Guerrilla Forces Research Articles

Les femmes partisanes yougoslaves pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale

Women public engagement, during the war, was very important for process of emancipation in post war Yugoslavia. This was first time that women joined military forces, especially combat unites. In addition to the Soviet partisan units that from 1941 sprang up over the large territories under the German occupation and the great French resistance, the two largest guerrilla forces in Europe operated in the Balkans: the communist movement in Yugoslavia and The Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS). The Yugoslav Partisans and the ELAS were not only fighting for liberation from the occupier, but they also began the Communist Revolution. In addition to establishing the socialist system following the model of the Soviet Republic, one goal was to legalize gender equality and to accelerate the emancipation of women. During the war female partisans (partizanke) gained their role in the new society, the role that would, in the ideal new society after the war, be secured for the entire female gender. By the end of 1941, People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia had accepted a new concept of warfare: the establishment of highly mobile proletarian brigades in which women constituted a significant part of the medical corps. In early 1942, however, the partisan leadership decided to make combat roles officially available to women. During the war women were not able to progress to the higher command or political positions in the military. Also, there were no women in the top ranks of the Communist Party leadership (Politburo). Women were indeed in symbolic numbers chosen to the highest institutions of the Partisan state. A body that gave an opportunity to women to self-organize politically and through this to activate as many women as possible was the Women's Antifascist Front of Yugoslavia (Antifašistički front žena Jugoslavije – AFŽJ). AFŽJ held its first conference in Bosanski Petrovac (northwestern Bosnia) on 5–7 December 1942. The fact that women, despite the aspirations of the Party to win them over, and in spite of customized organizational structure, were poorly represented in the membership of the Party and its leadership, limited the participation of women during the war. Although they were not equally represented in political parties and the partisan institutions of the state, partizanke were more proportionally represented in People's Liberation Army than in the most other similar armies, and won more of the highest awards than female members of the Red Army.

Relations among appetitive aggression, post-traumatic stress and motives for demobilization: a study in former Colombian combatants.

BackgroundFormer combatants have frequently reported that aggressive behaviour can be appetitive and appealing. This appetitive aggression (AA) may be adaptive for survival in a violent environment, as it is associated with a reduced risk of combat-related psychological traumatization. At the same time, AA might impair motivation for re-integration to civil life after ending active duty. Whereas in Colombia those combatants who volunteered for demobilization were mostly tired of fighting, those who demobilized collectively did so mainly by force of the government. We predicted those who were demobilized collectively would still be attracted to violence, and benefit from the resilience against trauma-related mental suffering, moderated by appetitive aggression, as they would have continued fighting had they not been forced to stop.MethodA sample of 252 former Colombian former combatants from paramilitary and guerrilla forces was investigated. Appetitive aggression was assessed using the Appetitive Aggression Scale (AAS) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms with the PTSD Symptom Scale-Interview (PSS-I). We distinguished between individual and group demobilization and assessed reasons for disarmament.ResultsMost of the guerrilla troops who demobilized individually and were tired of fighting reported both an attraction to violence as well as increased trauma symptoms, owing to their former engagement in violent behaviour. In contrast, among those who were demobilized collectively, appetitive aggression was associated with a reduced risk of PTSD. However, this effect was not present in those combatants in the upper quartile of PTSD symptom severity.ConclusionThe influence of combat experience on traumatization, as well as the motivation for demobilization, differs remarkably between those combatants who demobilized individually and those who were members of a group that was forced to demobilize. This has important implications for the implementation of re-integration programmes and therapeutic interventions.

Post-Coup Honduras: Latin America’s Corridor of Reaction

AbstractThis article offers an historical-materialist account of the coup in Honduras on 28 June 2009, which ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. It draws on over two dozen interviews with members of theFrente Nacional de la Resistencia Popular[National Front of Popular Resistance, FNRP], and participation in numerous marches and assemblies over two periods of fieldwork – January 2010, and June–July 2011. The paper steps back in time to provide an historical cartography of the basic material structures of the Honduran economy and its integration into the world market, as well as the geopolitical role it played as a launching pad for Ronald Reagan’s counter-insurgency campaigns against guerrilla forces elsewhere in the region during the 1980s. We show how the defeat of mass guerrilla insurgencies in Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as the triumph over the Sandinista government in Nicaragua by 1990, allowed for the neoliberal pacification of Central America as a whole, including Honduras. We further demonstrate how the centre-leftist Manuel Zelaya, elected to the Honduran presidency in 2006, modestly encroached upon neoliberal orthodoxy and forged geopolitical alliances with left and centre-left governments elsewhere in the region, laying the bases for his violent overthrow. Finally, the paper traces the origins, trajectory, and heterogeneity of the resistance that emerged almost immediately after the coup had been carried out.

