State Terrorism: Suppression of Fundamental Human Rights (6)

Violence and Terrorism.- Their ideological mystification at the service of Imperialism

6 – State Terrorism: Suppression of Fundamental Human Rights

Iñaki Aginaga and Felipe Campo

Once the system that established the balance of Powers by means of a duopoly of the thermo-nuclear terror has been abolished, the current hegemonic imperialistic reactionary backlash strives to undo the “subversive” International Law that had been established on terrorism, by falsifying and recuperating at the same time the concept of the right of self-determination or independence of all Peoples in order to make it harmless to imperialism.

For their part, the European Institutions are doing it since ever: it’s enough to just compare the regulations on terrorism, human rights and right of self-determination, current in the European Imperialistic Union (EIU), with the corresponding ones in the UNO, to appreciate the true reality of the much vaunted declarations on the “human dimension” and “respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms, direct and legitimate concern to all participating States” of the European imperialistic bunker. Their cynical denial of State Violence and Terrorism: maintained by Governments that practise them in full “consciousness” and in full view of everybody, does clearly show that they could not care less about their credibility, as long as their impunity and mutual cover remain collectively assured.

Even though violence is in general constitutive of all policy and of all las, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, imperialism and fascism cannot in particular do without State Terrorism, as a “decisive element of policy”, if they want to reduce or eliminate the Resistance. Pious, idealistic or well-intentioned souls have come to argue that terrorism, both in peace and in war, is – more than useless – counter-productive, because it increases the Resistance. Perhaps they have managed to persuade themselves about this; but – as far as they are concerned – the States do not lose time with such visionaries. “The unfortunately unquestionable efficiency of terror” has been too much verified, and it cannot be expected that the terrorist States are going to do without it. These ones, on the contrary, have led it to the highest level of achievement as a revolutionary and counter-revolutionary factor of a first magnitude; they use it not in a temporary, occasional, interim or exceptional but permanent and systematic form, because it corresponds to their objectives and resources, and to the needs inherent in their structure of criminal domination.

Talking about protection of the civilian population, regrettable collateral damage, selective targets and surgical bombing etc. is another hypocritical way of hiding the reality. The civilian population has always been the direct objective of Violence and Terrorism; and it is increasingly more so with the total war and the contemporary totalitarianism. The Violence and Terrorism inflicted on the civilian population turn out to be easier, more effective and definitive than those waged against the armed forces. The vulnerability of the former, and the political and military effect of the terrorist bombings over the populations (by succeeding in breaking the morale and the will of armed forces that turn up hard to be reduced as military objectives, but that do not support the sufferings and victims of their own civilians), make of the civilian population the preferent target of a total war. Which notwithstanding is denied; sometimes with arguments that – judging by subsequent practice – do not convince the terrorist States that systematically do practice it. After the “limited and civilized” wars of the 18th century, now more than ever “real wars are wars of extermination”.

More than half of the fifty million dead of the Second World War were civilians, and the sufferings and extermination of those population under the bombs, faced to hunger, cold and disease, exceed all imagination. If in principle it is better to be a prisoner of war than a combatant, often it is also better to be combatant than civilian. In any case, the concrete denial of that qualification to the prisoners of war; and the express reclassification of the entire civilian population of the enemy State as military force, make irrelevant such distinctions that – like others – depend on words and meanings that are changed and adapted to the needs of the propaganda. In this way, they are civilians, combatants, prisoners of war or terrorists those whom the imperialistic and totalitarian political power qualifies as such, according to its own convenience. The international protecting “laws” do not exist and do not protect to anybody, because no one does impose them; and the States interpret them as it suits best to themselves.

