Terrorist Organization Peculiarities - Essay Example

of the of the Terrorism does not lend itself to any single definition or ification. Some of the varieties of terrorism that have been highlighted by Hoffman are those that have their basis in religion, political groups that aim to separate from the country in which they are located and terrorism that is actively promoted by the government of a country1. Moreover, Eqbal Ahmad has categorized terrorism as "state terrorism, religious terrorism (Catholics and Protestants, Sunnis and Shiites killing each other), criminal terrorism, political terrorism, and oppositional terrorism2." The strategy adopted by terrorists subscribing to the views of national terrorism is that they utilize terrorist attacks to carve out a separate country from the country in which they are resident. They usually term their terrorist movement as a national liberation movement and spare no effort to attract the attention of the world leaders to their cause. A great deal of success has been obtained by the subscribers to this form of terrorism. It can be asserted that the greatest number of benefits have been attained by its adherents. Such terrorists are very careful in regulating the amount of violence and destruction caused by their attacks, whose purpose is to obtain benefits without antagonizing or losing the goodwill of its supporters in the international community. Most of the terrorist groups that indulge in this form of terrorism are voluble in claiming that they should be designated as freedom fighters and not terrorists3. The most dangerous advocates of terrorism are religious terrorists. This is due to the fact that they resort to murderous attacks on innocent people in order to spread fear. The objective of these terrorists is to promote their own brand of religion and they sincerely believe that what they do has divine sanction. Their attacks are aimed at all those who do not subscribe to their beliefs. Due to this fact every person who does not follow their religious commands is at great danger from these fanatics4. Some of the religious terrorist groups are the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden, the Hamas which consists of Palestinian Sunni Muslims, the Shiite Muslim group of the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Rabbi Meir Kahane organizations, the Baruch Goldstein of Israel and the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo5. At times a country's government will offer covert help to terrorists, this constitutes state sponsored terrorism. This constitutes a very effective foreign policy tool that is "a cost-effective way of waging war covertly, through the use of surrogate warriors or 'guns for hire'."6 Such terrorists are very effective, in comparison to other terrorists. This is due to the fact that such terrorists have vastly superior weapons, supplies, logistic support and access to up to date intelligence reports. The aim of the so called left-wing terrorists is to replace capitalism with communism. In comparison to the religious and state sponsored terrorists, their attacks on the general civilian population are very limited. This is due to the fact that these terrorists sincerely believe that the common man is the victim of the capitalists. Not surprisingly, these terrorists restrict their activities to kidnappings and destruction of monuments. Some of these left - wing groups are the German Baader - Meinhof, the Japanese Red Army, the USA's Weathermen of the 1970's, the 17 November group of Greece and the Italian Red Brigade7. A vast change has taken place in the field of terrorism. The previous instances of terrorism were mainly of the state sponsored type. Of late, as has been succinctly pointed out by Simon and Benjamin, religious terrorism has captured center stage. This variety of terrorism is independent of any country and is thereby not restricted by any country as to the amount and nature of violence that it can wreak on the general populace. In order to cause the maximum possible harm, these terrorists continually seek to procure weapons of mass destruction. The damage caused by religious terrorists is to a much greater extent compared to the other terrorists8. This terrorism has several promoters, but the fact remains that its main proponent is none other than Osama bin Laden, the cancer of whose terrorist organization is entrenched in approximately fifty countries. Albeit, the lack of a unanimous characterization of the term terrorism, there exists a general agreement on what constitute its main attributes. The most important requirement is obviously violence and terrorism constitutes a deadly attack on civil order. However, it would be nave to restrict terrorism to any particular point of view, as terrorism involves several factors. Terrorism does not result just from sociological and psychological reasons but it also entails historical and political causes. Terrorism assumes myriad forms with different causes. At present terrorism had spread its tentacles all over the world and in this manner it has become far more dangerous. Uruguay had maintained a high profile of living standards and the outstanding tradition of democracy up to the early 1960s. This gained for it the sobriquet of the Switzerland of Latin America. However, this status and dignity slowly deteriorated since then. The reasons put forward for this descent were the destruction of the economy, corruption of the government officials and endemic social disorder. This situation served to escalate the activities of the Tupamaros an extremist organisation. During the period between the late 1970 and early 1971, the terrorist group kidnapped several foreign officials and diplomats. The Tupamaros demanded the release of a number of their fellow activists in exchange for these hostages. The governments of the countries, to which these kidnapped persons belonged, initiated talks with the Tupamaros. This resulted in the release of most of the hostages; however the governments of Uruguay and the US refused to negotiate with the kidnappers, the result was that one of the hostages, namely Mitrione, an agronomist, was killed by them9. Guerrilla operations by extremist groups had been proliferating since the late 1967 and these activities spread to the urban areas from the rural areas. This shift in guerrilla activities was attributed to so many reasons; the most important of