3. - Other Perpetrators Torture has apparently occurred in the hands of vigilante groups, terrorist and revolutionary groups and professional intelligence gathering or state security organizations (6), indicating that a military or quasi-military character is not a requirement for an agency to indulge in such practices, and that such practices may occur in the absence of official authority. Moreover, specialists in a wide range of skills have been pressed into service by those groups practicing torture, including doctors and other medical personnel, technicians in electronics and other fields, and psychologists (7). 4. - Assessment It is clear that the class of potential perpetrators of torture is without limit. Absent deterrent factors, almost any person or group could indulge in the practice if it were believed that some pragmatic goal would be attained by such conduct. Contemporary accounts suggest that torture may be directed against a very wide or very narrow class of persons in varying contexts. 1.- Political Categories A group occupying a position of power may seek to maintain its status by directing various forms of coercion against persons of a hostile political viewpoint, or those suspected of holding such views through torture of such persons or of persons associated with them. Targeted political viewpoints may be those hostile to the entire institutional, political structure of society or merely ostile to a particular group. Targeted groups may be characterized by opposition to a particular policy or personality through established institutional means, through the media or mass demonstrations, or through campaigns of violence. 2.- Suspected Criminals At times victims of torture are both politically hostile and guilty of specific criminal offenses such as espionage, conspiracy to commit murder or theft. That is, they may have acted out of political motivation and their actions may have furthered political goals, but some of their actions constitute classic common crimes. A frequent example is the terrorist engaged in a campaign to overthrow the existing political order. As in the case of political opponents, such targeted groups may in fact be coerced through torture of suspects or of persons somehow associated with such groups (8). At times, torture victims are common criminals, such as armed robbers, murderers, and assassins. It should be noted that the purposes or goals associated with the torture to which this class of offenders is subjected are often very specific and distinctive. 3. Seemingly Random Individuals At times the selection of victims appears to be completely arbitrary, suggesting that virtually any individual is a suitable target. Such randomness appears most frequently in situations of general repression where the perpetrators of torture are associated with a power seeking to establish or regain position, such as in a system of reprisalys by an occupying army. 4.- Other classes of Victims Circumstances are sometimes important in causing a particular class of persons to be targeted for torture. Thus, in war, persons of either military or civilian status may be tortured if they have fallen into enemy hands. Sometimes such persons are coerced through torture of persons associated with them. 5.- Assessment The potential class of victims of torture is limitless. Political events, war and other circumstances could bring the possibility of torture to individuals of groups previously secure. Accordingly, if there is no deterrent to the practice of torture, no one can be guaranteed that he or she will not become a torture victim. As the variety of classes of victims suggests, the practice of torture is engaged in for a variety of goals, some of which are associated particularly with certain classes of victims. These goals may be grouped as tactical or ultimate. 1.- Tactical Goals The immediate result sought by torturers is commonly coercive. That is, to either: obtain information, obtain a confession or other statement with legal or political usefulness, or to intimidate the victim or another person (9). Another class of goals may be described as punishment. The goal of punishment may be characterized by the status of the practice of torture vis-a-vis official policy. Where torture is pursuant to an official policy, its goal may be either: to act as a deterrent to continued conduct of the kind engaged in by the offencer, or by others; or to fulfill the retributive theory of punishment's requirement that the offender suffer. Where torture is practiced without regard to or in defiance of official policy, its goal may be personal vengeance on the part of the torturer or sadistic gratification for the torturer. Punishment as a goal of torture tends to be restricted to the various classes of criminal victims, whereas the other goals may be paired with any class of victim. Moreover, pursuit of one goal is not exclusive of pursuit of other goals, since torture may serve all these goals at once. It is in fact difficult to limit the goals served by the practice, since they are all served by any act which serves one. 2.