The Peoples: great or small, oppressors or oppressed, have not yet become aware of the implications and virtualties of the new “anti-terrorist” policy of their Governments; however it is high time that all of them understand the true reality, and that all Peoples must be judged by the same yardstick: as attacked and oppressed when they are oppressed; and as aggressors and oppressors when they are oppressors. Regrettably, once the ideological manipulations carried out by the totalitarian dominant Powers have been officially installed, in order to establish their concept of “terrorism” as the fundamental and supreme crime (and the “defence against terrorism” as the “fundamental right”), next all traditional crimes and all Fundamental Human Rights disappear – formally or really, actually or virtually – as such. All the technical, political and ideological conditions of State Terrorism are thus gathered.

If the removal of “all violence” against the order or disorder established by the hegemonic Power and its Allies is postulated as the supreme value, then the liquidation of Peoples and other social entities, as well as the genocide or religious persecution of groups that resist and oppose the criminal policy promoted against them by the imperialistic Powers, are the logical and necessary development of a political strategy consistent with such a postulate. Thanks to the new international order, all form of political Resistance to the established totalitarian order and power, all critical reserve, all afferent ideology of opposition, all opposition and all social factor of Resistance, opinion, omission or abstention against the own policy and the own monopoly of Violence and Terrorism: which result in their turn self-excluded of such terms and concepts, are directly or indirectly considered “violence and terrorism”; whereas nothing that serves the own terrorist policy is considered so.

And then, these forms of Resistance can be persecuted as an incriminable objective, and discretionarily included in the new criminal “type” and list: either as perpetrator, foundation, instrument, complement or supplement. That arbitrary designation or accusation extends to entire groups and Peoples, to the “diffuse cooperation” even without organic or active relationship, and to the direct, indirect and unlimited contamination ‘ad contactu’; in the same way as it operates the ad infinitum reproduction of relics touched by the habit of Saint Teresa. The Terrorist Midas does turn into “terrorism” everything it touches. Now then, if every characteristic that is common with a “terrorist act” is terrorism, then the whole humanity is terrorist; and if terrorism is the supreme evil, there is no limit to its eradication.The Spanish imperialism: a pluri-centennial aggressor and colonizer of multi-continental dimensions, affirms now that “immigration is the terrorism of the 21st century”.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (Fourth Amendment.)

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” (Fifth Amendment.)

However, by decision-making designation and definition, it is now and is called “terrorism” what the supreme instances of Violence and Terrorism decide to be and be called “terrorism”. Thus, every fundamental right and every individual or group: social, national or religious (and all the et caeterathat may be needed), may be discretionarily included – by reference, analogy, extension or amalgamation – in the new criminal list. A free, discretionary and arbitrary, provisional, variable and elastic determination – or indeterminacy – of the concept of “terrorism” does liberate the State powers to identify and incriminate as “terrorist”, or not, anyone that suits them. It’s enough the presumption, suspicion or qualification of “terrorism” held by a governmental official, and – in any of the Member States – the alleged subjects of fundamental rights will be pursued, detained, kidnapped or imprisoned, indicted, condemned or shot – murdered – for being “terrorists”. All that, at the hands of Governments, Organizations, Commissions and Courts that do not know how to define – or disagree on what does constitute – terrorism; and by virtue of legal qualifications that do not even match-up between themselves on semantics or concepts, nor in the procedure or in the sanction.

This is how Governments – and their official panegyrists who do proclaim their sacred legitimacy – understand the principle of legality and genuineness of the penalties, and the “rule of law”. The legal, clerical or doctrinal theory or rhetoric referred to the modern “principle of legality” is inexhaustible, but the reality does contradict it; as it is checked when seeing that for the current imperialism and fascism their own formal laws serve to sit on them. In comparison with what has arrived to us afterwards, even the proto-Francoist penal law was a model of principles and guarantees: “No one can be punished for a crime or offence whose elements are not defined by the law”. “Any criminal offence must be subject to a specific definition, related to a concrete human action.” “The legal system implies: a) a court that takes its decisions from a las clearly formulated and circumscribed; b) clear legal rules that cannot be distorted with abusive appeals to a so-called popular sentiment or mere reasons of utility”.

