State Terrorism and Human Rights

International Responses since the End of the Cold War

Gillian Duncan, Orla Lynch, Gilbert Ramsay, Alison M.S. Watson, Gillian Duncan, Orla Lynch, Gilbert Ramsay, Alison M.S. Watson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136679674
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Terrorism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book aims to improve understanding of the broad trends in the utilisation of political violence by examining the use of state terror in world politics.

The ending of the Cold War and the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe led many to assume that this presaged the demise of the one-party terror regime and acceptance of Western concepts of democracy, freedom and human rights throughout the international system. But of course this did not end state terror. The totalitarian one-party state still exists in North Korea and China, and there are numerous military regimes and other forms of dictatorship where the use of terror techniques for internal control is routine.

The late Professor Paul Wilkinson conceived and began this project with the intention of analysing the major types of international response to state terror, as well as their outcomes and their wider implications for the future of international relations. In keeping with this original premise, the contributors explore the history of terrorism, as well as reflecting on the need for international cooperation based on the protection of civilians and a consistent approach to intervention in conflict situations.

This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism studies, political violence, human rights, genocide, and IR in general.

1 Introduction

Alison M. S. Watson

Paul had said that this would be his last single-author book. His desire to understand the phenomenon of terrorism, and to communicate that understanding, remained undiminished, however his death means that the outline that Paul wrote for this book would be his last, and in contributing to this volume we are creating something that will now stand as one of many tributes to him. In bringing the writers of this volume together we are staying true to the hopes that Paul himself had for what this book would achieve. This introduction will outline, in Paul’s words, these hopes, and will also examine their significance within the context of his wider body of work. The introduction will also outline the individual contributions to this volume. As editors we have been keen to remain close to the outline that Paul provided – the words in each of the individual chapters may not be his, but the subjects of them, and their placing within the context of the volume, are.

Throughout his career, Paul’s work was pioneering in so many ways: Political Terrorism, published in 1974, provided the first theoretical understanding of terrorism, and it also highlighted his belief in the primacy of human rights and the maintenance of the rule of law, ideas that were to remain fundamental to Paul’s writing throughout the next four decades. At that time Paul quoted Roucek (p. 23) who stated that ‘the most horrible forms of brutality have been sanctioned for the use of legal authorities’ [118] (p. 168) noting that Roucek quotes Charles Merriam’s catalogue of a few of those devices used by the state: restraint, the lash, torture in many forms, mutilation, humiliation … For Paul, the role of the state was a significant one. In his 1981 review for International Affairs, Paul posed the question ‘Can a State be Terrorist?’ and clearly stated his position (p. 468):

Most academic writers on terrorism either explicitly or implicitly disapprove of the use of terrorism within liberal democratic societies. Some would argue, however, that there are circumstances when it might be morally justifiable as a weapon against tyrannical or oppressive regimes. For example, it is sometimes held that terrorism is the only weapon left to the opponents of such governments, or that the terror of the state forces the opposition groups to resort to terrorism in self-defence or that terrorism is more effective than other forms of struggle and is a ‘lesser evil’ because it may gain victory without costing so many lives. The present writer’s position that terrorism, because it involves taking innocent lives, is never morally justifiable whatever the provocation, and that there is always some other means of resistance or opposition even in the most oppressive societies, such as the Soviet Union, may not be widely shared. Of course one does not have to accept any moral universal about terrorism in order to study terrorist phenomena. On the other hand one is not left with a simple choice between accepting moral universals and abandoning ethical judgements altogether. As Ted Honderich has observed ‘if we cannot with confidence make overriding judgements about violence, we can make lesser judgements, and they are of some value as guides to action.’

These responses became even more significant in the post-9/11 world. In the introduction to the second edition of Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response, for example, published in 2006 he asked (p. xvi): ‘is the case for a principled liberal democratic response to terrorism still sustainable in the face of the most lethal form of non-state international terrorism the world has ever seen?’ His answer was unequivocal:

The author would argue that in reality it is those who advocate or condone the use of ‘terror to defeat terror’ who are truly guilty of being ‘soft on terrorism’, because by their supporting or condoning serious violations of basic human rights they undermine respect for international and national laws and agreements and place themselves on the same moral level as the terrorists.

Nor did Paul think that a combined state response was always an appropriate one. At its forty-eighth session, the then UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, emphasized the relationship that exists between terrorism and human rights by reiterating:

The unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism regardless of their motivation, in all its forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever committed as acts of aggression aimed at the annihilation of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democracy, threatening territorial integrity and international peace and security destabilizing legitimately constituted governments, underpinning pluralistic civil society and having adverse consequences on the economic and social development of States.

