State terrorism

Executions during The Terror in France.

State terrorism is the use of illegitimate methods by a government, which are aimed at producing fear or terror in the civilian population to achieve its objectives or encourage behaviors that would not occur for themselves.

Features

The jurist Ernesto Garzón says that State terrorism is: "a political system whose rule of recognition allows or imposes the clandestine, unpredictable and diffuse application, also to manifestly innocent people, of coercive measures prohibited by law proclaimed law, hinders or annuls judicial activity and turns the government into an active agent in the struggle for power."

The Encarta Encyclopedia defines State Terrorism as:

“A systematic use by the government of a State of threats and reprisals, often considered illegal in even its own legislation, with the to impose obedience and active collaboration on the population.

An approach to the subject is to point out that the monopoly of force belongs to the State in order to fulfill its purposes, but with the obligation to use it in accordance with the laws, for which:

“When the State through its rulers represses the population, the harassment, persecutes it, in a systematic way, to be able to dominate it through fear, avoiding any act of resistance to oppression, that way of acting receives the name of state terrorism, which is an abuse of its coercive power, where civilians are kidnapped, tortured or killed, without trial, or without due process guarantees. ”

Actions considered as part of State Terrorism

1. Use of illegitimate coercion or persecution, abduction, enforced disappearances, torture, murder or extrajudicial execution.
2. The creation, usually in secret, of conventional clandestine terrorist organizations -real or simulated -, support for them or deliberate negligence in their persecution. These organizations are presented as extremists of the opposition forces, which gives justification to their promoters against public opinion.
3. Instruction or inducement of the own troop to act in such a way that it causes terror in the civilian population of the enemy, or refusal to introduce measures that limit or persecute such actions.
4. Open conduct of military operations with the same objective, which are often referred to as "encompassing the morals of the enemy", usually through the use of strategic weapons or other armaments whose characteristics result in a serious state of insecurity and fear in the civilian population.
5. Creation of a policy of emigration that prevents the people themselves from abandoning the country, under the penalty of imprisonment or death, or the promotion of exile, people who are disaffected and criticized with the government.^{[chuckles]required]}

International terrorism

International terrorism is one in which the State is the main protagonist of terrorist acts, although they may not be directly.

"A State that applies terror usually does so mainly internally; however, while many incidents of international terrorism are carried out by non-governmental groups, others may have direct or indirect state support." These acts have international repercussions.

"International terrorism includes incidents with international consequences: those in which terrorists go abroad to carry out their objectives or select their victims for their connection with a foreign State (diplomatics, examples of foreign companies), airline attacks or international flights, or the hijacking of an aircraft to be directed to another country. "

International terrorism is manifested against members of a State that is desired to coerce, these acts affect the relationship between nations.

"International terrorism includes incidents with international consequences: those in which terrorists go abroad to carry out their objectives or select their victims for their connection with a foreign State (diplomatics, examples of foreign companies), airline attacks or international flights, or the hijacking of an aircraft to be directed to another country. " "The increase in terrorist attacks against the diplomatic community is closely related to wars between nations and civil wars."

In the field of political philosophy there is controversy regarding what constitutes acts of State terrorism or not. ^{[citation required]}

Africa

Uganda

During the dictatorship of Idi Amin, State terrorism was also practiced, ruling the country with the support of the military for a decade (1971-1979). His rule claimed the lives of between 300,000 and 500,000 Ugandans, and wiped out Uganda's Indo-East business minority.

America

Argentina

State Terrorism ended in 1983, and the human rights situation in Argentina has greatly improved. By opening up the possibility of condemning State crimes for genocide during that period, the military, priests, and police officers, among others, have begun to be tried. However, the fate of many of those who disappeared during the military dictatorship remains an enigma. For many years, conciliatory laws avoided investigation and punishment, only the heads of military leadership having been sentenced, pardoned years later. They have finally been annulled and some investigations are beginning to be reactivated. Children, now adults, who were torn from the arms of their missing mothers, continue to live with their adoptive families (often relatives or friends of the very murderers of their parents). Their grandparents and relatives (grouped in the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo association) continue to search for them to this day.

