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State terrorism is a controversial term which means violence against civilians perpetrated by a national government or proxy state. Many countries in the world have been accused of idulging in State terrorism. Following is a partial List of Acts labelled as state terrorism, sorted by state
Contents |
[edit] Asia
[edit] Burma
Burma is reportedly one of the few countries that is listed as practicing state terrorism by many UN bodies including hiring child soldiers[1] and killing unarmed democracy protestors in 8888 Uprising[2][3]
[edit] Cambodia
During the rule of the Pol Pot, about 1.7 million people were killed, or one-fifth of the country's population of the time. The Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21, shocked the entire world as the government committed brutal autogenocide. In addition to death from work, starvation and exhaustion, the regime killed anyone suspected with connections with either the defeated Khmer Republic government or the previous Lon Nol government, as well as intellectuals (Pol Pot defined anyone who wore glasses as automatically an intellectual), professionals, and also ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, Chams, Laotians, and Thai.[4][5]
[edit] India
The actions by Indian security forces against members of some separatist movements are labeled as state terrorism by human rights organizations. These actions include extrajudicial executions and the killing of innocent civilians during military operations in parts of India like Kashmir, Punjab and Assam and also by the IPKF in Sri Lanka.[citation needed]
[edit] Iran
Iran under the last Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was notorious for state terrorism, principally through its secret police, the SAVAK, which had practically unlimited powers of torture and arbitrary arrest.
After the toppling of the Shah in 1979, revolutionary Iran sponsored several terrorist organizations through aid and training. The revolutionary government also "tolerated" a student militia taking over the U.S. Embassy and holding the diplomatic staff hostage for over a year. In 1992, the Mykonos restaurant assassinations in Berlin were carried out on the orders and with the knowledge of the highest layer of the Iranian leadership.
Iran continues to fund organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and PFLP-GC; as well as providing "financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid" to Hizbullah and the Kurdistan Workers Party[1].
[edit] Iraq
Iraq under Saddam Hussein is widely believed to have been responsible for numerous chemical weapons attacks on its own civilian population to stem revolutionary activity during the Gulf War and pacify ethnic groups. One of the more famous incidents is the controversial Halabja poison gas attack. Iraq also attempted to terrorize the population of Israel (a noncombatant), during the Gulf War, with Scud missiles.
See also: Human rights situation in Saddam's Iraq and Human rights in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
[edit] Israel
During the al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel engaged in tactics and controversial military operations that resulted in criticism of its policies and actions. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and CNN founder Ted Turner have also referred to some of the acts as examples of "state terrorism".[2][3]
Turkish OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu accused Israel of "state terror" after its raids into the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hamas and Hezbollah.[4].
[edit] North Korea
North Korea has sponsored numerous acts of terror against South Korea since its founding [6].
In the 1980s North Korea was linked to two international terrorist attacks. In the Rangoon bombing of October 1983, North Korean agents were responsible for an attempt on the life of South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan at Burma's National Cemetery in Rangoon, Burma which killed 17 South Korean officials including the South Korean foreign minister and ambassador to Burma as well as four Burmese. President Chun arrived at the cemetery behind schedule and was unharmed. The Burmese government later apprehended the North Korean agents responsible, who confessed. North Korea is also believed to be responsible for the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 on November 29, 1987 over the Andaman Sea in which all 115 passengers and crew were killed. That attack is thought to have been devised to scare tourists away from visiting the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul after North Korea was not asked to co-host the events [7].
[edit] Pakistan
The East Pakistan crisis of the early 1970s and West Pakistan's military involvement in killings (Operation Searchlight) of East Pakistanis during the Bangladesh Liberation War have given it the label of an act of state terrorism in certain cases.[citation needed]
[edit] Sri Lanka
Since 1948 when Sri Lanka became independent of Britain, the local politics had pitted the majority Sinhalese community against the minority Sri Lankan Tamils. This politics of ethnic confrontation had lead to the current civil and ethnic conflict (See Black July). The various state actors such as the Sri Lankan Army, Sri Lankan Navy, Sri Lankan Police have been accused of ethnic cleansing[citation needed] , torture, mass deportations, disappearances of arrested people and organizing pogroms until 2006 against its minority civilians.
