Viet Cong
30,000-182,000 civilian dead[11]: 176  [21][22]: 450-453  [23]
849,018 military dead (per Vietnam; 1/3 non-combat deaths)[24][25][26]
666,000-950,765 dead
(US estimated 1964-1974)[A 6][21][22]: 450-451
232,000-300,000+ military missing (per Vietnam)[24][27]
600,000+ military wounded[28]: 739

Khmer Rouge: Unknown

Pathet Lao: Unknown

14 dead[30][31]

Total military dead/missing:
≈1,100,000
Total military wounded:
≈604,200
(excluding GRUNK/ Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao)

195,000-430,000 civilian dead[21][22]: 450-453  [32]
Military dead: 313,000 (total)[33]

254,256 dead (between 1960 and 1974)[34]: 275

1,170,000 military wounded[11]
≈ 1,000,000 captured[35]

58,281 dead[36] (47,434 from combat)[37][38]
303,644 wounded (including 150,341 not requiring hospital care)[A 7]

Khmer Republic: Unknown

South Korea: 5,099 dead; 10,962 wounded; 4 missing

25 dead[46]
17 captured[47]

Philippines: 9 dead;[48] 64 wounded[49]

Total military dead:
333,620 (1960-1974) - 392,364 (total)
Total military wounded:
≈1,340,000+[11]
(excluding FARK and FANK)
Total military captured:
≈1,000,000+

Vietnamese civilian dead: 405,000-2,000,000[22]: 450-453  [50][51]

Vietnamese total dead: 966,000[21]-3,010,000[51]

Cambodian Civil War dead: 275,000-310,000[52][53][54]

Laotian Civil War dead: 20,000-62,000[51]

Non-Indochinese military dead: 65,494

Total dead: 1,326,494-3,447,494

For more information see Vietnam War casualties and Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War

FULRO fought an insurgency against both South Vietnam and North Vietnam with the Viet Cong and was supported by Cambodia for much of the war.

The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was a major conflict of the Cold War. While the war was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies, making the war a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. military involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries officially becoming communist states by 1976.

After the fall of French Indochina with the 1954 Geneva Conference on 21 July, the country gained independence from France but was divided into two parts: the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam, while the U.S. assumed financial and military support for South Vietnam. The Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front under the direction of the north, initiated a guerrilla war in the south. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare with U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces. North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the VC. By 1963, the north had sent 40,000 soldiers to fight in the south. U.S. involvement increased under President John F. Kennedy, from just under a thousand military advisors in 1959 to 23,000 by 1964.

Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to increase U.S. military presence in Vietnam, without a formal declaration of war. Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time, and dramatically increased the number of American troops to 184,000. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. The U.S. also conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and continued significantly building up its forces, despite little progress being made. In 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive; though it was a tactical defeat for them, it was strategic victory, as it caused U.S. domestic support for the war to fade. By the end of the year, the VC held little territory and were sidelined by the PAVN. In 1969, North Vietnam declared the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. Operations crossed national borders, and the U.S. bombed North Vietnamese supply routes in Laos and Cambodia. The 1970 deposing of the Cambodian monarch, Norodom Sihanouk, resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country (at the request of the Khmer Rouge), and then a U.S.-ARVN counter-invasion, escalating the Cambodian Civil War. After the election of Richard Nixon in 1969, a policy of " Vietnamization" began, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN, while U.S. forces withdrew in the face of increasing domestic opposition. U.S. ground forces had largely withdrawn by early 1972, and their operations were limited to air support, artillery support, advisors, and materiel shipments. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 saw all U.S. forces withdrawn; accords were broken almost immediately, and fighting continued for two more years. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN on 30 April, marking the end of the war. North and South Vietnam were reunified on 2 July the following year.

The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000-310,000 Cambodians, 20,000-62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict. The end of the Vietnam War would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions of refugees leave Indochina, an estimated 250,000 of whom perished at sea. Once in power, the Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, while conflict between them and the unified Vietnam would eventually escalate into the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, which toppled the Khmer Rouge government in 1979 and ended the genocide. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with subsequent border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the United States, the war gave rise to what was referred to as Vietnam syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvements, which, together with the Watergate scandal contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s.

The U.S. Air Force destroyed more than 20% of the jungles of South Vietnam and 20-50% of the mangrove forests by spraying over 20 million gallons of toxic herbicides ( defoliants) including Agent Orange. The war is one of the most commonly used examples of ecocide.

Various names have been applied to the War. These have shifted over time, although Vietnam War is the most commonly used title in English. It has been variously called the Second Indochina War since the war spread to both Laos and Cambodia, the Vietnam Conflict, and Nam (colloquially ' Nam). In Vietnam it is commonly known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ ( lit. 'Resistance War against America'). The Vietnamese Government officially refers to it as the Resistance War against America to Save the Nation. It is also sometimes called the American War.

Background

The primary military organizations involved in the war were the United States Armed Forces and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, pitted against the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) (commonly called the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA, in English-language sources) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, more commonly known as the Viet Cong (VC) in English language sources), a South Vietnamese communist guerrilla force.

Indochina had been a French colony from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. When the Japanese invaded during World War II, the Viet Minh, a communist-led common front under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, opposed them with support from the US, the Soviet Union and China. They seized some Japanese arms after Japanese forces surrendered. On V-J Day, 2 September, the declaration of independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was proclaimed in Hanoi. The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại, who had governed under Japanese supervision. On 23 September 1945, French forces overthrew the DRV government, and declared French authority restored. The French colonial empire gradually retook control of Indochina. Following unsuccessful negotiations, the Viet Minh initiated an insurgency against French rule. Hostilities escalated into the First Indochina War in December 1946.

By the 1950s, the conflict had become entwined with the Cold War. In January 1950, the communist states of China and the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the legitimate government of Vietnam. The following month, the capitalist states of the United States and United Kingdom recognized the French-backed State of Vietnam in Saigon, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, as the legitimate Vietnamese government. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced many Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was an example of communist expansionism directed by the Soviet Union.

Military advisors from China began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950. Chinese weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into a regular army. In September 1950, the United States created a Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French requests for aid, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers. By 1954, the United States had spent $1 billion in support of the French military effort, shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war.

During the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954), U.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin and the U.S. conducted reconnaissance flights. France and the United States also discussed the use of three tactical nuclear weapons, although reports of how seriously this was considered and by whom are vague and contradictory. According to then-Vice President Richard Nixon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up plans to use small tactical nuclear weapons to support the French. Nixon, a so-called " hawk" on Vietnam, suggested that the United States might have to "put American boys in". President Dwight D. Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but the British were opposed. Eisenhower, wary of involving the United States in a land war in Asia, decided against military intervention. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of France's chance of success.

On 7 May 1954, the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrendered. The defeat marked the end of French military involvement in Indochina. At the Geneva Conference, the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Transition period

At the 1954 Geneva Conference, Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh had wished to continue the war in the south, but was restrained by his Chinese allies who convinced him that he could win control by electoral means. Under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were allowed to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government. Around one million northerners, mainly minority Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the Communists. This followed an American psychological warfare campaign, designed by Edward Lansdale for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which exaggerated anti-Catholic sentiment among the Viet Minh and which falsely claimed the US was about to drop atomic bombs on Hanoi. The exodus was coordinated by a U.S.-funded $93 million relocation program, which included the use of the Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees. The northern, mainly Catholic refugees gave the later Ngô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti-communist constituency. Diệm staffed his government's key posts mostly with northern and central Catholics.[citation needed ]

In addition to the Catholics flowing south, over 130,000 "Revolutionary Regroupees" went to the north for "regroupment", expecting to return to the south within two years. The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the south as a base for future insurgency. The last French soldiers left South Vietnam in April 1956. The PRC completed its withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time.

Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including "rent reduction" and "land reform", which resulted in significant political oppression. During the land reform, testimony from North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution for every 160 village residents, which when extrapolated results in an initial estimate of nearly 100,000 executions nationwide. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions became widely accepted by scholars at the time. However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although likely greater than 13,500. In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to "excesses" in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners.

The south, meanwhile, constituted the State of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as Emperor and Ngô Đình Diệm (appointed in July 1954) as his prime minister. Neither the United States government nor Ngô Đình Diệm's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Phạm Văn Đồng, who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States countered with what became known as the "American Plan", with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom. It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation. The United States said, "With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Vietnam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this". U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in 1954:

I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bảo Đại. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bảo Đại was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.

According to the Pentagon Papers, which commented on Eisenhower's observation, Diệm would have been a more popular candidate than Bảo Đại against Hồ, stating that "It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho - in a free election against Diem - would have been much smaller than eighty percent." In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission (ICC) stated that fair, unbiased elections were not possible, with the ICC reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement.

Ba Cut in Can Tho Military Court 1956, commander of religious movement the Hòa Hảo, which had fought against the Việt Minh, Vietnamese National Army and Cao Dai movement throughout the first war

From April to June 1955, Diệm eliminated any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against two religious groups: the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo of Ba Cụt. The campaign also focused on the Bình Xuyên organized crime group, which was allied with members of the communist party secret police and had some military elements. The group was ultimately defeated in April following a battle in Saigon. As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diệm increasingly sought to blame the communists.

In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October 1955, Diệm rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisors had recommended a more "modest" winning margin of "60 to 70 percent." Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority. Three days later, he declared South Vietnam to be an independent state under the name Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with himself as president. Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese "elections".: 193-194, 202-203, 215-217

The domino theory, which argued that if one country fell to communism, then all of the surrounding countries would follow, was first proposed as policy by the Eisenhower administration. John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam: "Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam."

Diệm era, 1954-1963

A devout Roman Catholic, Diệm was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes that "Diệm represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and nepotism." Most Vietnamese people were Buddhist, and they were alarmed by Diệm's actions, like his dedication of the country to the Virgin Mary.

Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the "Denounce the Communists" campaign, during which suspected communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956. The North Vietnamese government claimed that, by November 1957, over 65,000 individuals were imprisoned and 2,148 were killed in the process. According to Gabriel Kolko, 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed by the end of 1958.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greet President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam in Washington, 8 May 1957

In October 1956, Diệm launched a land reform program limiting the size of rice farms per owner. More than 1.8m acres of farm land became available for purchase by landless people. By 1960, the land reform process had stalled because many of Diem's biggest supporters were large land owners.

Insurgency in the South, 1954-1960

Between 1954 and 1957, the Diệm government succeeded in preventing large-scale organized unrest in the countryside. In April 1957, insurgents launched an assassination campaign, referred to as "extermination of traitors". Seventeen people were killed in an attack at a bar in Châu Đốc in July, and in September a district chief was killed with his family on a highway. By early 1959, however, Diệm had come to regard the (increasingly frequent) violence as an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation. There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to " wildcat" activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists. Douglas Pike estimated that insurgents carried out 2,000 abductions, and 1,700 assassinations of government officials, village chiefs, hospital workers and teachers from 1957 to 1960. Violence between the insurgents and government forces increased drastically from 180 clashes in January 1960 to 545 clashes in September.

In September 1960, COSVN, North Vietnam's southern headquarters, gave an order for a full scale coordinated uprising in South Vietnam against the government and 1/3 of the population was soon living in areas of communist control. In December 1960, North Vietnam formally created the Viet Cong with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN insurgents, including non-communists. It was formed in Memot, Cambodia, and directed through COSVN. According to the Pentagon Papers, the Viet Cong "placed heavy emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, on coalition government and the neutralization of Vietnam." The identities of the leaders of the organization often were kept secret.

Support for the VC was driven by resentment of Diem's reversal of Viet Minh land reforms in the countryside. The Viet Minh had confiscated large private landholdings, reduced rents and debts, and leased communal lands, mostly to poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back to the villages. People who had been farming land for years had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. Marilyn B. Young wrote that "The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against the French: 75 percent support for the NLF, 20 percent trying to remain neutral and 5 percent firmly pro-government".

North Vietnamese involvement

In March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled "The Road to the South" to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi; however, as both China and the Soviets opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn's plan was rejected. Despite this, the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956. This decision was made at the 11th Plenary Session of the Lao Dong Central Committee. Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958. In May 1958, North Vietnamese forces seized the transportation hub at Tchepone in Southern Laos near the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a "people's war" on the South at a session in January 1959, and, in May, Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. On 28 July, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces invaded Laos, fighting the Royal Lao Army all along the border. Group 559 was headquartered in Na Kai, Houaphan province in northeast Laos close to the border. About 500 of the "regroupees" of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation. The first arms delivery via the trail was completed in August 1959. In April 1960, North Vietnam imposed universal military conscription for adult males. About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated the south from 1961 to 1963.

Kennedy's escalation, 1961-1963

In the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights." In April 1961, Kennedy approved the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which ended in failure. In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna to discuss key U.S.-Soviet issues. Only 16 months later, the Cuban Missile Crisis (16-28 October 1962) played out on television worldwide. It was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war, and the U.S. raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command (SAC) forces to DEFCON 2.

The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in South Korea, and Kennedy faced four crisis situations: the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion that he had approved on 4 April, settlement negotiations between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement in May ("Kennedy sidestepped Laos, whose rugged terrain was no battleground for American soldiers."), the construction of the Berlin Wall in August, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in October. Kennedy believed that yet another failure to gain control and stop communist expansion would irreparably damage U.S. credibility. He was determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times immediately after his Vienna summit meeting with Khrushchev, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."

Kennedy's policy toward South Vietnam assumed that Diệm and his forces had to ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences." The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Poor leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in weakening the ARVN. The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi's support for the Viet Cong played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.

One major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional Soviet invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces, such as the Green Berets would be effective in a "brush fire" war in Vietnam.

Kennedy advisors Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers. Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did." Eisenhower put 900 advisors in Vietnam, and by November 1963, Kennedy had put 16,000 American military personnel in Vietnam.

The Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S.-South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified villages. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from the Viet Cong. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. However, by November 1963 the program had waned, and it officially ended in 1964.

On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos.

Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm

The inept performance of the ARVN was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of Ấp Bắc on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong won a battle against a much larger and better-equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat. During the battle the South Vietnamese had lost 83 soldiers and 5 US war helicopters serving to ferry ARVN troops that had been shot down by Vietcong forces, while the Vietcong forces had lost only 18 soldiers. The ARVN forces were led by Diệm's most trusted general, Huỳnh Văn Cao, commander of the IV Corps. Cao was a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coup attempts; he had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diệm was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960 and 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As Robert F. Kennedy noted, "Diệm wouldn't make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with..." Historian James Gibson summed up the situation:

Strategic hamlets had failed... The South Vietnamese regime was incapable of winning the peasantry because of its class base among landlords. Indeed, there was no longer a 'regime' in the sense of a relatively stable political alliance and functioning bureaucracy. Instead, civil government and military operations had virtually ceased. The National Liberation Front had made great progress and was close to declaring provisional revolutionary governments in large areas.

Discontent with Diệm's policies exploded in May 1963, following the Huế Phật Đản shootings of nine unarmed Buddhists protesting against the ban on displaying the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the Buddha's birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents over the Buddhist majority. Diệm's elder brother Ngô Đình Thục was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc's anniversary celebrations occurred shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government, and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Catholic paramilitaries demolishing Buddhist pagodas throughout Diệm's rule. Diệm refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Lê Quang Tung, loyal to Diệm's younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.

U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. The United States Department of State wanted to encourage a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diệm. Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diệm's younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces, and was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngô family's rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in Cable 243.

The CIA contacted generals planning to remove Diệm and told them that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diệm was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When Kennedy was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that he "rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face." Kennedy had not anticipated Diệm's murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that "the prospects now are for a shorter war". Kennedy wrote Lodge a letter congratulating him for "a fine job".

Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed by the communists as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diệm, his credentials as a nationalist (as Robert McNamara later reflected) had been impeccable.

U.S. military advisors were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were however criticized for ignoring the political nature of the insurgency. The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification - which in this case was defined as countering the growing threat of insurgency - and "winning over the hearts and minds" of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisors other than conventional troop training. General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963. The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that "the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort".

Paramilitary officers from the CIA's Special Activities Division trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters. The CIA also ran the Phoenix Program and participated in Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group (MAC-V SOG), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes.

Gulf of Tonkin and Johnson's escalation, 1963-1969

President Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had not been heavily involved with policy toward Vietnam; however, upon becoming president, Johnson immediately focused on the war. On 24 November 1963, he said, "the battle against communism... must be joined... with strength and determination." Johnson knew he had inherited a rapidly deteriorating situation in South Vietnam, but he adhered to the widely accepted domino theory argument for defending the South: Should they retreat or appease, either action would imperil other nations beyond the conflict. Findings from RAND's Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project bolstered his confidence that an air war would weaken the Viet Cong. Some have argued that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia.

The military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, was made up of 12 members. This council was headed by General Dương Văn Minh, whom Stanley Karnow, a journalist on the ground, later recalled as "a model of lethargy". Lodge, frustrated by the end of the year, cabled home about Minh: "Will he be strong enough to get on top of things?" Minh's regime was overthrown in January 1964 by General Nguyễn Khánh. There was also persistent instability in the military, however, as several coups-not all successful-occurred in a short period of time.

Gulf of Tonkin incident

On 2 August 1964, USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack was reported two days later on USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attacks were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that "those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish." An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005 revealed that there was no attack on 4 August.

The second "attack" led to retaliatory airstrikes, and prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964. The resolution granted the president power "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression" and Johnson would rely on this as giving him authority to expand the war. In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not "committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land".

A U.S. B-66 Destroyer and four F-105 Thunderchiefs dropping bombs on North Vietnam during Operation Rolling Thunder

The National Security Council recommended a three-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. Following an attack on a U.S. Army base in Pleiku on 7 February 1965, a series of airstrikes was initiated, Operation Flaming Dart, while Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was on a state visit to North Vietnam. Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Arc Light expanded aerial bombardment and ground support operations. The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy North Vietnamese air defenses and industrial infrastructure. It was additionally aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese. Between March 1965 and November 1968, Rolling Thunder deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs.

Bombing of Laos

Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Barrel Roll, targeted different parts of the Viet Cong and PAVN infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail supply route, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The ostensibly neutral Laos had become the scene of a civil war, pitting the Laotian government backed by the US against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies.

Massive aerial bombardment against the Pathet Lao and PAVN forces were carried out by the US to prevent the collapse of the Royal central government, and to deny the use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos, nearly equal to the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history relative to the size of its population.

The 1964 offensive

Following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Hanoi anticipated the arrival of US troops and began expanding the Viet Cong, as well as sending increasing numbers of North Vietnamese personnel southwards. At this phase they were outfitting the Viet Cong forces and standardising their equipment with AK-47 rifles and other supplies, as well as forming the 9th Division. "From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964... Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men." The numbers for U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were much lower: 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964. During this phase, the use of captured equipment decreased, while greater numbers of ammunition and supplies were required to maintain regular units. Group 559 was tasked with expanding the Ho Chi Minh trail, in light of the near constant bombardment by US warplanes. The war had begun to shift into the final, conventional warfare phase of Hanoi's three-stage protracted warfare model. The Viet Cong was now tasked with destroying the ARVN and capturing and holding areas; however, the Viet Cong was not yet strong enough to assault major towns and cities.

In December 1964, ARVN forces had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Bình Giã, in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously, the VC had utilised hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. At Binh Gia, however, they had defeated a strong ARVN force in a conventional battle and remained in the field for four days. Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June 1965 at the Battle of Đồng Xoài.

