Global Terrorism

(An essay on terror hit regions across the globe)

Terrorism refers to a strategy of using violence, or threat of violence targeted against non-combatants to generate fear, cause disruption, and ultimately, to bring about compliance with specific political, religious, ideological, and personal demands.[1] The targets of terrorist attacks typically are not the individuals who are killed, injured, or taken hostage, but rather the societies to which these individuals belong. Terrorism is a type of unconventional warfare designed to weaken or supplant existing political landscapes through capitulation or acquiescence, as opposed to subversion or direct military action. The broader influence of terrorism in the modern world is often attributed to the dramatic focus of mass media in amplifying feelings of intense fear and anger.
1. INDIAN CONTEXT
1.1 Kashmir
India has been a victim of cross border terrorism for decades now. After independence, princely states were given the freedom to decide whether to join the Indian union or not. The Maharaja of Kashmir dilly-dallied on the issue and it was only when troops from
Pakistan came marching into the valley that he implored to the Indian union for help. Kashmir was annexed by India on October 10th 1947. What followed was an invasion of the region by Pakistan and the greatest flaw in diplomatic history from the Indian side. While Prime Minister Nehru could have taken the prudent decision to push back the invaders back to their own soil, he took the impractical and over idealistic step to approach the UN. With support from the western powers that didn’t want Pakistan swaying to the Soviet block (refer cold war) Pakistan succeeded in gaining control of one-third of the Kashmir valley. The land of seductive beauty thus plummeted to the status of the valley of death.
The last decade of the previous millennium – which contained the most violent 100 years of human history (according to Pope John Paul Marpappa)-witnessed the oozing of terror into the heart of the Indian mainland. There have been bombings in Mumbai (over 10 times in as many years), attack on the Akshardham temple (Gujarat), hijacking of the Indian airlines flight in Kandahar and even an attack on the citadel of the world’s largest democracy ‘the Indian Parliament’.
Of all the Indian territories Mumbai has been the worst hit.

1.2 WHY MUMBAI?
The isles of Bom Bahia (the good bay) were given to Prince Charles II when he entered into a matrimonial alliance with Princess Catherine de Braganza of Portugal. Reclaimed from the sea, these would become the modern metropolis of Bombay. Renamed Mumbai after the stone goddess Mumbadevi, the city represents the marriage of affluence with abject poverty where India in all its diversity converges.
Mumbai is a potpourri of ethnic, linguistic and religious sub cultures and economically it represents India’s capital of ‘capital’. Which could be an explanation as to why it has been a popular target for terror groups having their base in Indian and foreign soil. The communal element has been their trump card. Terrorist organizations have always aimed at unleashing riots between the country’s various religious groups. After the failure at Akshardham , Bombay was the next attempt.
Also being India’s Hollywood and Wall Street merged into one with bustling activity and housing two stock markets (NSE and BSE), an attack on Mumbai would cripple the country’s economy, it must have been felt.
But what we saw was a manifestation of the indomitable and indestructible Indian heart as Mumbaikars resisted the attacks bravely and life returned to near normalcy by the next day.

1.3 NAXALISM
Naxalism has it’s origins from the Sino-soviet split in the communist party. It began as a movement in the west Bengal peasant area of naxalbari in 1967 with an uprising headed by Charu Majumdar. Majumdar was a great admirer of Mao Tse Tung and drew inspiration from the long march of Mao during the Chinese revolution. The movement called for an all out militant war against the government and the upper class of land owners and businessmen whom they held responsible for the peasant plight.
The faction broke away from the communist party of India and formed the all India co-ordination committee of communist revolutionaries that is today known as the Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist).
After the death of Majumdar, the party broke into many fractions.
Today Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand are the states worst affected by the naxal menace.

1.4 Attitude of the International community to the Indian plight.
It is nothing but a matter of irony that it took the west, who claim to be the god fathers of democracy world wide, an attack on their mainland (World trade centre attack – September 11, 2001), to recognize the ugly face of Pak sponsored terrorism. It took an other two attacks on the London suburbs (July 7th and 21st 2005) for the great powers to declare as terrorists ,organizations such as the lashkar e toiyyaba that operate from Pakistan’s soil. These were in fact organizations, against whose acts of barbarism, India had been trying to draw world attention for many years.

