by Ann Williams
The IRA agreed to another ceasefire 18 months after the bombing. Peace was finally established with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. The agreement set out a plan for devolved government in Northern Ireland on a stable and inclusive basis and provided for the creation of Human Rights and Equality commissions. However, it also provided for the early release of terrorist prisoners and, under the terms of this agreement, James McArdle was released in July 2000.
FURTHER ATTACKS ON LONDON
During police investigations of the London Docklands bombing, they uncovered plans that the IRA were preparing to set bombs in London to coincide with Bill Clinton’s, the then president of the USA, visit to London and Northern Ireland in November 1995. They uncovered a considerable amount of bomb-making equipment, which included Semtex, detonators and incendiary equipment, from Edward O’Brien’s London apartment. Edward O’Brien was a former member of the IRA who died later on when a double-decker bus exploded in the heart of London’s West End on February 18, 1996. It emerged that he was blown up and killed by his own device when it accidentally detonated while, the police think, he was carrying it to another destination.
The police managed to trace the lorry that was involved in the Docklands bombing to rural Northern Ireland, where they discovered it was being refitted for its new mission to take place some time the following year.
Earlier in 1995, on May 30, a faulty detonator had failed to trigger a bomb that had been planted under the Hammersmith Bridge in London. The bomb, 14.5 kg (32 lbs) of Semtex, was the largest high-explosive devise ever planted on the British mainland and was large enough to have wrecked the bridge and would have possibly taken several hundred lives. The explosion was planned to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the start of the Easter Rising, which was the 1916 rebellion against British rule in Dublin.
Acteal Massacre
Intimidation, harassment and violent attacks against indigenous communities are frequent occurrences in countries including Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela
From a news release issued by the international secretariat of amnesty international – August 9, 2001
The Acteal Massacre, which took place on December 22, 1997, in a small village in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, is one of the most shameful episodes of the ongoing civil war in the region. On that day, pro-government paramilitary troops forced their way into a Catholic chapel, where a service was taking place among the local Mayan people, and shot to death all those inside. They then rounded up those who had managed to escape and shot them as well. The death toll numbered nine men, 21 women and 15 children. Of the women, four were pregnant. Afterwards, the Mexican government was accused of ordering the massacre, or at least of involvement with it, and an investigation was mounted. However, to date it has been a slow, laborious process and many have accused the authorities of stalling.
The village of Acteal stands high in the mountainous area of Chiapas state, a region in the southeast of Mexico, bordered by the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Tabasco. In ancient times, Chiapas was part of the Mayan civilization, and many extraordinary ruins in the area bear witness to its glorious past. Today, however, Chiapas is one of the poorest states in Mexico, with a malnutrition rate of over 40 per cent. A large proportion of the population are of Mayan descent, working as peasant farmers and speaking their own language.
CIVIL WAR
Not only is the region extremely backward, but civil war has been waged there since 1994, causing yet more suffering to its poverty-stricken people. The combatants are, on the one hand, the Mexican government, and on the other, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), often known as the ‘Zapatistas’. Although armed, the Zapatistas profess to adhere to a doctrine of nonviolence, and since their initial uprising, they have not been in the habit of using armed force to pursue their political aims, a strategy that has made them popular among the local people. The Zapatistas have set up their own autonomous communities in the state, which have a precarious relationship with the Mexican authorities.
It was against this background of tension that the Acteal Massacre took place. On that day, a pacifist group of Mayan Roman Catholics, calling themselves Las Abejas (The Bees), had gathered together in the local chapel to attend a prayer meeting. The Mayans were Tzotzils, direct descendants of the classic Maya civilization, who for centuries had been exploited as peasant labourers on European sugar and coffee plantations. However, with the collapse of the coffee trade in the 1980s, they were now an unemployed, uneducated community, eking out a subsistence in the mountainous regions of the state. Resented by other inhabitants of the area, the Tzotzils looked to the Zapatistas to advance their cause, especially as many of the Zapatistas themselves were indigenous Tzotzil. On this fateful day, however, the Zapatistas could not protect them.
CHILDREN AND BABIES SHOT
Ironically, the Las Abejas group praying in the chapel at Acteal that day were pacifists, among them refugees from nearby communities who had recently undergone the traumatic experience of fleeing from paramilitary violence and becoming refugees at the village. As they offered up their prayers for peace, the chapel was surrounded by 70 armed men wearing dark blue uniforms – they belonged to an unknown paramilitary force that had been stalking the area, waiting for a chance to attack.
As the soldiers opened fire and stormed the church, the congregation scattered, running to hiding places in the mountains, cornfields and along the side of the river. However, those who managed to get away were hunted down by the paramilitaries and shot in cold blood, many of them at point-blank range. The soldiers even shot children and babies, following their frightened cries as they hid with their mothers in caves along the riverside.
Meanwhile, special police forces callously observed the events from a distance, failing to intervene and stop the bloodshed. Instead, they tried to hide what had happened, pushing the bodies into the caves and into a nearby ravine so that the massacre would not be discovered.
