Women and Terrorism

Female Activity in Domestic and International Terror Groups

Margaret Gonzalez-Perez

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780415570732
• eBook ISBN: 9781134040070
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book examines the relationship between women and terrorist activities in the post-World War II era. Utilizing comparative research into 26 terrorist organizations world-wide, the work identifies a dichotomy whereby women are significantly more active in domestic terrorist organizations than in international groups.

Women and Terrorism argues that domestic terrorist organisations employ revolution, secession, or other means to change internal aspects of the state and the social and economic structure it maintains. This offers the possibility of change in women's societal status; therefore, women are drawn to domestic terrorist organizations in much higher proportions and choose a much greater level of activity, entering the ranks of combat, leadership, and policymaking. By contrast, international terrorist groups oppose outside forces, such as imperialism, capitalism, Western culture, or other more nebulous concepts. Gonzalez-Perez argues that female lack of participation in these activities reflects the fact that women will be relegated to the status quo, regardless of the success or failure of the international terrorist movement.

1 Domestic and international terrorism

Since "9/11," it is only natural that the American view of terrorism has come to focus on international terrorist organizations. As Paul Wilkinson of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence states, "No broad categorization can do full justice to the variety and complexity of the modern phenomenon of terrorism," but the distinction between "international terrorism involving ... two or more states and domestic or internal terrorism which confines its activities within the borders of a specific state" is an important one (2000). Brian Jenkins defines international terrorists as those who "cross national frontiers to carry out their attacks or deliberately select victims because of their connections to a foreign state" (1985: 25) and as J. Bowyer Bell notes, "The practitioners of terror can largely be categorized on the basis of their aspirations" (1975: 8). Thus, terrorist organizations are classified largely on the basis of their goals and targets.

While some scholars may prefer to categorize terrorist groups as left- or right-wing, ethnic, religious, state-sponsored, or any of a myriad of other possibilities, the dichotomous classification of domestic and international is not a novel one. The US Justice Department's National Security Division, Counterterrorism Threat Assessment and Warning Unit, Terrorist Research and Analytical Center, and Federal Bureau of Investigation all use this classification in their publications regarding terrorism. According to the FBI,

International terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or individual, who has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend national boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

(Terrorist Research and Analytical Center 1995)

At the other end of the spectrum, we find that, "Domestic terrorism involves groups or individuals who are based and operate entirely within the US and Puerto Rico without foreign direction and whose acts are directed at elements of the US Government or population" (Terrorist Research and Analytical Center 1995).

International terrorist organizations

International terrorist groups typically include in their platforms an opposition to imperialism, globalization, capitalism, or Western culture in general, and exhibit an international agenda. In these internationally oriented terrorist groups, women function in primarily supportive roles; cooking, sewing uniforms, providing shelter, and sometimes sex to the males in the organization. In this sense, women's roles deviate very little from the traditional gender roles of females in a developing state. Such terrorist organizations challenge the global hierarchy and its distribution of power and wealth, but they have little effect on domestic policies, particularly those pertaining to women. Women may participate, but their activity is controlled and limited by the entrenched gender roles of their culture and by the male leaders of the terrorist movement. An internationally oriented agenda may include goals that affect the host nation of a terrorist group, but the terrorist movements classified as international in this study exhibit predominantly external, or international, objectives.

Many scholars agree that the internationalization of terrorism began in 1968 with the establishment of "guerrilla training camps for tens of thousands of terrorists in Cuba, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, South Yemen, North Korea, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union" (Sterling 1981: 3). Prior to 1968, terrorism occurred more or less randomly, and usually among members of the same ethnic group, race, or religion (O'Ballance 1979: 415), yet by 1976, over 140 terrorist organizations had established networks of international connections (Milbank 1976). Indeed, during the Cold War, some even contended that all terrorism was internationally linked in a vast network, sharing strategy, tactics, munitions, and other resources, orchestrated by the Soviet Union. In the twenty-first century, similar theories have arisen regarding radical Islamic terrorism and the jihad, or holy war.

These internationally oriented terrorist groups seek to eliminate external sources of control, such as the capitalist economic system and Western imperialism. The primary objectives of international terrorist organizations are not to restructure their relationship to the national government nor to influence domestic policy; instead, these groups struggle to alter the relationship between their national government and what they perceive as the external forces of international economic or political oppression. Because such movements focus on the external, they devote little attention to overcoming traditional gender restrictions on women. While these groups may recruit women, female members serve in predominantly limited support roles and rarely rise to the more active levels of leadership and decisionmaking processes.

Domestic terrorist organizations

Women who are actively engaged in organized terrorism at the highest levels of command and policymaking are associated less with internationally oriented groups than with domestic terrorist organizations. This study employs the term "domestic" to describe these groups instead of other commonly used terms, such as "nationalist," to avoid confusion with the widely varying definitions of terms related to nation, state, nationalism, ethnonationalism, ethnopolitics, regionalism, tribalism, communalism, parochialism, and subnationalism. Other studies may use disparate terminology, but in the interest of maintaining the distinction between domestically oriented terrorist organizations that oppose the state apparatus under which they operate, and terrorist groups with international agendas, this study employs the terms domestic and international.

