| “ | Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims. | ” |
| | |
As with "terrorism" the concept of "state terrorism" is controversial.
[98] The Chairman of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee has stated that the Committee was conscious of 12 international Conventions on the subject, and none of them referred to State terrorism, which was not an international legal concept. If States abused their power, they should be judged against international conventions dealing with
war crimes, international
human rights and
international humanitarian law.
[99] Former
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that it is "time to set aside debates on so-called 'state terrorism'. The
use of force by states is already thoroughly regulated under international law"
[100] However, he also made clear that, "regardless of the differences between governments on the question of definition of terrorism, what is clear and what we can all agree on is any deliberate attack on innocent civilians, regardless of one's cause, is unacceptable and fits into the definition of terrorism."
[101]
State terrorism has been used to refer to terrorist acts by governmental agents or forces. This involves the use of state resources employed by a state's foreign policies, such as using its military to directly perform acts of terrorism. Professor of
Political Science Michael Stohl cites the examples that include Germany’s bombing of London and the U.S. atomic destruction of
Hiroshima during World War II. He argues that “the use of terror tactics is common in international relations and the state has been and remains a more likely employer of terrorism within the international system than insurgents." They also cite the
First strike option as an example of the "terror of coercive diplomacy" as a form of this, which holds the world hostage with the implied threat of using nuclear weapons in "crisis management." They argue that the institutionalized form of terrorism has occurred as a result of changes that took place following
World War II. In this analysis, state terrorism exhibited as a form of
foreign policy was shaped by the presence and use of
weapons of mass destruction, and that the legitimizing of such violent behavior led to an increasingly accepted form of this state behavior.
[102][103][103]
State terrorism has also been used to describe peacetime actions by governmental agents such as the bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103.
[104] Charles Stewart Parnell described
William Ewart Gladstone's
Irish Coercion Act as terrorism in his "no-Rent manifesto" in 1881, during the
Irish Land War.
[105] The concept is also used to describe
political repressions by governments against their own civilian population with the purpose to incite fear. For example, taking and executing civilian
hostages or
extrajudicial elimination campaigns are commonly considered "terror" or terrorism, for example during the
Red Terror or
Great Terror.
[106] Such actions are often also described as
democide or
genocide which has been argued to be equivalent to state terrorism.
[107] Empirical studies on this have found that democracies have little democide.
[108][109]
No comments:
Post a Comment