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2. Dominican Republic’s Neofascist Paramilitaries Double Down on Right-Wing Repression
- Author:
- Amarilys Estrella
- Publication Date:
- 04-2024
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
- Abstract:
- New expressions of ultranationalist violence censoring Black women and migrants harken back to the Trujillo dictatorship. Anyone deemed a threat to Dominican values is a potential target.
- Topic:
- Migration, Race, Violence, Radical Right, Paramilitary, Neofascism, and Ultranationalism
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Dominican Republic
3. Potential Russian Uses of Paramilitaries in Eurasia
- Author:
- Kimberly Marten, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Carisa Nietsche, Nicholas Lokker, and Kristen Taylor
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
- Abstract:
- While much remains uncertain following the June 2023 mutiny of Russia’s Wagner Group and the August death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russia will likely continue to work with semi-state armed formations. Russia’s degraded military capacity and constrained economic resources, especially as sanctions persist, will increase the attractiveness of these organizations as low-cost tools for advancing Russian objectives and competing against the West, including to a greater extent in Eurasia where Russia likely perceives the competition as most intense. Prigozhin and his Wagner Group created a model that other opportunistic Russian actors will likely seek to replicate. Fewer financial resources available to Russia’s military and elite could increase the incentive to establish such groups, especially if these organizations can increase opportunities to improve Russia’s reputation as a reliable security provider or access new sources of wealth for the regime. Newly created organizations would likely face high barriers to entry in areas where Wagner already operates, including Africa. Therefore, if such semi-state paramilitary organizations proliferate—a prospect that has grown more likely after Prigozhin’s death—they could focus on new regions such as Eurasia. Given Russia’s declining influence in Eurasia, a region of long-standing historical importance to Russia, such groups could undertake new actions there to curry favor with Putin and the Kremlin. There are several ways the Kremlin could use semi-state security formations to advance its interests in Eurasia, including by waging political influence and disinformation campaigns, physically protecting friendly governments, sustaining Russia’s influence as a key security provider, destabilizing unfriendly governments, and limiting any threats that Russia’s diaspora population might pose to the stability of the Putin regime from abroad. Although Russian paramilitary and semi-state organizations are in many ways an extension of the malign activities carried out by the Russian state, the proliferation and increased activity of these groups would make it more difficult for the United States and its allies to attribute such actions to the Kremlin, complicating Western response options. These groups and the opportunistic individuals who lead them could, for example, stake out positions independent of the Kremlin or even at odds with it, especially in the case of extreme ethnic nationalists who have criticized Putin for not going far enough in his actions. The proliferation of these groups would also make it difficult to discern when and under what circumstances the Kremlin might be willing to escalate on these groups’ behalf.
- Topic:
- Armed Forces, Wagner Group, Paramilitary, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Eurasia
4. Book Talk. Architectures of Violence by Kate Ferguson
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- Paramilitary or irregular units have been involved in practically every case of identity-based mass violence in the modern world, but detailed analysis of these dynamics is rare. Through exploring the case of former Yugoslavia, Kate Ferguson exposes the relationships between paramilitaries, state commands, local communities, and organised crime present in modern mass atrocities, from Rwanda and Darfur to Syria and Myanmar. Visible paramilitary participation masks the continued dominance of the state in violent crises. Political elites benefit from using unconventional forces to fulfil ambitions that violate international law—and international policy responses are hindered when responsibility for violence is ambiguous. Ferguson’s inquiry into these overlooked dynamics of mass violence unveils substantial loopholes in current atrocity prevention architecture.
- Topic:
- Crime, Governance, Conflict, Violence, and Paramilitary
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. August 2019 Issue
- Author:
- Michael Knights, Raffaello Pantucci, Adrian Shtuni, Kujtim Bytyqi, Sam Mullins, and Ross Dayton
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- CTC Sentinel
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- In our feature article, Michael Knights draws on six research visits to Iraq in 2018 and 2019 to document the expanding footprint region-by-region of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq that were previously labeled “Special Groups” by the United States and in some cases designated as terrorist organizations. Knights assesses “that the Special Groups (not including 18,000-22,000 Badr troops) currently have 63,000 registered personnel … 15 times the size of the Special Groups in 2010, when there were probably as few as 4,000 Special Group operatives in Iraq (again not including Badr personnel in 2010).” He notes a key driver for their growth in manpower and popularity in Iraq was their role in fighting the Islamic State and liberating Sunni population centers under Islamic State control. He writes that “a pantheon of smaller, newer pro-Iran militias is arguably closer to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps than larger and older pro-Iranian militias such as Badr and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq” and identifies Kata’ib Hezbollah led by U.S.-designated terrorist Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as the greatest threat to U.S. interests. With pro-Tehran militias expanding their presence across Iraq and U.S. influence in Iraq reduced since its 2011 troop withdrawal, he argues the United States “needs to be parsimonious and pragmatic if it wishes to push back effectively.” Our interview is with Suzanne Raine, who was the head of the United Kingdom’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) between 2015 and 2017. She outlines to Raffaello Pantucci the lessons learned from her work in counterterrorism and the threat landscape as she sees it. Two articles in this issue focus on the Western Balkans. Adrian Shtuni provides a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the security threats posed by foreign fighters and homegrown jihadis from the region. Kujtim Bytyqi, the Acting Director of the Department for Analysis and Security Policies at the Kosovo Security Council Secretariat, and Sam Mullins outline Kosovo’s experience dealing with returning foreign fighters. Finally, Ross Dayton documents how the Maduro regime in Venezuela has increased its reliance on paramilitary groups, including the Colombian left-wing guerrilla group ELN, which was responsible for the suicide car bomb attack on the National Police Academy in Bogotá, Colombia, in January 2019.