American ground war

On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were landed near Da Nang, South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment. The Marines' initial assignment was the defense of Da Nang Air Base. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December. The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission.

General William Westmoreland informed Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific forces, that the situation was critical. He said, "I am convinced that U.S. troops with their energy, mobility, and firepower can successfully take the fight to the NLF (Viet Cong)". With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America's defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open-ended. Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win the war:

Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. (and other allies) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.

Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas.

Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas.

The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration's insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967. Johnson did not, however, communicate this change in strategy to the media. Instead he emphasized continuity. The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in a contest of attrition and morale. The opponents were locked in a cycle of escalation. The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved. Westmoreland and McNamara furthermore touted the body count system for gauging victory, a metric that would later prove to be flawed.

The American buildup transformed the South Vietnamese economy and had a profound effect on society. South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. Stanley Karnow noted that "the main PX [Post Exchange], located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale's..."

Washington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines all agreed to send troops. South Korea would later ask to join the Many Flags program in return for economic compensation. Major allies, however, notably the NATO countries of Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington's troop requests.

The U.S. and its allies mounted complex search and destroy operations, designed to find enemy forces, destroy them, and then withdraw, typically using war helicopters. In November 1965, the U.S. engaged in its first major battle with the PAVN, the Battle of Ia Drang. The operation was the first large scale helicopter air assault by the U.S., and first to employ Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers in a tactical support role. These tactics continued in 1966-1967 with operations such as Masher, Thayer, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City. However, the PAVN/VC insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated great tactical flexibility. By 1967, the war had generated large-scale internal refugees, numbering nearly 2.1 million in South Vietnam, with 125,000 people evacuated and rendered homeless during Operation Masher alone, which was the largest search and destroy operation in the war up to that point.[citation needed ] Operation Masher would have negligible impact, however, as the PAVN/VC returned to the province just four months after the operation ended. Despite the continual conductance of major operations, which the Viet Cong and PAVN would typically evade, the war was characterised by smaller-unit contacts or engagements. Up to the war's end, the Viet Cong and PAVN would initiate 90% of large firefights, of which 80% were clear and well-planned operations, and thus the PAVN/Viet Cong would retain strategic initiative despite overwhelming US force and fire-power deployment. The PAVN and Viet Cong had furthermore developed strategies capable of countering U.S. military doctrines and tactics (see NLF and PAVN battle tactics).

Meanwhile, the political situation in South Vietnam began to stabilise with the coming to power of prime minister Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and figurehead chief of state, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in mid-1965 at the head of a military junta. This ended a series of coups that had happened more than once a year. In 1967, Thieu became president with Ky as his deputy, after rigged elections. Although they were nominally a civilian government, Ky was supposed to maintain real power through a behind-the-scenes military body. However, Thieu outmanoeuvred and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. Thieu was also accused of murdering Ky loyalists through contrived military accidents. Thieu, mistrustful and indecisive, remained president until 1975, having won a one-candidate election in 1971.

The Johnson administration employed a "policy of minimum candor" in its dealings with the media. Military information officers sought to manage media coverage by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress in the war. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. As the media's coverage of the war and that of the Pentagon diverged, a so-called credibility gap developed. Despite Johnson and Westmoreland publicly proclaiming victory and Westmoreland stating that the "end is coming into view", internal reports in the Pentagon Papers indicate that Viet Cong forces retained strategic initiative and controlled their losses. Viet Cong attacks against static US positions accounted for 30% of all engagements, Viet Cong/PAVN ambushes and encirclements for 23%, American ambushes against Viet Cong/PAVN forces for 9%, and American forces attacking Viet Cong emplacements for only 5% of all engagements.

TYPE OF ENGAGEMENTS IN COMBAT NARRATIVES

Percentage of
Total Engagements

Notes

Hot Landing Zone. VC/PAVN Attacks U.S. Troops As They Deploy

12.5%

Planned VC/PAVN Attacks

Are 66.2% Of All Engagements

Planned VC/PAVN Attack Against US Defensive Perimeter

30.4%

VC/PAVN Ambushes or Encircles A Moving US Unit

23.3%

Unplanned US Attacks On A VC/PAVN Defensive Perimeter,

Engagement A Virtual Surprise To US Commanders

12.5%

Defensive Posts Being Well Concealed

or VC/PAVN Alerted or Anticipated

Planned US Attack Against Known

VC/PAVN Defensive Perimeter

5.4%

Planned US Attacks Against

VC/PAVN Represent 14.3%

Of All Engagements

U.S. Forces Ambushes Moving VC/PAVN Units

8.9%

Tet Offensive

In late 1967, the PAVN lured American forces into the hinterlands at Đắk Tô and at the Marine Khe Sanh combat base in Quảng Trị Province, where the U.S. fought a series of battles known as The Hill Fights. These actions were part of a diversionary strategy meant to draw U.S. forces towards the Central Highlands. Preparations were underway for the General Offensive, General Uprising, known as Tet Mau Than, or the Tet Offensive, with the intention of Văn Tiến Dũng for forces to launch "direct attacks on the American and puppet nerve centers-Saigon, Huế, Danang, all the cities, towns and main bases..." Le Duan sought to placate critics of the ongoing stalemate by planning a decisive victory. He reasoned that this could be achieved through sparking a general uprising within the towns and cities, along with mass defections among ARVN units, who were on holiday leave during the truce period.

The Tet Offensive began on 30 January 1968, as over 100 cities were attacked by over 85,000 VC/PAVN troops, including assaults on key military installations, headquarters, and government buildings and offices, including the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were initially shocked by the scale, intensity and deliberative planning of the urban offensive, as infiltration of personnel and weapons into the cities was accomplished covertly; the offensive constituted an intelligence failure on the scale of Pearl Harbor. Most cities were recaptured within weeks, except the former imperial capital of Huế in which PAVN/Viet Cong troops captured most of the city and citadel except the headquarters of the 1st Division and held on in the fighting for 26 days. During that time, they had executed approximately 2,800 unarmed Huế civilians and foreigners they considered to be enemy's spies. In the following Battle of Huế American forces employed massive firepower that left 80 percent of the city in ruins. Further north, at Quảng Trị City, the ARVN Airborne Division, the 1st Division and a regiment of the US 1st Cavalry Division had managed to hold out and overcome an assault intended to capture the city. In Saigon, Viet Cong/PAVN fighters had captured areas in and around the city, attacking key installations and the neighbourhood of Cholon before US and ARVN forces dislodged them after three weeks. During one battle, Peter Arnett reported an infantry commander saying of the Battle of Bến Tre (laid to rubble by U.S. attacks) that "it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

During the first month of the offensive, 1,100 Americans and other allied troops, 2,100 ARVN and 14,000 civilians were killed. By the end of the first offensive, after two months, nearly 5,000 ARVN and over 4,000 U.S. forces had been killed and 45,820 wounded. The U.S. claimed 17,000 of the PAVN and Viet Cong had been killed and 15,000 wounded. A month later a second offensive known as the May Offensive was launched; although less widespread, it demonstrated the Viet Cong were still capable of carrying out orchestrated nationwide offensives. Two months later a third offensive was launched, the Phase III Offensive. The PAVN's own official records of their losses across all three offensives was 45,267 killed and 111,179 total casualties. By then it had become the bloodiest year of the war up to that point. The failure to spark a general uprising and the lack of defections among the ARVN units meant both war goals of Hanoi had fallen flat at enormous costs. By the end of 1968, the VC insurgents held almost no territory in South Vietnam, and their recruitment dropped by over 80%, signifying a drastic reduction in guerrilla operations, necessitating increased use of PAVN regular soldiers from the north.

Prior to Tet, in November 1967, Westmoreland had spearheaded a public relations drive for the Johnson administration to bolster flagging public support. In a speech before the National Press Club he said a point in the war had been reached "where the end comes into view." Thus, the public was shocked and confused when Westmoreland's predictions were trumped by the Tet Offensive. Public approval of his overall performance dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent, and endorsement for the war effort fell from 40 percent to 26 percent." The American public and media began to turn against Johnson as the three offensives contradicted claims of progress made by the Johnson administration and the military.

At one point in 1968, Westmoreland considered the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam in a contingency plan codenamed Fracture Jaw, which was abandoned when it became known to the White House. Westmoreland requested 200,000 additional troops, which was leaked to the media, and the subsequent fallout combined with intelligence failures caused him to be removed from command in March 1968, succeeded by his deputy Creighton Abrams.

On 10 May 1968, peace talks began between the United States and North Vietnam in Paris. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. At the same time, Hanoi realized it could not achieve a "total victory" and employed a strategy known as "talking while fighting, fighting while talking", in which military offensives would occur concurrently with negotiations.

Johnson declined to run for re-election as his approval rating slumped from 48 to 36 percent. His escalation of the war in Vietnam divided Americans into warring camps, cost 30,000 American lives by that point and was regarded to have destroyed his presidency. Refusal to send more U.S. troops to Vietnam was also seen as Johnson's admission that the war was lost. As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara noted, "the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead."

Vietnam was a major political issue during the United States presidential election in 1968. The election was won by Republican party candidate Richard Nixon who claimed to have a secret plan to end the war.

Vietnamization, 1969-1972

Nuclear threats and diplomacy

U.S. president Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. His plan to build up the ARVN so that it could take over the defense of South Vietnam became known as " Vietnamization". As the PAVN/VC recovered from their 1968 losses and generally avoided contact, Creighton Abrams conducted operations aimed at disrupting logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. On 27 October 1969, Nixon had ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War. Nixon had also sought détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China, which decreased global tensions and led to nuclear arms reduction by both superpowers; however, the Soviets continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid.

Hanoi's war strategy

In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at age 79. The failure of the 1968 Tet Offensive in sparking a popular uprising in the south caused a shift in Hanoi's war strategy, and the Giáp- Chinh "Northern-First" faction regained control over military affairs from the Lê Duẩn- Hoàng Văn Thái "Southern-First" faction. An unconventional victory was sidelined in favor of a strategy built on conventional victory through conquest. Large-scale offensives were rolled back in favour of small-unit and sapper attacks as well as targeting the pacification and Vietnamization strategy. In the two-year period following Tet, the PAVN had begun its transformation from a fine light-infantry, limited mobility force into a high-mobile and mechanised combined arms force. By 1970, over 70% of communist troops in the south were northerners, and southern-dominated VC units no longer existed.

U.S. domestic controversies

The anti-war movement was gaining strength in the United States. Nixon appealed to the " silent majority" of Americans who he said supported the war without showing it in public. But revelations of the 1968 My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army unit raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 " Green Beret Affair", where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent, provoked national and international outrage.

In 1971, the Pentagon Papers were leaked to The New York Times. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal.

Collapsing U.S. morale

Following the Tet Offensive and the decreasing support among the U.S. public for the war, U.S. forces began a period of morale collapse, disillusionment and disobedience. At home, desertion rates quadrupled from 1966 levels. Among the enlisted, only 2.5% chose infantry combat positions in 1969-1970. ROTC enrollment decreased from 191,749 in 1966 to 72,459 by 1971, and reached an all-time low of 33,220 in 1974, depriving U.S. forces of much-needed military leadership.

Open refusal to engage in patrols or carry out orders and disobedience began to emerge during this period, with one notable case of an entire company refusing orders to engage or carry out operations. Unit cohesion began to dissipate and focused on minimising contact with Viet Cong and PAVN. A practice known as "sand-bagging" started occurring, where units ordered to go on patrol would go into the country-side, find a site out of view from superiors and rest while radioing in false coordinates and unit reports. Drug usage increased rapidly among U.S. forces during this period, as 30% of U.S. troops regularly used marijuana, while a House subcommittee found 10-15% of U.S. troops in Vietnam regularly used high-grade heroin. From 1969 on, search-and-destroy operations became referred to as "search and evade" or "search and avoid" operations, falsifying battle reports while avoiding guerrilla fighters. A total of 900 fragging and suspected fragging incidents were investigated, most occurring between 1969 and 1971. In 1969, field-performance of the U.S. Forces was characterised by lowered morale, lack of motivation, and poor leadership. The significant decline in U.S. morale was demonstrated by the Battle of FSB Mary Ann in March 1971, in which a sapper attack inflicted serious losses on the U.S. defenders. William Westmoreland, no longer in command but tasked with investigation of the failure, cited a clear dereliction of duty, lax defensive postures and lack of officers in charge as its cause.

On the collapse of U.S. morale, historian Shelby Stanton wrote:

In the last years of the Army's retreat, its remaining forces were relegated to static security. The American Army's decline was readily apparent in this final stage. Racial incidents, drug abuse, combat disobedience, and crime reflected growing idleness, resentment, and frustration... the fatal handicaps of faulty campaign strategy, incomplete wartime preparation, and the tardy, superficial attempts at Vietnamization. An entire American army was sacrificed on the battlefield of Vietnam.

ARVN taking the lead and U.S. ground-force withdrawal

Beginning in 1970, American troops were withdrawn from border areas where most of the fighting took place and instead redeployed along the coast and interior. US casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969 casualties after being relegated to less active combat. While U.S. forces were redeployed, the ARVN took over combat operations throughout the country, with casualties double US casualties in 1969, and more than triple US ones in 1970. In the post-Tet environment, membership in the South Vietnamese Regional Force and Popular Force militias grew, and they were now more capable of providing village security, which the Americans had not accomplished under Westmoreland.

In 1970, Nixon announced the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops, reducing the number of Americans to 265,500. By 1970, Viet Cong forces were no longer southern-majority, as nearly 70% of units were northerners. Between 1969 and 1971 the Viet Cong and some PAVN units had reverted to small unit tactics typical of 1967 and prior instead of nationwide grand offensives. In 1971, Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers and U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. The United States also reduced support troops, and in March 1971 the 5th Special Forces Group, the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, withdrew to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk had proclaimed Cambodia neutral since 1955, but permitted the PAVN/Viet Cong to use the port of Sihanoukville and the Sihanouk Trail. In March 1969 Nixon launched a massive secret bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. Only five high-ranking congressional officials were informed of Operation Menu.

In March 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol, who demanded that North Vietnamese troops leave Cambodia or face military action. Lon Nol began rounding up Vietnamese civilians in Cambodia into internment camps and massacring them, provoking harsh reactions from both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese governments. In April-May 1970, North Vietnam invaded Cambodia at the request of the Khmer Rouge following negotiations with deputy leader Nuon Chea. Nguyen Co Thach recalls: "Nuon Chea has asked for help and we have liberated five provinces of Cambodia in ten days." U.S. and ARVN forces launched the Cambodian Campaign in May to attack PAVN and Viet Cong bases. A counter-offensive in 1971 as part of Operation Chenla II by the PAVN would recapture most of the border areas and decimate most of Lon Nol's forces.

The U.S. incursion into Cambodia sparked nationwide U.S. protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement. Four students were killed by National Guardsmen in May 1970 during a protest at Kent State University in Ohio, which provoked further public outrage in the United States. The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, reinvigorating the declining anti-war movement. The U.S. Air Force continued to heavily bomb Cambodia in support of the Cambodian government as part of Operation Freedom Deal.

Building up on the success of ARVN units in Cambodia, and further testing the Vietnamization program, the ARVN were tasked to launch Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, the first major ground operation aimed directly at attacking the Ho Chi Minh trail by attacking the major crossroad of Tchepone. This offensive would also be the first time the PAVN would field-test its combined arms force. The first few days were considered a success but the momentum had slowed after fierce resistance. Thiệu had halted the general advance, leaving armoured divisions able to surround them.

Thieu had ordered air assault troops to capture Tchepone and withdraw, despite facing four-times larger numbers. During the withdrawal the PAVN counterattack had forced a panicked rout. Half of the ARVN troops involved were either captured or killed, half of the ARVN/US support helicopters were downed by anti-aircraft fire and the operation was considered a fiasco, demonstrating operational deficiencies still present within the ARVN. Nixon and Thieu had sought to use this event to show-case victory simply by capturing Tchepone, and it was spun off as an "operational success".

Easter Offensive and Paris Peace Accords, 1972

The war was central to the 1972 U.S. presidential election as Nixon's opponent, George McGovern, campaigned on immediate withdrawal. Nixon's National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, had continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam's Lê Đức Thọ and in October 1972 reached an agreement. President Thieu demanded changes to the peace accord upon its discovery, and when North Vietnam went public with the agreement's details, the Nixon administration claimed they were attempting to embarrass the president. The negotiations became deadlocked when Hanoi demanded new changes. To show his support for South Vietnam and force Hanoi back to the negotiating table, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong 18-29 December 1972. Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement or else face retaliatory military action from the U.S.

On 15 January 1973, all U.S. combat activities were suspended. Lê Đức Thọ and Henry Kissinger, along with the PRG Foreign Minister Nguyễn Thị Bình and a reluctant President Thiệu, signed the Paris Peace Accords on 27 January 1973. This officially ended direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, created a ceasefire between North Vietnam/PRG and South Vietnam, guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam under the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for elections or a political settlement between the PRG and South Vietnam, allowed 200,000 communist troops to remain in the south, and agreed to a POW exchange. There was a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. "This article", noted Peter Church, "proved... to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out." All U.S. forces personnel were completely withdrawn by March 1973.

U.S. exit and final campaigns, 1973-1975

In the lead-up to the ceasefire on 28 January, both sides attempted to maximize the land and population under their control in a campaign known as the War of the flags. Fighting continued after the ceasefire, this time without US participation, and continued throughout the year. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying troops in the South but only to the extent of replacing expended material. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but the North Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that true peace did not yet exist.

PAVN/VC leaders expected the ceasefire terms would favor their side, but Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Viet Cong. The PAVN/VC responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà. With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 1975-1976 dry season. Tra calculated that this date would be Hanoi's last opportunity to strike before Saigon's army could be fully trained. The PAVN/VC resumed offensive operations when the dry season began in 1973, and by January 1974 had recaptured territory it lost during the previous dry season.

Within South Vietnam, the departure of the US military and the global recession that followed the 1973 oil crisis hurt an economy that was partly dependent on U.S. financial support and troop presence. After two clashes that left 55 ARVN soldiers dead, President Thieu announced on 4 January 1974, that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accords were no longer in effect. There were over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period. Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on 9 August 1974 after the resignation of President Nixon, and Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. Congress also voted in further restrictions on funding to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff in 1976.

The success of the 1973-1974 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh trail was a dangerous mountain trek. Giáp, the North Vietnamese defence minister, was reluctant to approve of Trà's plan since a larger offensive might provoke U.S. reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed to Giáp's superior, first secretary Lê Duẩn, who approved the operation. Trà's plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia into Phước Long Province. The strike was designed to solve local logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether the U.S. would return.

On 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Phước Long. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Congress refused. The fall of Phuoc Binh and the lack of an American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized.

The speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess its strategy. It decided that operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng and that Pleiku should be seized, if possible. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn: "Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now."

At the start of 1975, the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice the number of tanks and armoured cars as the PAVN. They also had 1,400 aircraft and a two-to-one numerical superiority in combat troops over the PAVN/VC.[citation needed ] However, heightened oil prices meant that many of these assets could not be adequately leveraged. Moreover, the rushed nature of Vietnamization, intended to cover the US retreat, resulted in a lack of spare parts, ground-crew, and maintenance personnel, which rendered most of the equipment inoperable.

