Terrorists and Freedom Fighters

Terrorists & Freedom Fighters

Dr J. E. Hazlett Lynch

Derry and Raphoe Action Meeting

Centre 2000, Newtownstewart, Co.Tyrone.

28^th March 2007

 

The research that I conducted over the past few years arises from my own experience of terrorism in the murder of my youngest brother, Kenneth, on 2^nd June 1977 by the East Tyrone brigade of the PIRA.  Ken was a serving civilian RUC officer.  An event like this cannot but alter one’s outlook on life, and had a deeply traumatic effect on my entire family.  I was brought up within five miles of the Irish Republic,[1] and was educated at secondary level in the border towns of Castlederg and Strabane, and in the city of Londonderry.

 

As a Christian minister, I worked in three of the most dangerous areas of Northern Ireland, namely, North Belfast in the seventies, South Armagh in the eighties, where I conducted two of the three funerals of the victims of the Darkley murders (which were directed by the notorious killer Dominic “Mad Dog” McGlinchey), and in South Londonderry/East Tyrone in the nineties.  I had the privilege of ministering to people who had experienced from terrorists what I had experienced.  I have lost count of the number of funerals that I officiated at, or attended as a sympathetic neighbour.  During the years of the terrorist campaign, I have been robbed of several very close friends and neighbours, and of many acquaintances, as a direct result of PIRA “death squads,” and have seen the horrific effects of injury and death on victims and their families.

 

I’m sure you are familiar with the rather silly mantra, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” and its variations.[2]  These have been repeated so often that defining “terrorist” in a way that satisfies everyone has proved impossible.[3]  Indeed, one Harvard Law professor blames the United Nations for this and its politicisation of the term, allowing the “shadowy” existence of terrorists to continue, having “no return address” to which preventative or retaliatory actions may be focussed.[4] 

 

Others believe that the media has played a significant role in producing what one expert calls “terminological neutrality,”[5] that is, the use of neutral terms to describe those who appoint themselves as judge, jury and executioner in situations where they have not got their own way.  The media, by bringing the reporting of terrorism into the debates about the meanings of words, has also brought in vagueness as the normal language of political violence in the name of objectivity and neutrality.[6] 

 

This confusion of “terrorist” and “freedom fighter” has made the whole reconciliation issue exceedingly difficult for victims to take on board.  But it has done another thing as well: it has provided a basis for terrorist organisations to pursue their aims with a vengeance.  One writer believes that this must be stopped and that attempts must be made to make terrorist outrages, wherever they are found, counterproductive.[7]  The media has a role in this and can best make this happen by reporting all terrorist atrocities in a negative, rather than positive or neutral, manner. 

 

This point highlights the need to describe terrorism as the murderous thing it really is, and not as something that should be sanitised or promoted, however unwittingly, by the press.  To do this is to promote violence as a legitimate way of pursuing political goals.[8] 

 

The “politically correct” name for terrorists, i.e, “freedom fighters,” came into fashion in the 1940s and 1950s “as a result of the political legitimacy that the international community …accorded to struggles for national liberation and self-determination.”[9]  The argument was that countries that got their liberation from “colonial” oppression, and/or Western domination by this means were not to be described as “terrorists,” but as “freedom fighters.”  While addressing the United Nations General Assembly in November 1974, PLO leader Yassar Arafat stated that

the difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist … lies in the reason for which each fights.  For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his people from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists, cannot possibly be called terrorist…[10]

 

I will now go on to set this terrorist/freedom fighter issue within its broader context in the reconciliation playground.  I do this because this is where it belongs, especially in our context in Northern Ireland.  For reconciliation to be achieved, there must be an accurate understanding of who the key players are, full acknowledgement of what they have done and the indescribable hurt they have caused, and a sincere apology to those they hurt most deeply for what they have done.  In addition, there must also be a commitment to those they hurt that they will never do that kind of thing again.  (I am tempted to say something here about the NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER thing, but I will not yield).

 

In order to do this, I will share with you some of the findings of my research with WTV.

 

Research Findings and Discussion

 

The research material was gathered through interviews with, and focus groups from, WTV.  This enabled me to highlight the distinctives of how WTV members understand reconciliation, pointing out that failure to acknowledge some of these (more difficult) aspects of reconciliation could – in the long term – hinder the establishment of a lasting peace.

 

Reconciliation for WTV remains an important, and for some, a central, motivator for their involvement in the organisation and its reconciliation activities.  Their engagements with PIRA, and also with reconciliation activists, indicate a preference for using terms that make a distinction between terrorists and their victims, to describe their “enemies.”  This language highlights for them that trust must be established before co-operation with them is possible, and displays an attitude in which forgiveness may be offered and granted – if the conditions are met fully.  Their victimhood is not fairy-tale stuff, nor is their demand for acknowledgement and apology from PIRA and its fellow-travellers.  In their pursuit of reconciliation, WTV members co-operate willingly with fellow victims of terrorist violence, regardless of religious conviction.  Victims desire peace more than any other section of society.  They have suffered from terrorism and have to live with the life-long consequences of another’s choice of violence to forward their agenda.