Human costs of the Afghanistan war

The war in Afghanistan has been the longest war in United States history. This article argues that from the beginning of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, the US conduct of the war posed great dangers for Afghan civilians. It distinguishes between three phases, each of which held distinct risks for civilians. The first phase, from late 2001 to 2009, was marked by the fight against al Qaeda and insurgent forces; the second phase, from 2009- 2010, by counterinsurgency; and the third phase by the transition of security responsibilities from NATO to Afghan security forces. While risk transfer clearly marked the first and third phases, civilians also suffered during the second phase, when the US put a primacy on civilian protection. We argue that neglecting civilian protection has not only been morally problematic but also risks undermining the Western goal of ensuring that Afghanistan will no longer pose a threat to international security.

In Your Dreams: Travelling the road to Mandalay

Since 2007, I have been travelling regularly to the Thai /Burma border to run creative writing workshops with Burmese women refugees. The stories that eventuate from the workshops are published and distributed internationally. I have never been inside Burma so my knowledge of the country has come to me via other peoples’ stories. Recent changes that have taken place in Burma give glimpses of hope for a democratic future and yet I remain on the edges of this country I feel I know intimately. In his memoir From the Land of Green Ghosts (2004) Pascal Khoo Thwe writes about the layers of distinctly different cultures that make up the country of Burma. After attending university in Mandalay Pascal was forced to flee after the arrest of his activist girlfriend. He joined the guerilla forces on the border and then through a chance encounter with academic, John Casey, finally made his way across the border into Thailand then on to England. This extraordinary story is more common than many people realize. When one considers the more than half a million refugees who have fled across the Burmese borders into neighboring Thailand over the last decade it is easy to see the tremendous ramifications that the political situation has had on the people of Burma. This paper is a meditation on the Burma of my imagination and the many permutations of country, culture and landscape that I have come to know through the people of Burma and their relationship to the lands of their birth. As a facilitator of other people’s stories I reflect on the ways in which the personal stories of lives lived inside Burma and on the borders of the country as refugees have helped me understand the situation there. The paper also explores the way narrative and advocacy, storytelling and capacity building have played a part in the democratic changes that are now taking place after more than sixty years of civil war inside Burma.

Pesquisa aborda a comunicação insurgente do hip–hop

No livro Brasil periferia(s) : a comunicacao insurgente do hip-hop, a autora, Andreia Moassab, analisa o papel do movimento hip-hop como uma forca insurgente contra a tendencia homogeneizadora da cultura contemporânea. Esta resenha e uma reflexao critica sobre os principais pontos da obra.

The war on terror that failed: British counter-insurgency in Palestine 1945–1947 and the ‘Farran Affair’

This essay examines the disappearance in 1947 of a young Jewish insurgent fighting the British in Palestine, Alexander Rubowitz. Kidnapped by a secret British army unit led by Major Roy Farran, Rubowitz's body has never been found. Farran was suspected of responsibility and detained but he escaped from custody twice before he was put on trial for the abduction and alleged murder of the youth. The ‘Farran Affair’ became a cause célèbre and it was taken up by contending sides in the propaganda battle over the future of Palestine. A year after Farran's acquittal a letter bomb was sent to his family in the UK by members of the Jewish underground seeking revenge. This essay looks at the emergence of new thinking by the British on how best to defeat insurgent forces and why officially sanctioned counter-terror such as Farran's ‘special squads’ did not work in Palestine.

Dioxin: U.S., Vietnam start cleanup of Agent Orange contaminant at former base near Da Nang

Nearly four decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. and Vietnam have begun a joint cleanup operation at Da Nang International Airport, the site of a former U.S. military base that remains contaminated with dioxin. “This morning we celebrate a milestone in our bilateral relationship,” U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam David B. Shear said at a ceremony earlier this month attended by senior officers of the Vietnamese military. “We’re cleaning up this mess.” The airfield was used by the U.S. military to store barrels of Agent Orange, a mixture of (2,4-dichlorophenoxy)acetic acid and (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy)acetic acid that was sprayed on vegetation used as cover by guerrilla forces. The 2,4,5-T used in the defoliant was later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), a toxic compound that has been linked to birth defects and cancers and other diseases. More than two dozen former U.S. military bases have been referred to ...

