Terrorism: a concept in evolution (5)

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

5 – ‘Terrorism’: a concept in evolution

Iñaki Aginaga and Felipe Campo

In the Assyrian Empire, the French Revolution, or the wars and revolutions of the 20^th century, the terrorism was openly used, proclaimed, vindicated and praised as an effective, necessary, laudable and recommended method of governance. The French revolutionaries of 1789 (who invented the term though not the thing, with the aforementioned precedent established by Francisco de Vitoria with his “and this whether it were done lawfully or unlawfully, as by means of threats or terrors, or other improper procedure”), or those of 1871 in the Commune, or the Russian ones in 1917, all of them carried out terrorism according to their own proclamation, and exceeded with notorious success the capacity of their predecessors and rivals in the matter. Terrorism includes war, repression, deportation and any action that uses terror as a means to obtain political ends.

From the French revolution until today, the idea and the semantics of “terrorism” have undergone an ideologically induced and diversely established transformation. In the use of the current hegemonic imperialism and in that of its protectorates the subordinate imperialisms, terrorism is any idea or activity that does not recognize the established régime and stands against it.

This is how the hegemonic Powers, which threaten to again use the weapons of mass destruction, which they keep as foundation of their policy of domination, do hypocritically present the individual or collective attempts carried out against them as “the greatest threat to the peace of mankind”; even though so as to make this claim they have needed to confuse, manipulate, retouch, reduce and falsify the names and the concepts of ‘violence’ and ‘terrorism’, in order to exclude their own State Violence and Terrorism. In this way, the concepts and terms of ‘violence’ and ‘terrorism’, like so many others, are doubled narrowed or widened to the whim and convenience of the dominant Powers so as to exclude their own activities and include those which escape or are opposed to the absolute power of their armed organizations, which dominate the world by means of Violence and atomic or conventional Terror.

In 1935, in a fully expansive phase of warlike, imperialistic and fascist Terrorism, the “VI International Conference for the Unification of Criminal Law”, which dealt with the issue of terrorism in Copenhagen (the previous ones being those of Warsaw in 1927, Rome in 1928, Brussels in 1930, Paris in 1931, and Madrid in 1933), did already confirm the pretension of adopting a limited concept of ‘terrorism’, so as to exclude the States of any authorship. However, the International Resolutions, Conventions and Pacts of the post-Second World War embraced a concept of terrorism strictly determined and modified in constitutive relationship with the fundamental and inherent human rights, and with the struggles of national liberation against Imperialism and State Terrorism; in whose reference the legitimate self-defence acquired all its sense.

In this way, and driven by the impulse of the Third World, numerous Resolutions of the UN did incriminate State Terrorism, affirming as fundamental ones the rights of self-determination or independence and of legitimate defence of Peoples subdued under alien aggression, occupation and colonization. The imperialistic bloc tried to get the opposite: a definition of ‘terrorism’ which did exclude the State Terrorism, and include the “fighters for freedom and the subjugated Peoples’ self-determination” and the national liberation movements.

“It can be said, therefore and in other words, that the right of self-determination of peoples would be rendered meaningless if it were not Incorporated, as a corollary, with the right to execrase theie liberation by all means, incluido armed struggle. These observations, of course, are still far from genio fully accepted by the international Law governing relations between States; although slowly, due to the forcé and stubbornness of the facts, cracks are opening in such a solidarizarse monolithic that only appreciates one side of reality. In this sense there go the most Progressive texts of the United Nations that, while preservan formal appearances, do allow for an innovative reading.” (Roberto Mesa; 'Historical and Legal Foundations of the Right to Self-Determination of the Palestinian People', 1981.)

However, the freedom of Peoples and their rights of self-determination and of legitimate self-defence were explicitly, emphatically, insistently and repeatedly affirmed and reaffirmed in the very texts especially referred to terrorism. “The legitimacy of the struggle of peoples subjected to foreign and colonial domination in order to attain self-determination and independence” is the basis of such texts. In the “Declaration on the Strengthening of International Security:

The General Assembly, [...] 18. Calls upon all States to desist from any forcible or other action which deprives peoples, in particular those still under colonial or any other form of external domination, or their inalienable right to self-determination, freedom and independence and to refrain from military and repressive measures aimed at preventing the attainment of independence by all dependent peoples in accordance with the Charter and in furtherance of the objectives of General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960, and render assistance to the UN and, in accordance with the Charter, to the oppressed peoples in their legitimate struggle in order to bring about the speedy elimination of colonialism or any other form of external domination;” etc. [UNGAR 2734 (1970)]

All that is reinforced in the UN General Assembly Resolutions adopted on the “Implementation of the Declaration on the Strengthening of International Security”: 2880 (1971) and 2993 (1972).

