Terrorism in Latin America: The Intersection of State and Non-State Violence in Argentina and Peru

Abstract: Within Latin America during the 20th century, the practice of terrorism manifested itself in the form of state and non-state actors alike. The voracity with which both pursued their goals to subjugate the other occasionally created a causality relationship that exacerbated the societal chaos. In Argentina and Peru, their respective governments pursued increasingly harsh and repressive methods to subdue non-state terrorist groups. However, in Argentina, growing authoritarianism and state violence, particularly during the Dirty War, instigated increasingly reactionary non-state terror responses from well-organized groups, such as the Montoneros. By contrast, Peru saw the rise of unremitting revolutionary terrorism by non-state actors such as Shining Path that drove the Fujimori government into acts of state terrorism. These two diametrically opposed models serve to demonstrate the complexities of understanding the causes of terrorism in the region.