State terrorism
State terrorism is terrorism conducted by a state against its own citizens or another state's citizens.
It contrasts with state-sponsored terrorism, in which a violent non-state actor commits acts of terrorism under the sponsorship of a state.
Governments that are accused of using state terrorism may justify their actions as efforts to combat internal dissent, suppress insurgencies, or maintain national security, often framing their actions within the context of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency. Accused actions of state terrorism are normally also criticised as severe violations of human rights and international law.
Historically, governments have been accused of using state terrorism in [|various settings]. The exact definition and scope of state terrorism remain controversial, as some scholars and governments argue that terrorism is a tool used exclusively by non-state actors, while others maintain that state-directed violence intended to terrorize civilian populations should also be classified as terrorism.
Definition
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper definition of the word terrorism. Some scholars believe the actions of governments can be labelled "terrorism". Using the term 'terrorism' to mean violent action used with the predominant intention of causing terror, Paul James and Jonathan Friedman distinguish between state terrorism against non-combatants and state terrorism against combatants, including "shock and awe" tactics:However, others, including governments, international organisations, private institutions and scholars, believe the term terrorism is applicable only to the actions of violent non-state actors. This approach is termed as an actor-centric definition which emphasizes the characteristics of the groups or individuals who use terrorism; whilst act-centric definitions emphasize the unique aspects of terrorism from other acts of violence. Historically, the term terrorism was used to refer to actions taken by governments against their own citizens whereas now it is more often perceived as targeting of non-combatants as part of a strategy directed against governments.
Historian Henry Steele Commager wrote that "Even when definitions of terrorism allow for 'state terrorism', state actions in this area tend to be seen through the prism of war or national self-defense, not terror." Most states use the term terrorism for non-state actors only.
The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines terrorism generally as "the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective", and states that "terrorism is not legally defined in all jurisdictions". The encyclopedia adds that "stablishment terrorism, often called state or state-sponsored terrorism, is employed by governments—or more often by factions within governments—against that government's citizens, against factions within the government, or against foreign governments or groups."
While the most common modern usage of the word terrorism refers to political violence by insurgents or conspirators, several scholars make a broader interpretation of the nature of terrorism that encompasses the concepts of state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism. Michael Stohl argues, "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." Stohl clarifies, however, that "ot all acts of state violence are terrorism. It is important to understand that in terrorism the violence threatened or perpetrated, has purposes broader than simple physical harm to a victim. The audience of the act or threat of violence is more important than the immediate victim."
Scholar Gus Martin describes state terrorism as terrorism "committed by governments and quasi-governmental agencies and personnel against perceived threats", which can be directed against both domestic and foreign targets. Noam Chomsky defines state terrorism as "terrorism practised by states and their agents and allies".
Simon Taylor provides a definition of state terrorism as "state agents using threats or acts of violence against civilians, marked by a callous indifference to human life, to instill fear in a community beyond the initial victim for the purpose of preventing a change or challenge to the status quo." These acts of violence can include both the types of state violence that some argue ought to be considered terrorism, such as: genocide, mass murders, ethnic cleansing, disappearances, detention without trial, and torture; and more widely accepted methods of terror including bombings and targeted killings.
Stohl and George A. Lopez have designated three categories of state terrorism, based on the openness or secrecy with which the acts are performed, and whether states directly perform the acts, support them, or acquiesce to them.
History
wrote critically of terror employed by tyrants against their subjects. The earliest use of the word terrorism identified by the Oxford English Dictionary is a 1795 reference to tyrannical state behavior, the "reign of terrorism" in France. In that same year, Edmund Burke decried the "thousands of those hell-hounds called terrorists" who he believed threatened Europe. During the Reign of Terror, the Jacobin government and other factions of the French Revolution used the apparatus of the state to kill and intimidate political opponents, and the Oxford English Dictionary includes as one definition of terrorism "Government by intimidation carried out by the party in power in France between 1789–1794". The original general meaning of terrorism was of terrorism by the state, as reflected in the 1798 supplement of the Dictionnaire of the Académie française, which described terrorism as systeme, regime de la terreur. Myra Williamson wrote:Later examples of state terrorism include the police state measures employed by the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s, and by Germany's Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s. According to Igor Primoratz, "Both sought to impose total political control on society. Such a radical aim could be pursued only by a similarly radical method: by terrorism directed by an extremely powerful political police at an atomized and defenseless population. Its success was due largely to its arbitrary character—to the unpredictability of its choice of victims. In both countries, the regime first suppressed all opposition; when it no longer had any opposition to speak of, political police took to persecuting 'potential' and 'objective opponents'. In the Soviet Union, it was eventually unleashed on victims chosen at random."
Military actions primarily directed against non-combatant targets have also been referred to as state terrorism. For example, the bombing of Guernica has been called an act of terrorism. Other examples of state terrorism may include the World War II bombings of Pearl Harbor, London, Dresden, Chongqing, and Hiroshima.
An act of sabotage, sometimes regarded as an act of terrorism, was the peacetime sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, a ship owned by Greenpeace, which occurred while in port at Auckland, New Zealand on July 10, 1985. The bomb detonation killed Fernando Pereira, a Dutch photographer. The organisation who committed the attack, the Directorate-General for External Security, is a branch of France's intelligence services. The agents responsible pleaded guilty to manslaughter as part of a plea deal and were sentenced to ten years in prison, but were secretly released early to France under an agreement between the two countries' governments.
File:Cambodia 2011 monuments 10.jpg|thumb|Rooms of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum contain thousands of photos taken by the Khmer Rouge of their victims.
During the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland from the 1960s to the 1990s, the Military Reaction Force, a counterinsurgency unit of the British Intelligence Corps, was tasked with tracking down members of the Irish Republican Army. During the period when it was active, the MRF was involved in the killings of Catholic civilians in Northern Ireland.
In November 2013, a BBC Panorama documentary was aired about the MRF. It drew on information from seven former members, as well as a number of other sources. Soldier H said: "We operated initially with them thinking that we were the UVF." Soldier F added: "We wanted to cause confusion." In June 1972, he was succeeded as commander by Captain James 'Hamish' McGregor.
In June 2014, in the wake of the Panorama programme, the Police Service of Northern Ireland opened an investigation into the matter. In an earlier review of the programme, the position of the PSNI was that none of the statements by soldiers in the programme could be taken as an admission of criminality.
By country
Argentina
The Dirty War is the name used for the period of state terrorism in Argentina between 1974 and 1983.Belarus
Brazil
Chile
Chile during Augusto Pinochet's rule was accused of state terror against political opponents.China
The Uyghur American Association has claimed that Beijing's approach to terrorism in Xinjiang constitutes state terrorism. In 2006, a Spanish court opened an investigation into claims that the Chinese state was committing acts of state terrorism in Tibet. However, the investigation was dropped in 2014.France
During the Ère des attentats, a period of conflict between anarchists and the French state, the latter committed false flags attacks to legitimize repression on anarchists; one of those attacks being probably the Foyot bombing.French DGSE agents Captain Dominique Prieur and Commander Alain Mafart sank the Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the Greenpeace Organisation, in Auckland Harbour on July 10, 1985. The attack was aimed at stopping it from interfering in French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The attack resulted in the death of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira and led to a huge uproar over the first ever attack on New Zealand's sovereignty as a modern nation. In July 1986, a United Nations-sponsored mediation effort between New Zealand and France resulted in the transfer of the two prisoners to the French Polynesian island of Hao, so they could serve three years there, as well as an apology and an NZ$13 million payment from France to New Zealand.