Campaign 275

On 10 March 1975, General Dung launched Campaign 275, a limited offensive into the Central Highlands, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. The target was Buôn Ma Thuột, in Đắk Lắk Province. If the town could be taken, the provincial capital of Pleiku and the road to the coast would be exposed for a planned campaign in 1976. The ARVN proved incapable of resisting the onslaught, and its forces collapsed on 11 March. Once again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of their success. Dung now urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and then turn his attention to Kon Tum. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation.

President Thiệu, a former general, was fearful that his forces would be cut off in the north by the attacking communists; Thieu ordered a retreat, which soon turned into a bloody rout. While the bulk of ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. ARVN general Phu abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum and retreated toward the coast, in what became known as the "column of tears".

On 20 March, Thieu reversed himself and ordered Huế, Vietnam's third-largest city, be held at all costs, and then changed his policy several times. As the PAVN launched their attack, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. On 22 March, the PAVN opened the siege of Huế. Civilians flooded the airport and the docks hoping for any mode of escape. As resistance in Huế collapsed, PAVN rockets rained down on Da Nang and its airport. By 28 March 35,000 PAVN troops were poised to attack the suburbs. By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the PAVN marched victoriously through Da Nang. With the fall of the city, the defense of the Central Highlands and Northern provinces came to an end.

Final North Vietnamese offensive

With the northern half of the country under their control, the Politburo ordered General Dung to launch the final offensive against Saigon. The operational plan for the Ho Chi Minh Campaign called for the capture of Saigon before 1 May. Hanoi wished to avoid the coming monsoon and prevent any redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh and Da Lat.

On 7 April, three PAVN divisions attacked Xuân Lộc, 40 miles (64 km) east of Saigon. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the PAVN advance. On 21 April, however, the exhausted garrison was ordered to withdraw towards Saigon. An embittered and tearful president Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. In a scathing attack, he suggested that Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris peace agreement two years earlier, promising military aid that failed to materialize. Having transferred power to Trần Văn Hương on 21 April, he left for Taiwan on 25 April. After having appealed unsuccessfully to Congress for $722 million in emergency aid for South Vietnam, President Ford had given a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid.

Fall of Saigon

Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared. American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, U.S. and foreign nationals from various parts of the city and from the U.S. embassy compound. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin's belief that Saigon could be held and that a political settlement could be reached. Frequent Wind was the largest helicopter evacuation in history. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. Frequent Wind continued around the clock, as PAVN tanks breached defenses near Saigon. In the early morning hours of 30 April, the last U.S. Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds.

On 30 April 1975, PAVN troops entered the city of Saigon and quickly overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations. Two tanks from the 203rd Tank Brigade of the 2nd Corps crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace and the Viet Cong flag was raised above it at 11:30 am local time. President Dương Văn Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered to Lieutenant colonel Bùi Văn Tùng, the political commissar of the 203rd Tank Brigade. Minh was then escorted to Radio Saigon to announce the surrender declaration (spontaneously written by Tung). The statement was on air at 2:30 pm.

Opposition to U.S. involvement

During the course of the Vietnam War a large segment of the American population came to be opposed to U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. In January 1967, only 32% of Americans thought the U.S. had made a mistake in sending troops to Vietnam. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam.

Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. American support of Diệm in refusing elections was seen as thwarting the democracy America claimed to support. John F. Kennedy, while senator, opposed involvement in Vietnam. Nonetheless, it is possible to specify certain groups who led the anti-war movement at its peak in the late 1960s and the reasons why. Many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted, while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture. Some advocates within the peace movement advocated a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. Opposition to the Vietnam War tended to unite groups opposed to U.S. anti-communism and imperialism, and for those involved with the New Left, such as the Catholic Worker Movement. Others, such as Stephen Spiro, opposed the war based on the theory of Just War. Some wanted to show solidarity with the people of Vietnam, such as Norman Morrison emulating the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức.

High-profile opposition to the Vietnam War increasingly turned to mass protests in an effort to shift U.S. public opinion. Riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention during protests against the war. After news reports of American military abuses, such as the 1968 My Lai Massacre, brought new attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. On 15 October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium attracted millions of Americans. The fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nationwide university protests. Anti-war protests declined after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords and the end of the draft in January 1973, and the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in the months following.

Involvement of other countries

The People's Republic of China provided significant support for North Vietnam when the U.S. started to intervene, included through financial aid and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of military personnel in support roles. China said that its military and economic aid to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong totaled $20 billion (approx. $160 billion adjusted for inflation in 2022) during the Vietnam War; included in that aid were donations of 5 million tons of food to North Vietnam (equivalent to North Vietnamese food production in a single year), accounting for 10-15% of the North Vietnamese food supply by the 1970s.

In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge, and starting in 1965, China began sending anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing. In particular, they helped man anti-aircraft batteries, rebuild roads and railroads, transport supplies, and perform other engineering works. This freed North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. China sent 320,000 troops and annual arms shipments worth $180 million. The Chinese military claims to have caused 38% of American air losses in the war.

The PRC also began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to North Vietnam at this time. China "armed and trained" the Khmer Rouge during the civil war, and continued to aid them for years afterward.

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. aircraft in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet soldiers died in this conflict. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian Federation officials acknowledged that the USSR had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war.

According to Russian sources, between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included: 2,000 tanks; 1,700 APCs; 7,000 artillery guns; over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns; 158 surface-to-air missile launchers; and 120 helicopters. In total, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces, amounting to roughly 11,000 military personnel. The KGB had also helped develop the signals intelligence capabilities of the North Vietnamese, through an operation known as Vostok (named after the Vostok 1).

As South Vietnam was formally part of a military alliance with the US, Australia, New Zealand, France, the UK, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines, the alliance was invoked during the war. The UK, France and Pakistan declined to participate, and South Korea and Taiwan were non-treaty participants.

United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO)

The ethnic minority peoples of South Vietnam, like the Montagnards (Degar) in the Central Highlands, the Hindu and Muslim Cham, and the Buddhist Khmer Krom, were actively recruited in the war. There was an active strategy of recruitment and favorable treatment of Montagnard tribes for the Viet Cong, as they were pivotal for control of infiltration routes. Some groups had split off and formed the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (French: Front Uni de Lutte des Races Opprimées, acronym: FULRO) to fight for autonomy or independence. FULRO fought against both the South Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, later proceeding to fight against the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam.

During the war, the South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. This provoked a backlash from the Montagnards, some joining the Viet Cong as a result. The Cambodians under both the pro-China King Sihanouk and the pro-American Lon Nol supported their fellow co-ethnic Khmer Krom in South Vietnam, following an anti-ethnic Vietnamese policy. Following Vietnamization many Montagnard groups and fighters were incorporated into the Vietnamese Rangers as border sentries.

A large number of war crimes took place during the Vietnam War. War crimes were committed by both sides during the conflict and included rape, massacres of civilians, bombings of civilian targets, terrorism, the widespread use of torture, and the murder of prisoners of war. Additional common crimes included theft, arson, and the destruction of property not warranted by military necessity.

South Vietnamese, Korean and American

In 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period.

Of the war crimes reported to military authorities, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports indicated that 320 incidents had a factual basis. The substantiated cases included 7 massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed; seventy eight further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at least 57 deaths, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted; and 141 cases of U.S. soldiers torturing civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock. Journalism in the ensuing years has documented other overlooked and uninvestigated war crimes involving every army division that was active in Vietnam, including the atrocities committed by Tiger Force. Rummel estimated that American forces committed around 5,500 democidal killings between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000 killed.

U.S. forces established numerous free-fire zones as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. Such practice, which involved the assumption that any individual appearing in the designated zones was an enemy combatant that could be freely targeted by weapons, is regarded by journalist Lewis M. Simons as "a severe violation of the laws of war". Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as Viet Cong and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. troops. One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many Mỹ Lais". A report by Newsweek magazine suggested that at least 5,000 civilians may have been killed during six months of the operation, and there were approximately 748 recovered weapons and an official US military body count of 10,889 enemy combatants killed.

R.J. Rummel estimated that 39,000 were killed by South Vietnam during the Diem-era in democide from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 people; for 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated 50,000 people were killed in democide, from a range of between 42,000 and 128,000. Thus, the total for 1954 to 1975 is 81,000, from a range of between 57,000 and 284,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam. Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000-310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla mass killings" by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war. The Phoenix Program, coordinated by the CIA and involving US and South Vietnamese security forces, was aimed at destroying the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong. The program killed 26,369 to 41,000 people, with an unknown number being innocent civilians.

Torture and ill-treatment were frequently applied by the South Vietnamese to POWs as well as civilian prisoners. During their visit to the Con Son Prison in 1970, U.S. congressmen Augustus F. Hawkins and William R. Anderson witnessed detainees either confined in minute "tiger cages" or chained to their cells, and provided with poor-quality food. A group of American doctors inspecting the prison in the same year found many inmates suffering symptoms resulting from forced immobility and torture. During their visits to transit detention facilities under American administration in 1968 and 1969, the International Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment before the captives were handed over to South Vietnamese authorities. Torture was conducted by the South Vietnamese government in collusion with the CIA.

South Korean forces were also accused of war crimes. One documented event was the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre where the 2nd Marine Brigade reportedly killed between 69 and 79 civilians on 12 February 1968 in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất village, Điện Bàn District, Quảng Nam Province. South Korean forces are also accused of perpetrating other massacres, namely: Bình Hòa massacre, Binh Tai Massacre and Hà My massacre.

North Vietnamese and Viet Cong

Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", based on the definition of terrorists as a non-state actor, and examining targeted killings and civilian deaths which are estimated at over 18,000 from 1966 to 1969. The US Department of Defense estimates the VC/PAVN had conducted 36,000 murders and almost 58,000 kidnappings from 1967 to 1972, c.  1973. Benjamin Valentino attributes 45,000-80,000 "terrorist mass killings" to the Viet Cong during the war. Statistics for 1968-1972 suggest that "about 80 percent of the terrorist victims were ordinary civilians and only about 20 percent were government officials, policemen, members of the self-defence forces or pacification cadres." Viet Cong tactics included the frequent mortaring of civilians in refugee camps, and the placing of mines on highways frequented by villagers taking their goods to urban markets. Some mines were set only to go off after heavy vehicle passage, causing extensive slaughter aboard packed civilian buses.

Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế during the Tet Offensive and the killing of 252 civilians during the Đắk Sơn massacre. 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were reported to have been killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Hòa in 1975. According to Rummel, PAVN and Viet Cong troops killed 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam, from a range of between 106,000 and 227,000 (50,000 of which were reportedly killed by shelling and mortar on ARVN forces during the retreat to Tuy Hoa). North Vietnam was also known for its abusive treatment of American POWs, most notably in Hỏa Lò Prison (aka the Hanoi Hilton), where torture was employed to extract confessions.

American nurses

American women served on active duty performing a variety of jobs. Early in 1963, the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam. First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire during the war, on 8 June 1969. One civilian doctor, Eleanor Ardel Vietti, who was captured by Viet Cong on 30 May 1962, in Buôn Ma Thuột, remains the only American woman unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.

Although a small number of women were assigned to combat zones, they were never allowed directly in the field of battle. Unlike the men, the women who served in the military were solely volunteers. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. Living in a male-dominated environment created tensions between the sexes. By 1973, approximately 7,500 women had served in Vietnam in the Southeast Asian theater. American women serving in Vietnam were subject to societal stereotypes. To address this problem, the ANC released advertisements portraying women in the ANC as "proper, professional and well protected." This effort to highlight the positive aspects of a nursing career reflected the feminism of the 1960s-1970s in the United States. Although female military nurses lived in a heavily male environment, very few cases of sexual harassment were ever reported.

Vietnamese soldiers

Unlike the American women who went to Vietnam, both South and North Vietnamese women were enlisted and served in combat zones. Women were enlisted in both the PAVN and the Viet Cong, many joining due to the promises of female equality and a greater social role within society. Some women also served for the PAVN and Viet Cong intelligence services. The deputy military commander of the Viet Cong, was a female general, Nguyễn Thị Định. All-female units were present throughout the entirety of the war, ranging from front-line combat troops to anti-aircraft, scout and reconnaissance units. Female combat squads were present in the Cu Chi theatre. They also fought in the Battle of Hue. In addition, large numbers of women served in North Vietnam, manning anti-aircraft batteries, providing village security and serving in logistics on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Other women were embedded with troops on the front-lines, serving as doctors and medical personnel. Đặng Thùy Trâm became renowned after her diary was published following her death. The Foreign Minister for the Viet Cong and later the PRG was also a woman, Nguyễn Thị Bình.

In South Vietnam, many women voluntarily served in the ARVN's Women's Armed Force Corps (WAFC) and various other Women's corps in the military. Some, like in the WAFC, served in combat with other soldiers. Others served as nurses and doctors in the battlefield and in military hospitals, or served in South Vietnam or America's intelligence agencies. During Diệm's presidency, his sister-in-law Madame Nhu was the commander of the WAFC. Many women joined provincial and voluntary village-level militia in the People's Self-Defense Force especially during the ARVN expansions later in the war.

During the war, more than one million rural people migrated or fled the fighting in the South Vietnamese countryside to the cities, especially Saigon. Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous "bar girls" of wartime South Vietnam, "hawking her wares-be that cigarettes, liquor, or herself" to American and allied soldiers. American bases were ringed by bars and brothels. 8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975. Many mixed-blood Amerasian children were left behind when their American fathers returned to the United States after their tour of duty in South Vietnam; 26,000 of them were permitted to immigrate to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.

Journalists

Women also played a prominent role as front-line reporters in the conflict, directly reporting on the conflict as it occurred. A number of women volunteered on the North Vietnamese side as embedded journalists, including author Lê Minh Khuê embedded with PAVN forces, on the Ho Chi Minh trail as well as on combat fronts. A number of prominent Western journalists were also involved in covering the war, with Dickey Chapelle being among the first as well as the first American female reporter killed in a war. The French-speaking Australian journalist Kate Webb was captured along with a photographer and others by the Viet Cong in Cambodia and travelled into Laos with them; they were released back into Cambodia after 23 days of captivity. Webb would be the first Western journalist to be captured and released, as well as cover the perspective of the Viet Cong in her memoir On The Other Side. Another French-speaking journalist, Catherine Leroy, was briefly captured and released by North Vietnamese forces during the Battle of Huế, capturing some famous photos from the battles that would appear on the cover of Life Magazine.

Black servicemen

The experience of American military personnel of African ancestry during the Vietnam War had received significant attention. For example, the website "African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War" compiles examples of such coverage, as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry whose book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. Points he makes on the latter topic include: the higher proportion of combat casualties in Vietnam among African American servicemen than among American soldiers of other races, the shift toward and different attitudes of black military volunteers and black conscripts, the discrimination encountered by black servicemen "on the battlefield in decorations, promotion and duty assignments" as well as their having to endure "the racial insults, cross-burnings and Confederate flags of their white comrades"-and the experiences faced by black soldiers stateside, during the war and after America's withdrawal.

Civil rights leaders protested the disproportionate casualties and the overrepresentation in hazardous duty and combat roles experienced by African American servicemen, prompting reforms that were implemented beginning in 1967-68. As a result, by the war's completion in 1975, black casualties had declined to 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military.

During the early stages of the war, the Viet Cong mainly sustained itself with captured arms; these were often of American manufacture or were crude, makeshift weapons used alongside shotguns made of galvanized pipes. Most arms were captured from poorly defended ARVN militia outposts. In 1967, all Viet Cong battalions were reequipped with arms of Soviet design such as the AK-47 assault rifle, carbines and the RPG-2 anti-tank weapon. Their weapons were principally of Chinese or Soviet manufacture. In the period up to the conventional phase in 1970, the Viet Cong and PAVN were primarily limited to 81 mm mortars, recoilless rifles, and small arms and had significantly lighter equipment and firepower in comparison with the US arsenal. They relied on ambushes, superior stealth, planning, marksmanship, and small-unit tactics to face the disproportionate US technological advantage.

After the Tet Offensive, many PAVN units incorporated light tanks such as the Type 62, Type 59 tank., BTR-60, Type 60 artillery, amphibious tanks (such as the PT-76) and integrated into new war doctrines as a mobile combined-arms force. The PAVN started receiving experimental Soviet weapons against ARVN forces, including MANPADS 9K32 Strela-2 and anti-tank missiles, 9M14 Malyutka. By 1975, they had fully transformed from the strategy of mobile light-infantry and using the people's war concept used against the United States.

The US service rifle was initially the M14. The M14 was a powerful, accurate rifle, but it was heavy, hard-recoiling, and especially unwieldy in jungle fighting, as it was unsuited for the combat conditions, often suffering from feed failure. It was gradually replaced by the M16 rifle, designed by Eugene Stoner, between 1964 and 1970. When first deployed, the M16 also suffered from a propensity to jam in combat, leaving the soldier defenseless and potentially killing him. According to a congressional report, the jamming was not related to operator error or to an inherent flaw in the rifle, but instead due to a change in the gunpowder to be used in the rifle's cartridges, which led to rapid powder fouling of the action and failures to extract or feed cartridges. This decision, made after "inadequate testing", proved that "the safety of soldiers was a secondary consideration." The issue was solved in early 1968 with the issuance of the M16A1, featuring a chrome-plated bore, which reduced fouling, and the introduction of a cleaner-burning powder. Incorporating features from the German FG-42 and MG-42, the U.S. replaced their earlier M1919 Browning in most roles with the M60 machine gun, including on helicopters where it was used for suppressive fire. While its issues were not as severe as they were in the M14 or M16, the M60 still could fail to fire at crucial times - spent casings could get stuck inside of the chamber, meaning the barrel would have to be replaced before it could fire again.

The AC-130 "Spectre" Gunship and the UH-1 "Huey" gunship were used frequently by the U.S. during the war. The AC-130 was a heavily armed ground-attack aircraft variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane, while the Huey is a military helicopter powered by a single, turboshaft engine; approximately 7,000 UH-1 aircraft saw service in Vietnam. The U.S. heavily armored, 90 mm M48A3 Patton tank saw extensive action during the Vietnam War, and over 600 were deployed with U.S. Forces. US ground forces also had access to B-52 and F-4 Phantom II and other aircraft to launch napalm, white phosphorus, tear gas, chemical weapons, precision-guided munition and cluster bombs.

Radio communications

The Vietnam War was the first conflict where U.S. forces had secure voice communication equipment available at the tactical level. The National Security Agency ran a crash program to provide U.S. forces with a family of security equipment, codenamed NESTOR, fielding 17,000 units initially; eventually 30,000 units were produced. However, limitations of the units, including poor voice quality, reduced range, annoying time delays and logistical support issues, led to only one unit in ten being used. While many in the U.S. military believed that the Viet Cong and PAVN would not be able to exploit insecure communications, interrogation of captured communication intelligence units showed they could understand the jargon and codes used in real time and were often able to warn their side of impending U.S. actions.

Extent of U.S. bombings

The U.S. dropped over 7 million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war, more than triple the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II and more than ten times the amount dropped by the U.S. during the Korean War. 500 thousand tons were dropped on Cambodia, 1 million tons were dropped on North Vietnam, and 4 million tons were dropped on South Vietnam. On a per capita basis, the 2 million tons dropped on Laos make it the most heavily bombed country in history; The New York Times noted this was "nearly a ton for every person in Laos." Due to the particularly heavy impact of cluster bombs during this war, Laos was a strong advocate of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban the weapons, and was host to the First Meeting of States Parties to the convention in November 2010.