In 1955, a sector of the Navy together with sectors of anti-Peronism bombarded the Plaza de Mayo on September 16, causing more than 350 deaths and 2,000 injuries. The act was declared decades later as a crime against humanity and as an act of State terrorism. In 1955, during the dictatorship of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, all the unions and the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) were intervened, and the imprisonment of more than 9,000 union leaders was ordered. factories and hundreds of justicialist leaders were imprisoned. In mid-October 1956, Civil Commandos attacked the union premises and took them at gunpoint. Hundreds of cases of torture and harassment of political prisoners occurred. In 1956, during the same dictatorship, the Executions of José León Suárez took place, where reintroduced the death penalty in Argentina, prohibited by the Constitution since 1853, this fact was considered one of the first antecedents of large-scale state terrorism in Argentina.

Chile

Cartel accusing of state terrorism to the Chilean government during the Chilean protests of 2019-2020.

During the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, human rights were systematically violated. According to the Valech Commission, the direct victims amount to about 35,000 people, of whom 28,000 were tortured, 3,400 women raped, and some 3,000 were killed by State agents. With the return to democracy in 1990, some of those involved in various acts carried out through the National Intelligence Directorate, known by the acronym DINA, have been sentenced.

During the social outbreak, different international Human Rights reports pointed out to the Government of the President of the Republic Sebastián Piñera Echenique of making use of measures that are considered by some as "state terrorism". The President's statement also stands out in different media: "We are at war"; which, presumably, would justify the various acts of repression committed by the Chilean Police and the Army. According to a report issued According to the National Institute of Human Rights, there are so far 6 complaints for homicides, 9 for frustrated homicide, four rapes and 84 sexual abuses, 458 complaints for torture, 241 eye injuries, among which 2 eye bursts and 5 eye losses due to pellets fired by the Carabineros Special Forces.

In addition, a call for attention from the UN regarding the so-called "Anti-looting Law," would be highlighted, since it would violate the right of free assembly and association. According to the rapporteur of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, there is a lack of clarity in the law, leaving its application to free interpretation, as well as the fact that the authority has not determined how it will guarantee the basic rights of citizens.

Columbia

Terrorism has been a constant throughout the history of Colombia: during the time of violence (1925-1958), from the State with actions of the Military Forces and paramilitary groups such as the birds and the chulavitas. During the internal armed conflict (since 1960), terrorism has been carried out by different actors during the conflict, on different occasions the Colombian State has been accused of committing State terrorism. Through the alliance between the Public Force (Military Forces and National Police) and paramilitary groups (regional self-defense groups, AAA, MAS, Convivir, AUC, among others) to combat armed subversion (FARC-EP, ELN, EPL, M-19 among others) and against social and political movements that oppose the State or against the policies of the Colombian government. The best-known cases of state terrorism in Colombia are:

• The Security Statute during the Julius Caesar Turbay government (1978-1982).
• The dirty war against leftist militants, amnesty guerrillas and the extermination of the Patriotic Union, the Movement To Fight Among Others. Since the 1980s.
• Write it out of the false positives in the government of Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), a practice that has been present in Colombia since 1978 with the murder of innocent civilians, then presenting themselves in combat, or as judicial results.
• Systematic murder and persecution against social leaders, with the ineptitude of the State to prevent these cases.
• Actions by the National Police and the Mobile Anti-Disturb squad (ESMAD), against social protests and mobilizations.

Currently, thanks to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace created as a result of the peace agreements between the government and the FARC-EP, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation and other entities or organizations have delivered reports on these and other cases.

Guatemala

Genocide of the Mayan population during the civil war of 1960-1996, actions of state terrorism accompanied political violence against unions, student, worker, peasant and ecclesiastical organizations. Scorched earth strategy in territories with a guerrilla presence implied the extermination of entire rural communities with acts such as systematic rape, murder of pregnant women, only leaving a few witnesses alive to spread the terror experienced.