2. ETHNIC CONFLICT IN SRILANKA
The fact that a country’s well being and progress is as much dependent on its external stability as its internal stability is evident from the conditions of all world nations. The United States and Canada for example have an open border as does the European Union. In striking contrast is the situation in the Indian sub continent having three nuclear powers (India, china, and Pakistan), each nation spending millions of dollars on the deployment of troops across its borders?
The ethnic conflict in Srilanka is no exception. The civil war there which can be traced to the black July events of 1983, spilled into the Indian heartland in 1992 when PM Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by LTTE rebels.
2.1 History
Since medieval times, Srilanka has had two ethnic groups namely the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. The former being natives and the latter, people of Tamil origin. Tamils came to settle in Srilanka following the invasions by various kings from the Indian mainland. Again many Tamils were exported from India to work in the island’s tea plantations under British colonial rule. Even after many years of cultural and commercial interactions the two groups were geographically and linguistically stratified.
The British policy of divide and rule favored the Tamils as is evident from the fact that they occupied the brute majority of posts in the civil services, medicine etc. The bitterness induced by years of favoritism towards the Tamils induced the Sinhalese to counter act with the ‘Sinhala only act’ of 1956 (post independent Srilanka) that declared Sinhalese as the official language and restricted government jobs to Sinhalese speakers and even altered university admission policies in favor of the sect.
The Tamils retaliated politically by advocating a ‘Tamil Eelam’ under the banner of the Tamil union liberation front. The group was later banned from Parliament.

2.2 IMMEDIATE CAUSE (Black July)
July 23rd 1983, marked the commencement of full fledged armed struggle between the Sinhalese and Tamil groups.
Tamils who alleged the rape of a doctor of Tamil origin by Sinhalese soldiers retaliated by attacking army officials in Jaffna. Thirteen soldiers were killed in the riots. Sporadic violence, which has been recorded as one of the worst massacres in the history of the subcontinent, ensued. The riots were well organized as women were raped, motor vehicles set alight and occurrences as uncivilized as the bombing of Jaffna with human excrement by the srilankan air force. The situation rose to such a level that the Dravidian movements of Tamil nadu, India found it impossible to stay aloof.
Ultimately it was Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that asked the Srilankan government to end the mayhem.
Srilanka is today, a nation devastated by years of civil war. Recent developments include the involvement of the Norwegian government in the peace talks and the calling of cease fire from both sides following the same.
The LTTE is the most organized terrorist group in the world having its own army, navy and air force.
3 .0 THE WORLD’S GREATEST HOTSPOT: JERUSALEM
The city of Jerusalem is the source of three great world religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Important to the Jews who claim it to be the Holy land given to them by the Jehovah (God), sacred to the Christians as it is the birth place of Christ and it also houses the third holiest shrine of the Moslems ‘the Al-aqsa mosque’.
The beginnings of the dispute over Jerusalem dates back to 40 AD. When the roman Caesar invaded the city and destroyed the temple of Solomon (sacred to the Jews). Jews were then exiled from their land and had lived as refugees across the globe till 1945.
There have been great atrocities against them in the times of Stalin and more popularly under Hitler (The holocaust).
In the latter half of the last century Jews began to emerge as the most influential people in the world. They made their mark especially as business tycoons and men of science (Einstein, Freud, Oppenheimer to name a few) exerting enormous influence on the elite political class in Europe and the United states.

The demand for an independent state of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital was first raised by the Zionists which had as its members towering personalities such as Albert Einstein. Even before the claims of the Zionists, there was an exodus of Jews into the ‘Promised Land’ from across the world where they were being persecuted. This exodus had sparked tensions between the settlers and Arabs.
Even in the days of the Ottoman empire, rich Jews purchased land from the ottomans and settled there.
The Jews laid claim to their ancestral land from which they were expelled in 40AD and the need for a kingdom for the Jews.
World sympathy following the holocaust was with them and the United Nations in a historic resolution with all the support from the US and Great Britain allocated a homeland for the Jews in the British colony of Palestine in 1948 with David Ben Gurion as the first president.
An Arab Israeli war followed and Israel occupied The Golan heights from Syria, Gaza and west bank and a part of Jerusalem from Palestine and also parts of Lebanon.
The conflict continues till date.
The main Terrorist groups operating in the region are Hezbollah and Hamas.

4.0 AFGHANISTAN AND THE AL-QAEDA
The emergence of the fundamentalist Sunni group Al-Qaeda ( the foundation) can be traced to 1979 when Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in response to the call from the then President, Hafizullah Amin, to aid in curbing an armed rebellion by the tribals of the country.
The Soviet Union had close ties with the region after the pro Marxist People’s democratic party of Afghanistan assumed power there. The soviet involvement in the region was described as an invasion by the west. As in the words of US President Jimmy Carter “This is the greatest threat to world peace since WW2”
It took a longer while for us to realize that US involvement in Afghanistan had begun 6 months prior to the soviet deployment as revealed in “From the shadows” by Robert Gates, former director of the CIA. President Carter had authorized the Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations in Afghanistan.
The entry of soviet troops into the region was depicted as an attack against Islam by the west. Under the pretext of driving the ungodly communists out, the US were able to gain military bases in various parts of the Gulf including Saudi Arabia. Trained mujahideens funded by American capital were armed and sent to Afghanistan.

