The terror in Latin American countries was a movement that was more spread out than I initially thought. Of course, each different country had it’s own events leading up to it and it happened in different ways, so it isn`t possible to say that the history of every country is the same, but there certainly are many similarities between what happened in the region.

The struggle between left and right was definitly something that incited many conflicts all around the world, and it was no different in Latin America. The governments, with the help of mainly the United States, were trying to ascert right wing power and actively fight left wing movements. They adopted many oppresive policies, which were met with resistance from the population. In many countries, the Guerrilas were formed. The guerrilas were also violent groups, that were trying to oppose the oppresive government many times with the help of the rural poor population. The argentinian guerrilas, for example, were amongst one of the most violent in that time.

It is horrible to read the primary sources, the testimonios, of people who were living in those countries at the time when all of this was happening. It hits pretty close to home when people talk about people they knew just disappearing and never hearing from them again, because I have family members who say the same thing and are still haunted by what happened back then. If you said anything or showed any left wing allignment you were likely to get interrogated and just taken away. It was very common amongst universities students back then to have this happen, since the culture of ,especially public, universities in Latin America is to have very politically active students, with very strong opinions about politics, much more so than here in Canada I feel like.