Dancing Embodied Memory: The Choreography of Place in the Peruvian Andes

Dancing Embodied Memory: The Choreography of Place in the Peruvian Andes

Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots, 1894–1965 (review)

Reviewed by: Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots, 1894–1965 David M. Struthers Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots, 1894–1965 Errol Wayne Stevens Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009; 366 pages. $34.95, ISBN: 9780806140025 Errol Wayne Stevens positions Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots, 1894–1965 as an examination of the “conflict between the radical Right and the radical Left.” The breadth of subject and period forced some undoubtedly difficult choices upon the author. The book offers sufficient depth on the period between the 1890s and the 1950s, but unfortunately the Watts Riots are only mentioned in a short conclusion. It also offers a much deeper consideration of the labor and leftist movements than it does of the right. More problematic than either of these questions of scope is the author’s loose conception of radicalism and his lack of attention toward the non-Anglo and non-Anglophone left. On the whole, the predominantly synthetic work manages to provide a solid overview of the socialist and reformist left in Los Angeles from the 1890s through the first decade of the Cold War. The center of Los Angeles’s radical left community, in the author’s view, consisted of predominately Anglo socialists and liberals in reform focused movements. He constructs a compelling narrative of the L.A. left, beginning with the leading West Coast position in the unemployed [End Page 143] movement that became known nationally as Coxey’s army. He continues through the strong role that a number of prominent Anglo socialists played in city politics from both within and outside of unions, the high drama of the Los Angeles Times bombing, World War One era repression, the rise of the Communist Party as an insurgent force on the left in the 1920s, and finally through the shift to New Deal and then post-war, race-centered reformist politics. The author’s clearest argument is that class politics transitioned to race-centered concerns around the time of the second World War. This is presented in a smooth, tightly argued narrative that will surely introduce young scholars and students to the rich and foundational history of the left in a city better known for the success its business community had in maintaining an open shop. As a history of conflict between political poles, however, Steven’s choice of the term “radical” to describe his subjects on the left and the right is problematic and never clearly defined. He presents an undernuanced group of actors on the right including the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, the Los Angeles Times patriarch Harrison Gray Otis, and other elites. With little examination of their support base, we are left with a “radical” group of private business and government actors. On the left, his focus on English speaking trade unionists, socialists, and Industrial Workers of the World locals in the first and more thoroughly researched half of the book leaves out a significant number of people on the left, most notably anarchists and non-English language organizers. Drawing on a larger and multilingual source base would have certainly opened this work to include the breadth of activity of anarchists, syndicalists, and left socialists in Los Angeles who organized in Spanish, Italian, Yiddish, German, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Armenian, and Japanese among other languages. This oversight results in the book missing people with arguably more “radical” positions than those included. Without these voices, the narrative is driven by a well-entrenched, radical right, city power elite and a radical left that often looks as reformist as they do radical. But this is a call for further research, hopefully by scholars with the linguistic skills to understand the remarkable diversity of Los Angeles. There is one unfortunate mistake that deserves note. In chapter 4, on the Los Angeles Times bombing, the author claims that the Norwegian [End Page 144] immigrant Olaf A. Tveitmoe, a long time stalwart in California’s craft union movement and a member of San Francisco’s Cement Workers Union Local 1 at the time, was an anarchist. While a jury convicted Tveitmoe for illegally transporting dynamite in connection to...

Home Away From Home: Dynamics of Counterinsurgency Warfare

The aim of this article is to obtain a better understanding of the outcomes of counterinsurgency warfare. It advances the hypothesis that the combined presence of a unified revolutionary force and external sanctuary will significantly increase the chances of victory for insurgents. The variables are tested against Portugal's involvement in the Colonial War, accounting for Portuguese defeat in Guinea-Bissau. The article concludes by extending the hypothesis to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, determining that the ability of the United States to succeed in Afghanistan is limited unless it seals the border with Pakistan and weakens the unity of insurgent forces.

To the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and Beyond: Stabilization and Reconstruction in Tennessee and Kentucky 1864–1866 (review)