No Francoist of always does really long at present the personal dictatorship of General Franco; but, more and more, the persecuted of always have good reasons to regret the “improvement” of the institutions that has been developed by the reformed traditionalist and the National-socialist régime of Falange-PsoE. In addition, there are no longer any exceptions left for the repression, since the protection that was previously provided by the penal exception established with regard to the “political offence” has long ago disappeared from the States’ criminal law; first, by including that exception in a “common” offence of criminal régime, and afterwards, by reducing the concept that defines the political fact, which is now assigned only to the subjects/individuals recognized as such.

Nowadays, who “are” or should be considered political prisoners is something that is decided by the Governments. Indeed: it is – and is called – “political offence” only what in each case the established Power decides it to be; just as in the same way they are “moral, freedom, law, violence, terrorism, State, People or Nation” only what in each case the supreme instance of Violence decides them to be. Therefore, and after being discovered the trick that all political repression carried out by an imperial-totalitarian régime can be currently presented and justified as repression of “terrorism”, no self-respecting despotic régime has today “political” prisoners, it only has “common, terrorist” ones; and so, the “common” crime of “terrorism” has removed and replaced with advantage the formerly named “political offence”. Finally, and “consequently” with such postulates, it’s only “political” the demeanour that is accepted by and “consistent” with the régime that decides it to; whereas the behaviour that radically opposes to it is qualified according to the “common” offence of “banditry and terrorism”. Thus, the formula “political offence” is already in itself an expression contradictory in terms.

(Still, and incidentally, “common” is the opposite correlative of “exceptional”, not of “political”; and “political” is the opposite correlative of “apolitical”, not of “exceptional”. Another example of a false conceptual opposition, carefully induced and exploited in our Country, is the one expressed by the terms “common-foral”, which serves the imperialistic ideology so as to present the foral régime as something “exceptional” opposed to the normality, which is thus represented by the imperialistic “common” régime.)

However the reality is quite different. “The sometimes-spontaneous violence of the revolt becomes insurrection or civil war, when it has a cause or points to a really political objective. Depending on the outcome, its description will be changed: always criminal at the starting point, the finally victorious insurrection will in hindsight be the origin of the new lawfulness. The violence against the constitutional law shares the ambiguity of all historical events: admirable or hateful according to preferences. Instead, the crimes of common law are those whose qualification does not change, whatever the vicissitudes of the struggles between the political parties may be. The murder does not turn to be a meritorious act except on condition of having a political sense. Every year, on the anniversary day of his execution, the ‘resistants’ come to cover with flowers the tomb of the murderer-hero who killed Admiral Darlan.”

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then; it is like a storm in the Atmosphere.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1787.) However, his successors do now deny freedom, independence and the rights of self-determination and of legitimate self-defence of the subjugated Peoples; and condemn as criminals and “terrorists” all those who in any way do oppose to the puppet régimes imposed by them and under their guidelines on other Peoples.

“Those were grim days, the days of 1776. Those gentlemen did not attach their names to the Declaration of Independence on this table expecting a holiday on the next day, and that 4th of July was not itself a holiday. They attached their signatures to that significant document knowing that if they failed it was certain that every one of them would hang for the failure. They were committing treason in the interest of the liberty of 3,000,000 people in America. All the rest of the world was against them and smiled with cynical incredulity at the audacious undertaking. Do you think that if they could see this great Nation now they would regret anything that they then did to draw the gaze of a hostile world upon them? Every idea must be started by somebody, and it is a lonely thing to start anything. Yet, if it is in you, you must start it if you have a man’s blood in you and if you love the Country that you profess to be working for.” (Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America; 1914.)

