ABSTRACT
Even if terrorism is often seen as a distorted response to present or past grievances of a political nature, socio-economic factors are far from irrelevant. Indeed, a great number of terrorist organisations have seen their struggle as part of a global struggle against an economic system, capitalism, whose inherent dynamics caused the oppression of the masses and the dispossession and colonisation of the Third World. During the heyday of Marxist-Maoist inspired terrorist groups in the 1970s, economic interests, such as corporate banks and transnational companies, were often considered important and legitimate targets. Big business became the victim of leftist terrorism inter alia due to its alleged imperialist and exploitative role in the Third World. The Weather Underground in the USA, for example, targeted the AT&T Company in the 1970s for its alleged involvement in the US-supported military coup against the Allende government in Chile.
