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p It is quite obvious that acts of terrorism affecting relations between States in one way or another, engendering tension between them, and provoking conflicts, implying interference in internal affairs, are particularly dangerous.

p A US State Department official said that the US regarded as terrorism financial support for and the training of revolutionary groups acting against lawfully established regimes,  [49•1  and also the sale or transfer of weapons to these groups. That is just what the US has been doing in relation to El Salvador, Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique and Cuba. The material of the Frank Church Committee, which confirmed US political and military intervention in the affairs of many nations, is noteworthy in this respect. These documents cover thirteen years of the CIA’s terrorist activities in Cuba, in the Congo, in Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, Laos, Iran, Indonesia, and other countries. The British Daily Telegraph maintained in August 1981, referring to US sources, that the outstanding Congolese political ileader Patrice Lumumba was murdered on direct instructions from Washington.

p President Lyndon B. Johnson described this trend in US foreign policy most eloquently when he admitted on July 30, 1973, that in the Caribbean, the US was operating a “murder syndicate".  [49•2  The Reagan Administration has 50 kept it up with a vengeance by plotting more assassination attempts on Cuban leaders and encouraging terrorist activities against any regime the US does not like.

p Even the hardened American press is trying to avoid being totally involved in the campaign against “ international terrorism" and has had to acknowledge the inconsistency of America’s foreign policy.

p A Special UN Session met in New York in September 1980, in the wake of the perfidious assassination of a Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez. “I strongly condemn this senseless terrorist act”, the then UN Secretary-General, Kurt Waldheim, declared. He appealed to the US Delegation at the UN to help take all the necessary measures to guarantee the safety of the staff of the Cuban Delegation to the UN. Cuba’s Ambassador to the UN, Raul Roa Kouri emphasised that “criminals are openly operating in the US, they have their headquarters here, hold their gatherings and make their bellicose statements. They have already planted explosive devices in the building of the Cuban Delegation to the UN in New York. Their latest crime has become possible just because those guilty of previous acts of banditry have not been punished.” This crime has been committed by the Omega-7 terrorist organisation with the CIA in the knowledge.

p A number of serious American researchers have attempted to analyse terrorism as a phenomenon. A book called Terrorism: Threat, Reality, Response by Robert H. Kupperman and Darrell M. Trent appeared in 1979.  [50•1  51 The authors of the book point out that “terrorism is viewed as a very serious world problem by 90% of the American people, and a very serious domestic problem by 60%”. The “internationalisation of the problem of terrorism" has been associated with the extension of the terrorists’ zone of action as well as with qualitative changes in the terrorists’ means and methods of action. Terrorists in West Germany had already threatened to use chemical munitions, and there has already been a case of iodine radio-isotopes spreading on a train. In West Germany terrorists have attacked lines of communication, in Spain and Argentina, radio stations, in France, Argentina and Spain—nuclear power plants. The book purports to charge the Palestine resistance movement with spreading terrorism worldwide, and with training terrorists for all kinds of activity—from ultra left to neo-Nazi. Along with that, to explain why the United States “has been relatively untouched by the storm of terrorist activities of the past decade”, the authors refer to the absence of either a broad-based left, or a broad-based right and also to some specific features of American history and the social and psychological climate. This conclusion does not conform to the facts of reality. The past and present of US political life is racist terror, the activities of the Jewish Defence League and violation of elementary norms of international law as regards diplomatic representatives, officials and property of foreign nations. “Relatively untouched”, all right, but terrorism does exist and assumes ever more menacing proportions in the US. Why? This question has remained unanswered in so vast a study. Speaking of the “key sources for modern terrorism”, the authors refer to 1) “the failure of rural Cuban-style guerilla warfare in Latin America...” and 52 2) “the major defeat of Arab forces against Israel in 1967, which led the Palestinians to abandon their reliance on the conventional military power of the Arab states in favour of various forms of terrorism”. This statement means passing the effect off for the social cause and making an “objective analysis" in disregard of social reality. Charging the UN with inability to resolve the problem of “ international terrorism" because it has supported national liberation, the authors call for wider use of appropriate regional agreements and faster progress towards setting up an international court. Yet there are no legal classification, nor any principles of international law to underlie this kind of cooperation of nations in action against terrorist acts jeopardising the normal course of international relations.

p The Italian Panorama magazine procured some “ explosive" documents in July 1981. The documents were confiscated by Italian police as they arrested Maria Grazia Gelli, the daughter of Licio Gelli, founder and leader of the masonic P-2 Lodge, which we referred to earlier on. The FM 30-31 document we have already quoted from, said, in particular, that if the government showed itself to be “passive and indecisive" in the face of the “Communist threat”, American secret service agents should conduct special operations so as “to let the government and public opinion of a friendly nation see the danger of Communism".