Now then, the independence of the United States of America was certainly not done “in the interests of the liberty” and fundamental rights of the First Nations but ignoring them. According to the contemporary positive national and international law, the USA have as Founding Fathers delinquents, bandits and terrorists; who, with the support of a foreign Power, attacked by means of violence the British Government of the american colonies. And they certainly knew that they were so; but there came to pass that it was they who won and founded the new legality that turned them into heroes. And if it is true what they do now maintain and apply to subjugated Peoples and Countries, when they qualify them as “terrorists” for seeking their national independence from imperialistic States that keep them under criminal domination, then they themselves are qualifying their own origin established on the same premises.

“If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.” (Benjamin Franklin) Indeed, that’s what the criminal British Government did, even 140 years later, to the Patriots signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic (1916) and with those men committed to it. Well, at least it hung Roger Casement, in whom it concentrated all its loathsome hatred and revenge. As for the others, it was content with executing them all by firing squad; and if someone could not remain standing because of the wounds received, as it happened to James Connolly, he was tied to a chair to receive the volley.

Yet, like other similar ones, the Irish patriots were not terrorists but genuine defenders of the right of national independence and of legitimate self-defence of their aboriginal People, and their only “crime” was to go as far as to sign and affirm it:

“Irishmen and Irishwomen: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom. [...]

“We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty, six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

“The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

“Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.” Etc. (Proclamation of the Irish Republic, 1916.)

Now then, If it is not “lawful to kill the tyrant” or even to rise against him, whereas the tyrant can kill his opponents, in such a case there are no fundamental human rights but positive law and monopoly of criminal Violence of the tyrant. If the imperialistic domination over the subjugated Peoples and their States, obtained by means of Violence and Terrorism and maintained through repression and violation of fundamental human rights, is not criminal Violence: original, eminent, permanent and continuous, but it is so the Resistance against it; and if it is not licit to repel aggression but it is so to perpetrate it, then there is no right of self-determination of all Peoples but licit and legitimate State Terrorism against them and imperialistic monopoly of criminal Violence licit and legitimated, against the “terrorism” of those who defend fundamental human rights. Those who position themselves in this way are agents at the service of the imperialistic Country: whether they be metropolitan Colonists, or traitorous Aborigines alienated and surrendered under the weight of the imperialistic monopolies of repression and psychological warfare.

The fundamental, inherent and customary right of individual and collective legitimate self-defence against imperialistic and foreign aggression is the right to resort to force against it, which also the States Members put always as a limit to the competences of the UNO. It’s a right that is intended to be exceptional, subsidiary, ultimate, provisional, limited, proportional and controlled, and which in fact is usually normal, substantive, first, permanent, unlimited, disproportionate and uncontrolled. It is object of a general unilateral reserve by Peoples and States, and its extensive interpretation includes “preventive legitimate defence”. War of aggression and resistance against it – actual or virtual – being the foundation of international relations and International Law, the right to war, of war, of conquest and of self-determination remain the controversial real fabric of contemporary International Law.

That “the conditions of peace are inextricably linked to the national question” was known and proclaimed long ago by the Great Powers, capitalists, communists and “international” Organizations:

“The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations, and is a serious impediment to the promotion and maintenance of world peace and co-operation.” [UNGAR 1514 (XV)]

“If the right of self-determination of Peoples is emptied of contents, the foundation from which the friendship among Peoples can develop is removed”. The only issue really raised consisted in deciding whether the “national question” was to be solved by means of the liberation of the oppressed Nations, or by means of their liquidation through the Terrorism of imperialistic States. The new world order has chosen the second “solution”.

The denial of national freedom implies the denial of the fundamental, inherent and customary right of self-determination or independence of Peoples; a right that “finally” has been secretly, discreetly or openly removed and replaced, in the “international law” of the Great Powers and their global and regional organizations, by the classical right of preservation of the imperialistic status quo, which is presumed as “pacific”; with all the exceptions that the dominant Powers see fit to impose or dispute according to their respective interests. (This position is backed by all the National-socialists and National-communists of the world, who – as they always did – are absolutely devoted to preserving the imperialistic and colonial Nationalism of their own States; which they now hypocritically disguise as inevitable geo-strategic requirement to the confrontation – imperialistic on both sides – of the emerging or re-emerging Powers against the hegemonic Power.)