Reviewed by: To the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and Beyond: Stabilization and Reconstruction in Tennessee and Kentucky 1864–1866 Bruce E. Stewart To the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and Beyond: Stabilization and Reconstruction in Tennessee and Kentucky, 1864–1866. By Benjamin Franklin Cooling. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2011. Pp. xi, 526.) “I think the time not far distant when our grand army will march in solid phalanx through all the rebellious states and replant the stars and stripes over every capital from when[ce] [it] has been torn by traitor hands,” Union soldier B. F. Welker wrote to his sister shortly after the Battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862 (3). The Union forces’ capture of Fort Donelson, along with the Confederate defeat at nearby Fort Henry a few weeks earlier, led Welker and other Americans to believe that the war in Tennessee and Kentucky had reached its conclusion. But, as Benjamin Franklin Cooling [End Page 102] demonstrates, nothing could have been further from the truth. According to Cooling, the Battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson signaled the beginning of a “hybrid” or “compound war” in which “catastrophic terrorism and disruptive lawlessness mix[ed] with traditional combat and irregular operations to form a new kind of violence” in the two states (xiii). Such violence ultimately hampered federal and state officials’ ability to pacify the region and begin the process of wartime reconciliation. Despite Union victories at Forts Henry and Donelson and later at Nashville and Franklin, Confederate cavalry raids prevented military and civil governments from protecting loyal citizens and restoring order in the upper heartland. These raids, especially those led by Nathan Bedford Forest in western Tennessee and John Hunt Morgan in eastern Kentucky, raised the morale of rebel sympathizers and encouraged guerrilla warfare. Union officials remained powerless to stop these raids or quell the lawlessness that they perpetuated. Without the protection of the federal government, loyalists sometimes fled behind Union lines, while others opted to use violence to protect their families. By 1864, chaos continued to plague the region. “Here then lay the upper South in the throes of the fourth year of war, the setting for backyard feuds legitimized by that war, a playground for mobile raiders also living off the land and populated by innocent (or not) civilian victims,” Cooling writes. “Lurking in the shadows were the deserters and criminal flotsam of no particular address, loyalty, or sense of mercy or honor” (208). Federal and state officials’ attempts to suppress disloyalty and combat guerrilla forces further weakened the Union war effort and the restoration of civil governance in Tennessee and Kentucky. In 1864, for instance, Union general Stephen Burbridge’s suspension of habeas corpus and crackdown on Confederate sympathizers in the Bluegrass State ultimately escalated the potential for violence and heightened loyal Kentuckians’ opposition to military rule. To make matters worse, emancipation and the recruitment of black troops alienated other Unionists throughout the state. Similar policies and issues in Tennessee prevented military and civil governments from consolidating control over the state. In the end, wartime grievances and divisions continued in the upper heartland following Confederate defeat in April 1864, ensuring that the process of Reconstruction would be difficult and bloody. Unlike most recent Civil War scholarship, Cooling’s book focuses on the role that the Western Theater played in shaping Confederate and Union policy, demonstrating the strategic and political significance that Tennessee and Kentucky held for both sides well after the Battles of Fort Henry and [End Page 103] Fort Donelson in February 1862. Perhaps more importantly, Cooling sheds light on the origins of racial violence and white resistance to the federal government during Reconstruction. Students of the Civil War should read this lucid and well-researched book. Bruce E. Stewart Appalachian State University Copyright © 2012 West Virginia University Press

VICTORY IN HADES: THE FORGOTTEN WARS OF THE OMAN 1957-1959 and 1970-1976 PART 2: THE DHOFAR CAMPAIGN 1970-1976

Section ASimilarities and contrastsDuring the years 1970-1976 Oman was once again a theatre of operations in which the Sultan's forces, supported by pro-Western powers, succeeded in defeating the insurgent forces seeking to destroy the established power structure of Oman. In many respects, the political configuration of this second war bore many close resemblances to the first1 . One had, as in the first campaign of 1957 -1959, the active military participation of Britain; in terms of both leadership and the active involvement of British units (including the Special Air Service Regiment - SAS - who, as in the first Omani campaign, were to playa major role in the war). One also has the same motivation underlying British participation; viz. the determination to retain Oman's crucial strategic position (centring upon the Musandam Peninsula, and its control of the Straits of Hormuz). Moreover, as in the first Campaign, one observes the active participation of neighbouring states of the Middle East in support of the Sultan; in the war of 1957-1959 these states comprised the Trucial Oman States, to which Britain was closely related via long standing treaty obligations, and whose active military support was manifested in the presence of the Trucial Oman Scouts (TOS). In the latter Campaign of 1970-1976, the support emanated from Jordan and Iran.

The Heroes of COIN

The conventional wisdom holds that security in Iraq only improved after Gen. David Petraeus implemented a new counterinsurgency doctrine that stressed population security instead of aggressive operations against insurgent forces. This interpretation is strikingly similar to the historiography of the Huk Rebellion, the Malayan Emergency, and the Vietnam War. In each case observers criticized initial efforts as brutal and counterproductive, only to be rescued when enlightened new leaders arrived on the scene. This article challenges the familiar hero narrative, arguing that critics routinely exaggerate the importance of leadership changes because they view conflicts as experiments in counterinsurgency rather than exercises in state-building. Whereas counterinsurgency (COIN) theory emphasizes issues like public security and government legitimacy, theorists of state-building describe a bloody and protracted competition for power under conditions approaching anarchy. The upshot is that the “heroes” of late-stage COIN might actually depend on the earlier “villains” who did the dirty work of establishing political order and coercing the population into obedience.