 

Inclusive language

My research indicates that not only do WTV members prefer to use language that equates terrorists and freedom-fighters in NI (inclusive language), but they also prefer to use language that distinguishes between terrorist and victim (exclusive language) to describe those who targeted and attacked them because they “do not want to equate law-keepers with law-breakers.”[11]  They see “no common moral ground”[12] whatever between the two parties.  In fact, they do not even want to be “mentioned in the same breath.”[13] 

 

WTV members use this language and see all-encompassing language as a major barrier to reconciliation.  When WTV uses inclusive language, it embraces “all republican terrorists in line with what Gerry Adams once said, ‘There is only one IRA.’”[14]  Indeed, inclusive language also embraces distinctly “all those who have experienced similar injury from terrorists;”[15] but never the two together. 

 

Moreover, WTV victims view the refusal to define “terrorism” and to use this term to describe PIRA as something that “frustrates the achievement of reconciliation”[16] for them.  One respondent said, “If they can’t accept they’re terrorists, there’s never going to be reconciliation.”  For this respondent, it is a necessary requirement for reconciliation.  “Without this acknowledgement, there is no way forward.”  If acknowledgement is impossible, so is true reconciliation.

 

My research suggests that inclusive language is inadequate from the perspective of PIRA victims, for it creates a moral equivalence between victims and perpetrators.  They prefer to use the terms “terrorist” or “terrorist murderer” to describe those who have visited suffering, death and trauma on them; this term is rejected by terrorist offenders,[17] who view themselves as soldiers who were involved in a war of independence (as only they call it), thus rejecting this term.[18]  As soldiers, they have no wrong to acknowledge, or nothing for which to apologise.  The best they will do is to apologise for the hurt they have inflicted on individuals.[19]  Their victims perceive them as believing their own propaganda, and taking a position of moral superiority. 

 

Reconciliation activists have not found an acceptable name for them, but accept terms like “ex-combatant” to describe them and the security forces,[20] something we utterly reject.

 

WTV members believe it is critical that whoever resorts to violence in pursuit of a political goal is described as a “terrorist,” not as a ‘soldier’ or ‘freedom-fighter.’  These victims said, “We have heard it said over the years about a terrorist campaign …All the papers, both north and south of the border, used the term ‘terrorist.’  The world says they were ‘terrorists,’ but it is only themselves that are saying that they were freedom-fighters.”[21] There is therefore no leeway on this so far as these victims are concerned.

 

WTV victims believe, then, that those who use unconventional means to pursue their political goals are not ‘freedom-fighters’ but ‘terrorists’; they have not got the people of NI with them.  Indeed, the existence and status of NI within the UK was agreed by the IRA and Sinn Fein in 1921, and ratified by Dail Eireann in 1922.[22]  By resorting to terrorist tactics to reverse this agreement, PIRA/SF has earned the name of terrorists, and has reneged on the “internationally agreed” transitional treaty between London and Dublin which they accepted in 1922.  This has raised again the issue of trust between republicans and their victims, and without trust, reconciliation is impossible.

 

Politicians, security experts and journalists, as well as academics, all use a variety of definitions of terrorism, and actually use the word “terrorist” to describe those whose actions strike fear into communities.  The UK government uses this term to entitle Acts of parliament, for example, the Terrorism Act (2000) and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005).  Indeed, the “critical threat” made against trans-Atlantic flights by international terrorists, and announced by the government[23] who used this term freely, as did political commentators/academics, and the media. 

 

As I said, problems of definition revolve around the old and widespread adage that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”[24] This adage contains truth in the sense that victims and criminals seldom agree on the nature of a crime,[25] but it also causes considerable difficulties when it comes to coping with or combating terrorism. 

 

The Importance of Defining Terrorism

International mobilization against terrorism, such as that which began in the mid-nineties and culminated in the international conventions cannot lead to operational results so long as the participants cannot agree on a definition.  Even at global level, the need for adequate definition is called for.

 

However, the nature, scale, frequency and magnitude of terrorist attacks in recent years has “sufficiently familiarised professionals and the public to facilitate establishing a consensus of understanding about the term.”[26]  This makes very good sense, given that such events have primary data in abundance to facilitate arriving at an acceptable definition of terrorism.

 

Amongst the reasons why this must be attempted is the fact that any definition “influences the information that is compiled and how it is used, the response to events, and the attitudes about individuals, groups and governments.”[27]  It is also important because unless and until terrorists accept an accurate definition of what they are and what they have done, their victims cannot and will not have any interest in reconciliation.  Because terrorism has been understood as “political” in nature, this has virtually ruled out any attempt to extradite terrorists to other states to stand trial there for the crimes committed within their jurisdictions.  Therefore an attempt must be made to define, however imperfectly, what this “thing” called terrorism is. 

