The terrorist assault against the Twin Towers of the
New York City World trade has staggered humanity to no measure. It would
take a long time before the horrifying images of massive destruction and
wanton loss of lives would pass into the cold chronicle of time and stale
statistics.
The present preoccupation of the American and their
allies is to secure justice for the innocent victims by ferreting out the
culprits at all cost.
Acts of terrorism have besiege human-kind since time
immemorial. In the first century, a Jewish order called Zealots
perpetrated random murders when the Romans governed Palestine. The
terrorism of the Zealots was directed to silence Jewish moderates and
ignite a revolt against Rome.
A Shiite Muslim called the Assassins [Arabic for
"hashish eaters"] from 1090 to 1275 attempted to purify Islam by killing
their Sunni rivals. The Assassins would own their crime and welcome
execution in martyrdom. Osama Bin Laden proudly proclaims as his hero
Hasan ibn Al-Sabah, the founder of the Assassins.
Anarchists took sway in the 19th and early 20th
centuries in Russia, Europe and the United States. Their victims consist
of a long list, including Czar Alexander II in 1881, President William
Mckinley in 1901, the Chicago's Haymarket Bombing in 1898 and the
attempted assassination of steel magnate Henry Frick in 1892, among
others.
We also have Algeria's Front de Liberation Nationale
(FLN) and the Basque and Quebecois separatists, the Weather
Underground in the United States, Marxist Baader-Meinhof Gang in
West Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy and even the Abu Sayyaf in the
Philippines.
But what is more condemnable is state terrorism where
the government of the day and its agents are the culprits. In fact the
word "terrorism" originates from the French Revolution's "Reign of
Terror". The state-sponsored terrorism of Robespierre and the Jacobins
resulted in the execution of about 12,000 people who were suspected as
enemies of the revolution.
And then there is the Spanish Inquisition which lasted
for almost four centuries from 1478 to 1834 and was undertaken by both the
civil and church authorities in order to eradicate non-believers in
Catholicism or heretics. Tomas de Torquemada alone, who was the Inquisitor
General for fifteen years is reported to be responsible for the execution
of about 2,000 Spaniards.
About 1.5 million Armenians perished under Ottoman rule
in a campaign to force out Armenians from Eastern Turkey between 1915 to
1923.
There is also the "Killing Fields" of Polpot. More than
1.6 Millions Cambodians or a fifth of the population are believed to have
been massacred or starved to death during the four years of Khmer Rouge's
tyrannical misrule.
Not to be outdone are the modern day "reigns of terror"
presided by governments in Asia and Latin America resulting to almost
unquantifiable wholesale violations of human rights, including prominently
involuntary disappearances.
People around the globe are justifiably appalled by the
September 11 terroristic attack on the "Dynamic Duo of Height" In New York
City which resulted to the death of thousands of hapless and innocent
victims. But the world should never forget the tortures, massacres,
executions and enforced disappearances of of countless more victims of
human rights violations perpetrated by no less than government
authorities.
These victims of state terrorism equally deserve
justice. It is indeed incomprehensible why justice for them should be
elusive like Osama Bin Laden.
