Posted 1:57 PM by Paul
Terrorism - Discuss

Today the Israeli's assassinated the spiritual leader of Hamas and the airwaves have been alive with accusations, counter accusations and discussions about what constitutes terrorism. By all accounts Sheik Whatisname wasn't the kind of most of us would want to share a family holiday with. There seems to be quite a lot of evidence to link him with bus bombings across Israel. If your 12 year old daughter had been incinerated because of the actions of this man you would not have been too happy that he was considered a saint by whole sections of the Palestinian population. But on the other hand if your wife and 12 year old daughter had been raped and murdered in the Chantillah refugee camp massacres of the early 80s you would not have been too pleased that the man who possibly organized the whole thing is now the Israeli Prime Minister.

Whatever, it's hard to see how this will benefit the average Israeli , A Hamas leader said that Sharon had now , "opened the gates of hell." For once this does not seem like hyperbole. The Israeli Foreign Minister was on TV saying that this was showing terrorist leaders that they could organize their work evil deeds and get away with it. They had to understand that there was "a price to pay".

He's not getting it. Islamic militants are lining up for this kind of treatment. Death is not the punishment but the reward in their theological framework. Which got me to thinking. So how would you punish the spiritual leader of Hamas? I finally settled on 2 weeks in Vegas a the Bellagio. Gambling, drinking, semi-naked women. Hell indeed.

Back in Spain Eta has kindly suggested that they start discussions with the new Socialist Government, adding that it still intended to continue armed actions. Not surprisingly the Government in waiting declined the offer. This was met with quote a bit of sniffy comments from the kind of liberal newspapers that pinkos like me read. It struck me that there was a double standard at work here. The IRA were "terrorists" because they were killing us but Eta are "armed separatists" because they are killing them. This kind of duplicity annoys the hell out of the Spanish, particularly my friend Fernando who works as a doctor in Madrid.

So I decided to fire off a letter to both the Guardian and the Independent and it went like this.

Sir

Despite the fact that Eta did not carry out the Madrid bombings, no one should doubt their capacity for cold-blooded murder. The fact that they were initially scapegoated by the right wing Partido Popular for March 11th atrocities, should blind no one to the nature of an organisation which started life in the 1950s as cultural movement. In the 1960s and early 1970 only ever attacked known torturers and fascists. But times have changed.

In the late 80s Eta killed 27 people in the Hipercor supermarket bombing in Barcelona. No warning was given. In the 90s seven labourers from the poorest part of Madrid were blown up whilst they worked on a police barracks next to a school. More recently Eta has taken to sending letter bombs to Basque journalists who criticise their world view. One lost a hand and another just escaped with her life when a bomb placed at her front door failed to explode. She was with her baby daughter at the time.

Artists and academics who question Eta's narrow nationalist version of what it means to be Basque routinely receive death threats. The Catalan constitutional lawyer Ernst Lluch, who was working on a document which would have give the Basque County even more autonomy, was shot dead as he left his car.

It is all but impossible for parties that advocate a continued link to Spain to campaign in large parts of the Basque Country. Death threats against anti-Eta local politicians and their families, have poisoned the political climate. Socialist as well as Conservative councillors have been murdered in recent times by Eta. It is therefore hardly surprising that the incoming Government should describe Eta as a "terrorist organisation" and refuse to negotiate until such time as they declare a permanent unconditional cease-fire.

Independence for the Basque country is a legitimate goal - but blowing people up to achieve it is not a legitimate tactic.

………….


Bit pompous but that it how I was feeling. A blow for Fernando, Elena and all the Spanish who are sick to the back teeth of liberal Anglo-Saxons mythologising Basques who murder, justbecause their targets are Latins who are probably right wing anyway. I know the feeling. I was berated by several Americans from the Mid-West about the terrible cruelty of the English during the Potato Famine and the British occupation. True enough, but I refuse to share the blame as I wasn't around in 1845 and my ancestors were factory workers in the North of England. I suspect they gained little from the Empire's exploitation of the toiling masses of Eire.

So where do I stand in this debate? I don't know. It's like one of those undergraduate papers at the end of the first year.

When is a terrorist a terrorist and when is he a freedom fighter? Discuss.