ABSTRACT
The term terrorism is, though, an unhelpful one to use in describing this phenomenon since it is so value-laden. Terrorism, clearly, is a pejorative word. It is a word bandied about in conflict situations in order to contrast one side’s legitimate killing to another side’s illegitimate killing. Most frequently this will be by state forces against non-state forces since, in international law, state violence can be legal whereas non-state violence never can. Clearly, however, ‘terror’ is something that can be inflicted upon people by governments as well as by non-state actors. The term ‘terrorism’, indeed, was first coined to describe the state-directed violence and intimidation of French citizens by the Jacobins in the early years of the French Republic. Nazi genocide, Stalin’s purges and the ‘killing fields’ of the Khmer Rouge are among the numerous examples of this phenomenon. At the same time, violent non-state struggles often come to be seen by states and sections of global public opinion as legitimate, as was the case with the African National Congress’s (ANC’s)
democratic revolution in South Africa. Hence the oft-quoted maxim, ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’.
