austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

276 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
( 1971) indicates that the California gold miners killed nine-tenths of the Indian population
in the space of a few years after it was annexed by the USA.
5. The body count for these countries may actually be seriously underestimated. For
instance, some estimate the number killed in El Salvador to be in the hundreds of thou­
sands (Catalinotto, 1998b). A group of Catholic religious orders (the Inter-Congrega­
tional Commission of Peace and Justice) provide evidence that over 50,000 people may
have been assassinated by USA-backed Colombian government forces or their death
squads over the 1988-95 period alone (Javier, 1996), and Colombian rebels claim the
anticommunist government in Colombia has been killing 30,000 people annually fo r
some time (FARC-EP, 1998). In addition, although the USA puppet Pinochet was
only able to slaughter about half the 20,000 civilians he planned to execute outside o f
battle in the initial weeks of his terroristic rule of Chile in 1973 (Sandford, 1976), and
although only 2700 political executions have been verified since then (Javier, 1996),
there are estimates that tens of thousands of unarmed Chileans were killed over the
course of his long and brutal dictatorship (Workers World, 1998).
6. The number of civilians killed by the USA in these other countries may be enor­
mous. For instance, the Shah of Iran, who was put into power by the CIA in 1953, killed
nearly 50,000 people just in the final year of his reign of terror that had lasted until he
was overthrown in 1979 (Clark, 1998). In addition, the CIA-sponsored mercenary wars
launched against Nicaragua killed an estimated 75,000 (Flounders, 1998b). Moreover,
the CIA-financed terrorist war launched against Angola has killed an estimated 300,000
people (Blum, 1995). Although many of the latter died in battles between government
troops and the CIA-backed terrorists, the CIA-financed terrorists were responsible for
a large number of deliberate civilian murders (Minter, 1994 ), and the Wall Street Jour·
nal has actually estimated over 600,000 killings in Angola (mostly of civilians) since
1975 (Block, 1998). In addition, the USA-sponsored atrocities listed in the text is fa r
from all-inclusive, as it does not fonnally mention many other countries with murder·
ous USA-backed (or USA-installed) governments like Bolivia, Brazil, Haiti, Peru, Uru·
guay, and so many others (Blum, 1995), which have all killed a significant number
of people for political reasons although the estimates of the number of victims vary.
For instance, in Argentina, executions and arranged "disappearances" caused by USA·
trained terrorists and USA-installed government thugs range from 9000 (Javier, 1996)
to 30,000 (Mathiowetz, 1999).
7. Although the USA (as well as other countries) has been using embargoes to impov·
erish people of countries that do not submit to the capitalist world order at least si � ce
1804 (when Haiti was punished with a 60-year embargo for its slaves revolting and seiZ·
ing power), the embargoes were not as effective when the Soviet Union was still around
to support oppressed peoples (Flounders, 1998b ).
8. Some additional infonnation on some of these mass murders is merited. For
instance, while the British directly exterminated tens of thousands of unarmed civil·
ians in Germany with its terror bombings in World War II (Markusen and Kopf, 1995),
and while it directly slaughtered thousands of natives in its colonies (Kiernan, 1998),
including in Ireland (Levene and Roberts, 1999), in the Caribbean (Daunton and Halp·
em, 1999), in India (Gopal, 1963), and in Kenya (Maloba, 1993), most of those killed
by Britain in Ireland and Australia died of hunger and disease as the British deliber·
NoTES
277
ately destroyed or stole the . food of the 1 � 1 inhabitants (Levene and Roberts, 1999)
�r forcibly removed the natives from the1r food sources (Reynolds, 1995). Similarly,
although czarist Russian soldiers directly massacred thousands of Circassian civilians,
many l1l()(e died of hunger and disease while fleeing from this onslaught to refugee
camps in Turkey (Levene and Roberts, 1999). For France, Smith (2000) reports about
1 million people killed by the French in its war to keep Indochina colonized over the
period 1946-54, and Bodard ( 1967) provides evidence that !tl to Y. of those killed by
French ground forces were civilians and that possibly even a larger percentage of civil­
in were killed by French aerial attacks that focused on peasant living quarters and
tqely ignored the rice patties and jungles in which the armed guerrillas tended to hide.
This massive slaughter is alone sufficient to put France in the number 9 slot, but France
enpged in other atrocities in its other colonies as well, such as in Algeria where it
conducted tens of thousands of executions (Home, 1977) and employed widespread
tonure (Mann, 1997). Although the number of dead resulting from France' s 1954-62
wagainstAigerian independence fighters is estimated as high as one million if losses
ofbuman life caused by hunger and disease (largely stemming from France's forced
raetllements of Algerians) are included (Home, 1977), only about 300,000 people were
clelrly deliberately killed, with many being murdered by armed Algerian nationalists
llld with many more of the dead being armed Algerian nationalists themselves (Ruedy,
1992). France also committed major atrocities in its Madagascar colony, where it is
estimated that it killed as many as I 00,000 people in conquering the country during the
1896-1897 period (Ellis, 1985), and where it may have massacred an additional 50 000