which was the reduction, over a period of time in the rural population, brought about by urbanisation. Most of the rural population had migrated to the city, as it offered better employment, living conditions and opportunities. Due to this more than fifty per cent of Latin America's population was located in the cities and several of them had migrated from the villages. These people were therefore unable to extend their help to the rural based revolutionary movement. Further, the result of this urbanisation was the concentration of radical students and intellectuals in major cities. In addition, the prevalent system of education, which had been influenced by the Marxist theories and literature regarding the political, social and economic scenario, had motivated the students to support extremist activities. These students found the revolutionaries and terrorism to be very attractive and were transformed into a dependable resource that provided manpower to the guerrilla movements10. The cause for terrorism in Uruguay was inflation. The period from 1958 to 1970 had witnessed a six hundred percent rise in prices and a forty nine percent increase in the cost of living in 1972, moreover the national currency was devalued for six consecutive times in a single year. The government had failed to keep abreast of the new technological developments in agriculture and animal husbandry and this led to a shortfall in production. The economy was not vibrant to support the welfare measures and fell victim to the requirements of the welfare system. In addition, the birth rate reduced and immigration declined. These factors further affected the consumer market and almost a half of the nation's population were concentrated in the capital city of Montevideo11. As per the statements of Julio Marenales Saenz, one of the founder members of the Tupamaro leftist guerrilla movement, the thoughts on which this struggle was based would prove to be successful even in this age of globalization12. The Buenos Aires newspaper Pagina published an interview with Saenz which reveals that Tupamaros is the only Southern Cone guerrilla organization that withstood the depredations of a military dictatorship before the country regained democracy. One rebel leader stated that the credit for this had to be accorded to the Uruguayan military, which had not killed these people like the army had done in Argentina. He also stated that globalization and Neo- Liberalism had caused untold misery and hardship to the people of this region and that the need of the hour was consistency and unity among the members to deal with this problem13. Further, he stated that they were not aware of the fact that only they could create the liberation's continental Theory and would be able to maintain it. In 1960 Saenz was not only a mason but also a union leader. He was imprisoned from 1973 to 1984 by the autocrats of Uruguay. According to him Tupamaros was a political association, formed with the aim of political development as opposed to military command. Furthermore, he contended that the Tupamaros had never been a real guerrilla movement14. The Tupamaro movement, formed by Raul Sendic, obtained its name from Tpac Amaru II the legendary Incan revolutionary. The Movimiento de Apoyo al Campesino or the Peasant Support Movement and labour leaders, hailing from the rural regions beset with extreme poverty, combined forces to form this movement. Initially the Tupamaros attacked banks and business. The looted money was given to the poor of the capital city. Later on it commenced the killing and kidnapping of politicians and public officials. Some instances of such kidnappings are those of the banker Rebervel, the UK ambassador to Uruguay and the execution of Mitrione an FBI agent who was instrumental in imparting horrendous torture techniques to the police forces of that region. The zenith of their activities was in 1970 and 1971, when they made maximum use of their Prison of the People or Crcel Del Pueblo for detaining kidnapped persons. This movement suffered several serious setbacks like the betrayal of Perez, the military action against them and the grant of extraordinary powers to the police in order to tackle them15. In addition, the army initiated large scale arrests, disappearances and torture of suspected Tupamaros, with the result that by 1972 the movement lost its effectiveness. In 1973, the civilian government handed over the reins of power to the military. This led to further repressive measures being adopted against the general populace and the politicians. At this critical juncture, the Tupamaros joined forces with leftwing groups to constitute the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta. Subsequently, they made a concerted attack on the US supported military dictatorships in their area; this has been termed as Operation Condor. After the restoration of democracy in 1985, the Tupamaros entered mainstream politics as the Movimiento de Participacin Popular. At present this party is the largest group in the ruling political alliance the Frente Amplio16. In conclusion it can be stated that Uruguay had an orderly and democratic political system which made it possible for transfer of power to take place through elections in a peaceful manner. The standard of living was very high in Uruguay with a system of social security. The ideology and commitment of the Tupamaros resulted in the transformation of Uruguay into a democracy from a military dictatorship. Therefore, the Tupamaros were not a terrorist group but a movement that brought immense benefit to the Uruguayans. Works cited 1. Ahmad, Eqbal, Terrorism Theirs & Ours, New York: Open Media Pamphlet Series, 2001. 2. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. p. 93. 3. Francisco Gregoric, 2004. Tupamaros National Liberation Movement, Uruguay. Retrieved February 16, 2007 from http://www.atlasgeo.net/fotw/flags/uy}tupa.html. 4. http://www.sam.gov.tr/perceptions/Volume7/September-November2002/Perception_MuratKaragoz.pdf 5. http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB71/ 6. http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1973/sep-oct/russell.html 7. Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin, 'America and the New Terrorism', Survival, Vol. 42, No. 1, spring 2000, pp. 59-75. 8. Uruguay-Tupamaros Tupamaro Leader Says Movement's Principles Still Valid, 18 December 2000, EFE News Service. Read More