In the “Measures to prevent international terrorism which endangers or takes innocent human lives or jeopardizes fundamental freedoms, and study of the underlying causes of those forms of terrorism and acts of violence which lie in misery, frustration, grievance and despair, and which cause some people to sacrifice human lives, including their own, in an attempt to effect radical changes”, the General Assembly attached at first the name and concept of international terrorism to the attempts/attacks: occurred in the Munich Olympic Games, which had been the object of the Resolution. But it soon feels obliged to change of idea and semantics when it next says:

“The General Assembly, [...], 2. Urges the States to devote their immediate attention to finding just and peaceful solutions to the underlying causes which give rise to such acts of violence; 3. Reaffirms the inalienable right to self-determination and independence of all peoples under colonial and racist régimes and other forms of alien domination, and upholds the legitimacy of their struggle; in particular the struggle of national liberation movements, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter and the relevant resolutions of the organs of the United Nations; 4. Condemns the continuation of repressive and terrorist acts by colonial, racist and alien régimes in denying peoples their legitimate right to self-determination and independence and other human rights and fundamental freedoms; [...] 9. Decides to establish an Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism consisting of thirty-five members to be appointed by the President of the General Assembly bearing in mind the principle of equitable geographical representation;” etc. [UNGAR 3034 (1972)]

These Measures are further developed and reaffirmed, inter alia, in the General Assembly Resolution 42/159 (1987). All of which shows the ideological struggle that was being fought in the United Nations’ Organization (UNO) between the international imperialism and the oppressed Peoples, insofar as these could manifest themselves through the States of the so-called Third World.

In the same way, in the “Annex of the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages”, the Article 12 excludes its application precisely in the cases of “[...] armed conflicts [...] in which Peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist régimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination”:

“The States Parties to this Convention, […] Reaffirming the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as well as in other relevant resolutions of the General Assembly, [...] Being convinced that it is urgently necessary to develop international co-operation between States in devising and adopting effective measures for the prevention, prosecution and punishment of all acts of taking of hostages as manifestations of international terrorism, Have agreed as follows: [...] Article 12. In so far as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 for the protection of war victims or the Protocols Additional to those Conventions are applicable to a particular act of hostage-taking, and in so far as States Parties to this Convention are bound under those conventions to prosecute or hand over the hostage-taker, the present Convention shall not apply to an act of hostage-taking committed in the course of armed conflicts as defined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Protocols thereto, including armed conflicts mentioned in article 1, paragraph 4, of Additional Protocol I of 1977, in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist régimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.” Etc. [UNGAR 34/146 (1979)]

The additional Protocol itself made it clear:

“4. The situations referred to in the preceding paragraph [about “protection of war victims”] include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.” (Art. 1. General principles and scope of application, of the Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts; 8 June 1977.)

Moreover:

“The General Assembly, [...] Reaffirming the importance of the universal realization of the right of peoples to self-determination, national sovereignty and territorial integrity and of the speedy granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples as imperatives for the full enjoyment of all human rights, [...] 2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle” [UNGAR 33/24 (1978)]; ...“including armed struggle”. [UNGAR 35/35 (1980)]

As indicated, in thefirst formulations of international organizations the concept of terrorism “was” limited to non-State perpetrators. The concept of “external”: “international” or trans-national terrorism, involved a multi-national scope of terrorism, but always retaining the same idea of a non-State terrorist agent, and excluding the authorship of the State. The notion of State Terrorism or Terrorist State “reappears” afterwards, with a State as a perpetrator. It also appears the idea of inter-national terrorism (between Nations), with a “terrorist State” as perpetrator, as evidenced even by UN Security Council Resolutions:

“The Security Council, Deeply disturbed by the world-wide persistence of acts of international terrorism in all its forms, including those in which States are directly or indirectly involved, which endanger or take innocent lives, have a deleterious effect on international relations and jeopardize the security of States,” etc. [S/Res/731 (1992)]

“The Security Council, Deeply disturbed by the world-wide persistence of acts of international terrorism in all its forms, which endanger or take innocent lives, have a deleterious effect on international relations and jeopardize the security of States, [...] Convinced that the suppression of acts of international terrorism, including those in which States are involved, is an essential element for the maintenance of international peace and security,” etc. [S/Res/1044 (1996)]

“The Security Council, [...] Reaffirming that the suppression of acts of international terrorism, including those in which States are involved, is essential for the maintenance of international peace and security,” etc. [S/Res/1070 (1996)]

It follows then that there can be imposed “mandatory sanctions against States which carry out or eventually support such activities”.