In this context, and along with the right of self-determination of all Peoples, there also “disappears” from that imperialistic “international law” of the “great” Powers the fundamental and inherent right of others’ legitimate defence, which is unilaterally claimed by all the Peoples and Governments of the world as a fundamental condition, sine qua non, of true International Law. Instead, it is affirmed the imperialistic monopoly of criminal Violence and the Terror of masses.

Yet imperialism and colonialism are terrorist crimes of war, against peace and against humanity; and they consist of the denial of the fundamental human rights, beginning with the freedom and right of self-determination of all Peoples, which is the first and the precondition of them all, according to contemporary International Law of the UN. Now then, all democratic attitude implies the respect for and the defence of fundamental human rights; a position that, according to that International Law, may be vindicated against the positive “law” of an imperialistic State, even though it does – according to the norm generalized in today’s world – pretend to be a “democratic” and even “popular” State. All the Peoples of the world assert their will to live free and safe in their free homeland, with the territory and the resources that constitute it; to maintain their own rights – if not those of the others’ – of self-determination and of legitimate defence; to preserve their national freedom, rights and identity against the imperialistic aggression, occupation and colonization; and to defend themselves against these by all necessary means, with the right of legitimate self-defence as last or first warranty.

The President of the United States of America, Mr. Woodrow Wilson, began so his address to the U.S. Congress in 1918, February the 11^th, shortly afterwards he had announced his Fourteen Points on previous January the 8^th:

“Peoples are not to be handed about from one sovereignty to another by an international conference or an understanding between rivals and antagonists. National aspirations must be respected; Peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. ‘Self-determination’ is not a mere phrase. It is an imperativeprinciple of actions which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. We cannot have general peace for the asking, or by the mere arrangements of a peace conference. It cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between powerful states. [...] This war had its roots in the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities, which lacked the union and the force to make good their claim to determine their own allegiances and their own forms of political life...” Etc.

Months earlier, shortly after having come to power, the new Soviet Government proclaimed on 1917, November the 15^th “the right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination, even unto the point of separation and establishment of independent States”; whose immediate practical use was the Declaration of Independence of Finland on December the 6^th of that same year.

[“Two points, however, should be noted:

1/ Wilson and other Allied statesmen after WWI did not really think in the idealism that Self-Determination or Independence was appropriate for all Peoples, e.g. Africans or Asians.” That “utopian idealism”: which even the “socialists” of those times could only regard as mere insanity, remained only for visionary democrats such as Sabino Arana Goiri, who in 1902 was put in prison for having expressed them through attemptsof congratulation telegrams: one to the President Theodore Roosevelt, because of the support to the Cuban independence (with significant population of African origin) given by “the most noble Federation which you preside over, which had the ability to set it free from slavery”; and another one to the British Premier Lord Salisbury (written already from prison and also intercepted) “because of the end of the South-African War, hoping that the English domination may be for those peoples protection rather than domination”. And

2/ Although in its Constitution of 1924 the Soviet Union was the first State in the world that recognized that right to its Republics (not to the so-called “autonomous regions”), “the Soviet Government had no intention of allowing any true self-determination to Ukrainians, Georgians and the other ‘nationalities of the Soviet Union’, as they were called, and soon crushed the attempts of those Peoples to achieve it.”]

The fear of conflicts that – driven by imperialism – is entailed by the implementation of the right of self-determination of all Peoples, is still being a continued pretext for its denial. “The right of self-determination must necessarily be sacrificed to the preservation of peace.” That is, the struggle of Peoples for national freedom is presented and identified as a source of instability and conflict, not as a product and remedy against them.