Former U.S. Air Force official Earl Tilford has recounted "repeated bombing runs of a lake in central Cambodia. The B-52s literally dropped their payloads in the lake." The Air Force ran many missions of this kind to secure additional funding during budget negotiations, so the tonnage expended does not directly correlate with the resulting damage.

In Southeast Asia

On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would, in President Nixon's words, "massacre the civilians there [South Vietnam] by the millions," there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions took place. However, in the years following the war, a vast number of South Vietnamese were sent to re-education camps where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labor. According to Amnesty International Report 1979, this figure varied considerably depend on different observers: "...included such figures as "50,000 to 80,000" ( Le Monde, 19 April 1978), "150,000" (Reuters from Bien Hoa, 2 November 1977), "150,000 to 200,000" ( The Washington Post, 20 December 1978), and "300,000" (Agence France Presse from Hanoi, 12 February 1978)." Such variations may be because "Some estimates may include not only detainees but also people sent from the cities to the countryside." According to a native observer, 443,360 people had to register for a period in re-education camps in Saigon alone, and while some of them were released after a few days, others stayed there for more than a decade. Between 1975 and 1980, more than 1 million northerners migrated south to regions formerly in the Republic of Vietnam, while, as part of the New Economic Zones program, around 750,000 to over 1 million southerners were moved mostly to uninhabited mountainous forested areas.

Gabriel García Márquez, a Nobel Prize winning writer, described South Vietnam as a "False paradise" after the war, when he visited in 1980:

The cost of this delirium was stupefying: 360,000 people mutilated, a million widows, 500,000 prostitutes, 500,000 drug addicts, a million tuberculous and more than a million soldiers of the old regime, impossible to rehabilitate into a new society. Ten percent of the population of Ho Chi Minh City was suffering from serious venereal diseases when the war ended, and there were 4 million illiterates throughout the South.

The U.S. used its security council veto to block Vietnam's recognition by the United Nations three times, an obstacle to the country receiving international aid.

Laos and Cambodia

By 1975, the North Vietnamese had lost influence over the Khmer Rouge. Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 1-3 million Cambodians out of a population of around 8 million, in one of the bloodiest genocides in history.

The relationship between Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) escalated right after the end of the war. In response to the Khmer Rouge taking over Phu Quoc on 17 April and Tho Chu on 4 May 1975 and the belief that they were responsible for the disappearance of 500 Vietnamese natives on Tho Chu, Vietnam launched a counterattack to take back these islands. After several failed attempts to negotiate by both sides, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea in 1978 and ousted the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by China, in the Cambodian-Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Sino-Vietnamese War. From 1978 to 1979, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees or were deported.

The Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in December 1975, establishing the Lao People's Democratic Republic under the leadership of a member of the royal family, Souphanouvong. The change in regime was "quite peaceful, a sort of Asiatic ' velvet revolution'"-although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducation camps, often enduring harsh conditions for several years. The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets.

Unexploded ordnance

Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continues to detonate and kill people today and has rendered much land hazardous and impossible to cultivate. According to the Vietnamese government, ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the war officially ended. In Laos, 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country. According to the government of Laos, unexploded ordnance has killed or injured over 20,000 Laotians since the end of the war and currently 50 people are killed or maimed every year. It is estimated that the explosives still remaining buried in the ground will not be removed entirely for the next few centuries.

Refugee crisis

Over 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina refugee crisis after 1975. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept these refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people. Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries resettled in the United States, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000. China accepted 250,000 people. Of all the countries of Indochina, Laos experienced the largest refugee flight in proportional terms, as 300,000 people out of a total population of 3 million crossed the border into Thailand. Included among their ranks were "about 90 percent" of Laos's "intellectuals, technicians, and officials." An estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In the United States

Failure of U.S. goals in the war is often placed at different institutions and levels. Some have suggested that the failure of the war was due to political failures of U.S. leadership. Others point to a failure of U.S. military doctrine. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion." The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation, and demonstrated the limitations of U.S. military abilities in achieving political goals. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, "if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job." General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective, saying he doubted "that the North Vietnamese would have relented." U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that "in terms of military tactics ... our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail."

Hanoi had persistently sought unification of the country since the Geneva Accords, and the effects of U.S. bombings had negligible impact on the goals of the North Vietnamese government. The effects of U.S. bombing campaigns had mobilised the people throughout North Vietnam and mobilised international support for North Vietnam due to the perception of a super-power attempting to bomb a significantly smaller, agrarian society into submission.

The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war's conclusion. The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans died in Vietnam than in World War II.

Financial cost

U.S. military costs

U.S. military aid to SVN

U.S. economic aid to SVN

Total

Total (2015 dollars)

$111 billion

$16.138 billion

$7.315 billion

$134.53 billion

$1.020 trillion

Between 1953 and 1975, the United States was estimated to have spent $168 billion on the war (equivalent to $1.59 trillion in 2022). This resulted in a large federal budget deficit. Other figures point to $138.9 billion from 1965 to 1974 (not inflation-adjusted), 10 times all education spending in the US and 50 times more than housing and community development spending within that time period. General record-keeping was reported to have been sloppy for government spending during the war. It was stated that war-spending could have paid off every mortgage in the US at that time, with money leftover.

As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than $22 billion a year in war-related claims.

Impact on the U.S. military

More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam. James E. Westheider wrote that "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, 543,000 American military personnel were stationed in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops." Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the president since World War II, but ended in 1973.

By the war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. The average age of the U.S. troops killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years. According to Dale Kueter, "Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races." Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered some degree of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Vietnam veterans suffered from PTSD in unprecedented numbers, as many as 15.2% of Vietnam veterans, because the U.S. military had routinely provided heavy psychoactive drugs, including amphetamines, to American servicemen, which left them unable to process adequately their traumas at the time. Drug use, racial tensions, and the growing incidence of fragging-attempting to kill unpopular officers and non-commissioned officers with grenades or other weapons-created severe problems for the U.S. military and impacted its capability of undertaking combat operations. Between 1969 and 1971 the U.S. Army recorded more than 900 attacks by troops on their own officers and NCOs with 99 killed. An estimated 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. In 1977, United States president Jimmy Carter granted a full and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers with Proclamation 4483.

The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps general Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it "wasteful of American lives... with small likelihood of a successful outcome." In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces. Furthermore, throughout the war there was found to be considerable flaws and dishonesty by officers and commanders due to promotions being tied to the body count system touted by Westmoreland and McNamara. And behind the scenes Secretary of Defense McNamara wrote in a memo to President Johnson his doubts about the war: "The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one."

Effects of U.S. chemical defoliation

One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. 20 million gallons of toxic herbicides (like Agent Orange) were sprayed on 6 million acres of forests and crops by the U.S. Air Force. They were used to defoliate large parts of the countryside to prevent the Viet Cong from being able to hide weaponry and encampments under the foliage, and to deprive them of food. Defoliation was also used to clear sensitive areas, including base perimeters and possible ambush sites along roads and canals. More than 20% of South Vietnam's forests and 3.2% of its cultivated land was sprayed at least once. 90% of herbicide use was directed at forest defoliation. The chemicals used continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain. Official US military records have listed figures including the destruction of 20% of the jungles of South Vietnam and 20-36% (with other figures reporting 20-50%) of the mangrove forests. The environmental destruction caused by this defoliation has been described by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, lawyers, historians and other academics as an ecocide.

Agent Orange and other similar chemical substances used by the U.S. have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries in the intervening years, including among the US Air Force crews that handled them. Scientific reports have concluded that refugees exposed to chemical sprays while in South Vietnam continued to experience pain in the eyes and skin as well as gastrointestinal upsets. In one study, ninety-two percent of participants suffered incessant fatigue; others reported monstrous births. Meta-analyses of the most current studies on the association between Agent Orange and birth defects have found a statistically significant correlation such that having a parent who was exposed to Agent Orange at any point in their life will increase one's likelihood of either possessing or acting as a genetic carrier of birth defects. Although a variety of birth defects have been observed, the most common deformity appears to be spina bifida. Chloro-dioxins, which are inevitably formed as a byproduct of Agent Orange synthesis, are highly teratogenic, and there is substantial evidence that the birth defects carry on for three generations or more. In 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical on part of Danang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Vietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other U.S. chemical manufacturers, but the District Court dismissed their case. They appealed, but the dismissal was cemented in February 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.

The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy as, "presumptive diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides during military service." Spina bifida is currently the sole birth defect in children of veterans that is recognized as being caused by exposure to Agent Orange.

Casualties

Estimates of the number of casualties vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam for the period 1955 to 2002. A detailed demographic study calculated 791,000-1,141,000 war-related deaths during the war for all of Vietnam, for both military and civilians. Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war. Extrapolating from a 1969 US intelligence report, Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war. Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 30,000 to 182,000. A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated 1.4 million South Vietnamese civilians casualties during the war, including 415,000 deaths.

The military forces of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,256 killed between 1960 and 1974 and additional deaths from 1954 to 1959 and in 1975. Other estimates point to higher figures of 313,000 casualties.

The official US Department of Defense figure for PAVN/VC killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974 was 950,765. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. Guenter Lewy asserts that one-third of the reported "enemy" killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of PAVN/VC military forces was probably closer to 444,000.

According to figures released by the Vietnamese government there were 849,018 confirmed military deaths on the PAVN/VC side during the war. The Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 1955 to 1975. This figure includes battle deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, in which the PAVN was a major participant. Non-combat deaths account for 30 to 40% of these figures. However, the figures do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers. These do not include the estimated 300,000-500,000 PAVN/VC missing in action. Official figures from the Vietnamese government estimate 1.1 million dead and 300,000 missing from 1945 to 1979, with approximately 849,000 dead and 232,000 missing from 1960 to 1975.

US reports of "enemy KIA", referred to as body count were thought to have been subject to "falsification and glorification", and a true estimate of PAVN/VC combat deaths may be difficult to assess, as US victories were assessed by having a "greater kill ratio". It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel on the Viet Cong side as many persons were part-time guerrillas or impressed labourers who did not wear uniforms and civilians killed were sometimes written off as enemy killed because high enemy casualties was directly tied to promotions and commendation.

Between 275,000 and 310,000 Cambodians were estimated to have died during the war including between 50,000 and 150,000 combatants and civilians from US bombings. 20,000-62,000 Laotians also died, and 58,281 U.S. military personnel were killed, of which 1,584 are still listed as missing as of March 2021.

In popular culture

Stone plaque with photo of the "Thương tiếc" (Mourning Soldier) statue, originally, installed at the Republic of Vietnam National Military Cemetery. The original statue was demolished in April 1975.

The Vietnam War has been featured extensively in television, film, video games, music and literature in the participant countries. In Vietnam, one notable film set during Operation Linebacker II was the film Girl from Hanoi (1974) depicting war-time life in Hanoi. Another notable work was the diary of Đặng Thùy Trâm, a North Vietnamese doctor who enlisted in the Southern battlefield, and was killed at the age of 27 by U.S. forces near Quảng Ngãi. Her diaries were later published in Vietnam as Đặng Thùy Trâm's Diary ( Last Night I Dreamed of Peace), where it became a best-seller and was later made into a film ( Đừng đốt). In Vietnam, the diary has often been compared to The Diary of Anne Frank, and both are used in literary education.

One of the first major films based on the Vietnam War was John Wayne's pro-war The Green Berets (1968). Further cinematic representations were released during the 1970s and 1980s, some of the most noteworthy examples being Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), Oliver Stone's (1986) - based on his service in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). Other Vietnam War films include Hamburger Hill (1987), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Casualties of War (1989), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1989), Forrest Gump (1994), We Were Soldiers (2002), and Rescue Dawn (2007).

The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam, the United States, and throughout the world, both pro/anti-war and pro/anti-communist, with the Vietnam War Song Project having identified 5,000+ songs about or referencing the conflict. The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems.

Myths play a central role in the historiography of the Vietnam War, and have become a part of the culture of the United States. Much like the general historiography of the war, discussion of myth has focused on U.S. experiences, but changing myths of war have also played a role in Vietnamese and Australian historiography. Recent scholarship has focused on "myth-busting", attacking the previous orthodox and revisionist schools of American historiography of the Vietnam War. This scholarship challenges myths about American society and soldiery in the Vietnam War.

Kuzmarov in The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs challenges the popular and Hollywood narrative that US soldiers were heavy drug users, in particular the notion that the My Lai massacre was caused by drug use. According to Kuzmarov, Richard Nixon is primarily responsible for creating the drug myth.

Michael Allen in Until The Last Man Comes Home also accuses Nixon of myth making, by exploiting the plight of the League of Wives of American Prisoners in Vietnam and the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia to allow the government to appear caring as the war was increasingly considered lost. Allen's analysis ties the position of potential missing or prisoner Americans into post-war politics and recent presidential elections, including the Swift boat controversy in US electoral politics.

Commemoration

On 25 May 2012, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation of the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War. On 10 November 2017, President Donald Trump issued an additional proclamation commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.

Annotations

References

The references for this article are grouped in three sections.

Citations: references for the in-line, numbered superscript references contained within the article.

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Vietnam War Part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War in Asia Clockwise from top left: Belligerents Commanders and leaders Strength ≈860,000 (1967) North Vietnam: 690,000 (1966, including PAVN and Viet Cong).[A 5] Viet Cong: ~200,000 (estimated, 1968) [7] China: 170,000 (1968)320,000 total[8] [9] [10] Khmer Rouge: 70,000 (1972)[11]

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The Tito-Stalin split, or the Yugoslav-Soviet split, was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, especially under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, in the years following World War II. Although presented by both sides as an ideological dispute, the conflict was the product of a geopolitical struggle in the Balkans that also involved Albania, Bulgaria, and the communist insurgency in Greece, which Yugoslavia supported and the Soviet Union opposed.

In the years following World War II, Yugoslavia pursued economic, internal, and foreign policy objectives that did not align with the interests of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies. Tito's plans to admit neighbouring Albania to the Yugoslav federation exacerbated the tensions. Yugoslav support of the communist rebels in Greece further complicated the political situation. Yugoslavia provided this to pursue possible territorial expansion by fostering an atmosphere of insecurity within the Albanian political leadership. The Soviets opposed the Yugoslav policy towards Greece and made efforts to slow down Yugoslav-Albanian integration. Stalin tried to pressure and moderate Yugoslavia via Bulgaria. When the conflict between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union became public in 1948, it was portrayed as an ideological dispute to avoid the impression of a power struggle within the Eastern Bloc.

The split ushered in the Informbiro period of purges within the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. It was accompanied by a significant level of disruption to the Yugoslav economy, which had previously depended on the Eastern Bloc. The conflict also prompted fears of an impending Soviet invasion. Deprived of aid from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, Yugoslavia subsequently turned to the United States for economic and military assistance.

Tito-Stalin conflict during World War II

During World War II, the alliances of the Soviet Union (USSR), Stalin's desire to expand the Soviet sphere of influence beyond the borders of the USSR, and the confrontation between the Tito-led Communist Party of Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian: Komunistička partija Jugoslavije, KPJ) and the Yugoslav government-in-exile headed by King Peter II of Yugoslavia complicated the relationship between Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin.

The Axis powers invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941. The country surrendered 11 days later, and the government fled abroad, ultimately relocating to London. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary annexed parts of the country. The remaining territory was broken up into several parts: the east was divided into the German-occupied areas of Serbia and Banat, while the west became the Independent State of Croatia ( Croatian: Nezavisna država Hrvatska, NDH), a puppet state garrisoned by German and Italian forces. The USSR, still honouring the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, broke off relations with the Yugoslav government and sought, through its intelligence assets, to set up a new Communist organisation independent of the KPJ in the NDH. The USSR also tacitly approved the restructuring of the Bulgarian Workers' Party ( Bulgarian: Българска работническа партия). In particular, the party's new organisational structure and territory of operation were adjusted to account for annexation of Yugoslav territories by Bulgaria. The USSR only reversed its support for such actions in September 1941-well after the start of the Axis invasion of the USSR -after repeated protests from the KPJ.

In June 1941, Tito informed the Comintern and Stalin about his plans for an uprising against the Axis occupation. However, Stalin saw the prolific use of Communist symbols by the Yugoslav Partisans as problematic. This was because Stalin viewed his alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States as necessarily contrary to the Axis destruction of "democratic liberties". Stalin thus felt the Communist forces in Axis occupied Europe were actually obligated to fight to restore democratic liberties-even if temporarily. In terms of Yugoslavia, this meant that Stalin expected the KPJ to fight to restore the government in exile. Remnants of the Royal Yugoslav Army, led by Army General Draža Mihailović and organised as Chetnik guerrillas, were already pursuing the restoration of King Peter II.

In October 1941, Tito met Mihailović twice to propose a joint struggle against the Axis. Tito offered him the position of chief of staff of the Partisan forces, but Mihailović turned down the offer. By the end of the month, Mihailović concluded that the Communists were the true enemy. At first, Mihailović's Chetniks fought the Partisans and the Axis forces simultaneously, but within months, they began collaborating with the Axis against the Partisans. By November, the Partisans were fighting the Chetniks while sending messages to Moscow protesting Soviet propaganda praising Mihailović.

In 1943, Tito transformed the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, AVNOJ) into an all-Yugoslav deliberative and legislative body, denounced the government in exile, and forbade the return of the king to the country. These decisions ran against explicit Soviet advice instructing Tito not to antagonise the exiled government and Peter II. Stalin was at the Tehran Conference at the time and viewed the move as a betrayal of the USSR. In 1944-1945, Stalin's renewed instructions to Communist leaders in Europe to establish coalitions with bourgeois politicians were met with incredulity in Yugoslavia. This shock was reinforced by the Percentages Agreement, which Stalin revealed to the surprised Edvard Kardelj, vice president of the Yugoslav provisional government.

In the final days of the war, the Partisans captured parts of Carinthia in Austria and were advancing across pre-war Italian soil. While the Western Allies believed Stalin arranged the move, he actually opposed it. Specifically, Stalin feared for the Soviet-backed Austrian government of Karl Renner, and he was afraid that a wider conflict with the Allies over Trieste would ensue. Stalin ordered Tito to withdraw, and the Partisan forces complied.

Political situation in Eastern Europe, 1945-1948

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the USSR sought to establish its political dominance in the areas beyond its borders that had come under the control of the Red Army. This objective was pursued largely through the establishment of coalition governments in Eastern European countries. Outright Communist rule was generally difficult to achieve because Communist parties were usually quite small. The Communist leaders saw the strategic approach as a temporary measure until circumstances allowing for sole Communist rule improved.

The Yugoslav and Albanian Communist parties each had significant bases grown on the support of Tito's Partisan movement in Yugoslavia and Albania's National Liberation Movement. While Tito's Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was under Soviet influence in the final months of the war and the first few post-war years, Stalin declared it outside the Soviet sphere of interest on several occasions, treating it like a Yugoslav satellite state.

The contrast with the rest of Eastern Europe was underscored ahead of a Soviet offensive in October 1944. Tito's partisans supported the offensive, which ultimately pushed the Wehrmacht and its allies out of northern Serbia and captured Belgrade. However, Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin's Third Ukrainian Front had to request formal permission from Tito's provisional government to enter Yugoslavia and accept Yugoslav civil authority in any liberated territory.

