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p Since the late sixties and the early seventies, the world press has been carrying more and more of startling news about airliners hijacked, embassies blown up or set on fire, diplomats kidnapped, acts of provocation and outright raids staged against government and non-governmental missions, plastic parcel-bombs going off. .. Here are some of the most sensational episodes.

p On December 3, 1969, a group of 40 Zionists raided the Syrian Delegation headquarters at the UN. On March 3, 1971, a petrol bottle was thrown into the offices of the Iraqi Mission at the UN. On October 20, a member of the Zionist Jewish Defence League shot with a large-bore rifle at the headquarters of the Soviet Delegation at the UN from the roof of an adjacent house in New York. He fired at the window of a room with four children inside at the moment.

p However, official government representatives were not the only targets of terrorism.

p Late in 1972, the Scotland Yard had to introduce special control at the London Post Office for the first time since World War II because of a spate of plastic bombs, 6 posted as letters or parcels. The Indian Minister of Communications, Bahuguna made a special statement in Parliament after 50 explosive devices sent by air mail had been intercepted at the New Delhi Post Office. He pointed out in particular that there were some sophisticated electronic devices that experts had found in them, consisting of components that had not been manufactured either in India or in Arab countries.

p There have been many reports about the terrorist action of the Ustashis  [6•1  against Yugoslav diplomatic missions. The whole world knows about the hijacking of a Swedish airliner with 90 people on board by Ustashis in 1972.

p 95 people from various countries would have died in Cyprus in 1974 if the time-bomb stowed away inside a Venezuelan airliner had not been discovered in good time.

p A Czech pilot was killed in Czechoslovakia and the plane he was flying was hijacked and flown to West Germany.

p In October 1972, members of the Zionist Mossad organisation blew up a Palestinian bookshop in Paris and the home of a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in France, Mahmoud Hamshari.

p On August 14, 1973, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway announced the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat, Yigal Eyal implicated in the murder of a Moroccan subject Ahmad Bouchiki in Lillehammer. Two Israeli terrorists were arrested in that diplomat’s apartment.

p A parcel bomb went off in the Chinese embassy in Lusaka in 1973.

p In October 1977, the Japanese Government had to meet 7 the demand of terrorists from the Japanese Sekigun organisation who had seized a JAL airliner with passengers on board, bound for Paris from Tokyo. The terrorists demanded a ransom of 6 million dollars and the release of their former nine associates from Japanese jails. They threatened to kill off the passengers and the crew if their demand was not met. When it was, the airliner landed in Algeria where the terrorists gave themselves up to the local authorities. Prime Minister Fukuda then declared that he would do his best to promote international cooperation in preventing such crimes.

p A blast in Sheridan Circle in Washington on September 21, 1976, killed Orlando Letelier, a former minister of foreign affairs in the Allende government of Chile. The murder had been organised by agents of the Chilean secret police, DINA.

p A booby-trap car exploding in Buenos Aires on September 10, 1974, killed General Carlos Prats and his wife, who had emigrated from Chile, and on October 6, 1975, gunmen fired with automatic weapons at Bernardo Leighton, one of the founders of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, and his wife who remained paralysed because of the wounds she had received.

p Orlando Letelier’s widow, Isabel Letelier, made an unequivocal statement in an interview for the New Times magazine: “This is a case of state terror directed against a great many people in both Chile and other countries. .. This terrorism is practised not merely by gangs of killers, but by the state machinery of Chile and some other Latin American countries."  [7•1 

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p As the Daily Mail reported in May, 1980, British secret services had a hand in preparing a terrorist group for the physical removal of the leaders of the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front. The paper said that a group of subversive agents in the uniform of Zambian servicemen raided the building housing the mission of the Patriotic Front in Lusaka. The Front leader, Joshua Nkomo had a narrow escape. And late in February, there was an assassination attempt on Robert Mugabe (the present Prime Minister) during the elections in Rhodesia. A mine was set off on the road he was driving by on his way to attend an election meeting at Fort Victoria. The third man in the list was Josiah Tongogara, the military leader of ZANU. He died in a car crash after the London Conference on Rhodesia at the end of 1979.

