Forced Disappearance: Hiding Violence, Instilling Terror or Avoiding Blame?

• In Event: Protest & Political Violence

Abstract

Forced disappearance is one of the worst forms of violence that can occur in the context of armed conflicts, dictatorships and criminal wars. The families of victims often see their lives crumble in the search for their loved ones and justice is even more elusive than for other forms of violence. Yet, there is limited analysis of the dynamics of disappearances, largely because they are so difficult to document and analyze. In this paper, we draw on data of reported cases of disappearance in Colombia, el Salvador and Mexico to analyze the dynamics of forced disappearance, its relationship with homicidal violence, and the determinants of trends in forced disappearance. We explore three initial hypotheses derived from existing literature on criminal violence and dictatorships. First, we explore whether disappearance, as a form of hiding violence, is a substitute to perpetrating regular homicides, considering arguments in the literature on criminal violence about the interest of criminal perpetrators to hide the evidence of their attacks. Second, we analyze whether, once large cycles of violence unfold, disappearance stops being a substitute to regular violence, and rather becomes an additional tool of terror within a larger repertoire of violence. Lastly, we focus on analyzing the role of the state in forced disappearance. We expect that forced disappearance can be particularly beneficial to state actors involved in human rights violations, or complicit with non-state violent actors, and thus will become more prevalent when state forces are more involved in repression campaigns, and when they collude with armed actors. The three countries we explore have suffered tragic numbers of disappearances in the context of high levels of criminal violence (Mexico and El Salvador) and in the intermix of armed conflict and criminal violence (Colombia). While we recognize the multiple limitations in the data we use, we believe this analysis can still shed crucial light on an essential, but understudied topic.

Authors

• Angelica Duran-Martinez, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

• Angel Torres Guevara, University of Chicago