El Salvador

The counterinsurgency strategies used by the Salvadoran State during the XX century constituted acts of terrorism, validating parallel structures of extermination such such as the Death Squads and using techniques such as torture and genocide. ^{[citation required]}

This is how all protests were suppressed through systematic repression at the hands of State security organs since the suppression of the communist uprising of 1932 that culminated in the massacre of indigenous peoples, and then -after the war Civilian of El Salvador -, the Salvadoran Government used the banner of anti-communism to torture, disappear, assassinate and destroy entire populations, including many massacres such as El Mozote, El Sumpul, Las Hojas, Las Vueltas and others such as practice of the teachings applied to the counterrevolution and the crushing of the FMLN in the 1980s. The Civil War, in which the FMLN guerrillas and the army -supported by the US government- left a balance of more than 70,000 dead, among which were included religious (for applying or being close to the doctrine of Liberation Theology), students (for suspicion of being seeds of internal communism national), peasant men and women (because they are potential sources of support for the guerrillas) and the civilian population in general, victims of bombings, rapes and forced disappearances by the Salvadoran army.^{[citation required]}

The Salvadoran State had among its ranks politicians linked to the Death Squads. One of the most outstanding students of the School of the Americas, sponsored by the US Government, was Major Roberto d'Aubuisson Arrieta, founder of the ARENA party, known to his instructors as "Bob Thorch", for learning the technique of burning with torches the people they tortured in interrogations. Later this character creates, organizes and directs the assassination of Archbishop Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, an action that is considered the spark that unleashes the Civil War. Thousands of people were tortured, murdered and disappeared in those years with methods similar to those taught at the School of the Americas.^{[citation needed]}

Paraguayan

Dictatorship in Paraguay of Alfredo Stroessner: during his regime (1954-1989) between 3,000 and 4,000 people were eliminated, due to his repression tactics against the communists and those who opposed the regime, using torture, kidnapping, political assassinations and the growth of corruption.

After the political crisis in Paraguay in 2012, accusations of state terrorism arose again regarding the Curuguaty massacre, in which arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial executions allegedly took place, and regarding the subsequent assassination of peasant leaders from the area. Since the fall of Stroessner, 129 murders of peasant leaders have been recorded in Paraguay.

Peru

Without forgetting documented acts of crimes against humanity during the government of Agusto B Leguia such as: The Putumayo Genocide, and the Parcona massacre.

In Peru practices similar to state terrorism were recorded.

The Final Report prepared by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) in 2003 gives an account of the numerous cases of deaths and disappearances in which the responsibility falls exclusively on the State.

The murder of more than 25,000 people by State agents –Police, Army and Navy– is documented, throughout three different presidencies such as those of Fernando Belaúnde (1980-1985), Alan García (1985 -1990) and Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). That can be conceived as systematic and institutionalized.

Common graves of civilians killed during these regimes have been discovered, attributed to some divisions of the armed forces of these governments.

During the government of Belaunde several massacres were recorded, some of them being: Matsé Genocide, Soccos Massacre, Pucayacu massacre, disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions in the Los Cabitos and Totos military bases, massacre of putis, murder of peasants in Lucmahuaycco.

During the government of Alan García, some executions attributed to the Rodrigo Franco paramilitary command and the following Massacres were recorded: the Accomarca Massacre, the massacre and arbitrary detections at the Cayara base, and extrajudicial executions in Pucara, Chumvivilcas and the Los Cuartel laurels. Also the executions of the Frontón and Lurigancho Prison.

During the beginning of the government of Alberto Fujimori and worsening in the dictatorship from the Self-coup, a military Regime was established, characterized by the control of the Peruvian government from the intelligence service through the presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos that included kidnappings and massacres opponents, generally accusing them of terrorists (journalists, teachers, students, politicians, etc.).