p We could cite more of such examples. . . Half of all the acts of terrorism committed in the 1970s occurred in Europe, 21 per cent in Latin America, 14 per cent in North America, and 11 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa. In 1970, there were twice as many terrorist acts in Latin America as in Europe. In 1978, they were in reverse proportion. Direct damage caused by terrorist action and overhead expenses they involved, as those for security and insurance, in 1970-1978, ran into billions of dollars. The declared ransom alone for individuals kidnapped by terrorists topped 145 million dollars.

p In International Terrorism and World Security, an American author, Brian M. Jenkins wrote: “Terrorism appears to have increased markedly in the past few years. Political and criminal extremists in various parts of the world have attacked passengers in airline terminals and railway stations; planted bombs in government buildings, 9 the offices of multinational corporations, pubs, and theatres; hijacked airliners and ships, even ferryboats in Singapore; held hundreds of passengers hostage; seized embassies; and kidnapped government officials, diplomats, and business executives. We read of new incidents almost daily.. . Terrorism has become a new element in international relations."  [9•1 

p There have been certain instances of international lawbreaking being mixed up with terrorism, which objectively hampers a concentrated effort to check this type of international crime. As a case in point, we can mention the work of Louis Rene Beres Terrorism and Global Security. The Nuclear Threat  [9•2  which considers the possession of nuclear arms and the eventuality of their being used for acts of terrorism. This must, evidently, involve other areas of international relations subject to a different qualification.

p Back in 1972, the Twenty-Seventh Session of the UN General Assembly discussed the issue of “international terrorism" which had been included in the General Assembly agenda as item 92, entitled “Measures to prevent international terrorism which endangers or takes innocent human lives or jeopardizes fundamental freedoms, and study of the underlying causes of those forms of terrorism and acts of violence which lie in misery, frustration, grievance and despair and which cause some people to sacrifice human 10 lives, including their own, in an attempt to effect radical changes."  [10•1 

p Because of the divergent positions of various states with regard to terrorism and the loose wording of item 92 of the agenda, neither the Twenty-Seventh, nor the subsequent Twenty-Eighth Session of the UN General Assembly could work out any specific measures to check acts of terrorism jeopardizing the normal course of international relations. Neither could the Special Committee, set up in accordance with the General Assembly Resolution 3034 (Twenty-Seventh Session) of December 18, 1972, submit any working document to the Twenty-Eighth Session for the same reasons.

p Representatives of imperialist States attempted to exploit the discussion of “international terrorism" in the UN in order to extend this concept to the national liberation struggle and to various forms of the class struggle of the working people for their rights. This circumstance predetermines the importance of resolving the problem by applying the principles of State-to-State relations which would make it possible to resist the attempts of imperialist States to stultify the generally recognised standards of international law and also to fill in the blank in this respect.

p Speaking at the Twenty-Seventh Session of the UN General Assembly, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko said: “On the basis of positions of principle, the Soviet Union opposes acts of terrorism which disrupt the diplomatic activities of States and their representatives, transport communications between them, the normal course of international contacts and meetings, and it opposes acts 11 of violence which serve no positive end and cause loss of human life.”

p When, early in 1981, the Reagan Administration took up the cudgels against “international terrorism”, the background to that campaign was clear right from the outset. The whole “great idea" was to try and cover up the unending succession of offences of terrorist significance committed by the CIA and other US secret services on the territory of foreign nations with a view to destabilising international relations and putting the blame for it on the national liberation movements and the Soviet Union.

p In a bid to sell its own idea of the “fight against international terrorism”, the Reagan Administration has actually set its face against the rule of international law, having, to all intents and purposes, introduced so-called “minor forms of violence" into international relations as a standard of behaviour, also with a view to destabilising these relations.