- Topic:
- Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Jihad, Army, Militias, Foreign Fighters, and Paramilitary
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Kosovo, Syria, and Venezuela
6. Proliferation of Armed Militias and Complicity of European States in the Migration Crisis in Libya, 2011 - 2017
- Author:
- Chukwurah Adaora and Okoli Rowland Chukwuma
- Publication Date:
- 05-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- African Heritage Institution (AfriHeritage)
- Abstract:
- This study examined how the emergent militia groups in post-Gadhafi Libya shaped the contours of migration in the state. The following two questions were examined: How did proliferation of armed militia groups contribute to the migration crisis experienced in post-Gadhafi Libya?’, and ‘Did the prioritization of counter smuggling of migrants over rescue operations by European countries bolster the migrant-trading activities of militia groups in Libya?’ The study was anchored on the gate-keeper state theory. Documentary method of data collection was employed, while qualitative analysis of data was adopted. The study found that: the fall of Gadhafi regime in 2011 created interstices exploited by local armed militia groups to commoditise migrants in Libya. Again, the armed militia groups served as agents of the three warring governments in Libya for securing their regime/territories, and as agents of European countries, particularly Italy, to thwart flow of irregular migrants to Europe. The commoditization of migrants by militia groups coalesced with the antimigration strategies adopted by some European countries to create migration crisis in which an avalanche of irregular migrants became trapped in Libya and were subjected to exploitation and slavery. The study recommends strengthening of the subregional security architectures in Africa to enhance surveillance/control of porous borders.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Migration, Conflict, and Paramilitary
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Libya, and North Africa
7. Private Security and Paramilitarism in Colombia: Governing in the Midst of Violence
- Author:
- Jacobo Grajales
- Publication Date:
- 08-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- The article examines the links between paramilitary groups and the Colombian state within a context of pervasive violence. Colombia represents a particularly interesting case as high-intensity violence is accompanied by the preservation of a relatively strong institutional framework. Most interpretations of this relationship consider it to be either a sign of state weakness or a centralized strategy to outsource violence. Taking a different stance, the paper argues that the existence of paramilitary groups compels us to analyze government through practices vis-à-vis the treatment of violence. A policy linking private security and counterinsurgency, crafted in the early 1990s and known as Convivir, provides an illustration of this approach.
- Topic:
- Security, Counterinsurgency, State Violence, Violence, and Paramilitary
- Political Geography:
- Colombia, South America, and Latin America
8. Un Laboratorio de Guerra en Antioquia: Desmitificando la Victoria Paramilitar y la Desaparición de las Guerrillas
- Author:
- Jerónimo Ríos
- Publication Date:
- 05-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- Uno de los aspectos menos investigados sobre el conflicto armado colombiano es la coincidencia espacio-temporal de guerrillas y grupos paramilitares. Es decir, cómo afectó a los niveles de presencia y activismo guerrillero la aparición de un actor como el paramilitarismo. Al respecto, la consideración tan predominante como, en pocas ocasiones, poco contrastada, pasa por atribuir una derrota a las guerrillas allí donde el paramilitarismo obtuvo un mayor arraigo. Tomando como estudio de caso el departamento de Antioquia, tradicionalmente, un escenario de gran presencia tanto guerrillera como paramilitar, se busca analizar la afectación de este último a las dinámicas de la violencia y obtener así una aproximación más sólida a una de las aristas más intrincadas del conflicto armado y que requiere de trabajos de mayor profundidad e investigación.
- Topic:
- Violence, Armed Conflict, Paramilitary, and FARC
- Political Geography:
- Colombia and South America