Further during the 1971 Uprising and the Insurrection 1987-89 many members of the majority Sinhalese community were killed, tortured and went missing without a trace due to extra judicial actions by the various state actors. During the 1971 Uprising and the deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force, many Sri Lankan civilians were killed by the Indian Army. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused [8] Sri Lanka of letting its various state (and non-state) actors, act with impunity as no credible charges have been brought against those accused even in the rare occasions that they have been caught. (See Ilayathambi Tharsini and Krishanti Kumaraswamy).
[edit] Syria
Syria has been accused as a major sponsor of state terror by the US government.
[edit] Uzbekistan
The Government of Uzbekistan, led by Islam Karamov, has been accused of being responsible for a number of human rights violations. Such abuses include torture, arbitrary arrest and boiling political dissidents. The most recent well-known example of severe repression was its suppression of the demonstrations in the border town of Andizhan in May 2005.[9]
[edit] Americas
[edit] Argentina
The "Dirty War" in Argentina in the 1970s is a classic example of the use of terror tactics employed by a state against its own people. In 1976, the Argentine military overthrew the government of Isabel Peron and undertook a campaign against all people labeled as subversives, who were thought to form the social base for a violent leftist insurgency. Estimates of the number of people "disappeared" and presumed dead range from 6,000 to over 30,000. A 1984 official report following the return to democracy put the total at near 11,000. Tactics included Death squads, Forced disappearance, Torture, Child stealing, and Ideological persecution.[10][11]
[edit] Chile
Chile, under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, pursued an extensive policy regarded by many as state terrorism against both civilians at home and perceived enemies abroad. On the international stage, the Chilean state's actions included the assassination of former ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., by means of a car bomb, the killing of General Carlos Prats in Argentina in similar circumstances, and the attempted assassination of Bernardo Leighton in Italy: all exiles were stalked by DINA agents cooperating with SIDE Argentinian intelligence agency, other South American services, and far-right terrorists such as Stefano Delle Chiaie, in Operation Condor.
In 1990 the Chilean president Patricio Aylwin created a commission to investigate the illegal killings carried out under the Pinochet dictatorship, 2,920 cases were reported to the commission. His report was delivered in 1991 and it is known as the Rettig Report[5], after his chairman, Mr. Raul Rettig.
In 2003 President Ricardo Lagos established the National Commission Over Political Prison and Torture presided by Bishop Sergio Valech, oriented to develop a rigorous survey of persons that have suffered political prison or torture under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Known as the "Valech Report", it was delivered to the President on November 10, 2004 and includes the declarations of 35,868 victims.
[edit] Colombia
Colombian paramilitary groups, such as the AUC, have usually been considered responsible for as many as 70 to 80% of identifiable yearly political killings in the South American country's internal conflict[6]. It has been argued on many occasions that some of these groups have maintained well documented relationships with several elements of the official state and police forces. The paramilitaries have often been accused of making and executing death threats against suspected guerrilla collaborators among the civilian population. [citation needed]
[edit] Mexico
It is claimed that during the 1970s Mexican security authorities employed torture and assassination against guerrilla members, student protesters and their sympathizers. Since the mid to late 1990s illegal paramilitary groups have clashed with the EZLN in the Chiapas region, and acted against their supporters, leading to several massacres and forced displacements of civilians. Critics claim that some of these violent actions occurred with local military and police tolerance or cooperation.[7][8][9][10]
[edit] United States
United States government has been accused by various countries and NGOs of perpetrating state terrorism.
[edit] Europe
[edit] Bulgaria
Implicated in the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II[12]
[edit] France
In 1985, the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, had travelled to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia. The ship was sunk just before midnight on July 10, 1985 by two explosive devices attached to the hull by operatives of French intelligence (DGSE). Of the twelve people on board, one, Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira, was killed by the second device when he attempted to retrieve his equipment. Two of the French agents were caught and jailed, but were returned to France soon after. It is the only terrorist act committed in New Zealand's modern history.
[edit] Italy
The relationship between the Italian state security forces and neo-fascist paramilitary groups could be regarded as crossing over into state terrorism. The strategy of tension begun in the late 1960s to counter the perceived threat of communist groups involved collusion and provocation culminating in the 1980 bombing of Bologna railway station. The 85 deaths were immediately blamed by the government on left-wing terrorists but the bombing appears to have been the work of neo-fascists. The exact level of collusion remains unknown but in 1995, two intelligence agents were among people sentenced for investigation diversion.