At the time that this resolution was adopted, and for the period up until the events of September 11, there appeared to be a growing consensus regarding the nature both of human rights, and of human rights norms. In the wake of 9/11, however, policy became more fuzzy and Paul ‘noted yet again the difficulty of getting concerted action by the international state system on even the most fundamental human rights problems’ (p. 129),¹ and the difficulties inherent in this lack of response:

In the absence of inadequate UN capabilities to meet the growing demands for peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention there has been a growing tendency for regional organisations to fill the gap … But there is always a danger that regional initiatives to set up ‘peacekeeping’ forces will lack the necessary impartiality and legitimacy to perform this role adequately. There are considerable dangers involved in this ‘peacekeeping exhaustion’ which the international community is displaying. Civil wars in countries such as Sudan, Afghanistan and parts of central Africa can undergo major escalations creating huge humanitarian problems both in the countries and among their neighbours as massive numbers of refugees flee the fighting. (pp. 67–8)

With these concerns in mind it was no surprise that Paul would be keen to return to further analysis of the place of the state, and of its role in the maintenance, or otherwise, of human rights, and so this volume State Terror and Human Rights: International Responses since the End of the Cold War was born. The rationale for this book was a clear one, and I will leave it to Paul to explain why.

If we are to gain an adequate understanding of the broader historical and international trends in the use of terror violence we need to recognise that throughout history it is regimes and states, with their overwhelming preponderance of coercive power, which have shown the greatest propensity for terror on a mass scale, both as instrument of internal repression and control and as a weapon of external aggression and subjugation.

Nineteenth-century idealists and utopians hoped that the march of reason and progress would banish tyranny and dictatorship and usher in a new age of universal democracy and peace. Such dreams were shattered in the mid twentieth century with the rise of totalitarian regimes using mass terror on an unprecedented scale. The rise of the totalitarian state has been brilliantly anatomised by Hannah Arendt,² and many valuable studies exist dealing with the distinctive and complex features of the Nazi and Soviet terror apparats.³ The more one examines these regimes the more one is struck by the fact that although they develop on the basis of very different ideologies there are some remarkably close parallels in the organisational structure and modus operandi of terror they employed.

The ending of the Cold War and the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union may have led many observers to assume that this presaged the general demise of the one-party terror regime and the rapid acceptance of Western concepts of democracy, freedom and human rights throughout the international system.⁴ Millions of people have been liberated from the tyranny of communist dictatorship in the Former Soviet Union and in the Former Warsaw Pact states. For the first time in the lives of the majority of their citizens these countries can enjoy the political and economic freedoms we have for so long taken for granted in the West. These are huge gains in human rights terms. Moreover, we should not underestimate the enormous significance of the ‘velvet revolution’ for world peace.⁵ With breathtaking speed the bipolar confrontation between the superpowers was removed and the risk of a general nuclear war was enormously reduced if not completely eliminated.

The ending of the Cold War contains another important lesson with positive implications for the future of international relations: the ‘revolution’ in the communist world which had gathered pace with such speed in the 1980s and early 1990s was in truth ‘velvet’, this is to say it was carried out without any recourse to violence by the anti-communist opposition and without any armed intervention on their behalf by outside powers.⁶ Hence the really good news is that, despite decades of state repression and terror, the desire for democratic freedoms and human rights could not be extinguished. The velvet revolution revealed that even powerful modern states using the full repertoire of techniques of totalitarian control and backed up by terror are not invincible. George Orwell’s nightmare vision of Nineteen Eighty-Four has shown that totalitarian control cannot succeed over the determined will of the people seeking democratic change.

But of course the demise of communist rule in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not end state terror. From a Far East perspective the totalitarian one-party state depending extensively on its own terror apparats for internal control is an ever-present reality. The Chinese People’s Republic is notorious throughout the world for its ruthless suppression of the students’ pro-democracy movement in the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989; the authorities have continued to crack down ruthlessly both against pro-democracy activists and against ethno religious separatism in Tibet and Sinkiang.⁷ China’s neighbour, North Korea, is even more of a Cold War dinosaur, a totalitarian state complete with personality cult and one of the most repressive systems of internal control in the world.⁸

However, terror is not a weapon exclusive to communist one-party states. There are numerous military regimes and other forms of dictatorship where the use of terror for internal control is routine. One of the clearest indicators that a regime of terror is operating is a high level of torture – the archetypal form of state terror. It has been estimated that in 1995 torture and/or other cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment existed in 151 out the 185 member states of the UN.⁹ But torture is widespread or commonly used only in around a third of these countries. For example, it has been employed extensively in countries such as Iraq and Syria in the Middle East, Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire in Africa, in Myanmar in Asia and in Serbia and Chechnya in Europe – all countries that have suffered high levels of both regime and factional terror.¹⁰