The majority in the UNO, composed of the new States of the Eastern and Third-World, had – already in the 1970s – settled the question unequivocally, denouncing the Terrorism of the imperialistic States and excluding from it and legitimizing the struggles of Peoples for their national independence. But the reactionary pressure increased with the new political conditions, that is: the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as the access to the independence of many States that were themselves recipients – on the uti possidetis juris principle – of colonial legacies constituted as a result of European imperialism, whose Governments fear more since then the freedom of Peoples and their rights than the imperialism.

As a result, for the World and European Organizations is now “terrorism” any political, civil or ideological opposition or resistance to a State, provided that they do not come from another State. According to this ideologically distorted position, States may be responsible for promoting or supporting “terrorism”, but are not themselves “terrorist” even if they practice terror, since – by constitutive definition – the official concept of “terrorism” excludes States. The new strategy of world totalitarianism is now directed against any suspicious object, identified or not. The UFOs and NGAs (Non-Governmental Attempts) of the new “terrorism” are the target – undetermined but omnipresent – of the new hegemonic imperialism.

Similarly to the Nuremberg Court, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has proven to be an effective instrument against some States previously defeated, but completely ineffective against the great dominant States. The prosecution and punishment of international crimes are the raison d’être of that Court, but on condition that those crimes are not too serious or too big. The biggest criminals of past and present history, responsible for wars of aggression that have caused the elimination and terrible sufferings of millions of innocent and helpless women, children and men: victims of war and terror, prey of hunger, cold and disease, have escaped and continue escaping international justice, are deemed honourable persons by the “international community”, and still continue openly directing the destinies of humanity.

The Great Powers and their agents are not and cannot be prosecuted, since they enjoy an international statute which assures them impunity for their acts. The Terrorism at a global level is the key of international domination of the Great States, which hold and reserve for themselves, with – atomic – tooth and nail, the monopoly of nuclear weapons. Short of conflicts between themselves, the impunity of the Great Powers is thus assured.

For its part, the Commission on Human Rights has been unable to even raise the issue of State Terrorism. The right of self-determination of all Peoples does not even appear in its reports, which do start from the full recognition of the status quoestablished by the régime of occupation and colonization.

Even so, the attempts made in order to formally define the new “terrorism” in the UNO have failed, and the comparative penal definitions of “terrorism” differ between the Member States. The constituent definition “terrorism is what our enemies are doing”: which is the really operative one in totalitarian States, offers a little appropriate version to be incorporated into the official principles of international law. The addition of new penal types is also a practical solution, illegal in itself. The problem has been solved with ad hoclists of terrorists; thus, the creation of utilitarian lists, adaptable on a case-by-case basis, is the practical solution officially adopted by the UNO.

A list is certainly not a definition but it offers unquestionable advantages for war and repression, and this is what it’s about. It allows to incriminate, include or exclude, hang up or take down all one wants as it suits best: by simple decision, without explanation or justification, without annoying “legal” conditions and limitations. The European Union (EU) has followed the same procedure.

“The definitions of offences in these different texts are linked to the object of each of them; they are also influenced by the dominant ideology in both universal and regional levels.” “With regard to international law, there are a number of problems that can be identified. The first critical question refers to the definition: that a particular group of activists is given the name of ‘terrorists’ or of ‘fighters for freedom’ depends on the political point of view of he who names it. A similar difficulty presents the question of the extent of the definition that must be accepted for acts included in it.” “It’s thus raised the question of the extent with which the motives and intentions of the perpetrators should be taken into account, as well as the question of whether purely criminal attacks should be distinguished from those that are politically inspired.” “The question went to the Assembly itself, where the whole matter was then bogged down in various political disputes, as Third World States focused their attention on the State of terror, and in particular on the use of force [sic, not “of violence”] to deprive Peoples of their right of self-determination.” “It’s the putting into force, rather than the definition, what constitutes the main obstacle to progress in this field.”

In reality, “the main obstacle to progress in this field” – and in others – is the conflict between the imperialism and the freedom of Peoples, on the one hand, and, on the other, between the rival imperialistic States themselves, which compete for the mutual recognition of their respective colonial domains; States that poison the world with their national-imperialistic ‘raison d’État’. To this end, as already indicated, the ideologists of the imperialism begin by glorifying the international crimes and the genocidal murderers, to which they call “heroic deeds, great men, and glorious national heroes”.