[edit] Serbia
In the 1990s, Serbia directly or indirectly supported military operations in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, which led to thousands of people being displaced and killed.[citation needed] In the case of the former, the Srebenica and Zepa massacres were especially notorious.
[edit] Soviet Union
Under the reign of Josef Stalin (and, to a lesser extent, under several other Soviet leaders), political opponents of the Soviet regime, as well as perceived "enemies of the people", were subject to incarceration under life-threatening circumstances and execution. Stalin was able to cement his hold on power by intimidating and executing his political opponents, real and imagined. The assassination of dissidents in exile (such as the 1940 murder of Leon Trotsky in Mexico by agents of Stalin) might also be considered an example of state terrorism.
[edit] United Kingdom
[edit] Former Colonies
State terrorism against independence movements (many of which were themselves violent) and British collusion in them has been reported in a number of former colonies of the British Empire.[11]
[edit] Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British army[12], have been involved in the deaths of Irish republicans and Catholic civilians at the hands of different loyalist paramilitary groups. The victims included members of the PIRA, Sinn Féin, the SDLP and civilians, including solicitors (eg. Pat Finucane) [13]. There have been a number of investigations and reports into alleged collusion between Security Forces and Paramilitaries[14], of which the Stevens Report is the most comprehensive to date, although no concrete evidence has been presented that the collusion was authorised by the British government.
Sinn Féin[15] has demanded that further enquires be made to alleged extent of collusion. The British government have initiated several inquiries as recommended by the Cory Collusion Inquiry. On publication of Cory's reports on 7 October 2004 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Paul Murphy said "I firmly believe that the only way we can put the past behind us in Northern Ireland is by seeking to establish the truth."[16][17] The British government passed the Inquiries Act 2005, limiting the scope of the inquiries proposed by Cory, which Cory has criticised[18].
The Irish government has recently threatened to take the British government to the European Court of Justice, over the latter's refusal to hand over files relating to the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings[19].
There are also allegations that a "shoot-to-kill" policy was operated during the conflict, usually concerning incidents involving members of the Special Air Service, Ulster Defence Regiment or the RUC. One notable example being the Death on the Rock case on Gibraltar.
[edit] Africa
[edit] Libya
The Libyan intelligence service was exposed as responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; UN sanctions were imposed in 1992. UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs) passed in 1992 and 1993 obliged Libya to fulfill requirements related to the Pan Am 103 bombing before sanctions could be lifted, leading to Libya's political and economic isolation for most of the 1990s.
In 1999, Petoria fulfilled one of the UNSCR requirements by surrendering two Libyans suspected in connection with the bombing for trial before a Scottish court in the Netherlands. One of these suspects, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, was found guilty; the other was acquitted. UN sanctions against Libya were subsequently suspended. The full lifting of the sanctions, contingent on Libya's compliance with the remaining UNSCRs, including acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its officials and payment of appropriate compensation, was passed 12 September 2003, explicitly linked to the release of up to $2.7 billion in Libyan funds to the families of the 1988 attack's 270 victims.
[edit] South Africa
During the apartheid era, South Africa was suspected of involvement in a series of terrorist incidents. According to information revealed in 1998 by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), South African agents were implicated in the 1961 aircrash in Zambia which killed UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. The State Security Council, the Directorate of Military Intelligence and other organs of state terrorism such as the Civil Co-operation Bureau, Operation Longreach and Koevoet were variously alleged to have been involved in:
- the 1982 burglary of the PAC office in London
- the 1982 bombing of the ANC office in London
- the 1982 assassination of anti-apartheid activist Ruth First in Mozambique
- the 1984 assassination of the wife and daughter of anti-apartheid activist Marius Schoon in Angola
- the 1986 assassination of Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme in Stockholm
- the 1986 bombing of the ANC office in Stockholm
- the 1986 aircrash in which President Samora Machel of Mozambique was killed
- the 1987 thwarted plan to kidnap the ANC leadership in London
- the 1988 assassination of the ANC's Paris representative Dulcie September
South African "superspy" Craig Williamson admitted responsibility for three of the above incidents and was given immunity from prosecution by being granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In addition to acts outside South Africa, inside the country many activists were tortured and murdered, along with suspected "terrorists" in order to gain information. Under the law, they were held indefinitely without charge. Women detainees were repeatedly raped in order to force them into talking. All torture was secretly authorized, though some was in excess of prescribed goals, according to government officials who sought amnesty.
