A CIA-run death squad executes a civilian in El Salvador, 1981: The death squad killings were carried out by military and police intelligence units, following orders from senior colonels, who had full U.S. backing. Each unit had an adviser hired by the CIA. "No one from intelligence ever did anything unless there was a North American or Venezuelan with them," said one former police captain. https://www.americamagazine.org/art...adors-civil-war-lets-united-states-too-easily https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/23/features11.g21 US training manuals identified the death squad's main targets as "religious workers, labor organizers, student groups, and others in sympathy with the cause of the poor." https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Violent_American_Century.html?id=LOC-DgAAQBAJ Similar operations were carried out in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile. Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, Colombia and Haiti: Proxy War and Surrogate Terror: How the US Came to Take an Active in War and Torture in Latin America - Truthout "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount to achieve the desired effect"—USAID's Dan Mitrione Teaching Torture: The Death and Legacy of Dan Mitrione The murderous history of USAID - Pando
After US terrorist war and sanctions, Nicaragua fights for justice at International Criminal Court The CIA officer in charge of the covert war, Duane Clarridge, admitted to the House Intelligence Committee that his Contras were routinely murdering "civilians and Sandinista officials in the provinces, as well as heads of cooperatives, nurses, doctors and judges." But he argued that this did not violate President Reagan's executive order forbidding assassinations because the agency defined it as just 'killing'. "After all, this is war—a paramilitary operation," he said. The CIA manuel, Tayacan, advised the Contras "to kidnap all ... individuals in tune with the regime," cautioning only that they should not be "damaging them publicly" (emphasis on "publicly"). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vwZ4sdMZQKhT5iEe41MaNQeLigxfOhfU/view?usp=drivesdk According to former Contra Edgar Chamorro, CIA advisers gave Contra soldiers large knives. "A commando knife [was given], and our people, everybody wanted to have a knife like that, to kill people, to cut their throats." (11:30) In 1985 Newsweek published a series of photos taken by Frank Wohl, a conservative student admirer traveling with the Contras, entitled "Execution in the Jungle": Edgar Chamorro explained the rationale behind this strategy to a U.S. reporter. "Sometimes terror is very productive. This is the policy, to keep putting pressure until the people cry 'uncle'". (1:50).