During the years of Alberto Fujimori's dictatorship, several massacres were carried out, some of them being: National University of the Center, Mascare de Santa Barbara, Massacre of Barrios Altos, Murder of Professors and students of La Cantuta University, Massacre of Chuschi, the Pativilca Massacre, the Santa Massacre, the murders of the student leaders Martin Roca and Kenneth Anzualdo, Ernesto Castillo Páez, La Familia Ventosilla and Pedro Yauri, the murder of the union leader Pedro Huilca. The executions in the ovens in the basement of the Pentagonito, also the extrajudicial executions in the Canto Grande Prison.

During this regime, forced sterilizations of more than 270,000 women were also carried out in native communities.

Mexico

During the 1960s and 1970s, Mexico experienced episodes of state terrorism. The repression of 1968 in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco Mexico D.F. It is a sample of the attitude of the government in turn towards the demands of the working and student classes. Officially there is talk of 70 deaths, but the unofficial figures indicate them in thousands. In addition, there were forced disappearances.

The government created paramilitary groups such as the Olimpia Battalion, Los Halcones and the White Brigade to "crush" to the “guerrillas” or "communists" in Mexico. The Special Brigade, as the White Brigade was officially called, which formed a group of 240 elements in June 1976, including D.F. and the state of Mexico; military and personnel from the Federal Security Directorate (DFS), as well as from the Federal Judicial Police, to "investigate and locate by all means the members of the so-called Communist League of September 23." The operation left a death toll in excess of 500. The White Brigade was dissolved in 1983, but more than 25 years after its disappearance, many of its activities and illicit activities remain unpunished, despite the Special Prosecutor's Office, created during the six-year term of Vicente Fox, to clarify the crimes during the "Dirty War" in Mexico.

The various Mexican governments at that stage carried out state terrorism against some unions or people from the civilian population who did not agree with the state regime. Characters like Arturo "El Negro" Durazo or Miguel Nazar Haro are a representative sample of police excesses during these years.

In 1971 there was another contact of terrorism committed by the Mexican government against the "unarmed " population, against the students of Tlatelolco. The function of the paramilitary group called "halcones" It was to cause terror against those who marched in a peaceful demonstration, but its main function was to make the demonstrators flee to prevent any other attack similar to the events that occurred in 1968.

Venezuelan

Since the establishment of Chavismo as a political current in Venezuela at the end of the 1990s, community-type social groups were created such as the Bolivarian circles and the self-styled “collectives”, which have supported the governments of Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). These groups claim to be dedicated to the promotion of democracy, political participation and cultural activities, however most of them act as paramilitary groups in defense of Chavismo.

In 2019, the National Assembly of Venezuela designated the colectivos as terrorist groups for "their paramilitary actions of violence, intimidation, murders and other crimes", declaring their actions as State terrorism.

Asian

Taiwan

During the Chian Kai shek regime, martial law was imposed and a system that did not tolerate any kind of political dissent. He was considered a despot for his role in the "White Terror" period. Between 1949 and until 1987, the date of the lifting of martial law, under the reign of Chiang and his son, thousands of people considered hostile to the government were tortured and killed.

Cambodia

The Pol Pot regime was responsible for the Cambodian genocide. In April 1975, Phnom Penh was taken over by the Maoists, who seized power and renamed the state Democratic Kampuchea.

Chinese

During the Chinese Revolution (1949-1976), led by Mao Tse-Tung and once World War II had ended, State terrorism was practiced, killing and torturing millions of people, due to political, religious differences, between others. It is estimated that millions of people died during his rule. Not counting the invasion of Tibet, it is estimated that millions of people died as a direct result of his policies, which led to starvation of his people, mass migration of people, and the persecution and execution of political opponents.

Iraq

During Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, nearly 150 people from the Shiite village of Dual were ordered killed in 1982 and at least 1,500 others imprisoned and tortured after a failed assassination attempt on Hussein. ^{[citation needed]} In 1988, 7,000 Kurds were killed in the Halabja chemical attack in the Kurdistan region of Iraq ^{[citation needed]} .