p The US accused the Soviet Union of aiding and abetting "international terrorism": it did so to create a favourable moral and psychological atmosphere for the pursuit of its aggressive line in foreign affairs, directed against any form of the national liberation struggle. It is not by chance that “terrorism” should have been selected as an 53 instrument qf anti-Sovietism. The wave of violence has swept across practically all the Western countries in recent years. Almost daily acts of terrorism arouse fear and general condemnation and revulsion which the men in Washington wanted to channel against the Soviet Union and the communist movement.

p One thing that is rather typical in this context has been the appearance of yet another fake in the US—a book by one Claire Sterling The Terror Network which has been loudly advertised in France, West Germany, Britain, Italy, Holland, Austria, Mexico, and Spain. Claire Sterling has been presented as a prominent expert on terrorism. However, this “expert on terrorism" has not produced any substantive evidence either to bear out, even to some extent, the charge of terrorism against the Soviet State.

p The latest attempt to tag the label of “international terrorism" to the national liberation movement has nothing new about it, nor does it convince anybody at all, but, as the Inquiry magazine wrote in a review, neither Mrs Sterling herself, nor Mr Haig and Co. mentioned any of the widely known facts of the dramatic resurgence of rightwing terrorism in recent years.

p Nor does the book mention the bomb explosion at the Bologna Railway Station which killed 84 and wounded 200 people, nor the bomb exploded by neofascists in Munich, killing 12 and wounding 215, nor the one that went off in a Paris synagogue killing four and wounding 15. Of course, Mrs Sterling has nothing to say about the terrorism of Cuban emigrants, or about the institutionalised ten01 ism of the ruling circles of Israel.

p One of the objectives of Mrs Sterling’s book, as indeed of the entire American campaign about “international 54 terrorism”, is to try and justify the lifting of any restrictions on CIA operations.

p It would seem that the seeds of the American propaganda campaign should have germinated immediately. Yet they have not. The former Deputy Director for Intelligence CIA and one-time Director of Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the US Department of State, Ray Cline made yet another attempt to convince the world community of Soviet involvement in “international terrorism" at a press conference held in March 1981, upon the initiative of the Institute for Studies in International Terrorism at New York State University (Director of the Institute Alexander Jonah is concurrently on the staff of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University).

p Describing terror as a form of mini-war on an international scale, Ray Cline accused the Soviet Union of being the centre of propaganda of this doctrine and source of assistance in terms of training, arming, supplying communication facilities, lending diplomatic support, and providing cover and secret documents, that is, what Cline described as the infrastructure of terrorism. Cline also declared that Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Libya, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, Syria and the PLO were encouraging and supporting terrorism.

p More serious US politicians did not follow in the wake of the propaganda campaign of the new Administration. A former Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, who had attended the Second Session of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Crimes of Racism and Apartheid in Southern Africa (Luanda, January-February 1981), declared that it was totally wrong to put the liberation 55 movement on the same level with the terrorists because their objectives were diametrically opposite. The terrorists are, as a rule, either individualists, or groups in pursuit of their purely self-seeking ambitions, while the liberation movements are fighting for the freedom and independence of their peoples. They were upholding the destinies and interests of an entire nation, rather than of individuals. Those who pass nationalist movements off as terrorist would do well to relate their pronouncements to the actual realities. That was a very apt remark since it is quite obvious that it is extremely difficult for the men of the US military-industrial complex to analyse the real facts of present-day international life and to draw logical conclusions therefrom. The New York Times said bluntly that the US practically had no evidence to bear out the charge that the Soviet Union was training, arming and financially supporting international terrorists.

p The Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 26th Congress of the CPSU said: “Adventurism and a readiness to gamble with the vital interests of humanity for narrow and selfish ends—this is what has emerged in a particularly ’bare-faced form in the policy of the more aggressive imperialist circles. With utter contempt for the rights and aspirations of nations, they are trying to portray the liberation struggle of the masses as ’terrorism’. Indeed, they have set out to achieve the unachievable—to set up a barrier to progressive changes in the world, and to again become the ruilers of the peoples’ destiny."  [55•1 

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p The “struggle” against “international terrorism”, which has replaced the “human rights campaign" in the United States, is integral to the so-called doctrine of “linking” the Soviet Union’s behaviour with the questions of SovietAmerican relations and, above all, with the problem of strategic arms limitation. But, for one thing, it is impossible to link lie with fact, and, for another, the very concept of “linkage” does not work because every issue in international relations has its own particular area of application and can be effectively dealt with only within the limits of that area.

p From the standpoint of international law, an attempt at organising an act of terrorism, its actual organisation or involvement in it as well as its commission come under it, if:

p a) the form and methods of the commission of an act of terrorism are prohibited under international law or punishable in virtue of a custom which has acquired the value of jus obtio in international relations or must be prohibited as being contrary to the fundamental standards and principles of international law;

p b) the object of violent action is accorded protection under international law or in virtue of a custom of granting such protection within the framework of international relations or the necessity of protection following from the basic principles of international law;

p c) violent action has been committed by a subject of international law and is, therefore, to be considered within the framework of this system, or by a natural or legal person but in a situation presupposing international consequences which can be resolved and settled within the, framework of international law,