 

In fact, at least 109 definitions of terrorism already exist, and contain 22 main elements.[28]  Of these, four are crucial: first, the use or threat of violence,[29] second, to create fear and intimidation, third, in an audience of indirect victims, and fourth, to effect changes in ideology, attitudes and behaviour.[30]  These elements point in the direction in which an accurate definition must go.

 

Other experts define terrorism as “‘coercive intimidation,’ using violence or the threat of violence, ‘to create a climate of terror, to publicise a cause, and to coerce a wider target into submitting to its aims.’”[31]  Stern, who defines terrorism as “an act or threat of violence against non-combatants[32] with the objective of exacting revenge, intimidating or otherwise influencing an audience,” also employs the violence theme.[33]  Wilkinson adds that “terrorism is further characterised as “unpredictable” and “indiscriminate,”[34] and Hoffman sees it as being “designed to communicate,” using publicity,[35] “to accomplish its goals.”[36]   So terrorism is not a philosophy or a movement – it is a method.[37]  Prof. Dershowitz claims that terrorism is war by other means.[38]  In short, “terrorism …means deliberately and violently targeting civilians for political purposes.”[39]

 

GENOCIDE

One of the ways we can determine the true nature of terrorism is to look at what it has done.  Earlier, I explained something of the mechanics of terrorism, and from that we can see that the real purpose of terrorism is to strike fear into the community.  It is not just to murder civilians.

 

But when we look more closely at the way terrorism has operated in NI, there is clear evidence that republican terrorists operated a policy of genocide or ethnic cleansing, especially around the border areas.  The United Nations drew up the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948.  In it, genocide is understood as follows:

(a)              killing members of the group;

(b)             causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c)              deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d)              imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and

(e)              forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

 

There can be no doubt that (a), (b), and (c) were uppermost in the minds of the PIRA when the trend to exterminate a specific group was being done.  Protestants around the border area were forced out by PIRA and its friends, eldest and only sons murdered, farmers put under so much pressure that they had to sell out, and were offered ridiculously low prices for their farms.  Protestant businesses were bombed, but strangely enough, nationalists were always on hand to open a similar business nearby.  Since 1970, 250,000 citizens left NI, and in the city of Londonderry, 17,000 Protestants were forced out of the city side and re-located elsewhere, leaving a mere 750 on that side of the city. 

 

People were targeted simply because they were British subjects, as seen in the “Brits out” cry of republicans.  They still want British people driven out of Northern Ireland, and retain the means and the desire to do so.  There is no doubt in my mind that republicans operated a policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the British people here, and still do.  And they used terrorism as the means of achieving that goal.  For 250,000 people they succeeded, but for the rest of us they were and are abysmal failures – they have nothing whatever of which to be proud.

 

The UN Convention is very clear: those who perpetrated genocide “shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals,”  (Art.IV).  Further, “Genocide … shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition,” (Art.VII).

 

CONCLUSION:

When terrorism is examined, there can be little doubt that no difference exists between terrorists and freedom-fighters, especially in the Northern Ireland context.  It is difficult to believe that there were any “freedom-fighters” in Northern Ireland, except in name only.  Both target innocent civilians – and according to the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, every off-duty soldier is a civilian.  82½% of all murders of UDR soldiers by the PIRA in Co Tyrone were off-duty, therefore civilians.  Also, every police officer murdered by terrorists was also a civilian, since the police in Northern Ireland was/is a civilian police force.

 

Terrorists in Northern Ireland knew exactly what they were doing when they targeted the security forces – they had set their sights on harming irreparably women and children.  93% of all killings by terrorists were male, therefore 93% of those who have suffered ever since were female – mothers, wives, sisters, daughters.  To attack the female population in such a calculated manner is reprehensible in the extreme.  Only terrorists would do this!

 

We have seen that the method of operating for both groups is exactly the same, therefore no case can be made for them to be treated differently.

 

Since both operate in essentially the same manner, they cannot, under any circumstances be classified as “soldiers.”  This is insulting to those who were prepared to don the uniform, become visible as soldiers, and operate within strict legal requirements to do an almost impossible job.  They are to be warmly commended for their courage and dedication to duty. 

 

Any equating of terrorists with the security forces under the term ex- or former-combatants is totally unacceptable.  To draw a moral equivalence between those who worked to keep the law and those who acted outside the law, is repugnant to those who paid a heavy price to keep our country from anarchy.  Such terms should be discontinued immediately if those who use them are really interested in reconciliation.

 

We have much to be thankful for in this land, not least because terrorists did not get their own way, but were resisted courageously by our brave security personnel; however, the extent of their success is now open to question by what happened last Monday; there can be no doubt that terrorism pays exceedingly rich dividends.  As for freedom-fighters, show me one and I’ll tell you then what I think!

Copyright © 2005 West Tyrone Voice. All Rights Reserved.