SHEER BRUTALITY
All in all, the massacre took five hours, as the terrorists roamed the mountainsides, unearthing the villagers from their hiding places. According to some reports, after being shot, the pregnant women were disembowelled and their unborn children displayed for all to see. The sheer level of brutality at the Acteal raid shocked even the most hardened inhabitants of Chiapas, who had become accustomed to the violence of paramilitary groups in the region.
After the incident, there was outrage in the international community at what had happened. The massacre brought to attention what many aid workers, human rights organizations and others already knew – that the Tzotzil, along with the Chole, Mame, Tojalobal and Tzeltal indigenous peoples – had long been the subject of mass persecution in the region, and that the Mexican authorities condoned, if not encouraged, the violence of the paramilitary groups terrorizing the people there. Any attempt on the part of the indigenous groups to politicize and organize themselves had been met with brute force, and they had remained desperately poor, with no hope of a better future for themselves and their families.
REIGN OF TERROR
With the focus now on the massacre, it also came to light that, over several years, more than 1,000 people in the northern region of Chiapas had been murdered for political reasons. About one-third of the Mexican army were stationed in Chiapas, and trained paramilitary groups there had created a reign of terror. Over 10,000 people had become refugees, especially in the region of Chenalho, where families had fled from the communities set up by the Zapatistas, hounded out by the paramilitaries. Not only this, but despite its rich natural wealth, in terms of fertile agricultural land, the whole state was utterly impoverished, through a combination of civil war, unemployment and under-investment. Many people in the state continued to live without running water, sewage or electricity; and only half the population were literate. Moreover, there was virtually no state health care, and many children died of common diseases – especially refugees
, who in some areas were homeless and dying of starvation. However, for the most part, the plight of the Chiapas indigenous people had received very little interest from the international press.
The Mexican government initially refused to take any responsibility for the massacre and have attempted since then to downplay the political and social issues raised by such an atrocity. Their attitude was that this was a feud between local families, caused by a dispute over a sand pit, an explanation that few believe and which caused ridicule in the Mexican press at the time. They also tried to pin the blame on the Zapatistas. But many believe that government-backed forces are still targeting indigenous communities in Chiapas, despite the fact that the government has signed peace agreements with the Zapatistas, giving them the right to self-government. They point to the fact that the army presence in the region has increased massively, and there are constant reports of their brutality towards, and harassment of, indigenous people there.
KILLING MACHINE
There are also reports that other countries are involved in the fighting. In the preliminary report into the Acteal Massacre, it was pointed out that disembowelling pregnant women is a trademark ritual of the notorious ‘Kaibiles’, soldiers of the Guatemalan military who are known for their brutality. The Kaibiles wear distinctive maroon berets with an insignia showing a blazing sword and bearing the words, ‘If I go forwards, follow me. If I stop, urge me on. If I turn back, kill me.’ There is also well-documented evidence that, as part of their training, recruits are forced to kill an animal, eat its flesh raw and drink its blood. The brutality of the Kaibiles’ training and general ethos has prompted the conclusion that the special force is ‘a killing machine’, and they have been held responsible for several other massacres, including one at Dos Erres, Guatemala, in 1982, in which over 200 civilians were murdered.
There are also accusations that the USA has also been involved in the subjugation of the Mayans and other indigenous peoples in Chiapas, through supplying the Mexican army with weapons, and through training its soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques. Although the Acteal Massacre has focussed attention on the plight of the Tzotzils, and the Zapatistas have taken over several towns in the area, the native peoples have suffered growing repression since that time. Many of the survivors of Acteal are now refugees with nowhere to live. They have no access to clean water, sanitation, medical care or employment and rely on aid and other international assistance for their daily needs. However, despite their troubles, the native peoples have continued to support the Zapatistas. The group’s international reputation has grown since they set up their autonomous zones, working peacefully to provide basic amenities for the peasants there, and using modern innovations as the Internet and satellite phones, rather than armed force, to publicize their anti-globalization, pro-environmental message.
September 11
Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger.
George W. Bush
The terror attacks that took place on September 11, 2001, undoubtedly changed the course of history. These horrifying attacks, which killed around 3,000 people in total, were reported live as they occurred, so that viewers all over the world watched in amazement as the unthinkable occurred: two planes crashed into the Twin Towers, in the heart of Manhattan, creating an inferno of fire and smoke; a third plane crashed into the Pentagon, headquarters of the US Department of Defense; while a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, after an apparent fight for control on board. Never, since the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, had such a massive, co-ordinated attack been made on American soil, causing so much damage and loss of life.
Yet, as it emerged later, the September 11 attacks were not perpetrated by a large, powerful army with state backing: they were the work of a small, renegade band of Islamic fundamentalists, armed only with such weapons as box-cutter knives and pepper spray. That a ramshackle band of religious fanatics could create devastation on such an enormous scale defied belief, and in the aftermath of the events, many questions were asked as to how security services could have failed to stop the attacks.