Yugoslav foreign policy, 1945-1947

After the war, the USSR and Yugoslavia signed a friendship treaty when Tito met with Stalin in Moscow in 1945. They established good bilateral relations which Yugoslav domestic and foreign policies did not appear to seriously affect. Although the KPJ pursued the goal of a communist or socialist society in a way that sometimes differed from the Soviet model, the differences were only in method, not in objective. In 1945, Yugoslavia relied on United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration aid as it experienced food shortages, but it gave much greater internal publicity to comparably smaller Soviet assistance. Nonetheless, in 1945, Stalin complained that Yugoslavia's foreign policy was unreasonable because of its territorial claims against most of its neighbours. Yugoslavia had made claims against Hungary, Austria, and the Free Territory of Trieste, which had been carved out of pre-war Italian territory. Tito then gave a speech criticising the USSR, alleging inadequate Soviet backing of his territorial demands. The confrontation with the Western Allies became tense in August 1946 when Yugoslav fighters forced a United States Army Air Forces Douglas C-47 Skytrain to crash-land near Ljubljana and shot down another above Bled, capturing ten and killing a crew of five in a space of ten days. The Western Allies incorrectly believed that Stalin encouraged Tito's persistence; Stalin actually wished to avoid confrontation with the West over the issue.

Tito also sought to establish regional dominance over Yugoslavia's southern neighbours- Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece. The first overtures in this direction occurred in 1943, when a proposal for a regional headquarters to coordinate national Partisan actions fell through. Tito, who saw the Yugoslav component of the Partisans as superior, declined to go ahead with any scheme that would give other national components equal say. The pre-war partition of the contested region of Macedonia into three sections- Vardar, Pirin, and Aegean Macedonia-controlled by Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece respectively complicated regional relations. The presence of a substantial ethnic Albanian population in the Yugoslav region of Kosovo further impeded relations. In 1943, the Communist Party of Albania ( Albanian: Partia Komuniste e Shqipërisë, PKSH) proposed the transfer of Kosovo to Albania, only to be confronted with a counterproposal: incorporating Albania into the future Yugoslav federation. Tito and the PKSH first secretary, Enver Hoxha, revisited the idea in 1946, agreeing on the inevitability of the merger of the two countries.

After the war, Tito continued to pursue dominance in the region. In 1946, Albania and Yugoslavia signed a treaty on mutual assistance and customs agreements, almost completely integrating Albania into the Yugoslav economic system. Nearly a thousand Yugoslav economic development experts were sent to Albania, and KPJ representative was added to the PKSH central committee. The two countries' militaries also cooperated, at least in the mining of the Corfu Channel in October 1946-an action which damaged two Royal Navy destroyers and resulted in 44 dead and 42 injured. Even though the USSR had indicated previously it would only deal with Albania through Yugoslavia, Stalin cautioned the Yugoslavs to slow down unification with Albania.

In August 1947, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed a friendship and mutual assistance treaty in Bled without consulting the USSR, leading Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to denounce it. Despite this, when the Cominform was established in September to facilitate international Communist activity and communication, the Soviets openly touted Yugoslavia as a model for the Eastern Bloc to emulate. Since 1946, however, internal reports from the Soviet embassy in Belgrade had portrayed Yugoslav leaders in increasingly unfavourable terms.

The USSR began sending its own advisors to Albania in mid-1947. Tito saw this as a threat to the further integration of Albania into Yugoslavia. He also attributed the move to a power struggle within the PKSH central committee involving Hoxha, the interior minister Koçi Xoxe, and the economy and industry minister, Naco Spiru. Spiru was seen as the prime opponent of links with Yugoslavia and of direct ties between Albania and the USSR. Prompted by Yugoslav accusations, and urged on by Xoxe, Hoxha launched an investigation into Spiru. A few days later, Spiru died in unclear circumstances. His death was officially declared a suicide.

Following Spiru's death, there were a series of meetings of Yugoslav and Soviet diplomats and officials on the matter of integration, culminating in a meeting between Stalin and KPJ official Milovan Đilas in December 1947 and January 1948. By its conclusion, Stalin supported the integration of Albania into Yugoslavia, provided it was postponed until an appropriate moment and carried out with the consent of Albanians. It is still debated if Stalin was sincere in his support, or if he was pursuing a delaying tactic. Regardless, Đilas perceived Stalin's support as genuine.

Yugoslav support to the Democratic Army of Greece ( Greek: Δημοκρατικός Στρατός Ελλάδας, Dimokratikós Stratós Elládas, DSE) in the Greek Civil War indirectly fostered Albanian support for closer ties with Yugoslavia. The armed clashes there were reinforcing the Albanian perception that the Yugoslav and Albanian borders were being threatened by Greece. Furthermore, there was an US intelligence-gathering operation in the country, and an airdrop of twelve British Secret Intelligence Service-trained agents in 1947 Operation Valuable. The agents were deployed in central Albania to start an insurrection which did not materialise. The Yugoslavs hoped this perception would lead to increased Albanian support for integration with Yugoslavia. Soviet envoys to Albania deemed the effort successful in instilling Albanians with a fear of Greeks along with a perception that Albania could not defend itself on its own. At the same time, Soviet sources indicated there was no actual threat of a Greek invasion of Albania. Tito thought there was another potential benefit from his support to the DSE. Many DSE fighters were Macedonian Slavs leading Tito to believe that cooperating with the DSE might allow Yugoslavia to annex Greek territory by expanding into Aegean Macedonia even if the DSE failed to seize power.

Shortly after Đilas and Stalin met, Tito suggested to Hoxha that Albania should permit Yugoslavia to use military bases near Korçë, close to the Albanian-Greek border, to defend against potential Greek and Anglo-American attack. By the end of January, Hoxha accepted the idea. Moreover, Xoxe indicated that the integration of Albanian and Yugoslav armies was approved. Even though the matter was supposedly conducted in secrecy, the Soviets learned of the scheme from a source in the Albanian government.

In late 1944, Stalin first proposed a Yugoslav-Bulgarian federation, likely to temper Tito's policies. The proposal involved a dualist state where Bulgaria would be one half of the federation and Yugoslavia (further divided into its republics) the other. The Yugoslav position was the federation was possible, but only if Bulgaria were one of its seven members, and if Pirin Macedonia was ceded to the nascent Yugoslav federal unit of Macedonia. Since the two sides could not agree, Stalin invited them to Moscow in January 1945 for arbitration-first supporting the Bulgarian view-and days later switching to the Yugoslav position. Finally, on 26 January, the British government warned the Bulgarian authorities against any federation arrangement with Yugoslavia before Bulgaria signed a peace treaty with the Allies. Thus, the idea was shelved, to the relief of Tito.

Three years later, in 1948, in the same period when Tito and Hoxha were arranging for the deployment of the Yugoslav People's Army to Albania, Bulgarian Workers' Party leader Georgi Dimitrov spoke to Western journalists about turning the Eastern Bloc into a federally organised state. He then included Greece in a list of "people's democracies" causing concern in the West and in the USSR. Tito sought to distance Yugoslavia from the idea as damaging, but the USSR interpreted Dimitrov's words as influenced by Yugoslav intentions in the Balkans. Nonetheless, on 1 February 1948, Molotov instructed Yugoslav and Bulgarian leaders to send representatives to Moscow by 10 February for discussions. On 5 February, just days before scheduled meeting with Stalin, the DSE launched its general offensive, shelling Thessaloniki four days later.

In response to Molotov's summons, Tito dispatched Kardelj and Vladimir Bakarić to Moscow, where they joined Đilas. Stalin berated the Yugoslavs and Dimitrov for ignoring the USSR in the signing of the Bled Agreement and for Dimitrov's call to include Greece in a hypothetical federation with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. He also demanded an end to the insurrection in Greece, arguing that any further support for the Communist guerrillas there might lead to a wider conflict with the United States and the British. By limiting his support to the DSE, Stalin adhered to the Percentages Agreement which placed Greece in the British sphere of influence.

Stalin also demanded an immediate federation consisting of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. According to Stalin, Albania would only later join such a federation. At the same time, he expressed support for similar unions of Hungary and Romania and of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Yugoslav and Bulgarian participants in the meeting acknowledged mistakes, and Stalin made Kardelj and Dimitrov sign a treaty obliging Yugoslavia and Bulgaria to consult the Soviet Union on all foreign policy matters.

In response to the Moscow meeting, the KPJ politburo met in secret on 19 February and decided against any federation with Bulgaria. Two days later, Tito, Kardelj, and Đilas met with Nikos Zachariadis, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (Greek: Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, KKE). They informed Zachariadis that Stalin was opposed to the KKE's armed struggle but promised continued Yugoslav support, nonetheless.

The KPJ central committee met on 1 March and noted that Yugoslavia would remain independent only if it resisted Soviet designs for economic development of the Eastern Bloc. (The USSR viewed the Yugoslav five-year development plan unfavourably because it did not align with the needs of the Eastern Bloc but prioritised development based solely on local development needs.) The central committee also dismissed the possibility of federation with Bulgaria, interpreting it as a form of Trojan Horse tactic. The committee finally decided to proceed with the existing policy towards Albania. Unlike the meeting on 19 February, politburo member and government minister Sreten Žujović attended this one, and informed the Soviets about what had transpired.

In Albania, Xoxe purged all anti-Yugoslav forces from the PKSH central committee at a plenum of 26 February-8 March. The PKSH central committee adopted a resolution declaring pro-Yugoslav orientation the official Albanian policy. Albanian authorities adopted an additional secret document detailing a planned merger of Albanian forces with the Yugoslav army. They cited the threat of Greek invasion as a pretext for the move, arguing that having Yugoslav troops at the Albanian-Greek border was an "urgent necessity". In response to those moves, Soviet military advisers were withdrawn from Yugoslavia on 18 March.

Stalin's letters and open conflict

On 27 March, Stalin sent his first letter, addressed to Tito and Kardelj, which formulated the conflict as an ideological one. In his letter, Stalin denounced Tito and Kardelj, as well as Đilas, Svetozar Vukmanović, Boris Kidrič, and Aleksandar Ranković, as "dubious Marxists" responsible for the anti-Soviet atmosphere in Yugoslavia. Stalin also criticised Yugoslav policies on security, the economy, and political appointments. In particular, he resented the suggestion that Yugoslavia was more revolutionary than the USSR, drawing comparisons to the positions and the fate of Leon Trotsky. The purpose of the letter was to urge loyal Communists to remove the "dubious Marxists". The Soviets maintained contact with Žujović and former minister of industry Andrija Hebrang and, in early 1948, instructed Žujović to oust Tito from office. They hoped to secure the position of the general secretary of the KPJ for Žujović and have Hebrang fill the post of the prime minister.

Tito convened the KPJ central committee on 12 April to draw up a letter in response to Stalin. Tito repudiated Stalin's claims and ascribed them to slander and misinformation. He also emphasised the KPJ's achievements of national independence and equality. Žujović was the only one to oppose Tito at the meeting. He advocated making Yugoslavia a part of the USSR, and he questioned what the country's future position in international relations would be if the Soviet alliance was not maintained. Tito called for action against Žujović and Hebrang. He denounced Hebrang, accusing him of being the primary source of Soviet mistrust. To discredit him, charges were fabricated alleging that Hebrang had become an Ustaše spy during his captivity in 1942 and that he was subsequently blackmailed with that information by the Soviets. Both Žujović and Hebrang were apprehended within a week.

On 4 May, Stalin sent the second letter to the KPJ. He denied the Soviet leadership was misinformed about the situation in Yugoslavia and claimed that the differences were over a matter of principle. He also denied Hebrang was a Soviet source in the KPJ but confirmed that Žujović was indeed one. Stalin questioned the scale of KPJ's achievements, alleging that the success of any communist party depended on Red Army assistance-implying the Soviet military was essential to whether or not the KPJ retained power. Finally, he suggested taking the matter up before the Cominform.

In their response to the second letter, Tito and Kardelj rejected arbitration by the Cominform, and accused Stalin of lobbying other communist parties to affect the outcome of the dispute.

On 19 May, Tito received an invitation for the Yugoslav delegation to attend a Cominform meeting to discuss the situation concerning the KPJ. However, the KPJ's central committee rejected the invitation the next day. Stalin then sent his third letter, now addressed to Tito and Hebrang, stating that failure to speak on behalf of the KPJ before the Cominform would amount to a tacit admission of guilt. On 19 June, the KPJ received a formal invitation to attend the Cominform meeting in Bucharest in two days. The KPJ leadership informed the Cominform that they would not send any delegates.

The Cominform published its Resolution on the KPJ on 28 June exposing the conflict and criticising the KPJ for anti-Sovietism and ideological errors, lack of democracy in the party, and an inability to accept criticism. Moreover, the Cominform accused the KPJ of opposing the parties within the organisation, splitting from the united socialist front, betraying international solidarity of the working people, and assuming a nationalist posture. Finally, the KPJ was declared outside the Cominform. The resolution claimed there are "healthy" members of the KPJ whose loyalty would be measured by their readiness to overthrow Tito and his leadership-expecting this to be achieved solely because of Stalin's charisma. Stalin expected the KPJ to back down, sacrifice the "dubious Marxists", and realign itself with him.

Faced with the choice of resisting or submitting to Stalin, Tito chose the former, likely counting on the KPJ's wide organic base, built through the Partisan movement, to support him. It is estimated that up to 20 percent of the KPJ's membership supported Stalin instead of Tito. The party's leadership noticed this, and it led to wide-ranging purges that went far beyond the most visible targets like Hebrang and Žujović. These purges came to be referred to as the Informbiro period, meaning the "Cominform period". The real or perceived supporters of Stalin were termed "Cominformists" or " ibeovci" as a pejorative initialism based on the first two words in the official name of the Cominform-the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties. Thousands were imprisoned, killed, or exiled. According to Ranković, 51,000 people were killed, imprisoned, or sentenced to forced labour. Numerous sites, including actual prisons and prison camps in Stara Gradiška and the former Ustaše concentration camp at Jasenovac, were used to hold prisoners. In 1949, a special-purpose prison camp was built for Cominformists on the uninhabited Adriatic islands of Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur.

Yugoslavia faced significant economic difficulties as a result of the split, since its planned economy depended on unimpeded trade with the USSR and the Eastern Bloc which ended. A potential war with the USSR led to high military spending-rising to 21.4 percent of the national income in 1952. The United States noted the opportunity to score a Cold War victory, but it employed a cautious approach, unsure if the rift was lasting or if Yugoslav foreign policy would change.

Yugoslavia first requested assistance from the United States in summer 1948. In December, Tito announced strategic raw materials would be shipped to the West in return for increased trade. In February 1949, the US decided to provide Tito with economic assistance. In return, the US demanded cessation of aid to the DSE when the internal situation in Yugoslavia allowed such a move without endangering Tito's position. Ultimately, Secretary of State Dean Acheson took the position that the Yugoslav five-year plan would have to succeed if Tito was to prevail against Stalin. Acheson also argued that supporting Tito was in the interest of the United States, regardless of the nature of Tito's regime. The aid helped Yugoslavia to overcome the poor harvests of 1948, 1949 and 1950, but there would be almost no economic growth before 1952. Tito also received US backing in Yugoslavia's successful 1949 bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, against Soviet opposition.

In 1949, the United States provided loans to Yugoslavia, increased them in 1950, and then provided large grants. The Yugoslavs avoided asking for military aid initially, believing it would provide a pretext for a Soviet invasion. However, by 1951, Yugoslav authorities became convinced that Soviet attack was inevitable regardless of any military aid from the West. Consequently, Yugoslavia was included in the Mutual Defense Assistance Program.

When the conflict became public in 1948, Stalin embarked upon a propaganda campaign against Tito. The Soviet allies blockaded their borders with Yugoslavia; there were 7,877 border incidents. By 1953, Soviet or Soviet-backed incursions had resulted in the killing of 27 Yugoslav security personnel. It is not clear whether the USSR planned any military intervention against Yugoslavia after the split. Hungarian Major General Béla Király, who defected to the United States in 1956, claimed that there were such plans, but recent research has concluded his claims were false. It is also possible Stalin was dissuaded from intervening by the United States's response to the outbreak of the Korean War. Yugoslavs believed that Soviet invasion was likely or imminent and made defensive plans accordingly. A message Stalin sent to Czechoslovak President Klement Gottwald shortly after the June 1948 Cominform meeting suggests that Stalin's objective was to isolate Yugoslavia-thereby causing its decline-instead of toppling Tito.

In the immediate aftermath of the split, there was at least one failed attempt at a military coup d'état supported by the Soviets. It was headed by Yugoslav army officials: the chief of the General Staff Colonel General Arso Jovanović, Major General Branko Petričević Kadja, and Colonel Vladimir Dapčević. The plot was foiled and border guards killed Jovanović near Vršac while he was attempting to flee to Romania. Petričević was arrested in Belgrade, and Dapčević was arrested just as he was about to cross the Hungarian border. There was also a separate plan to assassinate Tito, which involved options for use of a biological agent and a poison codenamed Scavenger. The Soviet Ministry of State Security prepared the plan in 1952, but Stalin died before it could be executed.

In Eastern Bloc politics, the split with Yugoslavia led to the denunciation and prosecution of alleged Titoists designed to strengthen Stalin's control over the bloc's communist parties. They resulted in show trials of high-ranking officials such as Xoxe, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Rudolf Slánský, Hungarian interior and foreign minister László Rajk, and General Secretary of the Bulgarian Workers' Party central committee Traicho Kostov. Furthermore, Albania and Bulgaria turned away from Yugoslavia and aligned themselves entirely with the USSR. Regardless of DSE dependence on Yugoslav support, the KKE also sided with the Cominform, declaring its support for fragmentation of Yugoslavia and independence of Macedonia. In July 1949, Yugoslavia responded by withholding further support to the Greek guerrillas and the DSE collapsed almost immediately.

Eglin, Darrel R. (1982). "The Economy". In Nyrop, Richard F. (ed.). Yugoslavia, a Country Study (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 113-168. LCCN 82011632.

Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York, New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 1594200653.

Tomasevich, Jozo (2001). War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804708579.

Ziemke, Earl F. (1968). Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. LCCN 67-60001.

Karchmar, Lucien (1982). "The Tito-Stalin Split in Soviet and Yugoslav Historiography". In Vucinich, Wayne S. (ed.). At the Brink of War and Peace: The Tito-Stalin Split in a Historic Perspective. New York, New York: Brooklyn College Press. pp. 253-271. ISBN 9780914710981.

Laković, Ivan; Tasić, Dmitar (2016). The Tito-Stalin Split and Yugoslavia's Military Opening toward the West, 1950-1954: In NATO's Backyard. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. ISBN 9781498539340.

Mehta, Coleman (2011). "The CIA Confronts the Tito-Stalin Split, 1948-1951". Journal of Cold War Studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. 13 (1): 101-145. doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00070. ISSN 1520-3972. JSTOR 26923606. S2CID 57560689.

Stokes, Gale, ed. (1996). "The Expulsion of Yugoslavia". From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe Since 1945 (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195094466.

Works related to Resolution of the Information Bureau Concerning the Communist Party of Yugoslavia at Wikisource

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The Tito-Stalin split, or the Yugoslav-Soviet split, was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, especially under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, in the years following World War II.

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The Polish People's Republic ( Polish: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million near the end of its existence, it was the second most-populous communist and Eastern Bloc country in Europe. Having a unitary Marxist-Leninist government, it was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact alliance. The largest city and official capital since 1947 was Warsaw, followed by the industrial city of Łódź and cultural city of Kraków. The country was bordered by the Baltic Sea to the north, the Soviet Union to the east, Czechoslovakia to the south, and East Germany to the west.