It is of course no accident that such countries have frequently experienced both regime and sub-state terror and the horrors of civil war. Very often it is repressive terror of the regime which provokes a campaign of counter-terror, or vice versa. It is also no accident that regimes which routinely use terror as a weapon of domestic policy also have a tendency to employ it as a tool of foreign policy. Hence state sponsorship of terrorist clients operating abroad is likely to remain a feature of the international system as long as regimes of state terror exist. A further paradox is that the sharp reduction in the number of states actively involved giving sponsorship, safe haven and other forms of support makes the role of the remaining state sponsors all the more critical to the survival of their terrorist group clients.

While there are some effective multilateral measures that can be taken to discourage and reduce state sponsorship of terrorism as a weapon of intervention in foreign states, the international community generally and the major democracies in combination face huge difficulties in attempting to influence those regimes that are inflicting major human rights violations on their own populations by waging state terror.¹¹ For most states, almost certainly including the majority of liberal democracies, the international norms of non-intervention in internal affairs of other states have tended to restrict government and IGOs to expressions of humanitarian concern, condemnatory resolutions at the UN, and perhaps support for international economic sanctions against the offending regime.

However, in the 1990s there were signs that in particularly egregious cases of mass terror, as in the cases of the plight of the Kurds in northern Iraq, the ‘ethnic cleansing’ or genocide of Bosnia, and the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, and the Serbs’ campaign of massive ethnic clearing against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the international community may be persuaded to override the norms of non-intervention and to make strenuous efforts to bring those guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes before an international tribunal. This has already started happening in the cases of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Burundi. The UN moves in 1997–8 to establish an International Criminal Court (ICC) to deal with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity were further evidence of this trend.¹²

The creation of an ICC for such purposes has been discussed by juries for decades, and is surely long overdue. If we believe in the universal applicability of the UN Human Rights Declaration and in strengthening the rule of law internationally it is both a logical and eminently desirable development. Nevertheless there are many important issues about the ICC which must be satisfactorily resolved. Major practical problems about the ICC project concern its relations with the UN Security Council and, in particular, with the US and the other permanent members of the Council. Some have argued that each permanent member of the UN Security Council should have the power to veto an investigation by the ICC but surely this would undermine the ICC’s credibility and effectiveness?

At the December 1997 meeting at the UN in New York to discuss the establishment of an ICC the US delegation argued that the court should not be permitted to investigate crimes committed in any conflict in which the Security Council is playing a peacekeeping role. Considering that the UN Security Council almost inevitably becomes involved in sending peacekeeping missions to most of the major conflicts, this requirement would virtually negate the value of the ICC.

Surely the vital requirement for the ICC is to ensure that its total independence from any and all of the major member states is established from the outset? If it is to have the credibility so vital to its role as an international court it must be at liberty to examine any conflict referred to it by any concerned government or group of governments.

Of course it is the case that the ICC will depend on the goodwill and general support of the Security Council and will need to look to Council to enforce its decisions. Singapore has proposed a sensible device for avoiding a head-on collision between Council and Court: if the Security Council as a whole, including the five permanent members, voted to keep out of a particular situation the Court would have to respect the Council’s wishes, but otherwise it would be free to investigate any case. Unfortunately some of the key remaining issues of the ICC’s relationship with the Security Council with national governments and with national courts are still unresolved or fraught with ambiguities.

It must be admitted that the inherent problems and weaknesses of the ICC’s position have seriously restricted its capacity to reduce or significantly deter state terror. It has been hobbled by the deep divisions between the major powers that have repeatedly stymied UN Security Council efforts to act against regimes guilty of major human rights violations, especially by the opposition of China and Russia to what they regard as unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of other states.

In view of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Contributors
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• 2. State terrorism: an historical overview
• 3. An incremental tyranny
• 4. Trends in the use of terror by states since the end of the Cold War
• 5. Obstacles to international action against state terror in the post-Cold War international system
• 6. The case of Saddam Hussein’s terror against the Kurds and the international response
• 7. Indonesian terror against East Timor separatists and the international response
• 8. Terror in Rwanda 1994 and the failure of international response
• 9. Towards a more effective international response to state terror, based on democratic principles and the protection of human rights
• 10. Paul Wilkinson on state terror: in conclusion
• Appendix: full list of Paul Wilkinson’s publications on terrorism-related topics
• Select bibliography
• Index