Osama Bin Laden, a multi millionaire business man in the construction industry in Saudi, was inspired by the resistance of the Islamic world against the Soviet ‘invasion’. Though he had strong reservations against the presence of American troops in the sacred land, he was assured by the Saudi royals that their presence would cease to exist once Afghanistan was liberated.
Soviet troops left Afghan in 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev assumed office as the president of the USSR. The US bases in the gulf however continued to function.
The presence of unislamic elements in Saudi was unacceptable to the highly influential Bin Laden who called for their immediate expulsion. The Saudi royalty under American pressure did not oblige.
The mujahideens, bred by American capital thus transformed into a modern era Frankenstein that boomeranged on American dreams to contain soviet communism.
American presence in the Middle East was their main cause of embitterment.

5.0 RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM

5.1 CHRISTIAN
5.1.1 In India the Nagaland rebels and the national liberation front of tripura are active terrorist groups that seek freedom of the two states from the motherland claiming they are Christian majority areas. These groups also seek to annex parts of neighboring Burma with a similar religious divide.

5.1.2 The lord’s resistance army. (Uganda)

This group has been responsible for Africa’s greatest running conflict. They have the proclaimed aim of overthrowing the Ugandan government to establish a state based on the Ten Commandments.
The LRA has been responsible for murder, rape, use of child soldiers, mutilation and abduction of innocent civilians.

5.1.3 God’s Army

God’s army is a resistance group that opposes the Buddhist militia of Myanmar and fighting for a homeland based on Christian or biblical ideals.
The group has been responsible for the seizure of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, Thailand in 2000.

5.2 HINDU
5.2.1 RSS
The Rashtriya Swayam sevak sangh has been described by ‘the economist’ as the largest non communist organization in the world having 1.3 million members. It was banned in India thrice. After the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, during the emergency (1975) and following the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992.
It was founded in 1925 by K B Hedgewar.the organization preaches cultural nationalism.

5.2.2 SHIV SENA
Founded by Bal Thakrae in 1965. the name literally means the army of Shiva. When Bombay became a part of maharashtra a large number of the jobs in industries were occupied by non marathis. The growing sense of marginalization among the natives was monopolized by the shiv sena. In the early 70s when an influx of south Indians into the region began. They politicized the occurrence with slogans such as lungi hatao, pungi bajao.


6. RECENT EVENTS
6.1 THE HEATHROW TERROR PLOT
On august 10th 2006, the world was once again woken up to realize the terrorist threat is still alive as British police informed us of a foiled plot to bomb and destroy trans Atlantic flights to the US from Heathrow, Britain. The plot, had it been successful, would have caused loss of life on an unprecedented scale.
From the preliminary information available we realize that even the best security measures in the world can be infiltrated and we are taken aback by the extent of technological know how that the terrorists have amassed.(liquid explosives hidden in cases resembling laptops and compact enough to be carried in handbags.) This, beyond doubt, could not have been possible unless these fanatics were aided by governments.
While Europe and America were busy applauding the Pakistan governments involvement in foiling the plot, no one cared to notice the Karachi based ‘The herald’s’ report that the inter services intelligence of the Pak government provide the lashkar-e-taiba and Jaish-a-mohammad 2 to 3 million rupees every year for its operations in the Indian region alone.
The west meanwhile, have found an other reason in support of their war on terrorism. The fact remains that unless the hand of Pakistan is recognized, attempts to disarm terrorists groups will remain unsuccessful.

6.2 VIOLENCE IN SRILANKA
On august14th 2006, four soldiers and three civilians were killed by an attack in Colombo by LTTE Rebels. The killed soldiers were a part of the security wing of Pakistan high commissioner Basheer Wali Mohammed. Though it is not known whether it was the commissioner who was the target of the attack, motives abound.
Mr. Basheer was appointed by the Musharraf regime and has been credited for the cementing of Pak-Srilanka relations especially in the defense sector. It is possible that this was a message from the LTTE telling Pakistan to ‘take your hands off’ the ethnic conflict and not to help the Colombo military. This is the first time that a diplomat was made the target of an attack in the Indian sub-continent and the international community was quick to express their alarm and revulsion.
CONCLUSION
The above mentioned groups only represent the tip of the iceberg. Most regions of the world are today directly or indirectly hit by terrorism.
Since it has a global nature its elimination too will have to take place at the global level.
Nations must cooperate and share technical know how as well as jointly take part in operations to combat the menace.
Terrorist groups in one region must not be given asylum in other parts of the world and assets of these criminals against humanity must be freezed simultaneously all over the world.
It has also become high time that the west stop taking double standards. While on the one hand supporting the state sponsored terrorism of Israel and on the other hand waging war against sovereign nations like Iraq.
- THE END