The Army's treatise on paranormal combat discusses tactics for suppressing magic- wielding insurgents. Supernatural Subversives in the Congo by Jon Elliston Dossier Editor pscpdocs@aol.com In 1964, the U.S. Army commissioned one of the most extraordinary strategy papers ever produced in the history of unconventional warfare. Titled "Witchcraft, Sorcery, Magic, and Other Psychological Phenomena, and Their Implications on Military and Paramilitary Operations in the Congo," the report is a treatise on paranormal combat, discussing "counter-magic" tactics to suppress rebels who are backed by witch-doctors, charms, and magic potions. This evaluation of supernatural counterinsurgency was written during an era when U.S. foreign policy was increasingly focused on quelling rebellions against allied governments. In Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa, the United States stood behind regimes that faced mounting threats to "internal security." Though today he is regarded by many Americans as a dove among Cold War hawks, President John F. Kennedy in fact oversaw a substantial increase in U.S. military assistance programs and CIA covert operations -- many of the Kennedy initiatives focused on bolstering foreign governments against insurgency. Though President Lyndon Johnson did not share Kennedy's enthusiasm for paramilitary programs, in Vietnam and elsewhere the Johnson administration carried the counterinsurgency momentum forward. One of the key weapons in the U.S. arsenal was the sociological analysis provided by government-funded academics. All of the disciplines that comprise contemporary social science were brought to bear on the counterinsurgency problem. As Seymour J. Deitchman, Defense Department Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency, explained to a congressional subcommittee in 1965: "[Counterinsurgency] war itself revolves around the allegiance and support of the local population. The Defense Department has therefore recognized that part of its research and development efforts to support counterinsurgency operations must be oriented toward the people, United States and foreign, involved in this type of war; and the DOD has called on the types of scientists -- anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists -- whose professional orientation to human behavior would enable them to make useful contributions in this area." (For examples of how military propagandists exploit cultural characteristics to frighten insurgents, see Psywar Terror Tactics.) Among the foreign hotspots that caused U.S. national security planners to seek such "useful contributions" was the Republic of the Congo, an African country now known as Zaire. The Congo was set reeling in the summer of 1960, when the country officially gained independence from Belgium. For a short time leftist Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba steered the Congo away from Western influence, but a combined U.S./Belgian destabilization effort quickly led to a military coup and Lumumba's assassination. (A CIA plot to kill Lumumba was underway at the time, but congressional reports suggest that the agency may have merely provided aid to his assassins -- as opposed to actually killing him.) The leaders that replaced Lumumba were more submissive to Western guidance, and relied on U.S. support for suppressing several rebel groups that sprung up in the name of Lumumba and other nationalists. The CIA and Defense Department deemed the country a test case for modern counterinsurgency methods, and financed numerous studies of Congolese society to probe the psychological strengths and weaknesses of the rebels. Such was the purpose of the supernatural warfare report, which was authored by James R. Price and Paul Jureidini, two analysts at the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) at American University in Washington, D.C. As a center for military-sponsored research on the human dimension of counterinsurgency, SORO cranked out reports profiling the politics and other social forces at play in countries that concerned the Pentagon. In 1964 SORO also designed the infamous Project Camelot, a planned effort to scientifically measure the social factors that work to stabilize and destabilize developing countries. When news about Project Camelot seeped into countries that were proposed as targets for study, international protests erupted and the project was shut down. Critics called Project Camelot an egregious case of "sociological snooping," and SORO's report on supernatural subversives in the Congo merits the same classification. The report is strikingly strategic, demonstrating the degree to which the study of human cultures can be employed as a weapon. Price and Jureidini worked for SORO's Counterinsurgency Information Analysis Center, which the Army hired to prepare an analysis of "the role of supernatural or superstitious concepts in a counterinsurgency in the Congo," according to the report's introduction. The study was thought necessary because of "the purported use of witchcraft, sorcery, and magic by insurgent elements." The report elaborated: "Magical practices are said to be effective in conditioning dissident elements and their followers to do battle with Government troops. Rebel tribesmen are said to have been persuaded that they can be made magically impervious to Congolese army firepower. Their fear of the government has thus been diminished and, conversely, fear of the rebels has grown within army ranks." According to the SORO analysts, there existed an "ingrained quality of superstition throughout black Africa." Such