The Muslim Chams of Northwestern Greece

This paper focuses on the hypothesis that the expulsion of Muslim Chams from Western Epirus during the later part of 1944 and beginning of 1945 by the guerrilla forces of EDES, resisting the Italo-German occupation occurred, contrary to conventional wisdom, not only as a result of the Chams’ collaboration with the forces of occupation, but rather as an outcome of state policy, a policy which was embedded in the prevailing nationalistic ideology of the Interwar period. We argue that following...

The Best‐Laid Schemes: Postcolonialism, Military Social Science, and the Making of US Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1947–2009

The Best‐Laid Schemes: Postcolonialism, Military Social Science, and the Making of US Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1947–2009

Brain Injuries from Blasts

For soldiers wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a disproportionate number of injuries are from blasts resulting from the numerous improvised explosive devices deployed by insurgent forces. Many soldiers with blast injury have sustained brain trauma, referred to as the signature injury of these wars. There has been skepticism as to whether a blast that has occurred at a distance and inflicted no visible wound can penetrate the skull and damage the brain. This uncertainty is not unlike that attributed to injuries from previous wars that were also associated with lingering psychological sequelae, including the soldier's heart of . . .

The Derg-SPLM/A Cooperation: An Aspect of Ethio-Sudan Proxy Wars

The warm and friendly Ethio-Sudan diplomatic relations that followed Sudan’s independence in 1956 and the long standing frontier trade between the two countries have been severely damaged by the outbreak of civil wars in southern Sudan in 1955 as well as in Eritrea in 1962. As the civil wars intensified in both countries, the influx of refugees and insurgents across their common border took place. Internal political and socio-economic problems in Ethiopia and the Sudan, together with super-power rivalries in the Horn brought about periods of increasing hostilities between the two countries. On a tit for tat basis, both the Imperial and military governments of Ethiopia and the successive governments of the Sudan came to encourage and assist cross-border guerrilla forces from either side. Thus, animosity rather than cooperation characterized relations between the Sudan and Ethiopia until the fall of the Derg in 1991. Keywords: Derg, Ethio-sudan relations, SPLM/A, proxy wars

Communist Revolution as the Origin of the Capitalism in the Red China: The Political Economy of the Private Economy in Zhejiang Province

This research explores the political factors that determined the spatial variations of the private economic development of Zhejiang province in China after 1949. I argue that even in an authoritarian country, when political elites are divided into competing groups and there are fierce political struggles between them, this opens the opportunity to potential private entrepreneurs because certain elite groups may provide protection, in order to win over entrepreneurs’ support and gain the upper hand in the political competition. My hypothesis is that if guerrilla forces were strong in a particular locality prior to 1949 (here I am referring to a county), then after 1949 the local cadre group, the weak side in the post-1949 strife between the elites, had greater incentives and capabilities to protect and promote private economy than their counterparts in the places where the guerrilla forces were weak before 1949. The empirical evidence strongly supports the hypothesis. The theoretical framework developed here can be effectively applied to other provinces in China, revealing similar patterns of the interrelation between local cadres and private entrepreneurs.

War and peace

Since the end of the Cold War two modes of ‘new war’ have been distinguished. One, the Revolution in Military Affairs, transforms advanced state militaries (particularly in the global North) through an emphasis on stripped-down, highly specialised forces deploying cutting-edge technology with unprecedented precision. The other is waged by non-state militias and guerrilla forces (particularly in the global South) and relies on light, even improvised weapons, focuses its violence on civilians and is implicated in the criminal circuits of a shadow globalisation. Rhetorically, the first sustains a late modern ‘re-enchantment of war’– war as surgical, sensitive and scrupulous – whereas the second reactivates a profoundly non-modern ‘disenchantment of war’ as indiscriminate, callous and predatory. In practice, however, each bleeds into the other, so that it becomes necessary to expose the continuing horror of wars waged by the global North. One critical response is to show the production of three spaces of advanced military violence – the abstract space of the target, the alien space of the enemy Other, and the legal-lethal space of the exception – and then to disrupt them through a series of counter-geographies that challenges their claims to legitimacy.