User Reviews

We all know that the US backed up the military regimes in Latin America. Not so well known is the "French connection", basically they even trained the Americans on guerrilla warfare!

The courageous Marie-Monique Robin gets into the military's garrisons and private houses, and gets invaluable testimonies. Sometimes "official", others with a surprisingly effective "hidden camera". I do think "the end justifies the means" in this particular case!

I sometimes even fear for her own security, wondering what would have happened if they caught her (specially the Chilean). She delves on the "Condor" plan, the connection between Brazilian, Chilean, Argentinian etc forces for exchanging information and "savoir faire" about kidnapping, torture and murder. It's fun how the French generals seem to be totally proud about their job, I suppose they are even heroes! Whereas the Argentine have been judged and condemned, by the society as much as by the judges. A difficult topic, where a definite opinion is not easy.

As a side point, I find alluring the beautiful French language, even when talking about such a violent topic. If only beauty could cancel things out...

This book & movie as an intense feel to it as it retraces the history of the french colonial wars after world war II and the birth of "modern warfare", as in counter-guerilla, torture and disappearance theorised as legitimate war techniques. their birth in the Indochinese independence war, their use in the Algerian Independance war, and most notably the battle of Algier in 1957, and their export through military experts, sent overseas in order to avoid another rightwing coup (like the one in 1958 who put degaulle in power). I would say this shortens the very long introduction as the book mostly present itself as the history of such a theoretical export, first to the united states, but mostly to the south american military regimes of the fifties and sixties, teaching generations of officers responsible for the fascist coups d'états of the 1970's. The author worked by presenting herself as a rightwing historian studying the anticommunist crusade, and the role of the french tactical experts in exporting their techniques. Doing so she also covers the role of OAS soldiers, and the catholic church theologians who both exfiltered them to south america as they did with the nazi collaborationists, but also gave them their blessing for the use of torture through the ideology of "national catholicism" in the crusade against communism. It's surprising because the study, in both the film and the book shows that in the early 2000's, most of the key players of this history are still alive and free, having made sure to amnesty their crimes while they were in power, making it feel like this power hasn't changed (the chilean constitution is still the one made up during pinochet's junta, as much as the kingdom of spain still is since the fascist takeover of 1939). It also shows the implications of secret services from other countries, as well as the vatican in the fascist international of the 1970's and 1980's... In a way, it's interesting because the book was published right before the Abu Ghraib pictures, getting a lot of coverage a lot again now that torture is being openly discussed as a program rather than an exception, and shows the history of this systematic use of torture in asymetrical warfare, and clearly show it as the result of a training, and whose' scandal only consequence was to forbid personel from carrying personnal recording gear. The second really schoking aspect of the interviews with the french soldiers who carried out the theorisation of their torture work and psychological warfare as a military technique is how much they refer it as "police work"...