TERRORISM
The expression “terrorism” comes from the French word terrorisme (“under terror”), coined during the French Revolution. The revolutionary Jacobin government headed by Robespierre (1793-1794) executed and imprisoned its opponents, paying no heed to guarantees of a proper trial, and the term saw itself adopted for use as propaganda against the Government.
More than two centuries later, the word “terrorism” is unfortunately widely used and generally means terror-based domination: "The succession of violent acts carried out to instil terror" (Royal Spanish Academy). The forthcoming 23rd edition of the Diccionario de la Lengua Española includes another meaning: the “Criminal action of organised bands which, repeatedly and usually indiscriminately, endeavour to create social alarm for political ends”. Kidnap, torture, threats, attacks on material property, murders, etc. are qualified as terrorist acts.
In Spain, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) was born under the Franco dictatorship. This organisation uses terrorism to achieve its ends. In over 40 years of existence it has selectively and/or indiscriminately killed over 800 people from all social walks of life, from members of the army and the state security forces to civilians: judges, politicians, lawyers, entrepreneurs, journalists, tourists, children or ex-members of the terrorist organisation.
The 80s saw the appearance of the Antiterrorist Liberation Groups (GAL), supposedly with the intention of taking action against ETA and those linked to it. They killed 27 people, kidnapped and tortured, etc. Many of their victims had no relationship whatsoever with ETA. Their actions belong to the period known in Spain as “the dirty war”.
When it is a government that uses illegitimate methods to cause fear in a specific civil population, the term used is “State terrorism”. Many are the governments to have employed this tactic to achieve their strategic ends (social, political, military, etc.), justifying their actions with a so-called “reason of state”. The Germany of the III Reich killed 10 million people: 6 million of these were Jews killed in the Holocaust. Operation Condor, coordinated in the 1970s between the military dictators in South America (especially cruel in Argentina and Chile) with the cooperation of the USA, left a toll of 50,000 dead, 30,000 disappeared and 400,000 prisoners.
Today, the Palestine-Israel conflict is one of the most deeply-rooted and involves different kinds of terrorism making it even more complicated to find a shared solution to the problem.
International terrorism is implemented in the endeavour to destabilise the structure of power in whole regions or, even, the whole world over. Terrorist activities are spread over a large number of scenarios with this purpose in mind.
On 11 September 2001, Islamic terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and forced two of them to fly into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon (US Department of Defence) and the fourth into an open field in Pennsylvania. 3,000 people died.
Insecurity and fear have grown enormously among western citizens following that assault on the economic and financial heart of America. Since then, international terrorism has become one of the great world concerns. The so-called “war against terror” has led to an enormous reduction in freedom and human rights. The military base occupied by the USA in Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) symbolises this infringement of human rights. Hundreds of people are still detained on the Caribbean island, with no charges and hardly a hope of obtaining a fair trial while suffering torture and other abuse.
Giza Eskubideen Aldarrikapena
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/bsq.htm
Euskadiko GGKEen Koordinakundea
http://www.ongdeuskadi.org/principal_e.asp