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p The complexity of proper qualification and classification arises not only from the absence of a common understanding and definition of the very category of such a type of violent action as an act of terrorism but also from the fact that in this particular case, the terrorist act affects the system of international and national law, creating thereby the difficulties of application of one system’s categories and principles to another.

p When the Chairman of the US Senate Legal Committee, Strom Thurmond, instituted a Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, its Chairman, Senator Jeremiah Denton, Rep., one of the most conservative congressmen, said that the new definition of terrorism was that terrorism was the threat or use of violence aimed at achieving a psychological impact on a target group wider than its limmediate victims. This definition is delil)crately confusing national and international character of a terrorist act. It considers as terrorist acts also the operations in pursuit of “military or paramilitary objectives or those of a rebellion”, if they "include terrorist acts”. The New York Times pointed out in this connection that some national liberation wars could, evidently, be classed within this category, according to the new definition. That is exactly the whole point of this definition which also means that any terrorist act of national character might at any moment be declared international with the “blame” for it to be put on the state against which the policy of blackmail or pressure is exercised.

p There have been some interesting attempts at defining a terrorist act from the standpoint of international law.

p Belgian researcher Eric David has defined the terrorist act as "any act of armed violence which, being committed 58 for a political, social, philosophical, ideological or religious end, violates, among the prescriptions of humanitarian law, those interdicting the use of cruel and barbaric methods, attack of innocent objects or objects of no military interest".  [58•1 

p The definitions of international terrorism as ”. . . terrorism including kidnapping, hijacking of aircraft, maiming, torturing or killing" or as acts of violence committed in violation of accepted standards and rules of international diplomacy or warfare cannot, in our view, be held accurate and full as definitions of acts within the meaning of international law.

p All this underlines the imperative necessity of circumstantial classification and definition of the substance of terrorist acts as they affect international relations.

p First of all, it should be noted that a terrorist act or a policy of terror in general can be practised both in peace and in wartime.

p As to wartime, international law already provides for a series of standards to govern the prohibition and punishment of terrorist acts with regard to prisoners of war, civilians, combatants and non-combatants who will have stopped participating in hostilities even in the event of a conflict of other than international character; guerrillas and militia squads whose status while in captivity is held to be equivalent to that of war prisoners coming from standing armies, as well as in respect of cultural property during an armed conflict. These standards comprise:

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p 1. Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Art. 6, b, c).

p 2. Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, for the Protection of War Victims, and respectively:

p —Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (Arts. 2, 12, 13);

p —Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea (Arts. 3, 12, 13);

p —Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (Arts. 3, 4, 13, 27, 32, 33).

p 3. The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, concluded under UNESCO auspices in 1954.

p 4. The Convention on Non-Applicability of Statutes of Limitation to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity of 1968, which was considered to be an indispensable procedural addition to the standards of international law directed towards the suppression of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

p Considering that the issue of preventing terrorism as it affects international relations has arisen in the context of peacetime  [59•1  and that large sections of the world community want to see the issue of “international terrorism” dealt with because of the wave of terrorist acts in recent times, it is advisable to have a closer look at this problem as it stands in the context of peaceful time. The need for such 60 primary classification has been acknowledged in most of the works which, in one way or another consider terrorist acts within the scope of international law.  [60•1 

p In peacetime, a terrorist act can be committed by the authorities of a State in respect of some of its citizens with a view to intimidating them or suppressing the opposition (witness the policy of terror in Nazi Germany against the Communist Party and all other dissidents, or the terror in Chile following the military coup of September 11, 1973, etc.), or as part of the policy of racial discrimination, racial superiority, or as acts of genocide (like those practised by the apartheid regime in South Africa or by the former regime of Pol Pot in Kampuchea).

p These acts fall within appropriate provisions:

p 1) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal as its Art. 6, paragraph “c” contains the following statement:

p a) Crimes against humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated;

p 2) 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; 

p 3) 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; 

p 4) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; 

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p 5) 1966 International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights; 

p 6) 1968 International Convention on Non-Applicability of Statutes of Limitation to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity; 

p 7) 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

p However, even if directed against the same object, terrorist acts may be committed by different subjects of various legal systems.

p Terrorist acts committed by the authorities of one State on the territory of another, or permission or encouragement of any activity on the territory of the given State with the view of committing a terrorist act within the limits of another State must be qualified as acts of indirect aggression. For instance, in the Convention on the Definition of Aggression, concluded on July 3, 1933, between the USSR and Afghanistan, Estonia, Latvia, Iran, Poland, Romania and Turkey, the USSR proposed that, according to Art. 2 of the Convention, a State that would be the first to commit one of the following acts should be considered an aggressor in an international conflict:

p “5) support given to armed bands which, having been formed on its territory, would invade the territory of another state, or the refusal, inspite of the demand of the invaded state, to take all measures within its power on its own territory to deprive the said bands of all aid or protections."  [61•1 