Between 1952 and 1989 Poland was ruled by a communist government established after the Red Army's takeover of Polish territory from German occupation in World War II. The state's official name was the "Republic of Poland" (Rzeczpospolita Polska ) between 1947 and 1952 in accordance with the temporary Small Constitution of 1947. The name "People's Republic" was introduced and defined by the Constitution of 1952. Like other Eastern Bloc countries ( East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania), Poland was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of influence, but it was never a part of the Soviet Union.

The Polish United Workers' Party became the dominant political faction in the Polish People's Republic, officially making it a socialist country. During this period Poland was a de facto one-party state but had more liberal policies than other states in the Eastern Bloc and was characterized by constant internal struggles for democracy. Throughout its existence, economic hardships and social unrest were common in almost every decade. The nation was split politically between those who supported the party, those who opposed it and those who refused to engage in political activity. Despite this, some groundbreaking achievements were established during the People's Republic such as improved living conditions, rapid industrialization, urbanization, and access to universal health care and education was made available. The birth rate was high and the population almost doubled between 1947 and 1989. Some of the party's most successful accomplishments was the rebuilding of ruined Warsaw after World War II and the complete eradication of illiteracy.

Poland maintained a standing army the Polish People's Army. In addition to the Polish Army, Soviet Army units were also stationed in Poland as in all other Warsaw Pact countries. The UB and succeeding SB were the chief intelligence agencies that acted as secret police, similar to the East German Stasi and Soviet KGB. The official police organization, which was also responsible for mass surveillance and violent suppression of protests, was renamed Citizens' Militia (MO). The Militia's elite ZOMO squads committed various serious crimes in order to keep the communist government in power. This included the harsh treatment of protesters, arrest of opposition leaders and in extreme cases, murder, with at least 22,000 people killed by the regime during its rule. As a result, Poland had a high imprisonment rate but one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

In the summer of 1944 the Polish Committee of National Liberation was established by Soviet-backed Polish communists to control territory retaken from Nazi Germany. On 1 January 1945 the committee was replaced by the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland, all the key posts of which were held by members of the communist Polish Workers' Party.

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin was able to present his western allies, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, with a fait accompli in Poland. His armed forces were in occupation of the country, and the communists were in control of its administration. The Soviet Union was in the process of reincorporating the lands to the east of the Curzon Line, which it had invaded and occupied between 1939 and 1941.

In compensation, Poland was granted German-populated territories in Pomerania, Silesia, and Brandenburg east of the Oder-Neisse line, including the southern half of East Prussia. As a result of these actions, Poland lost 77,035 km ² (29,743 sq mi) of land compared to its pre-WWII territory. These were confirmed, pending a final peace conference with Germany, at the Tripartite Conference of Berlin, otherwise known as the Potsdam Conference in August 1945 after the end of the war in Europe. The Potsdam Agreement also sanctioned the transfer of German population out of the acquired territories. Stalin was determined that Poland's new communist government would become his tool towards making Poland a satellite state like other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. He had severed relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London in 1943, but to appease Roosevelt and Churchill he agreed at Yalta that a coalition government would be formed. The Provisional Government of National Unity was established in June 1946 with the communists holding a majority of key posts, and with Soviet support they soon gained almost total control of the country.

In June 1946, the " Three Times Yes" referendum was held on a number of issues-abolition of the Senate of Poland, land reform, and making the Oder-Neisse line Poland's western border. The communist-controlled Interior Ministry issued results showing that all three questions passed overwhelmingly. Years later, however, evidence was uncovered showing that the referendum had been tainted by large-scale fraud, and only the third question actually passed. Władysław Gomułka then took advantage of a split in the Polish Socialist Party. One faction, which included Prime Minister Edward Osóbka-Morawski, wanted to join forces with the Peasant Party and form a united front against the communists. Another faction, led by Józef Cyrankiewicz, argued that the socialists should support the communists in carrying through a socialist program while opposing the imposition of one-party rule. Pre-war political hostilities continued to influence events, and Stanisław Mikołajczyk would not agree to form a united front with the socialists. The communists played on these divisions by dismissing Osóbka-Morawski and making Cyrankiewicz Prime Minister.

Between the referendum and the January 1947 general elections, the opposition was subjected to persecution. Only the candidates of the pro-government "Democratic Bloc" (the PPR, Cyrankiewicz' faction of the PPS, and the Democratic Party) were allowed to campaign completely unmolested. Meanwhile, several opposition candidates were prevented from campaigning at all. Mikołajczyk's Polish People's Party (PSL) in particular suffered persecution; it had opposed the abolition of the Senate as a test of strength against the government. Although it supported the other two questions, the Communist-dominated government branded the PSL "traitors". This massive oppression was overseen by Gomułka and the provisional president, Bolesław Bierut.

The official results of the election showed the Democratic Bloc with 80.1 percent of the vote. The Democratic Bloc was awarded 394 seats to only 28 for the PSL. Mikołajczyk immediately resigned to protest this so-called 'implausible result' and fled to the United Kingdom in April rather than face arrest. Later, some historians[citation needed ] announced that the official results were only obtained through massive fraud. Government officials didn't even count the real votes in many areas and simply filled in the relevant documents in accordance with instructions from the communists. In other areas, the ballot boxes were either destroyed or replaced with boxes containing prefilled ballots.

The 1947 election marked the beginning of undisguised communist rule in Poland, though it was not officially transformed into the Polish People's Republic until the adoption of the 1952 Constitution. However, Gomułka never supported Stalin's control over the Polish communists and was soon replaced as party leader by the more pliable Bierut. In 1948, the communists consolidated their power, merging with Cyrankiewicz' faction of the PPS to form the Polish United Workers' Party (known in Poland as 'the Party'), which would monopolise political power in Poland until 1989. In 1949, Polish-born Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky became the Minister of National Defence, with the additional title Marshal of Poland, and in 1952 he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (deputy premier).

Over the coming years, private industry was nationalised, the land seized from the pre-war landowners and redistributed to the lower-class farmers, and millions of Poles were transferred from the lost eastern territories to the lands acquired from Germany. Poland was now to be brought into line with the Soviet model of a "people's democracy" and a centrally planned socialist economy. The government also embarked on the collectivisation of agriculture, although the pace was slower than in other satellites: Poland remained the only Eastern Bloc country where individual farmers dominated agriculture.

Through a careful balance of agreement, compromise and resistance - and having signed an agreement of coexistence with the communist regime - cardinal primate Stefan Wyszyński maintained and even strengthened the Polish church through a series of failed government leaders. He was put under house arrest from 1953 to 1956 for failing to punish priests who participated in anti-government activity.

Bierut died in March 1956, and was replaced with Edward Ochab, who held the position for seven months. In June, workers in the industrial city of Poznań went on strike, in what became known as 1956 Poznań protests. Voices began to be raised in the Party and among the intellectuals calling for wider reforms of the Stalinist system. Eventually, power shifted towards Gomułka, who replaced Ochab as party leader. Hardline Stalinists were removed from power and many Soviet officers serving in the Polish Army were dismissed. This marked the end of the Stalinist era.

In 1970, Gomułka's government had decided to adopt massive increases in the prices of basic goods, including food. The resulting widespread violent protests in December that same year resulted in a number of deaths. They also forced another major change in the government, as Gomułka was replaced by Edward Gierek as the new First Secretary. Gierek's plan for recovery was centered on massive borrowing, mainly from the United States and West Germany, to re-equip and modernize Polish industry, and to import consumer goods to give the workers some incentive to work. While it boosted the Polish economy, and is still remembered as the "Golden Age" of socialist Poland, it left the country vulnerable to global economic fluctuations and western undermining, and the repercussions in the form of massive debt is still felt in Poland even today. This Golden Age came to an end after the 1973 energy crisis. The failure of the Gierek government, both economically and politically, soon led to the creation of opposition in the form of trade unions, student groups, clandestine newspapers and publishers, imported books and newspapers, and even a "flying university."

On 16 October 1978, the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, was elected Pope, taking the name John Paul II. The election of a Polish Pope had an electrifying effect on what had been, even under communist rule, one of the most devoutly Catholic nations in Europe. Gierek is alleged to have said to his cabinet, "O God, what are we going to do now?" or, as occasionally reported, "Jesus and Mary, this is the end". When John Paul II made his first papal tour of Poland in June 1979, half a million people heard him speak in Warsaw; he did not call for rebellion, but instead encouraged the creation of an "alternative Poland" of social institutions independent of the government, so that when the next economic crisis came, the nation would present a united front.

A new wave of labour strikes undermined Gierek's government, and in September Gierek, who was in poor health, was finally removed from office and replaced as Party leader by Stanisław Kania. However, Kania was unable to find an answer for the fast-eroding support of communism in Poland. Labour turmoil led to the formation of the independent trade union Solidarity ( Solidarność) in September 1980, originally led by Lech Wałęsa. In fact, Solidarity became a broad anti-communist social movement ranging from people associated with the Catholic Church, to members of the anti-Stalinist left. By the end of 1981, Solidarity had nine million members-a quarter of Poland's population and three times as many as the PUWP had. Kania resigned under Soviet pressure in October and was succeeded by Wojciech Jaruzelski, who had been Defence minister since 1968 and Premier since February.

On 13 December 1981, Jaruzelski proclaimed martial law, suspended Solidarity, and temporarily imprisoned most of its leaders. This sudden crackdown on Solidarity was reportedly out of fear of Soviet intervention (see Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980-1981). The government then disallowed Solidarity on 8 October 1982. Martial law was formally lifted in July 1983, though many heightened controls on civil liberties and political life, as well as food rationing, remained in place through the mid-to-late-1980s. Jaruzelski stepped down as prime minister in 1985 and became president (chairman of the Council of State).

This did not prevent Solidarity from gaining more support and power. Eventually it eroded the dominance of the PUWP, which in 1981 lost approximately 85,000 of its 3 million members. Throughout the mid-1980s, Solidarity persisted solely as an underground organization, but by the late 1980s was sufficiently strong to frustrate Jaruzelski's attempts at reform, and nationwide strikes in 1988 were one of the factors that forced the government to open a dialogue with Solidarity.

From 6 February to 15 April 1989, talks of 13 working groups in 94 sessions, which became known as the " Roundtable Talks" ( Rozmowy Okrągłego Stołu) saw the PUWP abandon power and radically altered the shape of the country. In June, shortly after the Tiananmen Square protests in China, the 1989 Polish legislative election took place. Much to its own surprise, Solidarity took all contested (35%) seats in the Sejm, the Parliament's lower house, and all but one seat in the elected Senate.

Solidarity persuaded the communists' longtime allied parties, the United People's Party and Democratic Party, to throw their support to Solidarity. This all but forced Jaruzelski, who had been named president in July, to appoint a Solidarity member as prime minister. Finally, he appointed a Solidarity-led coalition government with Tadeusz Mazowiecki as the country's first non-communist prime minister since 1948.

The PZPR was disbanded on 30 January 1990, but Wałęsa could be elected as president only eleven months later. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991 and the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991. On 27 October 1991, the 1991 Polish parliamentary election, the first democratic election since the 1920s. This completed Poland's transition from a communist party rule to a Western-style liberal democratic political system. The last post-Soviet troops left Poland on 18 September 1993. After ten years of democratic consolidation, Poland joined OECD in 1996, NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

The government and politics of the Polish People's Republic were dominated by the Polish United Workers' Party ( Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR). Despite the presence of two minor parties, the United People's Party and the Democratic Party, the country was generally reckoned by western nations as a de facto one-party state because these two parties were supposedly completely subservient to the Communists and had to accept the PZPR's "leading role" as a condition of their existence.[citation needed ] It was politically influenced by the Soviet Union to the extent of being its satellite country, along with East Germany, Czechoslovakia and other Eastern Bloc members.[citation needed ]

From 1952, the highest law was the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic, and the Polish Council of State replaced the presidency of Poland. Elections were held on the single lists of the Front of National Unity. Despite these changes, Poland was one of the most liberal communist nations and was the only communist country in the world which did not have any communist symbols ( red star, stars, ears of wheat, or hammer and sickle) on its flag and coat of arms. The White Eagle founded by Polish monarchs in the Middle Ages remained as Poland's national emblem; the only feature removed by the communists from the pre-war design was the crown, which was seen as imperialistic and monarchist.

The Polish People's Republic maintained a large standing army and hosted Soviet troops in its territory, as Poland was a Warsaw Pact signatory. The UB and succeeding SB were the chief intelligence agencies that acted as secret police. The official police organization, which was also responsible for peacekeeping and suppression of protests, was renamed Citizens' Militia (MO). The Militia's elite ZOMO squads committed various serious crimes to maintain the communists in power, including the harsh treatment of protesters, arrest of opposition leaders and in some cases, murder. According to Rudolph J. Rummel, at least 22,000 people killed by the regime during its rule.[page needed ] As a result, Poland had a high imprisonment rate but one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

During its existence, the Polish People's Republic maintained relations not only with the Soviet Union, but several communist states around the world. It also had friendly relations with the United States, United Kingdom, France, and the Western Bloc as well as the People's Republic of China. At the height of the Cold War, Poland attempted to remain neutral to the conflict between the Soviets and the Americans. In particular, Edward Gierek sought to establish Poland as a mediator between the two powers in the 1970s. Both the U.S. presidents and the Soviet general secretaries or leaders visited communist Poland.

Under pressure from the USSR, Poland participated in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Poland's relations with Israel were on a fair level following the aftermath of the Holocaust. In 1947, the PRL voted in favour of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which led to Israel's recognition by the PRL on 19 May 1948. However, by the Six-Day War, it severed diplomatic relations with Israel in June 1967 and supported the Palestine Liberation Organization which recognized the State of Palestine on 14 December 1988. In 1989, PRL restored relations with Israel.

The PRL participated as a member of the UN, the World Trade Organization, the Warsaw Pact, Comecon, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, and Interkosmos.

Poland suffered tremendous economic losses during World War II. In 1939, Poland had 35.1 million inhabitants, but the census of 14 February 1946 showed only 23.9 million inhabitants. The difference was partially the result of the border revision. Losses in national resources and infrastructure amounted to approximately 38%. The implementation of the immense tasks involved with the reconstruction of the country was intertwined with the struggle of the new government for the stabilisation of power, made even more difficult by the fact that a considerable part of society was mistrustful of the communist government. The occupation of Poland by the Red Army and the support the Soviet Union had shown for the Polish communists was decisive in the communists gaining the upper hand in the new Polish government.

As control of the Polish territories passed from occupying forces of Nazi Germany to the subsequent occupying forces of the Soviet Union, and from the Soviet Union to the Soviet-imposed puppet satellite government, Poland's new economic system was forcibly imposed and began moving towards a radical, communist centrally planned economy. One of the first major steps in that direction involved the agricultural reform issued by the Polish Committee of National Liberation government on 6 September 1944. All estates over 0.5 km ² in pre-war Polish territories and all over 1 km ² in former German territories were nationalised without compensation. In total, 31,000 km ² of land were nationalised in Poland and 5 million in the former German territories, out of which 12,000 km ² were redistributed to farmers and the rest remained in the hands of the government (Most of this was eventually used in the collectivization and creation of sovkhoz-like State Agricultural Farms "PGR"). However, the collectivization of Polish farming never reached the same extent as it did in the Soviet Union or other countries of the Eastern Bloc.

Nationalisation began in 1944, with the pro-Soviet government taking over industries in the newly acquired territories along with the rest of the country. As nationalization was unpopular, the communists delayed the nationalization reform until 1946, when after the 3xTAK referendums they were fairly certain they had total control of the state and could deal a heavy blow to eventual public protests. Some semi-official nationalisation of various private enterprises had begun also in 1944. In 1946, all enterprises with over 50 employees were nationalised, with no compensation to Polish owners.

The Allied punishment of Germany for the war of destruction was intended to include large-scale reparations to Poland. However, those were truncated into insignificance by the break-up of Germany into East and West and the onset of the Cold War. Poland was then relegated to receive her share from the Soviet-controlled East Germany. However, even this was attenuated, as the Soviets pressured the Polish Government to cease receiving the reparations far ahead of schedule as a sign of 'friendship' between the two new communist neighbors and, therefore, now friends. Thus, without the reparations and without the massive Marshall Plan implemented in the West at that time, Poland's postwar recovery was much harder than it could have been.

During the Gierek era, Poland borrowed large sums from Western creditors in exchange for promise of social and economic reforms. None of these have been delivered due to resistance from the hardline communist leadership as any true reforms would require effectively abandoning the Marxian economy with central planning, state-owned enterprises and state-controlled prices and trade. After the West refused to grant Poland further loans, the living standards began to sharply fall again as the supply of imported goods dried up, and as Poland was forced to export everything it could, particularly food and coal, to service its massive debt, which would reach US$23 billion by 1980.

In 1981, Poland notified Club de Paris (a group of Western-European central banks) about its insolvency and a number of negotiations of repaying its foreign debt were completed between 1989 and 1991.

The party was forced to raise prices, which led to further large-scale social unrest and formation of the Solidarity movement. During the Solidarity years and the imposition of martial law, Poland entered a decade of economic crisis, officially acknowledged as such even by the regime. Rationing and queuing became a way of life, with ration cards ( Kartki) necessary to buy even such basic consumer staples as milk and sugar. Access to Western luxury goods became even more restricted, as Western governments applied economic sanctions to express their dissatisfaction with the government repression of the opposition, while at the same time the government had to use most of the foreign currency it could obtain to pay the crushing rates on its foreign debt.

In response to this situation, the government, which controlled all official foreign trade, continued to maintain a highly artificial exchange rate with Western currencies. The exchange rate worsened distortions in the economy at all levels, resulting in a growing black market and the development of a shortage economy. The only way for an individual to buy most Western goods was to use Western currencies, notably the U.S. dollar, which in effect became a parallel currency. However, it could not simply be exchanged at the official banks for zlotys, since the government exchange rate undervalued the dollar and placed heavy restrictions on the amount that could be exchanged, and so the only practical way to obtain it was from remittances or work outside the country. An entire illegal industry of street-corner money changers emerged as a result. The so-called Cinkciarze gave clients far better than official exchange rate and became wealthy from their opportunism albeit at the risk of punishment, usually diminished by the wide scale bribery of the Militia.

As Western currency came into the country from emigrant families and foreign workers, the government in turn attempted to gather it up by various means, most visibly by establishing a chain of state-run and Baltona stores in all Polish cities, where goods could only be bought with hard currency. It even introduced its own U.S. currency ( bony PeKaO in Polish). This paralleled the financial practices in East Germany running its own ration stamps at the same time. The trend led to an unhealthy state of affairs where the chief determinant of economic status was access to hard currency. This situation was incompatible with any remaining ideals of socialism, which were soon completely abandoned at the community level.

In this desperate situation, all development and growth in the Polish economy slowed to a crawl. Most visibly, work on most of the major investment projects that had begun in the 1970s was stopped. As a result, most Polish cities acquired at least one infamous example of a large unfinished building languishing in a state of limbo. While some of these were eventually finished decades later, most, such as the Szkieletor skyscraper in Kraków, were never finished at all, wasting the considerable resources devoted to their construction. Polish investment in economic infrastructure and technological development fell rapidly, ensuring that the country lost whatever ground it had gained relative to Western European economies in the 1970s. To escape the constant economic and political pressures during these years, and the general sense of hopelessness, many family income providers traveled for work in Western Europe, particularly West Germany ( Wyjazd na saksy). During the era, hundreds of thousands of Poles left the country permanently and settled in the West, few of them returning to Poland even after the end of socialism in Poland. Tens of thousands of others went to work in countries that could offer them salaries in hard currency, notably Libya and Iraq.