Thus, after President Wilson’s aforementioned address to the Congress, his anxious Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, decried in a confidential memorandum (December 1918) President’s espousal to Self-Determination:

“When the President talks of ‘self-determination’, what unit has he in mind?” And immediately afterwards he established that his fears were specifically referred to defining the “unit”, it is: the active subject which can legitimately exercise or make the application of that principle: “Without a definite unit, which is practical, application of this principle is dangerous to peace and stability”. Yet, either out of laziness or incapability to ask himself about the active subject of that “imperative principle of action” that is Self-Determination, or rather out of his determined support for maintaining the world imperialistic ‘status quo’, ten days later that Secretary of State definitely declared: “The phrase is simply loaded with dynamite”.

Lansing, and adept to “realpolitik”, “sourly scorned Wilson’s vision as ‘the dream of an idealist who failed to realize the danger until too late... What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered!’ he affirmed. But try telling that to a billion people whose liberation has been speeded by a doctrine [Self-Determination or Independence of all Peoples] enshrined in the first article of [‘We, the Peoples of]’ the United Nations’ Charter”. For this reason, the tribute that is given to President Wilson by the author of this quotation is well-deserved: “From the Baltics to the Adriatic, from the Ukraine to the Balkans, oppressed millions have given new life to his imperative -– and often troublesome -– principle. [...] Wilson, who died defeated and embittered, has earned the epitaph bestowed by Londoners on Sir Christopher Wren: If you wish to see his monument, just look around.” (Woodrow Wilson’s Dynamite, by Karl E. Meyer; The New York Times, August 14, 1991.)

As so often there has been repeated in the UNO Resolutions, and we never get tired of reminding, it is the Peoples – not the imperialistic Colonists settled in the Countries of other Peoples – who are owners of the international rights of self-determination or independence of all Peoples from the imperialism, as well as of legitimate self-defence; and there is nothing in this that is “dangerous to peace and stability” but quite the opposite.

All throughout history – past and contemporary – is a demonstration that where the freedom and the right of self-determination of Peoples are denied and destroyed, social conflicts, war, hatred and ruin of fundamental rights in general do hopelessly destroy peace, harmony and collaboration among human beings, with no other solution but the destruction of the Peoples themselves or their independence. Even if “the right of self-determination is loaded with dynamite”, as it has been chanted by the imperialists when it comes to their own colonies (although not when that right has to be applied to those of the others), they are – or should be – known the nuclear time-bombs of an immediate or delayed and amplified effect with which the imperialism is loaded; and the real consequences of the obtuse tendency of the “great” Powers’ “international law” to the preservation of the status quo as a “peaceful” form of imperialism.

Seventy million dead – half of them civilians – in only two World Wars, are the beneficial result that encourages the dominant States to persevering on the same path “for the preservation of peace”. All that thanks to the rejection of the right of self-determination or independence of Peoples, to the weapons of selective or massive destruction, and to the balance of nuclear terror; measures that they do hypocritically claim to be necessary in order to confront with what cynically they call “the growth of a nationalism of a dangerous type” (S. Talbott), or the alleged “excessive and uncontrollable violence” of the Peoples that are subjugated and defenceless. They say so when it is evident that the latter simply claim their right of self-determination or national freedom against “the aggressive and unilateral chauvinism, and the predatory nationalism” (S. T.) of the “great” imperialistic States; with which, however, the subjugated Peoples are maliciously equated; thus making weigh an unprecedented threat on the future of humanity.

The totalitarian States: assisted by “intellectuals, journalists, counsellors and national security advisors” who spread their ideology of service in universities, mass-media, laboratories of ideas, think tanks or Governments, in denying the freedom and the right of independence of the subjugated Peoples on the pretext of preserving peace, are responsible of the greatest wars in history and of many others that the absence of the right of self-determination of all Peoples did not avoid but cause: wars that were product of the imperialism and the denial of the right of self-determination of all Peoples.