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p At a later date, the Soviet Union qualified this kind of action as an act of indirect aggression. This qualification appears to be more correct since, on the one hand, it is aggression by a State because such acts are committed with its consent or connivance, but, on the other, these acts do not assume such a wide scope and are not always committed by nationals of that State as to be qualified as direct aggression.

p This provision has been formalised in a number of international legal documents and drafts presented by various states in the Special Committee on the Question of Defining Aggression, as, for instance, the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, approved by the General Assembly on October 24, 1970, 2625 (Twenty-Fifth Session).

p This Declaration says, in part: “... Every State has the duty to refrain from organising, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State or acquiescing in organised activities within its territory directed toward the commission of such acts, when the acts referred to in the present paragraph involve a threat or use of force. . .. Also, no State shall organise, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed toward the violent overthrow of the regime of another State, or interfere in civil strife in another State.”

p The Declaration on the Strengthening of International Security, contained in the General Assembly Resolution 2734 (Twenty-Fifth Session) of December 16, 1970, says that every state has the duty to refrain from organising, 63 instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State.

p It is the definition of aggression that assumes the greatest significance in this context since the State that has fallen victim to aggression by another State has the right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with Art. 51 of the UN Charter.

p The Soviet Union proposed the following definition of aggression to be included in the draft:

p “The use by a State of armed force by sending armed bands, mercenaries, terrorists or saboteurs to the territory of another State and engagement in other forms of subversive activity involving the use of armed force with the aim of promoting an internal upheaval in another State or a reversal of policy in favour of the aggressor shall be considered an act of indirect aggression."  [63•1 

p Australia, Italy, Canada, Great Britain, the US and Japan consider “organising, supporting or directing violent civil strife or acts of terrorism in another State" as “the uses of force which may constitute aggression".  [63•2 

p The following provision is to be found in paragraph 7 of the draft definition submitted by Colombia, Cyprus, Ecuador, Ghana, Guyana, Haiti, Iran, Madagascar, Mexico, Spain, Uganda, Uruguay and Yugoslavia:

p “When a State is a victim in its own territory of subversive and/or terrorist acts by irregular, volunteer or armed bands organised or supported by another State, it may take all reasonable and adequate steps to safeguard its 64 existence and its institutions, without having recourse to the right of individual or collective self-defence against the other State under Art. 51 of the Charter."  [64•1 

p In April 1974, the Special Committee on the Question ol Defining Aggression adopted the draft definition of aggression which qualified the acts of state terrorism as well as connivance with, or support for the activities directed towards the commission of such acts, as aggression.  [64•2 

p Therefore, when the territory of Pakistan was used for training groups of mercenaries and smuggling them across the border into Afghanistan for terrorist activities against its people and officials, those acts were rightfully qualified as aggression, from the standpoint of international law, which justified the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence in conformity with Art. 51 of the UN Charter and Art. 4 of the 1978 Soviet-Afghan Treaty.  [64•3 

p So the problem of State terrorism in international law, i.e. the commission of acts of terrorism against a State by groups formed of servicemen of another State, can be resolved by qualifying acts of this kind as acts of aggression. This is precisely how the Security Council qualified the actions of Israel when Israeli commandos carried out terrorist acts against the leaders of the Palestine resistance movement in Beirut on April 10, 1973. In a letter of September 25, 1973, to the UN Secretary-General, the 65 Permanent Representatives of Egypt, Iraq and Syria rightfully appraised those as acts ol State terrorism.  [65•1 

p To clarify the problem of qualifying State terrorism, we should mention paragraph 6 of Art. 2 of the Draft Code ol OIleiiLes against the Peace and Security of Mankind  [65•2  prepared by the International Law Commission at its Sixth Session in 1954.

p Under this document “the undertaking or encouragement by the authorities of a State of terrorist activities in another State, or the toleration by the authorities of a State of organised activities calculated to carry out terrorist acts in another State" are offences against the peace and security of mankind and, consequently, as defined in Art. 1, “crimes under international law" (emphasis added).

p This classification of state terrorism is perfectly justified because an act of aggression by one state against another is, undoubtedly, a crime under international law not only because of this crime being committed by a subject of international law but also because of the danger such acts create for international relations and for the maintenance of international peace and security. Consequently, state terrorism can, beyond doubt, be classed under the heading of international crimes, such as the offences against peace; war crimes, namely: violations of the laws and customs of war; crimes against humanity; genocide, apartheid. The Protocol Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, adopted on June 10, 1977, considers, in 66 partitular, the following acts as state tcnorisrn: treatment of the civilian population as such as well as individual civilians as the object of attack; attack expected to cause incidental loss of civilian lite, inpny to civilians, damage to civilian objects when it is known that such an attack may cause excessive loss of life among civilians or be damaging to civilian objects; an attack on installations or structures containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations if such an attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population; conversion of nondefended localities and demilitarised zones into an object of attack; an attack on a person who is recognised or who, in the circumstances, should be recognised to be hors dc combat. The major standard of reference to judge the above-mentioned offences as international crimes is their acute social danger since in a number of cases international crimes may be committed by physical persons who do not obey the will of the State, but act according to their lights. For instance, it may be the murder of a prisoner of war. The Protocol on International Armed Conflicts, adopted on June 10, 1977 as a supplement to the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Victims of War, explicitly forbids the acts of terrorism in respect of all persons that are not directly involved or have ceased to take part in military operations at any time anywhere.