After several years of the situation continuing to worsen, during which time the socialist government unsuccessfully tried various expedients to improve the performance of the economy-at one point resorting to placing military commissars to direct work in the factories - it grudgingly accepted pressures to liberalize the economy. The government introduced a series of small-scale reforms, such as allowing more small-scale private enterprises to function. However, the government also realized that it lacked the legitimacy to carry out any large-scale reforms, which would inevitably cause large-scale social dislocation and economic difficulties for most of the population, accustomed to the extensive social safety net that the socialist system had provided. For example, when the government proposed to close the Gdańsk Shipyard, a decision in some ways justifiable from an economic point of view but also largely political, there was a wave of public outrage and the government was forced to back down.

The only way to carry out such changes without social upheaval would be to acquire at least some support from the opposition side. The government accepted the idea that some kind of a deal with the opposition would be necessary, and repeatedly attempted to find common ground throughout the 1980s. However, at this point the communists generally still believed that they should retain the reins of power for the near future, and only allowed the opposition limited, advisory participation in the running of the country. They believed that this would be essential to pacifying the Soviet Union, which they felt was not yet ready to accept a non-Communist Poland.

The origins of Polish television date back to the late 1930s, however, the beginning of World War II interrupted further progress at establishing a regularly televised program. The first prime state television corporation, Telewizja Polska, was founded after the war in 1952 and was hailed as a great success by the communist authorities. The foundation date corresponds to the time of the very first regularly televised broadcast which occurred at 07:00 p.m CET on 25 October 1952. Initially, the auditions were broadcast to a limited number of viewers and at set dates, often a month apart. On 23 January 1953 regular shows began to appear on the first and only channel, TVP1. The second channel, TVP2, was launched in 1970 and coloured television was introduced in 1971. Most reliable sources of information in the 1950s were newspapers, most notably Trybuna Ludu (People's Tribune).

The chief newscast under the Polish People's Republic for over 31 years was Dziennik Telewizyjny (Television Journal). Commonly known to the viewers as Dziennik, aired in the years 1958-1989 and was utilized by the Polish United Workers' Party as a propaganda tool to control the masses. Transmitted daily at 07:30 p.m CET since 1965, it was infamous for its manipulative techniques and emotive language as well as the controversial content. For instance, the Dziennik provided more information on world news, particularly bad events, war, corruption or scandals in the West. This method was intentionally used to minimize the effects of the issues that were occurring in communist Poland at the time. With its format, the show shared many similarities with the East German Aktuelle Kamera. Throughout the 1970s, Dziennik Telewizyjny was regularly watched by over 11 million viewers, approximately in every third household in the Polish People's Republic. The long legacy of communist television continues to this day; the older generation in contemporary Poland refers to every televised news program as "Dziennik" and the term also became synonymous with authoritarianism, propaganda, manipulation, lies, deception and disinformation.

Under martial law in Poland, from December 1981 Dziennik was presented by officers of the Polish Armed Forces or newsreaders in military uniforms and broadcast 24-hours a day. The running time has also been extended to 60 minutes. The program returned to its original form in 1983. The audience viewed this move as an attempt to militarize the country under a military junta. As a result, several newsreaders had difficulty in finding employment after the fall of communism in 1989.

Despite the political agenda of Telewizja Polska, the authorities did emphasize the need to provide entertainment for younger viewers without exposing the children to inappropriate content. Initially created in the 1950s, an evening cartoon block called Dobranocka, which was targeted at young children, is still broadcast today under a different format. Among the most well-known animations of the 1970s and 1980s in Poland were , Bolek and Lolek, (Polish: Krecik) and The Moomins.

Countless shows were made relating to Second World War history such as Four Tank-Men and a Dog (1966-1970) and Stakes Larger Than Life with Kapitan Kloss (1967-1968), but were purely fictional and not based on real events. The horrors of war, Soviet invasion and the Holocaust were taboo topics, avoided and downplayed when possible. In most cases, producers and directors were encouraged to portray the Soviet Red Army as a friendly and victorious force which entirely liberated Poland from Nazism, Imperialism or Capitalism. The goal was to strengthen the artificial Polish-Soviet friendship and eliminate any knowledge of the crimes or acts of terror committed by the Soviets during World War II, such as the Katyn massacre. Hence, the Polish audience were more lenient towards a TV series exclusively featuring Polish history from the times of the Kingdom of Poland or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Being produced in a then-socialist country, the shows did contain a socialist agenda, but with a more informal and comical tone; they concentrated on everyday life which was appealing to ordinary people. These include Czterdziestolatek (1975-1978), Alternatywy 4 (1986-1987) and (1987-1988). The wide range of topics covered featured petty disputes in the block of flats, work issues, human behaviour and interaction as well as comedy, sarcasm, drama and satire. Every televised show was censored if necessary and political content was erased. Ridiculing the communist government was illegal, though Poland remained the most liberal of the Eastern Bloc members and censorship eventually lost its authority by the mid-1980s. The majority of the TV shows and serials made during the Polish People's Republic earned a cult status in Poland today, particularly due to their symbolism of a bygone era.

In November 1945 the newly formed communist government founded the film production and distribution corporation Film Polski, and placed the well-known Polish filmmaker of Jewish descent Aleksander Ford in charge. The Film Polski output was limited; only thirteen features were released between 1947 and its dissolution in 1952, concentrating on Polish suffering at the hands of the Nazis during World War II for propaganda purposes. In 1947, Ford's contribution to film was crucial in establishing the new National Film School in Łódź, where he taught for 20 years. The first film produced in Poland following the war was Forbidden Songs (1946), which was seen by 10.8 million people in its initial theatrical screening, almost half of the population at the time. Ford's biggest success was Knights of the Teutonic Order from 1960, one of the most celebrated and attended Polish films in history.

The change in political climate in the 1950s gave rise to the Polish Film School movement, a training ground for some of the icons of the world cinematography. It was then that independent Polish filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polanski, Wojciech Has, Kieślowski, Zanussi, Bareja and Andrzej Munk often directed films which were a political satire aimed at stultifying the communist authorities in the most gentle manner as possible. However, due to censorship, some films were not screened in cinemas until 1989 when communism ended in Central and Eastern Europe. The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) was so controversial, the communist government forbade Wojciech Has to direct for a period of ten years. The authorities also hired or bribed film critics and literary scholars to poorly review the film. The reviewers, however, were so ineffective that in turn the film was applauded in the West and won the Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.

The first nominated Polish film at the Academy Awards was Knife in the Water by Polanski in 1963. Between 1974 and 1981, Polish films were nominated five times and three consecutively from 1974 to 1976.

The architecture in Poland under the Polish People's Republic had three major phases - short-lived socialist realism, modernism and functionalism. Each of these styles or trends was either imposed by the government or communist doctrine.

Under Stalinism in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Eastern Bloc countries adopted socialist realism, an idealized and monumental realistic art intended to promote communist values, such as the emancipation of the proletariat. This style became alternatively known as Stalinist Empire style due to its grandeur, excessive size and political message (a powerful state) it tried to convey. This expensive form greatly resembled a mixture of classicist architecture and Art Deco, with archways, decorated cornices, mosaics, forged gates and columns. It was under this style that the first skyscrapers were erected in communist states. Stalin wanted to assure that Poland will remain under communist yoke and ordered the construction of one of the largest buildings in Europe at the time, the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. With the permission of the Polish authorities who wouldn't dare to object, the construction started in 1952 and lasted until 1955. It was deemed a "gift from the Soviet Union to the Polish people" and at 237 meters in height it was an impressive landmark on European standards. With its proportions and shape it was to mediate between the Seven Sisters in Moscow and the Empire State Building in New York, but with style it possesses traditionally Polish and Art Deco architectural details.

Following the Polish October in 1956, the concept of socialist realism was condemned. It was then that modernist architecture was promoted globally, with simplistic designs made of glass, steel and concrete. Due to previous extravagances, the idea of functionalism (serving for a purpose) was encouraged by Władysław Gomułka. Prefabrication was seen as a way to construct tower blocks or plattenbau in an efficient and orderly manner. A great influence on this type of architecture was Swiss-French architect and designer Le Corbusier. Mass-prefabricated multi-family residential apartment blocks began to appear in Poland in the 1960s and their construction continued until the early 1990s, although the first examples of multi-dwelling units in Poland date back to the 1920s. The aim was to quickly urbanize rural areas, create space between individual blocks for green spaces and resettle people from densely-populated poorer districts to increase living conditions. The apartment blocks in Poland, commonly known as bloki, were built on East German and Czechoslovak standards, alongside department stores, pavilions and public spaces. As of 2017, 44% of Poles reside in blocks built between the 1960s and 1980s.

Some groundbreaking architectural achievements were made during the People's Republic, most notably the reconstruction of Warsaw with its historical Old Town and the completion of Warszawa Centralna railway station in the 1970s under Edward Gierek's personal patronage. It was the most modern railway station building in that part of Europe when completed and was equipped with automatic glass doors and escalators, an unlikely sight in communist countries. Another example of pure late modernism was the Smyk Department Store, constructed in 1952 when socialist realism was still in effect; it was criticized for its appearance as it resembled the styles and motifs of the pre-war capitalist Second Polish Republic.

Communist authorities placed an emphasis on education since they considered it vital to create a new intelligentsia or an educated class that would accept and favour socialist ideas over capitalism to maintain the communists in power for a long period.

Prior to the Second World War, education in the capitalist Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) had many limitations and wasn't readily available to all, though under the 1932 Jędrzejewicz reform primary school was made compulsory. Furthermore, the pre-war system of education was in disarray; many educational facilities were much more accessible in wealthier western and central Poland than in the rural east (Kresy), particularly in the Polesie region where there was one large school per 100 square kilometers (39 square miles). Schools were also in desperate need of staff, tutors and teachers before 1939.

After the 1947 Polish legislative election, the communists took full control of the education in the newly formed Polish People's Republic. All private schools were nationalized, subjects that could question the socialist ideology (economics, finance) were either supervised or adjusted and religious studies were completely removed from the curriculum ( secularization).

Primary as well as secondary, tertiary, vocational and higher education was made free. Attendance gradually grew, which put an end to illiteracy in rural areas. The communist government also introduced new beneficial content into the system; sports and physical education were enforced and students were encouraged to learn foreign languages, especially German, Russian or French and from the 1980s also English. On July 15, 1961, two-year vocational career training was made obligatory to boost the number of skilled labourers and the minimum age of graduation rose to 15. Additionally, special schools were established for deaf, mute and blind children. Such institutions for the impaired were almost nonexistent in the Second Polish Republic. During the 1960s, thousands of modern schools were founded.

The experiences in and after World War II, wherein the large ethnic Polish population was decimated, its Jewish minority was annihilated by the Germans, the large German minority was forcibly expelled from the country at the end of the war, along with the loss of the eastern territories which had a significant population of Eastern Orthodox Belarusians and Ukrainians, led to Poland becoming more homogeneously Catholic than it had been.

The Polish anti-religious campaign was initiated by the communist government in Poland which, under the doctrine of Marxism, actively advocated for the disenfranchisement of religion and planned atheisation. The Catholic Church, as the religion of most Poles, was seen as a rival competing for the citizens' allegiance by the government, which attempted to suppress it. To this effect the communist state conducted anti-religious propaganda and persecution of clergymen and monasteries. As in most other Communist countries, religion was not outlawed as such (an exception being Communist Albania) and was permitted by the constitution, but the state attempted to achieve an atheistic society.

The Catholic Church in Poland provided strong resistance to Communist rule and Poland itself had a long history of dissent to foreign rule. The Polish nation rallied to the Church, as had occurred in neighbouring Lithuania, which made it more difficult for the government to impose its antireligious policies as it had in the USSR, where the populace did not hold mass solidarity with the Russian Orthodox Church. It became the strongest anti-communist body during the epoch of Communism in Poland, and provided a more successful resistance than had religious bodies in most other Communist states.

The Catholic Church unequivocally condemned communist ideology. This led to the antireligious activity in Poland being compelled to take a more cautious and conciliatory line than in other Communist countries, largely failing in their attempt to control or suppress the Polish Church.

The state attempted to take control of minority churches, including the Polish Protestant and Polish Orthodox Church in order to use it as a weapon against the anti-communist efforts of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, and it attempted to control the person who was named as Metropolitan for the Polish Orthodox Church; Metropolitan Dionizy (the post-war head of the POC) was arrested and retired from service after his release.

Before World War II, a third of Poland's population was composed of ethnic minorities. After the war, however, Poland's minorities were mostly gone, due to the 1945 revision of borders, and the Holocaust. Under the National Repatriation Office ( Państwowy Urząd Repatriacyjny), millions of Poles were forced to leave their homes in the eastern Kresy region and settle in the western former German territories. At the same time, approximately 5 million remaining Germans (about 8 million had already fled or had been expelled and about 1 million had been killed in 1944-46) were similarly expelled from those territories into the Allied occupation zones. Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities found themselves now mostly within the borders of the Soviet Union; those who opposed this new policy (like the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the Bieszczady Mountains region) were suppressed by the end of 1947 in the Operation Vistula.

The population of Jews in Poland, which formed the largest Jewish community in pre-war Europe at about 3.3 million people, was all but destroyed by 1945. Approximately 3 million Jews died of starvation in ghettos and labor camps, were slaughtered at the German Nazi extermination camps or by the Einsatzgruppen death squads. Between 40,000 and 100,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust in Poland, and another 50,000 to 170,000 were repatriated from the Soviet Union, and 20,000 to 40,000 from Germany and other countries. At its postwar peak, there were 180,000 to 240,000 Jews in Poland, settled mostly in Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków and Wrocław.

According to the national census, which took place on 14 February 1946, population of Poland was 23.9 million, out of which 32% lived in cities and towns, and 68% lived in the countryside. The 1950 census (3 December 1950) showed the population rise to 25 million, and the 1960 census (6 December 1960) placed the population of Poland at 29.7 million. In 1950, Warsaw was again the biggest city, with the population of 804,000 inhabitants. Second was Łódź (pop. 620,000), then Kraków (pop. 344,000), Poznań (pop. 321,000), and Wrocław (pop. 309,000).

Females were in the majority in the country. In 1931, there were 105.6 women for 100 men. In 1946, the difference grew to 118.5/100, but in subsequent years, number of males grew, and in 1960, the ratio was 106.7/100.

Most Germans were expelled from Poland and the annexed east German territories at the end of the war, while many Ukrainians, Rusyns and Belarusians lived in territories incorporated into the USSR. Small Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, and Lithuanian minorities resided along the borders, and a German minority was concentrated near the southwestern city of Opole and in Masuria. Groups of Ukrainians and Polish Ruthenians also lived in western Poland, where they were forcefully resettled by the authorities.

As a result of the migrations and the Soviet Unions radically altered borders under the rule of Joseph Stalin, the population of Poland became one of the most ethnically homogeneous in the world. Virtually all people in Poland claim Polish nationality, with Polish as their native tongue.

The Polish People's Army (LWP) was initially formed during World War II as the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division, but more commonly known as the Berling Army. Almost half of the soldiers and recruits in the Polish People's Army were Soviet. In March 1945, Red Army officers accounted for approximately 52% of the entire corps (15,492 out of 29,372). Around 4,600 of them remained by July 1946.

It was not the only Polish formation that fought along the Allied side, nor the first one in the East - although the first Polish force formed in the USSR, the Anders Army, had by that time moved to Iran. The Polish forces soon grew beyond the 1st Division into two major commands - the Polish First Army commanded by Zygmunt Berling, and the Polish Second Army headed by Karol Świerczewski. The Polish First Army participated in the Vistula-Oder Offensive and the Battle of Kolberg (1945) before taking part in its final offensive with the Battle of Berlin.

Following the Second World War, the Polish Army was reorganized into six (later seven) main military districts: the Warsaw Military District with its headquarters in Warsaw, the Lublin Military District, Kraków Military District, Łódź Military District, Poznań Military District, the Pomeranian Military District with its headquarters in Toruń and the Silesian Military District in Katowice.

Throughout the late 1940s and early 50s the Polish Army was under the command of Polish-born Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Rokossovsky, who was intentionally given the title " Marshal of Poland" and was also Minister of National Defense. It was heavily tied into the Soviet military structures and was intended to increase Soviet influence as well as control over the Polish units in case of war. This process, however, was stopped in the aftermath of the Polish October in 1956. Rokossovsky, viewed as a Soviet puppet, was excluded from the Polish United Workers' Party and driven out back to the Soviet Union where he remained a hero until death.

Geographically, the Polish People's Republic bordered the Baltic Sea to the North; the Soviet Union (via the Russian SFSR ( Kaliningrad Oblast), Lithuanian, Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs) to the east; Czechoslovakia to the south and East Germany to the west. After World War II, Poland's borders were redrawn, following the decision taken at the Tehran Conference of 1943 at the insistence of the Soviet Union. Poland lost 77,000 km ² of territory in its eastern regions ( Kresy), gaining instead the smaller but much more industrialized (however ruined) so-called " Regained Territories" east of the Oder-Neisse line.

The Polish People's Republic was divided into several voivodeships (the Polish unit of administrative division). After World War II, the new administrative divisions were based on the pre-war ones. The areas in the East that were not annexed by the Soviet Union had their borders left almost unchanged. Newly acquired territories in the west and north were organized into the voivodeships of Szczecin, Wrocław, Olsztyn and partially joined to Gdańsk, Katowice and Poznań voivodeships. Two cities were granted voivodeship status: Warsaw and Łódź.

In 1950, new voivodeships were created: Koszalin - previously part of Szczecin, Opole - previously part of Katowice, and Zielona Góra - previously part of Poznań, Wrocław and Szczecin voivodeships. In addition, three other cities were granted the voivodeship status: Wrocław, Kraków and Poznań.

In 1973, Poland's voivodeships were changed again. This reorganization of the administrative division of Poland was mainly a result of local government reform acts of 1973 to 1975. In place of three-level administrative division (voivodeship, county, commune), a new two-level administrative division was introduced (49 small voidships and communes). The three smallest voivodeships: Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź had a special status of municipal voivodeship; the city mayor ( prezydent miasta) was also province governor.

Ekiert, Grzegorz (March 1997). "Rebellious Poles: Political Crises and Popular Protest Under State Socialism, 1945-89". East European Politics and Societies. American Council of Learned Societies. 11 (2): 299-338. doi:10.1177/0888325497011002006. S2CID 144514807.

Kuroń, Jacek; Żakowski, Jacek (1995). PRL dla początkujących (in Polish). Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie. pp. 348 pages. ISBN 83-7023-461-5.

Pucci, M. (14 July 2020). Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe. Yale-Hoover Series on Authoritarian Regimes. Yale University Press.

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The Polish People's Republic ( Polish: Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million near the end of its existence, it was the second most-populous communist and Eastern Bloc country in Europe.

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The March 1949 Syrian coup d'état was a bloodless coup d'état that took place on 30 March, and was the first military coup in modern Syrian history which overthrew the country's democratically elected government. It was led by the Syrian Army chief of staff, Husni al-Za'im, who became President of Syria on 11 April 1949. Among the officers that assisted al-Za'im's takeover were Sami al-Hinnawi and Adib al-Shishakli, both of whom in sequence would later also become military leaders of the country. The president, Shukri al-Quwatli, was accused of purchasing inferior arms for the Syrian Army and poor leadership. He was briefly imprisoned, but then released into exile in Egypt. Syria's legislature, then called the House of Representatives, was dissolved. al-Za'im also imprisoned many political leaders, such as Munir al-Ajlani, whom he accused of conspiring to overthrow the republic.