Iran

After proclaiming the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini took advantage of the circumstances created by the war against Iraq (1980-88) for the progressive and violent elimination of all the non-religious actors of the revolution: the liberals and left-wing groups, including the Tudeh communists. The deaths caused by the Islamist regime are estimated at two million.^{[citation needed]} In Iran there were also murders of Kurds. In turn, Iran helps terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas by financing, training and sending weapons, as well as promoting and encouraging international Islamist terrorism of a Shiite fundamentalist nature (mainly in Iraq) ^{[citation needed ]}

Israeli

An activity of the state of Israel, repeatedly condemned by the international community, is the so-called targeted assassinations or counterterrorism: killings decided by the government, the armed forces or other instances of the Israeli state, in which none of the usual steps in a judicial system (accusation, right to defense, trial and conviction) are respected, and which usually produce victims among the civilian population.

According to Israel's detractors, these murders are illegal according to article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which states exhaustively in its point 1d that: "they are and will remain prohibited at any time and place executions, without prior trial by an officially constituted court and assuming all the judicial guarantees recognized as essential in civilized countries".

However, according to proponents of Israel's policy of targeted killings, since this article applies to anyone "not taking an active part in hostilities, including members of the armed forces who have laid down their weapons and those persons out of action due to illness, injury, detention or any other cause", the "extrajudicial executions" of the members of Palestinian armed groups would be outside the scope of the application of said article, considering them as combatants. Thus, the Israeli government decides at its discretion who is a terrorist and who is not, without having to justify it before any neutral instance, to then recall that the Geneva Convention does not establish any obligation to try enemy combatants before they are killed, and using the same argument to destroy the "terrorist hospitals", the "terrorist wells", the "terrorist crops", the "terrorist buildings" and the civilians who take refuge in them, designating them as "human shields" of the terrorists. ^{[citation required]}

The policy of extrajudicial assassinations, or counterterrorism, is presented by the Israeli authorities as an act of self-defense against terrorism, as a measure applied to eliminate members or leaders of terrorist organizations directly involved in the planning or execution of an attack. The most cited criterion is that of a time bomb, that is, a terrorist involved in the planning or execution of a future attack, in which case the measure has preventive value. ^{[citation required]}

Detractors of this practice denounce the illegality of these specific eliminations or selective assassinations (or extrajudicial executions according to other interpretations), as they are called by Israel, as they are carried out without prior trial, and as they imply usually the death of innocent civilians. This fact has generated many protests within Israeli society itself, in many cases causing cases of disobedience for reasons of conscience among the members of the army involved in the actions.

According to the data of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, from the beginning of the second Intifada until March 3, 2004, the Israeli army and the settlers have caused the death of 2,129 Palestinian civilians, of whom 464 were minors. 17 years.

Of the aforementioned total, 337 died in these so-called "extrajudicial executions," of which 134 were people accidentally found at the scene of the attack, 40 of them children.

The most prominent Palestinian leader killed by Israel was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder and "spiritual leader" of the terrorist organization Hamas, responsible for or instigator of the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings. Yassin, 66, a paraplegic and practically blind since childhood, died when he was hit by missiles fired from an Israeli helicopter; Seven other Hamas members were killed in the attack, and fifteen more people were injured, including Yassin's own sons.

Recently, extrajudicial executions include the injection of poison.

Syria

Since 1962, the vast majority of constitutional laws that protect citizens have been suspended. It was then that the regime installed a police state, suppressing all public demonstrations in disagreement with the government. Civil claims during all these years were severely repressed, sometimes causing tens of thousands of deaths, as in the 1982 Hama massacre, where between 20,000 and 40,000 were killed by the Syrian army (according to the Human Rights Committee). Humans from Syria) citizens, where most of the victims were civilians. The attack was described as one of "the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East";.

Since January 2011, the Syrian population has taken to the streets demanding profound changes in the government. In response, the Syrian government has carried out sieges, bombardments and total or partial destruction of several cities ever since. Some 7,000 civilians were killed and another 60,000-80,000 were detained, tortured or disappeared.

Turkey

The state of Turkey deported and massacred an unknown number of Armenian civilians, estimated to have killed between one and a half million and two million people, during the rule of the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire, from 1915 to 1917, during World War I and is considered one of the largest genocides in history.

