God's Assassins

Between 1976 and 1983 an estimated 30,000 Argentines 'disappeared' under the military junta. Most were imprisoned and tortured before being murdered by the military. In the two years preceding 1976, another 2,000 were assassinated by paramilitary death squads loosely organised by the Argentine government of Isabel Peron. "God's Assassins" tells the story of state terrorism in Argentina through interviews with participants on all sides of this issue. They include military officers, 'third world' priests, Catholic church officers who supported military objectives and methods, former members of guerrilla movements, survivors of prison camps, journalists, trade unionists, and others who experienced state terrorism in Argentina. Patricia Marchak combines excerpts from these interviews with documents and media reports from the time and her own insightful study of Argentina's history to provide an analysis of the process as well as the causes of state terrorism.The graphic and moving interviews in "God's Assassins" show the complexity of these causes and indicate that there is no simple explanation of the period. Was the head of a major guerrilla movement a double agent? Did the intelligence service actually believe it was engaged in the third world war? Why did the Catholic church turn on its own priests? Through her interviews, Marchak reveals much that will never appear in official documents. Patricia Marchak is a professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia. William Marchak is retired after thirty years in the newsprint export sales business to newspaper publishers throughout Latin America, including Argentina.