But if, unfortunately, the General Assembly of the UNO has forgotten their countless affirmations and confirmations of the fundamental rights of self-determination and of legitimate defence of all the subjugated Peoples, for its part the Security Council, in the hands of the “great” Powers, has not waited to nobody “to progress in this field” or to innovate: always in the same direction. Always sympathetic towards these and other issues so “sensitive” for the “great” Powers, lies, falsification and slander have been adopted and openly installed as normal and declared courses of action in the resolutions of that Council, despite the fact that it is formally subject to the general norms of the UNO. This is how the hegemonic conglomerate, through the good offices of the Secretary-General and above all of the Security Council, managed to partially remove – outside and against the resolutions of the General Assembly, where apparently they had not been able to achieve their purpose in the face of the opposition from the Third World and the USSR – the obstacles that were on its march against fundamental human rights and above all against the right of self-determination or independence of all Peoples.

The always current or latent conflict between the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council has highlighted the foreseeable consequences. This has been all the more so since the Security Council and the Secretary-General, following the official example of the hegemonic Power, do openly use the grossest and more persistent lies as an international ideological weapon to defame opponents. (After the end of the nuclear duopoly and the Cold War, the Security Council has its hands and feet free to openly follow the slogans of the hegemonic Power and its protectorates in matters of Violence and Terrorism; and in the International Summit in Madrid, as we are going to indicate, the Secretary General has sought the gratified and rewarding logistic hospitality of the Spanish Fascism in order to slavishly put aside the fundamental norms that supposedly he is being paid to serve.)

However, and despite the initiative and support of the world imperialism and its Secret Services (with logistical and financial support of the most notorious fascist gangs that the former Axis Powers installed in power), the latest dishonest and deceitful attempt by UN Organs, so as to impose a concept and definition of ‘terrorism’ that could benefit the Imperialism and Fascism, has not given all the results that its promoters have been constantly seeking, namely: to hide and leave free way to State Terrorism, and to liquidate the rights of self-determination or independence and of legitimate self-defence of all Peoples.

This latest – unsuccessful – attempt to define ‘terrorism’, in a distant positioning against the General Assembly Resolutions and in contradiction with the principles of International Law so often proclaimed, has been that of the outgoing Secretary-General Mr. Kofi Annan: servile, corrupt and liar; who, with the help of his “ad hoc high-level panel”, did still try to achieve a formal definition that could satisfy and correspond to the interests of imperialism and fascism. This attempt took place, significantly, in Spain, with the initiative, corruption and logistical and financial support of the Government and the two-faced unique Francoist Party, both in its traditional version and the National-socialist one of Falange-PsoE. Its main objective was to modify the official concept of “terrorism” of the UNO, in order to ensure that it could not encompass the State Terrorism but might be reserved only for the Opposition and Resistance against it. It’s this way that the “International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security” (Madrid, 10-March-2005), organized by the “Club of Madrid in favour of democracy and against terrorism”, has counted with the assistance of the UN Secretary-General and of both the retired or active representatives of world imperialism.

The ideological manipulation produced around the so-called “terrorism” has shown once more the fundamental divergences and evolution of the alleged International Law, towards so old a practice as the social struggles and towards a concept that has undergone important and various transformations through the times. Given the impunity of State Terrorism, the defence of the rights of self-determination or independence and of legitimate self-defence of all Peoples does still “stumble” against resistances difficult to overcome. It is not surprising that, if the UNO took 29 years to agree on a definition for aggression, the world or continental organizations have dawdled for 70 years without reaching a consensus on a definition for ‘terrorism’. Not because of technical shortcomings of their well-paid specialists but because – the same as for the concept of violence in general – they are not in agreement about what to define nor about the interest in defining.

The identification of the legitimate struggles of Peoples for their national independence with “violence and terrorism”; and the identification of imperialism with “pacifism and non-violence”, do – without further ado – involve: the liquidation of the principle of the Peoples’ freedom and independence, and of their right of self-determination and legitimate self-defence; the abolition of the crimes and the impunity of the criminals against the former; the criminalization of struggles for national independence, subjected to increasingly extreme forms of actual terrorist repression; and the return to the classic “international law” that the imperialistic and colonialist “great” Powers did establish, with their iniquitous affirmation of the legitimacy of the “doctrine of discovery”, the “right of conquest”, and the jus ad bellum, jus in bello, jus post bellum.This is: the affirmation of their absolute and terrorist right to rapine, to war, of war and of post-war.

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