p Therefore, the action of the ruling circles of Israel against the Arab people of Palestine and neighbouring Arab countries cannot be seen as anything short of State terrorism. There are two facts, in particular, that have to be mentioned in this respect. One was the bombing of the atomic research centre in Iraq in the summer of 1981 and 67 the other, the saturation bombing of the residential distucts of Beirut and Palestine refugee camps. In neither case did that action spring from any military necessity, the only object being to terrorise Arab States and the Arab people ol Palestine. That meant a direct violation ol Ail. 51 and Art. 56 of the Protocol Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions Relating to the Protection of Victims of War, which, in particular, forbid acts of violence or threat of violence principally designed to terrorise the civilian population as well as attack dykes and nuclear electiical geneiating stations which may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.

p These acts have been condemned accordingly by a special Security Council Meeting.

p It is for this reason that the statement made by President Reagan at a news conference on June 17, 1981, when he sought to vindicate those acts of State terrorism, accusing the Arab countries of keeping up tensions in the Middle East, was like adding insult to injury.

p Commission of acts of terrorism by a nation’s secret services is a special form of State terrorism which has now assumed considerable proportions. This form of terrorist acts, blending with acts of aggression in most cases, does, nevertheless, require self-sustained measures and forms of struggle above all, at intergovernmental level. The thing to do is, quite obviously, to draft a special international agreement to suppress actions of this kind.

p A special department was formed within the CIA framework in the mid-1950s. It was to organise the kidnapping and subsequent removal of statesmen of foreign nations. The foundations were laid for the CIA’s close 68 association with the mafia in the 60s, and it was on the CIA’s proposal that even a special conference was held to consider some plans for the political murder of Fidel Castro and other leaders ol the Cuban Revolution.

p The first half of the 70s saw the use of Condor, a continental terrorist organisation as an intergovernmental body, with the main “strike force" constituted by Cuban counter-revolutionary emigres, advertised by the US press as “the world’s best trained killers".

p This is an organisation of the secret seivices of a number of states, held together by a system of mutual responsibility, which have joined forces in shadowing the members of the Latin American liberation movement and destroying the most active of them. The Western press mentioned Operation Condor and Plan Condor for the first time in October 1976 after an act of terrorism against a Cuban airliner off Barbados and also during the hearings of the murder in Washington of a former Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs Orlando Letelier, a Socialist. Articles by the American journalist Jack Anderson in the autumn of 1979 provided some information about the structure and operations of that “murder corporation”. Two of Condor’s departments are in charge of intelligence gathering about the opposition, shadowing, intimidating and blackmailing them. Another of its departments has been planning and implementing “punitive actions”. Third Department agents compile “proscription” lists and, thereupon, a second group of agents makes a detailed study of the way of life of those condemned to death, their habits, likes and dislikes, their preferences, etc., all that is essential to preparing for the assassination attempt. Next comes the turn of “ commandos”, hired assassins recruited mostly among the 69 Cuban scum in exile. Representatives of the appropriate secret services—members of Condor, enter all those three phases, depending on the circumstances.

p As an Argentinian magazine Autentico wrote, it was the first conference of representatives of the political police of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia held in Buenos Aires that resolved to remove Chilean General Carlos Prats, Uruguayan MP Zelmar Michelini, former President Torres of Bolivia, and a further 50 Latin American leaders. A spokesman for Pinochet moved a proposal to have the embassies institute the office of coordinators on security problems, create a unified centre of information about “Marxists” and start constant cooperation of political police in their respective countries.

p The organisation has its headquarters in Chile while its branch office is in Miami, according to the Western press. This organisation has been reported to have connections with the neofascist movement not only in Latin America, but, notably, also with the secret police of South Africa. For example, a Cuban counter-revolutionary Virgilio Paz, of Condor, shot dead the Smith couple in their home in South Africa,  [69•1  in 1977, at the request of that police. In 1975, the same Virgilio Paz was involved in the assassination attempt on Bernardo Leighton in Rome, leader of Chilean left-wing Christian Democrats, and in 1976, in the assassination of Orlnado Letelier in Washington.

p At iho present time, Condor’s activities extend to 70 Central America as well. For example, the murder of Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was the work of Paz and Suarez. The Spanish Pueblo newspaper said in November 1981 that the inquiry into the death of President Jaime Roldos Aguilera of Ecuador, Panama’s leader Omar Torrijos, the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces of Peru Rafael Hoyos Rubio, and of Sandinista military leaders in Nicaragua warrant the conclusion that Condor had been involved in those crimes as well. The paper says, quoting information from Madrid branch offices of two international organisations, that there is a Condor representative mission in Madrid which is so far gathering information, but can at any moment switch on the so-called “third phase”, that is assassination.