sweeping statements are common in the report, which crudely characterizes spiritual beliefs and practices as "witchcraft" and "cults." Though the authors repeat many stereotypical notions about the character of "African" superstitions (as if the culture, beliefs and history of countries throughout the vast continent were identical), the report also suggests a surprisingly nuanced understanding of the particulars of the crisis in the Congo, and the authors make every effort to pinpoint the distinctions between various Congolese sects. The report argues that to adequately "exploit the psychological potential of superstition," the counterinsurgency planner "must be able to compile and analyze a large quantity of specific and detailed information embracing the entire spectrum of superstitious beliefs and other values of the specific ethnic group with which he is concerned." Price and Jureidini believed it was exceedingly difficult to acquire such information, as there were "more than 200 reported tribes in the Congo" and "detailed studies of supernatural beliefs of specific tribes are limited." They also noted that the "secrecy inherent in most magical rituals presents a formidable obstacle to the outside investigator, whether he may be a scientist or an intelligence agent." The report also examines the history, motives, and strategies of the various factions vying for power in the Congo, and how these factors combined with beliefs in magic to shape an insurgency with unique sociological features. The authors focus on the function of tribal communities in the Congo as they were buffeted by the upheavals of the decolonization period. These key units of social organizing underwent significant shifts that set the stage for a return to traditional beliefs, the report argues, concluding that "in Africa, uprisings embodying supernatural practices have tended to occur generally whenever the continued physical safety or internal power structure of a tribe or tribes has been seriously threatened." Price and Jureidini made a careful effort to convey the diversity of Congolese ideas about the supernatural, writing that "these beliefs vary considerably according to tribe or sub-tribe. Literally, one man's charm may be another man's poison, depending upon particular tribal beliefs." After reviewing the phenomenon of supernatural insurgency, the report weighs the costs and benefits of trying to use "counter-magic" against the rebels -- to co-opt these ideas instead of trying to wipe them out. In regions "where insurgents rely upon 'medicines' and ritualistic practices to protect them from firepower, the suggestion to devise and employ magical practices in counterinsurgency operations is obvious and tempting," the report says. For example, "counterinsurgency planners will be able to concoct 'medicines' and other devices within in the superstitious framework of the target group, with which to neutralize and overpower the spells cast by insurgent witch-doctors." Before waging supernatural counterinsurgency, however, the report warns that "the U.S. counterinsurgency planner should give serious consideration to several pertinent factors" that would likely complicate such an approach. First, U.S. advisers in the Congo would work primarily with Western-educated elites, who could "be expected to resist any association with policies which might reflect endorsement of 'uncivilized' behavior," such as witchcraft and sorcery. Another potential problem: by pandering to paranormal notions in order to fight off insurgency, government forces might strengthen irrational ideas that could undermine stability. While "fear of magic and witchcraft can be reversed and used with telling effects against the insurgents," the report warns of unintended consequences. "Should the central government successfully use occult methods to defeat a movement based upon such methods, the very concepts of sorcery and magic which lend impetus to the insurgencies of the moment may gain strength and acquire even greater trouble-making potential for the future." In the end, the report suggests using traditional means -- namely, brute force -- to suppress the witchcraft warriors. "Any study of historical examples of uprisings supported by superstitious practices... will reveal that vigorous military counter-measures of a conventional nature have produced optimum results in suppressing the insurgency." Within the government ranks, the report advises that "unit morale and confidence... can go far to counteract superstitious fears" of magic-shielded rebels. Counter-magic would prove an unreliable, and unnecessary, counterinsurgency weapon. Price and Jureidini assured the Army that "there is every reason to believe that disciplined troops, proficient in marksmanship, and led by competent officers, can handily dispel most notions of magical invulnerability." Sources: Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counter-insurgency and Counter-terrorism, 1940-1990 (Pantheon, 1992). Peter Watson, War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology (Basic Books, 1978). Irving Louis Horowitz, Ed., The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot: Studies in the Relationship Between Social Science and Practical Politics (MIT Press, 1967). James R. Price and Paul Jureidini, "Witchcraft, Sorcery, Magic, and Other Psychological Phenomena and their Implications on Military and Paramilitary Operations in the Congo," Special Operations Research Office, August 8, 1964. (c) Copyright 1997 ParaScope, Inc. U.S. Army "Supernatural Counterinsurgency" Document Dossier message board: Share your views