[edit] Sudan
The Sudanese government has been accused of major violations of human rights and state terrorism, principally through supporting the Janjaweed militias in Darfur, and its controversial behaviour in Southern Sudan.
[edit] Uganda
President Idi Amin was responsible for the death of over 500,000 Ugandans. [13].
[edit] Zaire
Joseph Mobutu's regime was characterized by high levels of repression and corruption, and was finally brought down by Rwandan and Ugandan backed forces in 1997.
[edit] Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe's regime has been accused frequently of state terrorism, for example the massacres of the Ndebele ethnic group in the 1980s, its destruction of houses where opposition supporters live and its illegal takeover of white-owned farms and currently the Operation Murambatsvina .[15]
[edit] Notes
Northern Ireland
- The Brazilian and the Leviathan: London Calling, an article contending latent terrorist tendencies of the British state, by James Horrox
- Pat Finucane Centre
Syria
- "Terrorism: The Syrian Connection", by Daniel Pipes
- U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism List (5B)
- Syrian terrorist incidents
- "Terrorism as a Preferred Instrument of Syrian Policy" by Dr. Reuven Ehrlich (Avi-Ran), ICT
- "Sponsoring terrorism: Syrian and Hamas by Gary C. Gambill, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, October 2002
- Video about State Terror
Sri Lanka
Iraq
- M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Religion and Politics in Iraq. Shiite Clerics between Quietism and Resistance, with a foreword by Professor Hamid Algar of the University of California at Berkeley. Singapore: Pustaka Nasional, 2004 (ISBN 9971-77-513-1)
Zaire
- ↑ Schatzberg, Michael G. The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253206944
[edit] References
- ^ 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism U.S. Department of State. This reference needs to be refined to drill down on the correct page to support Iran allegations.
- ^ Turkey slams 'Israeli terrorism' BBC 3 June 2004
- ^ CNN chief accuses Israel of terror by Oliver Burkeman in New York and Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem June 18, 2002 for The Guardian
- ^ http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=135865
- ^ ex-dictador Augusto Pinochet In Spanish.
- ^ Human Rights Watch:colombia factsheet
- ^ Help Mexico Put 'Dirty War' to Rest by Daniel Wilkinson in Los Angeles Times March 4, 2004
- ^ Word Report 2003: Americas: Mexico by Human Rights Watch published 2004
- ^ World Report 1999: MEXICO: Human Rights Developments by Human Rights Watch published 1999
- ^ La matanza de Acteal, reflejo de violencia y la impunidad que aún perduran en México by Joel Solomon "An Opinion" in Human Rights Watch published 22 February 1998 In Spanish
- ^ See References: Mark Curtis This book draws on declassified Foreign Office files to give a detailed account of this.
- ^ Judgments - In re McKerr (AP) (Respondent) (Northern Ireland) SESSION [2003]-04 [2004] UKHL 12 on appeal from: [2003] NICA 1 House of Lords Publications
- ^ Northern Ireland - Who was behind the Finucane murder? An Amnesty International news release published on 24 February 2000
- ^ Collusion between Security Forces and Paramilitaries on the "CAIN Web Service" Conflict Archive on the Internet is based within the University of Ulster.
- ^ 'An Appalling Vista' Collusion: British Military Intelligence and Brian Nelson by Sinn Féin on the "CAIN Web Service" Conflict Archive on the Internet is based within the University of Ulster.
- ^ Murphy's response to Cory reports BBC 1 April 2004
- ^ Peace Process Oral Answers to Questions on NORTHERN IRELAND about Decommissioning 1 December 2004
- ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1459063,00.html
- ^ http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2005/07/01/story209693.asp
[edit] External links
- The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism Prevention of Terrorism
- State Terrorism Guide
[[Category:Political repression]] [[Category:Terrorism]] [[Category:State terrorism|*]]
