State terrorism

State terrorism is a controversial term (see:State terrorism: Confines and definition), which means violence against civilians perpetrated by a national government or proxy state. Whether a particular act is described as "terrorism" may depend on whether the international community considers the action justified or necessary, or whether the described act is carried out as part of an armed conflict. It has to be mentioned, that the opinion of the International community cannot be defined and determined with with universal agreement. State terrorism, where applicable, may be directed toward the population or infrastructure of the state in question or towards the population of other states. Although attacks on non-combatant civilians may occur during a time of war, they are not usually considered terrorism, especially if these are attacks on the enemy's war fighting capacity (for example an industrial port). The terrorism may be carried out by the state's own forces, such as an army, police, state supported militias, or other organisations, where it is more usually called state-sponsored terrorism.

Care should be taken to differentiate state terrorism from acts of violence carried out by government agents, which are not specified by government policy or past conduct. A murder carried out by a policeman, for example, is not state terrorism unless the government sanctioned the action by policy or conduct such as a pattern of attacks by state agents in the past that has gone unpunished, leading perpetrators to assume they act with impunity.

Confines and definition

State terrorism, like terrorism, is controversial and there is no generally accepted definition. Often acts that critics describe as terror, supporters defend as legitimate defense against perceived threats. Generally, the definition of terrorism does not extend to states in direct and open military conflict, if the actions of their armed forces are within the laws of war.

The distinction between state and nonstate terror has been criticized as being morally relativist and as distracting from or justifying state terrorism perpetrated by favored states, typically those of wealthy and developed nations (Chomsky and Herman, 1979).The Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón views particular political systems as instances of state terrorism: "State terrorism is a political system whose rule of recognition permits and/or imposes a clandestine, unpredictable, and diffuse application, even regarding clearly innocent people, of coercive means prohibited by the proclaimed judicial ordinance."

Methods of state terror

Kangaroo courts, torture, terror bombing, kidnapping, and extrajudicial execution are said to be common practices of state terror, often used to terrorize domestic and foreign populations by sovereign or proxy regimes.

Citizens of Western nations are generally protected from unfair trial by constitutional or legislative safeguards and the requirements of due process. Undeveloped nations may have weaker institutions and unstable political climates that allow governments to have greater influence over the judiciary than in wealthier nations, allowing dissenters to be victimized as criminals.

According to Amnesty International (1997), in 1996, out of 150 countries surveyed, 82 had participated in torture.

Extrajudicial execution

Extrajudicial execution, or political murder, takes place when state agents kill citizens who are viewed as threats, or to intimidate communities. Extrajudicial execution may be carried out by the official military, police forces, or unofficial but sanctioned paramilitaries (often called "death squads" or euphemized as "civilian defense"). In the latter case, there may be strong ties between the paramilitaries and official forces, with an overlapping membership and/or a "blind eye" turned to illegal activities.

See also: Janjaweed

Such death squads often unpredictably attack the socially disadvantaged ("undesirables"), religious or ethnic minorities, or citizens deemed to be subversive. Their targets typically include the homeless, street children, union leaders, indigenous peoples, clergy, activists, journalists, and academics. Death squads conveniently shield their sponsors from liability, the illusion of spontaneous criminal violence providing plausible deniability. Often, the bodies of victims are secretly disposed, typically in mass graves, leaving no evidence of a crime and increasing the trauma to families and communities. These cases are known as "forced disappearances", and take place particularly in South America. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances was formed in 1980 to investigate the global phenomenon of unexplained disappearances.

Acts labelled as state terrorism, sorted by state

References

Sluka, Jeffrey A. (Ed.) (2000). Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1711-X.
Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward S. (1979). The Political Economy of Human Rights - Volume I. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-090-0
Alexander George (1991). Western State Terrorism. Polity Press. ISBN 0-7456-0931-7.
Mark Curtis (2004). Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses. Vintage. ISBN 0-09-946972-3.

External links

Prevention of terrorism