p The ruling circles of Israel have acted along these lines as well. As the Time magazine reported, the Israeli government set up a special terrorist group in 1972. It is that group that has since been organising, and in a number of cases carrying out scores of murders, explosions of embassies of Arab countries and the premises of UN missions, shootings and explosions aimed against diplomatic and commercial missions of the USSR and other socialist countries, hijacking of airliners, kidnapping of hostages and shootings of airliners in rnid-air. These crimes ’have been carried out in the territory of Italy, France, Norway, Uganda, Egypt, Holland, Britain and the US.

p The action of Israeli authorities as regards the Arab people of Palestine in occupied territories, as well as in respect of that part of this people who have to reside for the time being in the territory of other countries, above all in Lebanon, is terroristic by nature. This form of State terrorism is exercised as outright physical destruction both 71 of individual Palestinian Arabs and whole groups of them during full-scale raids of Palestine refugee camps and attacks on civilians in Lebanon. That was demonstrated with extra relief during the Israeli-instigated aggression against Lebanon in June 1982 when, following an utterly unprovoked, brazen and violent attack in the course of which a hundred thousand strong aggressor army occupied almost half the territory of the neighbouring sovereign State, destroyed scores of towns and villages, including the Western sector of Beirut, killed and wounded tens of thousands of civilians, presented the Palestine resistance movement with what amounted to an outright ultimatum, calling on them to give up altogether their struggle for Palestinian self-determination.

p It is necessary to point out that Israel’s action with regard to the Arab people of Palestine constituted a crime of genocide, an act of terrorism and a blatant violation of the laws and customs of warfare. Such character of warfare has more than once been condemned by international opinion, and has been outlawed in special international agreements, notably by the 1948 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

p The action of Israel’s ruling elements in the course of the 1982 aggression caused the loss of life or health of more than 50,000 Arabs, and over half a million of them had to leave their homes and property and flee to the north. Israel’s leaders emphasised that the object of the aggression was to wine out the Palestinian Arab population. Israeli troops have been using tlu- internationally outlawed means and methods of warfare against the civilian population. Pellet, cluster and phosphorus bombs have 72 been dropped on women, children and old people, chemical weapons of Israeli and US manufacture have been used against Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. But the US authorities have not only been giving extensive political support to Israel’s barbaric actions, not only have they supplied it with more and more consignments of arms without any let-up, but they have got themselves directly involved in this Zionist aggression. In particular, US warships off the shores of Lebanon guided the pilots of Israeli fighter bombers to targets in the territory of sovereign Lebanon.

p While sowing the seeds of death and destruction, Israel in conjunction with the US has been terrorising the population of Lebanon and, above all, the Arabs of Palestine who have found refuge in that country.

p State terrorism is explicitly forbidden by the Protocol Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, which had been drawn up with the participation of Israel and the US. It says, in particular, that the civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians shall not be the object of attack; acts of violence or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to “spread terror among the civilian population" are prohibited (Art. 51, § 2). In the same context, one should mention Art. 54 of the Protocol Additional which prohibits, in particular, the practice of causing hunger among the civilian population ns a method of warfare. The Article likewise forbids all aclion to attack or destroy, take out or impair objects essential to the survival of the civilian population (starting from food stocks and crops all the way to irrigation installations) expressly with the aim of preventing them from being 73 used by the civilian population or the opposite side as a means of subsistence, regardless of the motives, whether in order to provoke hunger among civilians, compel them to leave or achieve some other ends. Yet it is precisely this form of State terrorism that has been used by Israel even though it was roundly condemned by the UN and many nations as a gross violation of international law.

p Physical destruction of people—nationals of another state —by secret services is another form of state terrorism. Terrorism has been institutionalised and officially established, as we wrote, in Israel, whose Knesset approved a resolution back in March 1978 urging the physical removal of the PLO leaders. As the British Middle East magazine said in 1982, 26 prominent Palestinian political leaders have been killed by Israeli secret services in the last ten years. These acts of terrorism began since the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the early 60s and assumed particular dimensions in the 70s when the PLO had earned worldwide support and recognition.

p When an unidentified gunman fired seven bullets at an Al-Fatah leader, Abu-Daoud, in August 1981, but AbuDaoud escaped death by miracle, he had this to say about that assassination attempt: “It is known for instance that there is close cooperation between Mossad and the Phalangists, so the Phalangists may be used to carry out certain operations on Mossad’s behalf."  [73•1  The hearings of the act of terrorism against Bouchiki in Norway as well as the murder of Qubaisi in Paris in 1973 when police arrested 74 six people, furnished full evidence of the existence of a special Israeli terrorist group.

