Interviews with guerrilla leaders and military commanders in Latin America, 1959 to the 2000s

Abstract

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the period of the Cold War was characterized by coups d’état, revolts by competing military juntas, and anti-communist dictatorships. It was also a time of revolutionaries and insurgents, students taking up arms, churchgoers converted into radical rebels, Catholic priests and nuns transformed into guerrilleros, slum dwellers becoming members of underground leftist movements, and peasant associations joining insurrectional movements. Young people became radicalized, youth wings of political parties joined the underground resistance, and liberation movements appeared in nearly all of the countries in Latin American and in several Caribbean island states. Rather than provide any hypothesis about this insurgency and military counter-insurgency, this article draws attention to an additional layer of oral history by reviewing older, original documents and recording extensive interviews with key figures, giving voice to several operatives who hold direct insights into the workings of these movements over a long period of time.