Even though the observance of the right of self-determination or independence of all Peoples does not ensure the observance of all fundamental human rights, yet, its absence ensures the absence of all the others. The affirmation of Peoples’ right of self-determination or independence allows – even if it occurs sometimes or in the long term – peace and coexistence between Nations and States; its denial does never allow them.

After the re-establishment of the Ottoman “Constitution” of 1876, and in a famous speech delivered in Thessaloniki’s Liberty Square, in July 1908, Ismail Enver, one of the leaders of the “constitutionalist” leaders of the “revolution” of the Young Turks [and of their party Committee of Union and Progress-CUP], who was popularly regarded as “the young and chivalrous leader of that insurrection against tyranny”, had eloquently declared: “Today arbitrary government has disappeared. We are all brothers. There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Romanians, Mussulmans, Jews. Then, seven years after that false Turkish “constitutionalist and unionist” euphoria that adopted as its own the falsified principles of the also nationalist French revolution, that same so-called “hero of freedom” became one of the principal perpetrators of the Late Ottoman Genocides against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.

“Balkanization” was a negative result only for the Ottoman Empire, as it brought about the independence of the Countries of the Balkan Peninsula after they had created in 1912 the Balkan League: a quadruple alliance between Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro directed against the Ottoman Empire. The subsequent – and ideologically oriented – general negative connotation of that word is a consequence of the poisonous conditions created over centuries and left by imperialism, not by the abolition of imperialism.

It is not the “balkanization” but the Empires – Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Turkish – and their expansionism that for centuries have made the Balkans the tinderbox of Europe; in the same way, it is the Continental or trans-Continental imperialistic Nationalism of the “great” imperial Nations that has bloodied and butchered the World. Only the liberation – at times defective and faulty – of Peoples has enabled a principle, even though limited and precarious, of solution.

No democratic attitude can accept and recognize the terrorist, imperialistic and fascist monopoly of criminal Violence, without denying itself and without thereby abandoning all democratic content. The fundamental human rights in general, and in particular the right of self-determination of all Peoples and the right of independence and integrity of “States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of Peoples”, as well as the rights of legitimate self-defence, peace and security: foundations of International Law, do involve actual or virtual violence, the same as all rights; but only the terrorist violence of imperialism, which denies fundamental human rights, is unlawful and criminal, and is as such condemned by contemporary International Law of the UN.

When the French Nationalism-imperialism did invoke the rights of self-determination and of legitimate defence for the French Nation against an alleged “internal” aggression, so as to justify the infamous colonial “not-war” of “Algeria, an integral part of the French People” (because, where there are no other People than the French one, “France cannot wage war against itself”), it was forging with it both the reality and the right of self-determination of Peoples, as defined by the UNO. And when the Spanish imperialistic Nationalism represses the national freedom and denies and pursues the Basque People’s right of self-determination, while affirming that “the right of self-determination is incompatible with democracy”, it is not only distorting and adulterating the referred concepts but is also violating, inter alia, the Treaty of Accession to the UNO; Treaty that the Governments of General De Gaulle and General Franco had signed without the slightest intention to observe it.

The right of self-determination or independence of all Peoples is, like all fundamental human rights, “reflection” of an obligation imposed by the political power that underpins the International Law. The International Law is opposed to imperialism, and by that same act constitutes the identical right of self-determination or independence of Peoples against imperialism. No additional constitutive act, on the part of free or subjugated Peoples, makes any sense in order to constitute what is already constituted. The suppression of the fundamental human rights, and above all the inherent and inalienable rights of independence, self-determination and legitimate self-defence of all Peoples, constitutes the essence of imperialism, intrinsically evil and opposed to International Law by its mere existence. Imperialism is constituted by war, conquest, occupation and colonization, criminal Violence and State terrorism, deportation and ethnic substitution, torture, genocide and plunder, and by the denial of all fundamental human rights.

(From: ‘Violence and Terrorism.- Their ideological mystification at the service of Imperialism’.)