p The TASS Statement of February 2, 1981, said in particular: “No, it is not the Soviet Union and not the national liberation movements that bear responsibility for the emergence of seats of tension, for the cult of force that is being implanted by certain circles in the international arena, for the terrorist actions which States have to face. The nutritive medium for arbitrariness, violence and terrorism in the international arena is provided by the activities and policy of those who trample upon the legitimate rights and interests of sovereign States and peoples, who implant the ideology of racial and national hatred, who support reactionary dictatorial regimes that remain in power only with the help of terror, who are out to increase tension in the world and whip up the arms race, who 12 build up an atmosphere of war hysteria. The addresses of those we speak of are well known.”

p The U.S. News and World Report found out that the CIA had carried through close on 900 major undercover operations against “undesirable” individuals and governments from 1951 to 1976. Among those operations—the assassination of Iran’s Premier Mossadegh and the overthrow of his government in 1953, the toppling of the government of Guatemala in 1954 and of those of the Dominican Republic in 1965, Ghana in 1966, and Chile in 1973. One does not need to go far into the records of history to recall the names of politicians assassinated by CIA agents: Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Ernesto Che Guevara, President Salvador Allende of Chile, Orlando Letelier, General Carlos Prats, Juan Torres, a former President of Bolivia, Amilcar Cabral, General Secretary of the African Party for Independence in Guinea and Cape Verde Islands, Eduardo Mondlane, leader of the struggle of the people of Mozambique, and Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka.

p CIA agents have made over 20 assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, trying to kill him with firearms, hand-grenades, shell mines, poisoned cigarettes, poison pills, a diving suit with tubercle bacilli.

p As Admiral Stansfield Turner, who was the CIA Director under President Carter, declared once, there is only one way of effectively using terrorism in the American interest, and that is through physical penetration of the ranks of terrorists.

p In July 1981, the Italian Panorama magazine published an excerpt from a secret document, FM 30/31, which had been compiled by General Westmoreland, a former Chief 13 of Staff of the US Army. It referred unequivocally to the use of terrorist movements to further the US interest in friendly countries”. One clear indication of that was the organisation of terrorism and its spread in Italy, notably, the so-called case of the masonic Lodge Propaganda 2 (abbreviated as Loggia P-2). As early as 1974, Lieut.-Col. Amos Spiazzi, who had served concurrently for the Italian Intelligence Service and for the neofascists of the Rosa dei venti (Rose of the Winds) organisation, testified during interrogation that it was the masons that had organised contacts between neofascists, the mafia, the secret services of Italy and the CIA.

p It was, to judge by all accounts, in 1969 (as competent New York sources found, at least) that the leaders of the US National Security Council and representatives of the Italian right-wing forces decided to use masonic cover as disguise of a subversive organisation which, to all intents and purposes, was to bring about a drastic rightward shift in Italian politics. It was at that time that this mission was entrusted to the P-2 Lodge which was already active among employers and financiers.

p The life of Italian politicians and public figures came to depend on whether they like or dislike US and NATO policies.

One particular case by which to illustrate the terroristic activity of the P-2 Lodge is the “Occorsio case”. It is a matter of record that in the 70s Italy was more than once on the brink of fascist coups being prepared by a long succession of terrible acts of terrorism. The press revealed the anti-government ambitions of "Black Prince" Vaflerio Borghese in 1971. In 1974, a rightist coup was plotted by Licio Gelli. The neofascists attempted to destabilise the

14 political situation accordingly: in May 1974, they had a bomb exploded in Brescia and in August of the same year, another one going off on the Italicus Express. Vittorio Occorsio, Deputy Attorney General of Rome, conducted an inquiry. The bomb on the Italicus was found to have been planted by neofascists of the National Front organisation, Mario Tuti, Pietro Malentachi and Luciano Francia. Occorsio established that the masons had connections with bandits who kidnapped people and used the ransoms for them to keep up the funding of neofascist organisations. He found out that the kidnappers had as their treasurer a lawyer, Antonio Minghelili who had the title of Master of the Lyra and Sword Lodge and subsequently became P-2 Secretary. In a private conversation, Occorsio imprudently mentioned Minghelli. A few days later, on July 10, 1976, he was shot dead on his own doorstep. The assassin, Pierluigi Goncutelli, turned out to be a neofascist. On the premises where he was arrested, police found eleven million Italian lire which another bandit, Renato Vallanzasca had just received as ransom money for Emanuela Trapagni, kidnapped by the mafia. But further police investigation was impeded.