- Ultimate Goals Ultimate goals tend to follow from tactical goals. Where a coercive tactical goal was sought, the ultimate goal will generally deal with the application of the products of the coercion-information, confessions or statements. Thus, information obtained may be used to destroy enemies of the torturer's superiors or to check an attack upon them. Likewise, a confession may be used to incriminate either the victim or his associates, thereby making it possible to punish them; and, perhaps, serve other purposes such as neutralizing the threat they pose to the group responsible for the torture. Statements obtained through torture are capable of use for imprisoning or discrediting individuals. Ultimate goals arising from coercive tactical goals may be characterized as: a) to preserve a political system; b) to preserve the political power of a particular group; d) to avert a threatened harm of any kind. Torture with punishment as its immediate goal may be aimed at the ultimate goal of maintaining public order pursuant to the deterrent theory of punishment, or satisfying unofficial urges of vengeance and sadism which are both immediate and long-term goals for those inflicting torture. The practice of torture can be rationalized as advancing a wide variety of pragmatic considerations. Its drastic nature and the consequent fear makes it a potent force for coercing individuals or groups into compliance with the torturer's will. D. - Motivation of the Torturer The goals of torture tend to delimit the motivation of the group that practices it, but the motivation of the individuals who actually apply torture or order its application merits further considerations. The deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering upon another human being is not an activity that most individuals find easy to contemplate, much less to indulge in. Individuals who do so may be motivated by either circumstantial or personal pressures. The most dramatically demonstrated circumstantial motivation is that of response to authority. Thus, an amazing percentage of apparently psychologically average persons will inflict such pain simply because someone in apparent authority has told them to do so (10). It is easy to imagine how much more readily obedience to such orders will follow where an individual has been conditioned either to respond to orders, as in a military environment, or to over look the suffering of others. A more difficult concept is mass or mob psychology. This phenomenon is evident where there is universal and emotional condemnation or fear of the class of persons targeted as victims of torture. The torturer, by peer pressure has either come to see them as subhuman or to imagine the peril to his compatriots so vividly that the acts of torture are justified by an unconscious bending of means to ends. The personal motives of sadism and vengeance have been suggested from their concommitant goals, but a more subtle motivation also exists: self-righteousness. Thus torture may be practiced by a person who is simply taking the law into his or her own hands. Assessment Although inflicting pain on other human beings is repulsive to most persons, torturers are not lacking. Decision-makers are removed from the grisly task and keep their eyes focused on the practical advantages they seek to derive from torture. Subordinates are conditioned to obey orders, and can be conditioned to perform the tasks required. No purpose would be served by cataloging all the various devices and techniques applied to produce severe pain of suffering. However, it is important to consider some of the most sophisticated and subtle techniques in current use. All of them have in common certain psychological aspects discussed in Appendix C. deprivation, deprivation of food and water, exposure to noise or to extremes of heat and cold, forced squatting or mantaing other uncomfortable positions, electric shock, water torture, various forms of beatings such ah the hastinado in which the soles of the feet are beaten and the pau da arrara or parrot's perch in which a suspended victim is beaten. Beyond the hardware of historical torture, drugs have come to play a role. Among these drugs are a variety that produce physical effects, such as convulsions and other losses of bodily control, and sensations of pain (11). Their special significance is that they can be administered with a minimum of equipment or facilities. 2. - Psychological Methods a) Standard Methods Many of the practices long in use by torturers are directed more at the mind than the body, and are of significance because such methods are difficult to detect and easy to apply. Examples of these practices are prolonged verbal abuse, threats such as threats of beatings, sexual assault, exposure to vile animals, and actual sexual assaults, homosexual rape, as well as mock executions, prolonged hooding and solitary confinement. b) Chemical Methods Most drugs in the torturer's tool chest are directed at the mind. Some are straightforward, even non-painful, such as various truth drugs. Others are designed to produce psychic anguish or distressing disorientation (12), so that, rather than directly causing the victim to speak or perform a desired act, the threat of their renewed use serves to coerce such behavior. Again, such methods are easy to apply and difficult to detect. c) Advanced techniques As the progress of Science has had such distressing sideeffects as enhancing destructive power in warfare, it has also enhanced the potential for distortion of minds, a fact of which torturers have shown studious awareness. Thus such concepts as « brainwashing », until recently regarded as an emotional and exaggerated term, and behavior modification, thought of as a force for untwisting bent minds, take on a real and sinister meaning. Their greatest significance is probably in their potential, long-term effect on the victim and the fact that they are difficult to distinguish from techniques for rehabilitation of criminals or curing of mentally ill persons (14). 3. Special problems regarding Medicine Such practices as witholding needed medical treatment, |