Since 1991, the Turkish army bombed and burned Kurdish villages to force their inhabitants to leave; others were fenced off or placed under close surveillance to force their inhabitants to move. Between 2,500 and 3,000 villages were destroyed and between 2 and 3 million Kurds had to flee and make forced displacements towards the cities or towards the west of Turkey. In Izmir, Adana and Istanbul, extensive settlements inhabited by Kurdish refugees were created in these cities.

In 1994, Kurdish MP Leyla Zana was sentenced to 14 years in prison for uttering a Kurdish phrase during a public event. She was released in 2004 and in 2005 the European Court ruled €9,000 compensation to Zana from the Turkish government. In her latest public statements, Leyla Zana has continued to defend the autonomy of Turkish Kurdistan. For this reason, she was sentenced in December 2008 to a new sentence of 10 years in prison.

In 2009 Turkey began a systematic process of political persecution of the social, political and popular organizations of the Kurdish people. Since then, the main Kurdish party, the DTP (Demokratik Toplum Partisi, Democratic Society Party), has been shut down and thousands of political representatives, parliamentarians, mayors, trade unionists, academics and intellectuals, students, human rights defenders, for the mere crime of supporting the Kurdish cause or belonging to the Kurdish people.

In December 2011 the Turkish Air Force carried out a bombing strike against suspected Kurdish separatists of the Kurdistan Workers' Party in northern Iraq, leading to the massacre of 35 innocent civilians.

Europe

Germany

In the Germany of the Third Reich, State terrorism was practiced, murdering, first in Nazi Germany and then in the rest of occupied Europe, millions of people (there is talk of 6,000,000 victims, however there is no a documented amount), the majority Jews, for racist and supremacist theories (Holocaust); and another 5,000,000 people due to political, racial, religious differences, sexual orientation, etc. Their annihilation systems are well known: gas chambers, medical and scientific experiments with human beings, concentration camps, etc.

Spain

During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, from 1939, state terrorism was practiced, where, among other actions, more than 50,000 citizens were shot for political differences, etc. and imprisoned hundreds of thousands more.

According to publications by historians such as Julián Casanova or Paul Preston, and precisely by the latter in his book The Spanish Holocaust, the approximate figure is 150,000 innocent victims at the hands of insurgents. In 2008, Judge Baltasar Garzón's count of the repression in the national zone gathered 143,353 victims.

During the Franco dictatorship, several concentration camps operated in Spain coordinated by the Servicio de Colonias Penitenciarias Militarizadas, created on October 8, 1939, and dependent on the Army General Staff. These concentration camps hold more than half a million prisoners, from ex-combatants on the Republican side or political dissidents to homosexuals and common prisoners. They were characterized by the labor exploitation of the prisoners, organized in battalions of workers, in which the political prisoners were systematically used as slaves and where in many cases the internees died due to the extremely poor living and working conditions at which they lived. that they were subjugated. The Francoist concentration camps were, like their Nazi counterparts, centers intended fundamentally and almost exclusively for the pure and simple execution of their inmates.

After the dictatorship ended, there were numerous cases of so-called late-Franco terrorism until the early 1980s. They operated under various names such as the Anti-Communist Apostolic Alliance (AAA or "Triple A"), ETA Antiterrorism (ATE), Spanish Armed Groups (GAE), Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey, Spanish Basque Battalion (BVE) and others of lesser resonance, such as the Anti-Marxist Commandos, essentially dedicated to street violence against people of contrary ideas. In the words of a former soldier who was part of these groups, "these are just acronyms, names that come out and are used as needed". Agents of the Francoist secret service SECED (Central Documentation Service) were in charge of the attacks, with money and a free hand to act outside the Law. As a result of their actions, some 66 people were killed, from ETA militants to left-wing labor lawyers (the Atocha massacre) or CNT trade unionists (Scala Case), passing through the leftists murdered in 1976 during the so-called Montejurra events, and citizens who had no relationship with politics.