p An American, Ronald Stark, who was in contact with CIA, testified, when arrested for drug smuggling, that the Red Brigades had been plotting to kill the Attorney General of Genoa, Francesco Coco, and kidnap a big-calibre politician in Rome. Stark’s testimony was not taken into account, and two months later, Francesco Coco was killed by “Red Brigades" terrorists. In 1978, a few days after the US Ambassador to Italy, Richard Gardner, described the former Chairman of the National Council of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, Aldo Moro as “the most 15 dangerous man in the Italian political arena" for favouring dialogue with Communists, Moro was kidnapped also by the “Red Brigades" and subsequently murdered.

p Stark, who was under police surveillance in Florence when Moro was kidnapped offered to the editor of a local newspaper to tell the whole truth about his connections with terrorists. Thereafter, Stark disappeared without a trace.

p Here is a typical case to illustrate CIA operations. When an Italian, by the name of Salvatore Krisaffi refused to share in kidnapping, on CIA instructions, Giovanni Agnelli, the FIAT owner, and Angelo Rizzoli, the head of a big newspaper publishing corporation, he was simply thrown into an American jail after having been convicted by a New York court on a trumped-up rape charge.

p L’Europeo, an influential Italian magazine, has drawn a significant conclusion that the underground Black Army (far more numerous and bellicose than it is assumed to be) has sprung from the NATO concept of “the defence of Europe in the event of a conflict”. This is the concept that underlay the “Black Colonels’ " coup in Greece. The Italian press has disclosed that the afore-mentioned Gelli had established liaison between Italian terrorists and the Greek colonels. The close contact of the P-2 Lodge with neofascists gives the clue to the “Occorsio case" mystery.

p There is enough documentary evidence at hand today to prove Gelli’s connection with the CIA. The Grand Master of the Grand-Orient Lodge of France has stated that he considers the P-2 to have been a tool of the CIA.

p That is to say that only total renunciation of interference in internal affairs and violation of generally 16 recognised principles and standards of international law can make it possible to work out wide-ranging measures for the suppression of terrorism.

p Obviously, with good will in evidence, it is possible to reach agreement also on such a problem as a joint effort to suppress acts of international terrorism, all the more so since this is a matter of vital concern to everybody.

p For example, the participating nations of the Conference on Security and Co-Operation in Europe succeeded in reaching agreement at their follow-up meeting in Madrid in 1981 on principles of the fight against acts of international terrorism.

p They condemned terrorism, including terrorism in international relations which endangers or takes innocent human lives or otherwise jeopardises human rights and fundamental freedoms.

p Participating nations voiced their determination to take effective measures to prevent or suppress acts of terrorism both at national level and through international cooperation, comprising appropriate bilateral and multilateral agreements, and to broaden and intensify mutual cooperation accordingly in action to oppose such acts under the United Nations Charter, the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the United Nations Charter and the Final Act. A very important point of principle was the agreement to refrain from lending direct or indirect assistance for terroristic activity aimed at toppling by force the regime of another participating nation as well as the agreement to refrain from financing, encouraging or inciting any such activity or encouraging tolerance thereof.

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p Considering present-day realities, the participating nations took what was certainly a progressive step by reaching a consensus on adopting all appropriate measures to prevent their territories from being used to prepare, organise, and conduct lerroiist activities, including some directed against other participating nations and their nationals. These comprise measures to ban the illegal activities, on their territories, of individuals, groups and organisations who incite, organise, or participate in acts of terrorism.

p Another very important point of agreement was for the participating nations to do everything within their power to ensure the security of all official representatives or individuals who participate, on their territory, in all manner of activity within the framework of diplomatic, consular, or other official relations.

To sum up, international law offers the principles by which to govern the relations of States and accords between them so as to create a serious obstacle in the way of international terrorism and assure a concerted effort by all nations in the fight against it and in its eventual suppression.