As recounted by the British military attaché in Syria, Za'im began plotting a coup two years in advance, starting in March 1947. On March 29, 1949, chief of staff Za'im provided four of his senior officers with instructions outlining their roles in the coup; the officers were told to wait until midnight to view the instructions, and to do so in complete privacy. The coup commenced at 2:30 a.m. on March 30, and proved to be "a masterpiece of military planning, bloodless apart from the deaths of three bodyguards attached to a government minister." Quwatli, ill with "a gastric ulcer and heart complaint," was arrested in hospital by one of six military units that ferreted through Damascus, systematically capturing key government buildings. The Syrian national anthem, and a message from Za'im announcing the change in government, began playing over the radio near dawn.

There are "highly controversial" allegations that the American legation in Syria-headed by James Hugh Keeley, Jr.-and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) engineered the coup. Assistant military attaché (and undercover CIA officer) Stephen J. Meade, who became intimately acquainted with Colonel Za'im several weeks prior to the coup and was considered Za'im's "principal Western confidant" during Za'im's brief time in power, has been described as the coup's architect-along with the CIA's Damascus station chief, Miles Copeland Jr. Copeland later authored several books with "extraordinarily detailed accounts of CIA operations in, among other countries, Syria, Egypt, and Iran," considered "one of the most revelatory set of writings by a former U.S. intelligence officer ever published." However, Copeland's memoirs have a strong literary quality and contain many embellishments, making it difficult to gauge the historical accuracy of the events he describes. Moreover, Copeland's account of the Syrian coup in his 1989 autobiography The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative contradicts the earlier version presented in his 1969 The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics.

In The Game of Nations, Copeland suggested that Syria-as the first former colony in the Arab world to achieve complete political independence from Europe-was perceived in Washington as a test case for America's "capacity for exerting a democratizing influence on Arab countries." According to Copeland, the CIA attempted to "police" the July 1947 Syrian national elections, which were marred by fraud, sectarianism, and interference by neighboring Iraq and Transjordan. When these elections "produced a weak, minority government" under Quwatli-the stability of which was called into question by Syria's defeat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War-Keeley and other U.S. officials became concerned "that Syria was on the verge of complete collapse," which could have empowered the Syrian Communist Party or other "radicals" (such as the Ba'ath Party and the Muslim Brotherhood). As a result, Keeley became amenable to a military coup "as a way of safeguarding ... the long-term prospects of democracy in the country." At Keeley's behest, Copeland wrote, Meade "systematically developed a friendship with Za'im ... suggested to him the idea of a coup d'état, advised him how to go about it, and guided him through the intricate preparations in laying the groundwork for it."

Available evidence, however, suggests that Za'im was in little need of prodding from the U.S. Recall that, per the British military attaché, Za'im had been contemplating a coup since March 1947-over a year before he was introduced to Meade on November 30, 1948. Shortly before the coup, Za'im tried to win Western sympathy by producing a list of individuals, including Keeley, that were supposedly "communist assassination targets," but U.S. officials were skeptical. While Za'im directly informed Meade of the upcoming coup on March 3 and March 7, the U.S. was not the only foreign power apprised: Za'im notified British officials around the same time. In his conversations with Meade, Za'im outlined his progressive political program for Syria (including land reform) as well as the communist threat, concluding "[there is] only way to start the Syrian people along the road to progress and democracy: With the whip." Za'im struck a different tone in his conversations with the British, citing his desire to establish friendlier ties with Britain's major allies in the area-Iraq and Transjordan. In The Game Player, Copeland provided new details on the American assistance to Za'im's plan, expounding that Meade identified specific installations that had to be captured to ensure the coup's success. However, Copeland also acknowledged that Za'im had initiated the plot on his own: "It was Husni's show all the way."

Douglas Little notes that U.S. assistant secretary of state George C. McGhee visited Damascus in March, "ostensibly to discuss resettling Palestinian refugees but possibly to authorize U.S. support for Za'im." In contrast, Andrew Rathmell describes this hypothesis as "purely speculative."

An overarching US policy objective in Syria at the time was allowing the construction of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, which had been held up in the Syrian parliament. Za'im approved the "Tapline" project on May 16.

Armistice talks with Israel to end hostilities of the 1948 war started in April 1949, after armistice agreements had already been concluded by the other Arab countries. On 20 July 1949 Syria signed the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement to formally end hostilities along their border. Under the agreement, Syria withdrew its forces from most of the territories of the former Mandate Palestine that it controlled west of the international border, which became a demilitarized zone. In 1948, there were approximately 30,000 Jews in Syria. Following the coup, the Za'im administration permitted the emigration of large numbers of Syrian Jews, and 5,000 left for Israel.

Prime Minister Muhsin al-Barazi was given the task of conducting secret negotiations with Israel for a peace treaty between the two countries, and to discuss a possible summit between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and al-Zaim. The talks reached advanced levels and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett contacted al-Barazi on 6 August 1949 to discuss a date for formal peace talks.

Al-Za'im inspired rebellion among his officers by betraying Antoun Saadeh, the founder and president of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). Saadeh had pledged to set up a friendly government in Lebanon, but on 8 July al-Za'im abducted Saadeh and handed him over to the Lebanese authorities, who tried him for treason and executed him on the same day.

Al-Za'im's short-lived presidency ended on 14 August 1949 in a military coup staged by Sami al-Hinnawi, along with several other SSNP officers, who promptly executed al-Za'im and al-Barazi, and installed Hashim al-Atassi as president. Another military coup took place in December, the third of that year, this time led by Adib Shishakli, who kept al-Atassi as president until 3 December 1951. al-Hinnawi was murdered on 31 October 1950 by Hersho al-Barazi, a cousin of Muhsin al-Barazi.

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March 1949 Syrian coup d'état - Wikipedia

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The March 1949 Syrian coup d'état was a bloodless coup d'état that took place on 30 March, and was the first military coup in modern Syrian history which overthrew the country's democratically elected government. It was led by the Syrian Army chief of staff, Husni al-Za'im, who became President of Syria on 11 April 1949.

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The Soviet Union played a significant role in the Arab-Israeli conflict as the conflict was a major part of the Cold War. For related developments after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, see Russia and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Marxism-Leninism and Zionism

The official Soviet ideological position on Zionism condemned the movement as akin to bourgeois nationalism. Vladimir Lenin, claiming to be deeply committed to egalitarian ideals and universality of all humanity, rejected Zionism as a reactionary movement, "bourgeois nationalism", "socially retrogressive", and a backward force that deprecates class divisions among Jews. Soviets believed that the main objective of the Zionist movement was to bring about a mass immigration of Jews into Israel from countries where they had been scattered among the general population, with a special emphasis placed on the Soviet Union. Under Joseph Stalin's rule, he initially accepted a limited emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union into Israel in order to invest in what he hoped for would be a socialist Israel. Those plans and other Soviet foreign policy indeed ended up having an impact, with Socialist parties like the Mapai and Mapam dominating the political landscape of Israel until the 1970s.[citation needed ] However, the later exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union can be interpreted as a brain drain that would affect the Soviet nation.[citation needed ]

Establishment of the State of Israel

For Soviet foreign policy decision-makers, pragmatism took precedence over ideology. Without changing its official anti-Zionist stance, from late 1944, until 1948 and even later, Joseph Stalin adopted a pro-Zionist foreign policy, apparently believing that the new country would be socialist and would accelerate the decline of British influence in the Middle East.

The USSR began to support Zionism at the UN during the 1947 UN Partition Plan debate. It preferred a Jewish-Arab binational state. But if this proved impossible it indicated that it would support partition and a Jewish state. On 14 May 1947, the Soviet ambassador Andrei Gromyko announced:

As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof. ... During the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering. ...

The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter. ...

The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defence of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration.

Shortly after this speech, the Soviet media temporarily stopped publishing anti-Zionist material.

It followed this policy and gave support to the UN plan to partition the British Mandate of Palestine, which led to the founding of the State of Israel.

On May 17, 1948, three days after Israel declared independence, the Soviet Union legally recognized it , becoming the first country to grant de jure recognition to the Jewish state. In addition to the diplomatic support, arms from Czechoslovakia, part of the Soviet bloc, were crucial to Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Effects of the Cold War

The USSR soon switched sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict. After it tried to maintain a policy of friendship with Israel at first, abstaining from and allowing the passage of Security Council Resolution 95 in September 1951, which chastised Egypt for preventing ships bound for Israeli ports from travelling through the Suez Canal, asking them to cease interference on shipping for political purposes, in the latter part of 1953 it began to side with the Arabs in armistice violation discussions in the Security Council. As late as December, 1953, the Soviets were the first state to instruct their envoy to present his credentials to the President of Israel in Jerusalem, the Israeli annexation of and usage as the capital being controversial. This move was followed by other nations and strongly protested by the Arabs as "flouting" UN resolutions. On January 22, 1954 the Soviets vetoed a Security Council resolution (relating to a Syrian-Israeli water dispute) because of Arab objections for the first time, and soon after vetoed even a mild resolution expressing "grave concern" that Egypt was not living up to Security Council Resolution 95. This elicited Israeli complaints that resolutions recognizing its rights could not pass because of the Soviet veto policy. At the same time, however, the Soviets did support the Israeli demand for direct negotiations with the Arab states, which the Arab states opposed. Like the earlier deal with Israel, a major episode in the Soviet relation to the conflict was the Czech arms deal with Egypt for arms from the Soviet bloc in August 1955. After the mid-50s and throughout the remainder of the Cold War the Soviets unequivocally supported various Arab regimes over Israel.

With Israel emerging as a close Western ally, Zionism raised Communist leadership fears of internal dissent and opposition arising from the substantial segment of party members who were Jewish, leading to the declaration of Zionism as an ideological enemy. During the later parts of the Cold War Soviet Jews were persecuted as possible traitors, Western sympathisers, or a security liability. Jewish organizations were closed down, with the exception of a few token synagogues. These synagogues were then placed under police surveillance, both openly and through the use of informers.

As a result of the persecution, both state-sponsored and unofficial anti-Semitism became deeply ingrained in the society and remained a fact for years: ordinary Soviet Jews were often not being allowed to enter universities or hired to work in certain professions. Many were barred from participation in the government, and had to bear being openly humiliated.

The official position of the Soviet Union and its satellite states and agencies was that Zionism was a tool used by the Jews and Americans for "racist imperialism." The meaning of the term Zionism was defined by the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union: "the main posits of modern Zionism are militant chauvinism, racism, anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism... overt and covert fight against freedom movements and the USSR."

Howard Sachar described the allegations of global Jewish conspiracy resurrected during the Soviet "anti-Zionist" campaign in the wake of the Six-Day War:

"In late July 1967, Moscow launched an unprecedented propaganda campaign against Zionism as a "world threat." Defeat was attributed not to tiny Israel alone, but to an "all-powerful international force." ... In its flagrant vulgarity, the new propaganda assault soon achieved Nazi-era characteristics. The Soviet public was saturated with racist canards. Extracts from Trofim Kichko's notorious 1963 volume, Judaism Without Embellishment, were extensively republished in the Soviet media. Yuri Ivanov's Beware: Zionism, a book essentially replicated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was given nationwide coverage."

A similar picture was drawn by Paul Johnson: the mass media "all over the Soviet Union portrayed the Zionists (i.e. Jews) and Israeli leaders as engaged in a world-wide conspiracy along the lines of the old Protocols of Zion. It was, Sovietskaya Latvia wrote 5 August 1967, an 'international Cosa Nostra with a common centre, common programme and common funds'". The Israeli government was also referred to as a " terrorist regime" which "has raised terror to the level of state politics." Even regarding the Entebbe hostage crisis, Soviet media reported: " Israel committed an act of aggression against Uganda, assaulting the Entebbe airport."

In March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became the Secretary General of the CPSU and in April he declared perestroika. It took more than six years before Moscow consented to restore diplomatic relations with Israel on October 19, 1991, just 2 months prior to the collapse of the USSR.

Although the Soviet Union had adopted a foreign policy of détente, easing of hostility, in the mid 1960s, it played a key role in the instigation of the Six-Day War in Israel. Soviet Union pursued détente because of the need for economic stability in order to create domestic change. Furthermore, as stated in Brezhnev's foreign policy speech given to the central committee on December 1966, a key goal of Soviet foreign policy was the consolidation of the post-World War II borders. Thus, it was believed that the Soviet Union should be cautious in its foreign engagement in an attempt to prevent any political instability from reaching Europe.

In the 1950s the Soviet Union became allies with Egypt and Syria due to the "Anglo-French debacle at Suez, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the use of the Soviet rouble." Later Egypt and Syria developed a defense treaty, in which if one of them declared war on Israel the other would get involved.

Soviet Relations with Israel had declined since Israel's declaration of independence in 1948. When Levi Eshkol became the Israeli prime minister in 1963, Moscow was nervous, because they weren't sure what direction Eshkol would take in his foreign policy, specifically Soviet-Israeli relations. Initially things seemed to be going better with representatives from Soviet and Israeli governments meeting in June 1965 and January 1966. However relations soon fell apart. On February 23, 1966 Syria had a military coup, in which the new regime Neo-Ba'ath took a more radical position towards Israel, both in rhetoric and action, supporting Palestinian guerilla activity against Israel. Disagreements about Israel led to the development of tensions in the Soviet-Syrian relationship, eventually leading to the Soviets' delaying their arms shipments to Syria, and slowing down on the previously promised Euphrates dam loan.

In the 1960s there were numerous clashes between the Syrians and Israelis on the Syria-Israel border. In October 1966 Palestinian guerilla operation against Israel intensified. One of the most serious of these incidents occurred on April 7, 1967 when Israel destroyed seven of Syria's modern Russian MIG planes. Although the Soviets provided the Syrian army with weapons, they made it clear that they wanted to avoid war. After several more Palestinian guerilla operations, Soviet foreign ministry adopted a "two pronged approach", demanding that Israel stop its aggressive policy toward the Arab countries and telling Iraq, Jordan and Syria that a warning had been sent out and explaining that the Soviet government disproved of any Chinese involvement in the Middle East and the actions of the Palestinian guerrilla organizations.

As tensions between Israel and Syria increased, Israel felt the threat of force was the only deterrent left. On May 12 the Politburo was told that the IDF had formulated a large-scale attack on Syria and was simply waiting for a good time to begin it. A day later, on May 13, 1967 the Soviet's gave the Egyptian President, Gamal Abd al-Nasser an intelligence report that claimed there were Israeli troops gathering on the Syrian border. Dmitri Chuvakhin, Soviet ambassador to Israel, refused an Israeli Invitation to visit the border in order to disprove the report. On May 14, Nasser sent his chief of staff, General Mohamed Fawzi to the border to investigate the report, and was told there were no Israeli troop concentrations. Although, Nasser knew that the Soviet report was wrong, he perhaps interpreted it to indicate Soviet support of an Egyptian offensive towards Israel. On May 15, Nasser sent the Egyptian army to Sinai and on May 18, 1967 Nasser requested that the U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF) withdraw from Egypt. Furthermore, on May 22 he closed the Tiran straits to Israeli ships.

The Israelis interpreted the closing of the straits of Tiran as an act of war, and attacked Egypt on June 5, 1967, destroying hundreds of airplanes. Russia reacted to Israel's offensive in two ways. Firstly it severed diplomatic relations with Israel and threatened sanctions if fighting with Syria did not cease immediately. Secondly, it told the White House that unless Israel stopped military operations, the Soviet Union would get involved. In the following six days Israel achieved massive victories, until the war ended on June 10, 1967 with a cease-fire.

The role the USSR played in the June 1967 war, between the State of Israel and the surrounding Arab countries, remains fiercely debated. Some scholars have argued that Moscow started the war in order to further its position in the area and increase Arab reliance on Soviet aid. Expanding on the notion that a key goal of the Soviet Union in the Middle East in the 1960s was to expand its military presence through the procurement of both naval and air bases.

Furthermore, the Soviets chose to involve Egypt in the conflict due to the fear that an incident between Syria and Israel would likely lead to Syria's defeat. Others claim it was due to miscalculations and the Soviets' lack of control over the Arabs. Another theory was that Moscow was attempting to use the Middle East in order to divert attention from Vietnam. Recently a theory has emerged that claims that the main reason for the Soviet move was to demolish Israel's nuclear development before it had obtained a working atomic weapon.

The Soviets also viewed Israel's victory in the 1967 war as damaging to themselves because this one nation had been able to destroy multiple Arab countries that had been supplied with Soviet military hardware, as well as Soviet military expertise to Egyptian and Syrian advisers. The United States' absolute support towards Israel further exacerbated relations between the Soviet Union and Israel which furthered the Soviet Union's decision to break off diplomatic ties to Israel. Other factors included the fact that Israel was considered to be an actively belligerent state towards its neighboring Arab countries that held prominence in the Soviet Union's Middle East agenda.

References

Further reading

External links

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Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict - Wikipedia

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The Soviet Union played a significant role in the Arab-Israeli conflict as the conflict was a major part of the Cold War. For related developments after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, see Russia and the Arab-Israeli conflict . The official Soviet ideological position on Zionism condemned the movement as akin to bourgeois nationalism.

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OYfW4EFsWnR8_RmSavVazfIk7hrr_J-MWvzaXj1lnl8/edit

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The Cambodian Civil War ( Khmer: សង្គ្រាមស៊ីវិលកម្ពុជា) was a military conflict that pitted the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (known as the Khmer Rouge) and their allies the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong against the government forces of the Kingdom of Cambodia and, after October 1970, the Khmer Republic, which were supported by the United States (U.S.)

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LOQzrZGC1-kRtRINZc1Zgn9-IMwAnlu5cXF9jSItd7s/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YSPvtq0xvETWONjg--4ygcsIDqIRH9OOvqDoQ6mg_n8/edit?usp=sharing

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Jennifer Chavez

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NulbqlezbuLYhHOciHgU0HEhwCRfG-pug_wrUBYOzhI/edit

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mXhzg5Ttt-RJ8G5Krru7Yhpmw3TkK2XVBI8gSffGbQo/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WzeNwZjkCNIZopkmTRpvT_KHSM8hLceAAgyci7gI7FA/edit?usp=sharing

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kimmy

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Victoria

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CHASES SLIDES^^^^

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11JsurRlOEDspHuIrnKbjXaoTl0nc11cDoTTI6GNDnOQ/edit#slide=id.p

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Slides Below

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jpQjocDcFP9owDE_-SW6d3D_EUl94tQEug1mP6NNv04/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dg_XQb0mczkWA_-VGJRVdcwERqTDhqbpFYOCi33LvZU/edit#slide=id.p

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DbghDAVKVorahAw2_GSvvtJevlxFYLm1r5Jmi848rKo/edit#slide=id.p

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_57ytuj-TAr9Er7dUv_e1B-tl1CyhSSqpcgk0bmgZnc/edit#slide=id.p

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10SP-GXml_GO5yWc1AHMB74XkTR_kpyYMEW9DhRGTU8s/edit#slide=id.g3b747d8d12_0_15

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AdNojpBbQy_ymjncc7277eek1QxcR1SXOqwZqnAxbIk/edit?usp=sharing