p Rolf Jahrmann, the chief of Norway’s criminal police, declared that this group was operating directly under Mossad’s instructions. He found some of its members, as Albert Liberman and Abraham Gehmer, were serving for Israel’s Defence Department.

p An expert, Professor Vincent Monteil arrived at the conclusion that all of the assassinations considered have been a result of the planned action by the Israeli Mossad terrorist organisation. The testimony of six persons charged with involvement in the Bouchiki case in Oslo (Ethel Glandikoff, Sylvia Rafael, also known as Patricia Roxburg, Abraham Gehmer also known as Leslie Orbauin, Dan Aerbel, Zwi Steimberg and Michael Dorf) have confirmed that. Now, the Italian authorities, while investigating the murder of Zuaiter in Rome, established that the head of the Israeli secret service personally directed the operation to remove Zuaiter. Public Prosecutor Santacroce who was in charge of the case, arrived at the following conclusion: six representatives of Palestinian organisations were killed in Western Europe from October 1972 to July 1973. The murder was carried out by two methods: first, with firearms with identical ammunition (Zuaiter, Qubaisi), and second,—with explosive devices and identical ammunition (Hamshari, Abul-Khair, and Boudiya). It has been established with sufficient credibility that all of these crimes had a common foundation in terms of organisation, which was proved during the judicial investigation by n correlation of facts.

p The verdict of the Norwegian court said, in particular: “The Israeli secret service must have been behind these 75 operations. This was confirmed by ... the circumstance that some of them had extremely close links with that secret service."  [75•1 

p Such acts of international terrorism call for the international community to marshal their efforts with a view to working out an international convention on the suppression of, and liability for, their commission.

p The US has also been conducting subversive terrorist activity practically throughout the last three decades, as, quite naturally, has South Africa whose racist legislation allows terror to be used as a method to suppress the risings not only of its own natives. In 1978-1981, South Africa’s armed forces bombed cities and villages of Angola more than 300 times, and carried through over 50 landing operations, which combined to destroying a total of over 1,800 people. Eighty individuals were sentenced to a total of 450 years of imprisonment under the Suppression of Terrorism and Sabotage Acts in South Africa since June 1976. Altogether, more than 10,000 persons have been arrested in South Africa for political reasons since 1976.

p A wave of what can well be described as institutionalised terrorism has been sweeping across Northern Ireland. Back in August 1969, Great Britain moved the first units of her Standing Army into Northern Ireland and brought their strength up to 20,000 in 1979. Under the 1973 “emergency power" Act, in Northern Irish Courts, confession of the defendants is taken as evidence of their guilt in spite of the generally recognised legal provisions. Such a thing cannot be seen as anything short of arbitrary justice or legal terrorism. According to the information released by 76 the Queen’s University of Belfast Faculty of Law, from 70 to 90 per cent of the sentences have been passed on the grounds of the defendants’ “admission” of guilt during the questioning in a police station. In 1977, the European Commission of Human Rights  [76•1  found the government of Great Britain guilty of using torture in Northern Ireland and the Prosecutor General of Great Britain could not deny that fact.

p The myth of a “Soviet threat”, mercenary killings, counter-revolution, torture, wholesale annihilation of people and terrorism bear the brand of US imperialism. As Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States, emphasised, “As the very fabric of capitalist society decays and crumbles, violence becomes more and more prevalent, more and more a part of the crisis of every-day life. More and more capitalism resorts to violence to defend itself because it has lost all semblance of a humane society."  [76•2 

p To sum up, in case of acts of terrorism committed by a State or its officials, these acts are qualified under international law as offences against international peace and the security of nations, as offences against humanity, and as war crimes.

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p A somewhat different situation arises when acts of terrorism are committed by a physical person who does not fulfil the will of the State, but who acts as prompted by his personal motives or by those of an organisation lie belongs to, technically unielated to any State. For example, there can be an assassination of a representative of a loreign nation on personal grounds as well. While the former group of offences is essentially covered by the international Acts, although these Acts do need to be further elaborated as documents of intei national law, the lattei group of offences—because they are sporadic—has not been the object of so close attention of the international community until now.

p Liability for acts of terrorism by physical persons is regulated basically through the framework of national legislation or through a number of international agreements. However, the growing number and danger of such acts requires a standard approach to their qualification, and cooperation of nations in their prevention and punishment.

p The very problem of classification of an act of terrorism committed by a physical person is a sophisticated one because these acts affect international relations because of: a) the object of an act committed, and b) the presence of an international element in the corpus delicti. Such an act of terrorism shall come under international law if the action committed by a physical person includes:

p 1) violent action: an attempted or committed attack, seizure, kidnapping, infliction of bodily harm, murder or action creating a threat in relation of official representatives or members of their families in the area of political, economic, technical, civilian, trade, and cultural relations between subjects ot international law; 