But as it transpired, the terrorists had a trump card that even the most sophisticated security systems were unable to beat: the hijackers were prepared to commit suicide in the pursuit of their ends and go down with the planes themselves. In the aftermath of 9/11, with other attacks against Western interests now taking place around the world on a regular basis, it is this aspect of terrorism that has remained the most perplexing and terrifying: how to understand the pathology of fanatics who are prepared to die for their cause – and more importantly, how to defend ourselves against them.
ENGULFED IN FIRE
On the morning of September 11 in Manhattan, the weather was warm and the sky a clear blue: a perfect day marking the end of summer. Nearby the Twin Towers, a couple of planes flew low overhead, noticed by New Yorkers as they scurried along the streets of the financial district around the World Trade Center. Seconds later, disaster struck: at 8.46 a.m., one of the planes crashed into the North Tower of the Center, followed by another, at 9.03 a.m., which crashed into the South Tower. The buildings were engulfed in fire and smoke, and emergency services rushed to the rescue. There was pandemonium in the streets below as people ran for their lives. Office workers trapped in the buildings began to throw themselves out of the windows to their deaths, rather than be burnt alive in the flames or suffocated by smoke.
The authorities responded to the attack as quickly as they could, closing all roads into the city and grounding all domestic flights. There were fears that the attacks were not yet over, because along with the two flights that had crashed into the towers (American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175), two other flights had also been hijacked that morning (American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93).
At 9.45 a.m., news came in of a hijacked aeroplane that had crashed into the Pentagon headquarters at Arlington County, Virginia. Meanwhile, at 10.05 a.m., the South Tower came crashing down, dredging the streets of New York with dust and ash, killing hundreds, and creating chaos in the heart of the city. In the face of this massive assault on the USA’s most prestigious landmarks, the security services ordered the immediate evacuation of the White House. Minutes later, at 10.10 a.m., a large section of the Pentagon building collapsed. At exactly the same time, the fourth hijacked plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing the entire crew and passengers, as well as the hijackers themselves.
STATE OF SHOCK
The United States of America, and the rest of the world, was left reeling from shock. The idea of using planes as bombs, simply flying them into buildings to create maximum damage, including the deaths of all those aboard the plane, was unprecedented. It was clear that the Western world was dealing with a new kind of enemy.
As the emergency services set about clearing up the wreckage in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, a picture of what had happened began to emerge. Passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked planes had been able, in some cases, to use their mobile phones to report what was going on. A commission was set up to further investigate the events, and it reported that in the case of the fourth plane, the passengers and crew had attempted to wrest control of the plane from the hijackers, resulting in the crash. It was also revealed that other attacks had been planned by members of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, but they had been aborted.
Besides grieving for the victims killed in the attacks, New Yorkers, and Americans generally, were in a profound state of shock. For some, the attacks provoked questioning and self-doubt: what could their country have done to warrant such violence? Was the USA, as the world’s leading capitalist nation, guilty of oppressing other nations through economic and cultural imperialism? Or was this an unprovoked attack by fanatic religious elements in the Arab worl
d, bent on destroying the democracy, equality, freedom and prosperity of the West?
‘AXIS OF EVIL’
President George W. Bush responded, rather late in the day, by pointing to Osama Bin Laden, the leader of an Islamic fundamentalist group known as al-Qaeda, as the architect of the destruction. (Bin Laden’s now familiar name was, for most people at the time, quite unknown.) Bush resolved to dedicate all the resources at his disposal to finding Bin Laden, wherever he might be, and bringing him to justice.
Instead of limiting his rhetoric to describing a small, vicious band of nihilists who had to be tracked down and incarcerated for the safety of the public. Bush took the opportunity to declare a ‘war on terror’ against an ‘axis of evil’, implying that other powerful elements in the Arab world were also to blame. Eventually, the 9/11 attacks were used to justify US invasions of other countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in an escalation of conflict between the Arab and Western worlds and further terrorist acts, which some feel might have been avoided had al-Qaeda been seen for what it was at the time: a tiny, extremist organization of fanatical terrorists, bankrolled by the megalomaniac son of an oil millionaire, which had little support among the majority of the Arab nations.
THE TERRORISTS
After the events of 9/11, a special commission was set up to enquire into what had happened. Eventually, after three years of investigation, the report identified 19 hijackers, all of whom belonged to al-Qaeda, as well as eight terrorists who tried and failed to take part in the attack. There are currently various disputes as to the findings of the report, but it is thought that the pilots of the planes were Mohammed Atta, who crashed Flight 11 into the North Tower; Marwan al-Shehhi, who crashed Flight 175 into the South Tower; Hani Hanjour, who crashed Flight 77 into the Pentagon; and Ziad Jarrah, who crashed Flight 93 into a field in Pennsylvania. Two other men, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, were also leading organizers. The terrorists mostly came from Saudi Arabia, but also from the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Egypt, and they had entered the USA earlier that year. Others involved included Abu Zubaydah, Mohammed Zammar, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called ‘twentieth hijacker’ who received a life sentence for his terrorist activities in 2006.