These groups were made up of civilian, police and military elements, all of them affiliated with the previous regime. The groups had more or less close ties with European and American neo-fascist terrorist organizations and also with legal extreme right groups such as Fuerza Nueva. Their goal was to eliminate those they considered "enemies of the Fatherland" and contribute to the destabilization of the nascent democracy. As this was consolidated, and after the failed coup of 23-F, they were weakening, from 1982 they can be considered disappeared. It is believed that many of the former militants of late-Franco terrorism were used to form the first Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL), which operated during the governments of Felipe González.

Other episodes of State terrorism took place on January 15, 1978 in Barcelona. That day, 4 people died during a fire in a well-known nightclub in the city, events known as the Scala Case, in which the State allegedly carried out actions to destabilize the growing anarchist movement in Catalonia ^{[citation required]}.

On April 5, 1978, during the second government, Suárez Antonio Cubillo, leader of the MPAIC (a Canarian independence organization that operated through terrorist groups during that time), was seriously injured in an assassination attempt at his home in Algiers (place where he orchestrated all the operations of the independence organization) the eve of the UN summit that he was going to attend to talk about the "Canarian colonial problem". The judicial proceedings on said attack considered it proven that the assassination attempt was organized by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.

From 1983 to 1987, during the socialist government of Felipe González in Spain, the actions carried out by the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL), which murdered, kidnapped and tortured presumed members of the organization, were called a dirty war in Spain ETA terrorist, as well as Spanish and French citizens without any kind of relationship with the band. Many of the mercenaries who had been part of the late-Franco death squads joined these groups.

The Supreme Court, in a July 1998 ruling, convicted the former Socialist Interior Minister José Barrionuevo, the Secretary of State for Security Rafael Vera, and the civil governor of Vizcaya Julián Sancristóbal for the Segundo Marey kidnapping case to ten years in prison; Francisco Álvarez, Miguel Planchuelo and José Amedo at nine years and six months; Ricardo García Damborenea, general secretary of the PSOE in Vizcaya, to seven years; former police officers Julio Hierro and Francisco Saiz Ojeda to five years and six months; former agents José Ramón Corujo and Luis Hens to five years, and Michel Domínguez to two years and four months.

In September 1998, Barrionuevo and Vera were sent to prison, sentenced to ten years in prison, and three months later they were released thanks to a partial pardon from the government headed by José María Aznar of the Popular Party.

Soviet Union

The Great Purge or the Great Terror (Russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of 37 (37-ой год, god Tridtsat sedmoi) or Yezhovschina (Yezhov period), was the campaign of Joseph Stalin of political repression in the Soviet Union suffered between 1936 and 1938. The Great Terror involved large-scale repression of the peasantry, ethnic cleansing, purges of the Communist Party, government officials and the Red Army, widespread police surveillance, systematic suspicion of suspected saboteurs and counterrevolutionaries, imprisonment, and arbitrary executions. Historians estimate the total number of deaths due to Stalinist repression in 1937–38 to be between 950,000 and 1.2 million.

Map of the concentration camps of the Stalin, Gulag Museum, Moscow

Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, millions of people suffered political repression, which was an instrument of the state since the October Revolution, especially during the Stalin era, then declined but continued to exist during the 'Khrushchev thaw', followed by further persecution of Soviet dissidents during the Brezhnev stalemate, and did not disappear until late in Mikhail Gorbachev's rule when it was ended, in keeping with the policies of glasnost and perestroika. Prominent citizens of the various peoples that made up the former Soviet Union were often taken hostage and executed if they did not surrender to the security forces of the Soviet state.

Sponsorship of terrorism through states

The sponsorship of terrorist groups by states is also considered International State Terrorism. Countries such as Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, North Korea or the United States are accused of this,[1] (broken link available at Internet Archive; see history, first and last version). all considered by various organizations and countries as states that choose to host, train and provide tactical-strategic support to terrorists, for which reason it has received various accusations of co-responsibility for the terrorist actions of the sheltered groups.