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Subject:
From:
Bakary Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
The Gambia and related-issues mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 25 Apr 2002 22:47:16 +0100
Content-Type:
text/plain
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Yus,

Note the following from another raver and ranter: so there is no concensus
on the meaning of this evil word and act.

>In fact, the only consistent definition of terrorism is based on the
>deliberate killing of civilians to achieve political goals-- not on whether
>the killers are backed by a state or not, and certainly not on the methods
>they choose to use to kill their victims. A consistent definition, however,
>is one that virtually no news organization would be willing to use.
>
>They would have to refer to the "terrorist" bombings of Hiroshima and
>Nagasaki, to U.S. support for "terrorist" governments in Central America
>that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, to the U.S.'s "terrorist"
>attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iraq and Yugoslavia. (The attacks on
>water treatment facilities in Iraq alone have certainly-- and
>deliberately--
>killed more civilians than any Palestinian group; see The Progressive,
>9/01.)
>
>And they would have to use the word "terrorism" to describe actions by both
>sides in the Israeli-Palestian conflict. Consider a May 1996 report from
>Human Rights Watch on Israel's tactics in Lebanon earlier that year:
>
>"In significant areas in southern Lebanon whole populations-- indeed anyone
>who failed to flee by a certain time-- were targeted as if they were
>combatants.... The intention of the warnings that were broadcast and
>subsequent shelling is likely to have been to cause terror among the
>civilian population.... The IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] also executed what
>appear to have been calculated direct attacks on purely civilian
>targets....
>The IDF at times hindered and even attacked ambulances and vehicles of
>relief organizations, and carried out a number of attacks on persons
>attempting to flee the area."
>
>If news organizations are prepared to describe such tactics as terrorism,
>then they should consistently apply the same term to non-governmental
>groups
>that target civilians. If media are unwilling or unable to be consistent,
>then they should, indeed, avoid the use of the word "terrorism," instead
>describing specific activities and letting readers make up their own minds
>what they should be called.
>
>
>
>
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