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p 2) seizure, damaging or destruction of propeity essential for the conduct of political, economic, technical, trade, and cultural relations between States as well as means, equipment or structures used in air, water, rail and motor Iranspoit, il these actions comprised .111 inter national element. An international element should be takcrr to mean the commission of an act of terrorism: 

p a) on the territory of one or several foreign nations or orr the territory that does not come under the jurisdiction of any state; 

p b) by a foreign citizen or subject, or in complicity with a foreign citizen or subject; 

p c) in respect of a foreign citizen or property of a foreign physical or legal person or State.

p Furthermore, it is indispensable to have a special motive of the crime present—aggravation of international relations—for such acts to be considered as acts of international terrorism.

p That is to say that the presence of an international element conditions the international character of an act of terrorism committed, its increased social danger, and requires special qualification.

p It is obvious that acts of terrorism which have become an object of UN attention from the standpoint of their qualification are offences of international magnitude. However, it is a matter of common knowledge that there are divergent views regarding the definition of the concept of international crime.  [78•1 

p Bourgeois lawyers have tried to have the concept of international crime cover offences carrying an international 79 element in them, by rising alogical definitions to this end. A Romanian lawyer, Vespasierr Pella has defined dthcta /Mm gentium as follows: an international delict is an action or inaction subject to punishment proclaimed arrd applied in the rrarrre ol an assoc lalum ol nations. Eclecticism ot this kind ol definition is quite obvious.

p The first Conference on the Unification of Penal Law, held in Warsaw in 1927, put down as international offences: 1) piracy, 2) forgery of metallic money, state securities and banknotes, 3) slave trade, 4) traffic in women and children, 5) drug trade, 6) tralhc in porno productions. The Fifth Conference on the Unification of Penal Legislation added souteneurship to them.  [79•1 

p Eclecticism in defining the list of international crimes dominated the deliberations of the conferences on international penal law  [79•2  which drafted the Conventions on International Crimes and the Statute of the International Penal Court. In particular, Art. 3 of the draft Convention on International Crimes classed among them:

p —crimes against peace; 

p —war crimes; 

p —crimes against humanity; 

p —acts subject to criminal persecution under the 1949 Geneva Conventions; 

p —genocide, as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of Genocide; 

p —slavery, slave trade, and similar customs; 

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p —piracy as defined in the 195ft Convention on the High Seas; 

p —illegal action of intervention in the operations of civil aviation, as defined in the 1940 Hague Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Sei/iirc of Aircraft, and the 1971 Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation; 

p —international drug trade; 

p —illegal smuggling across the border of a person kidnapped for political, racial or religious motives, in government service or a public figure; 

p —acts of violence in regard of persons enjoying protection under international law on account of their functions or position; 

p —international acts of terrorism subject to punishment under criminal law designed to create a state of terror among individuals, groups or the public; 

p —pollution of the environment creating a threat to human health and safety; 

p —complicity or obstruction of the prevention of the above-mentioned crimes.

p The absence of logic to justify the grouping of so different crimes in terms of substance and social danger, needs no additional evidence, and one may only point out that international crimes shall be characterised, first, by the fact that these crimes are integral to the domestic or foreign policy of States; second, by the fact that they represent an extreme danger to all mankind; third, by the fact that they contain an international element.

p Consequently, State terrorism in the entire diversity of its forms may be classed as international crime whereas the acts of terrorism containing an international element and 81 representing a certain danger to the maintenance of international relations in virtue of the object they have been committed against or in virtue of the presence of an international element only should be regarded as international crimes as well as the above-mentioned long list of other breaches of the law (except the crimes against peace, war crimes, against humanity, and genocide). This qualification is very important for the proper selection of the machinery of persecution and punishment for the perpetration of the above-mentioned crimes in international relations. Proceeding from the foregoing, one may make the following conclusions:

p 1) the term “international terrorism” is too loose for raising the specific issue of international action to suppress the acts of terrorism;

p 2) acts of terrorism falling within the scope of international law can be committed both in peace and in wartime;

p 3) one should differentiate between acts of terrorism punishable under international law by the doer and by the object they are directed against. Acts of terrorism, involving international relations, shall be distinguished:

p By the doer as:

p a) acts of terrorism committed by persons in civil service and by those expressly trained for the purpose (State terrorism);  [81•1 

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p b) acts of terrorism committed by individuals or organisations of individuals.

p By the object, these acts are distinguished as follows:

p a) acts of terrorism committed against the security of a State; 

p b) acts of terrorism committed against officials; 

p c) acts of terrorism committed in respect of the property of a State or a natural or legal person.

p 4) Finally, an act of terrorism involving international relations, falls within the scope of international law in virtue:

p a) of it being committed by a subject of international law; 

p b) of the danger it poses to international relations; 

p c) of the presence of an international element in it; 

p d) of the interest of a State, on account of the social danger of any particular terrorist act, in organising action at international level to fight against acts of this kind.

5) The determining factor in affording protection under international law to an individual or property is the functional status of such individuals or such property from the standpoint of the necessity of maintaining international relations between the objects of international law.