For Your Information
Part 3: State Terrorism and Imperialism
The use of terrorism by states against their own
populations and against other peoples around the globe was systematized in the
twentieth century by the Nazi movement in Germany. During the Weimar Republic, the Nazi Party’s
paramilitary wing would use violence against political opponents and targeted
groups. When Adolf Hitler assumed power
in 1933, police power was concetrated in the hands of the SS, a private army
established by Hitler. The SS developed
a state terror apparatus which was responsible for the mass murder within
Germany of Jews, progressive people, homosexuals, the disabled and others.
The term “state terrorism” was most likely coined
by German communists, who felt it was the most accurate description of the new
Nazi regime. They used the term
repeatedly in their writings to warn of the dangers fascism posed for the
peoples of the world.
During this period, the big imperialist powers
were trying to curry favour with the fascists in the hope that they would
defeat the communists in Europe. In
fact, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain described as “terrorists” the
internationalist volunteers who flooded to the defence of the Spanish people
during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
He also dismissed the concept of state terrorism out of hand, something
the U.S. does to this day. (The
imperialist powers have, however, all accepted the notion of state-sponosred
terrorism, which they have used dozens of times since the Second World War to overthrow
governments of their choosing.)
Despite attempts by the imperialist powers to
reject the term, state terrorism is now accepted as an appropriate description
of the use of violence against a national population, committed either by a
national or colonial government or its proxy.
State terror is usually carried out directly, by
military or security forces. However,
the U.S. is infamous for its support of paramilitary organizations, often known
as death squads, which have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of people throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa.
For example, the U.S. provided direct military and
financial aid to the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. First Pinochet received
assistance in overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Salvador
Allende. Then, trained and equipped by
the U.S., Chilean military and paramilitary groups hunted down and killed supporters
of the Allende government Amongst many others, this included the assassination
of the former Chilean ambassador to the U.S., Orlando Letelier, who was killed
in Washington, D.C. by a car bomb.
During his reign, Pinochet is estimated to have ordered the killing,
torture and disappearance of thousands of Chileans, all with the support of the
U.S.
In fact, throughout Latin America the U.S. trained
and equipped the death squads responsible for massacres, bombings and
assassinations of tens of thousands of people.
In Nicaragua, funding for the paramilitary Contras was financed by the
U.S. through arms sales, while the death squads in El Salvador were trained by
the U.S. at the School of the Americas in Georgia. So many Latin American revolutionaries,
workers and youth “disappeared” during the 1960s and 70s that the United
Nations formed a Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in
1980 to investigate the global phenomenon.
Without a doubt, most of the vicitims of state
terrorism in the twentieth century have been revolutionaries or progressive
people – and there are endless examples to back up this contention. Besides
Latin America, where investigations in six different countries (Chile, El
Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic) unearthed
conclusive evidence of U.S. direct or indirect participation in acts of
terrorism against civilian populations, imperialist states have also sponsored
or committed acts of terror in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
In Asia, between 1965 to 1969, one million members
and supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were killed, in what was
described by the Suharto dictatorship which carried out the assassinations as
an “anti-communist pogrom”. Suharto’s
military was financed, equipped and trained by the U.S. After eliminating the
communists, Suharto embarked on terror campaigns to oppress the struggles of
several national groups within Indonesia, including in Sumatra, East Timor and
West Papua.
In the Middle East, the Shah of Iran presided over one of the bloodiest dictatorships of the region, systematically killing and torturing any opponents. The Shah, supported by both the U.S. and Britain, was so hated that after he fled the country in January of 1979, tens of millions of people poured into the streets to celebrate.
To be continued.