Domestic terrorist organizations are internal in nature. Because they take action against what they perceive as the forces of oppression within their own state, economy, or societal structure, the organization itself is often revolutionary, challenging tradition and the ruling regime; therefore, the group is much more likely to challenge the conventional view of women and their historical gender roles. This provides greater opportunity for females to participate actively in the group's activities, such as guerrilla warfare, policy formation, and even leadership roles. Domestic movements do not oppose the external forces of imperialism, such as the inequities of global capitalism; rather, they target the governments of their own states and seek to overthrow, reform, or secede from the state. In rejecting the traditional power structure and its control, these groups also challenge its restrictions on women's activities and limited gender roles. As Jill Steans explains, "national identity is frequently articulated as a form of control over women" (1998: 81). Thus, women who participate in conflict with the state must necessarily oppose the masculine state's dominance of women. Women terrorists "see themselves as victims not only of what their male comrades would call 'political oppression' but also of male oppression ... with oppression having to be fought on two fronts" (MacDonald 1991: 232).

Thus, women are not only present in larger numbers in domestic terrorist organizations, but also ascend to the highest levels of combat, leadership, and policymaking. Some observers have noted that women are actually better terrorists than their male comrades due to greater stamina, loyalty, and an ability to stomach extremes of violence (Sreedliaran 1998), in addition to the notion that "the women are often fiercer and crueler than the men" (Dobson and Payne 1977: 164–5). One law enforcement official elaborates, writing that female terrorists are, "ferocious and more intractable in these acts than their male counterparts. There is a cold rage about some of them that even the most alienated of men seem quite incapable of emulating" (Sliuichi 1957: 2). Other security personnel share this view, arguing that, "woman as terrorist must be dealt with after the fashion of the gorgon if those responding would survive" (Hidenori 1955: 586). The following chapters address the role of women in domestic terrorist organizations, comparing those of the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, in an effort to illuminate the similarities and differences in their growth and rise to power.

Defining terrorism

Because this analysis includes women engaged in activities ranging from guerrilla warfare, revolutions, state-sponsored terrorism, separatist movements, to organized militia movements, it is necessary first to clarify the use of the term "terrorism." As one journalist writes, "Those who deal with terrorism on a daily basis are keenly aware that the terminology is a problem" (MacDonald 1991: xiii). Most scholars agree with the fundamental distinction between domestic and international terrorism used in this book; however, others argue that all post-1968 terrorism is part of an interconnected network. Still others find the internal—external dichotomy too simplistic and insist on differentiating between national liberation struggles, secessionists, irredentists, rightists, leftists, ethnic, religious, ideological, state-sponsored terrorists, etc. Bell expresses the dilemma eloquently in his statement,

There is no satisfactory political definition of terror extant or forthcoming, there is similarly no common academic consensus as to the essence of terror and no common language with which to shape a model acceptable to political scientists or social psychologists.... Of course, the difficulties of academicians in parsing rigorous verifiable results ... has not inhibited the practitioners of such a strategy.

(1975: 6)

The debate over terrorism is, in itself, a volatile one and will not be resolved to everyone's satisfaction in this book. However an operational definition of terrorism is imperative to any examination of the subject.

The most widely used definitions of terrorism are the classic and compatible views offered by counterterrorist security specialist Brian Jenkins and Walter Laqueur, a prominent scholar on repressive regimes and opposition movements. Jenkins defines terrorism as the threat or use of force for the purpose of political change, noting that, although simplistic, this definition allows security personnel to move beyond endless debates over terminology (Jenkins 1984, cited in White 2003: 8). Laqueur's definition includes the illegitimate use of force, a political objective, and the targeting of innocent people (1987: 72), including peasant wars, general wars, civil wars, revolutionary wars, wars of national liberation, and resistance movements (1977b: 7).

Laqueur acknowledges the difficulty in defining terrorism, noting that over 100 definitions have been suggested by scholars, governments, and other organizations. Depending upon their origin and use, these definitions may include political, religious, ideological, or strategic aspects (1999: 5—6). In addition, new terms and nuances are constantly emerging, such as "asymmetric warfare," to characterize terrorism (2004: 58). Tomis Kapitan's (2003: 48) definition conforms to those of Jenkins and Laqueur, as "the deliberate use of violence, or the threat of such, directed upon civilians in order to achieve political objectives." James P. Sterba focuses on the fear factor, defining terrorism as "the use or threat of violence against innocent people to elicit terror in them, or in some other group of people, in order to further a political objective" (2003: 206). Daniel E. Georges-Abeyie adds criminal activity, defining terrorism as "violent criminal behavior designed primarily to generate fear in the community ... for political purposes" (1983: 71). Donald M. Snow focuses on specific demands, describing terrorism as "the commission of atrocious acts against target populations in order to gain compliance with some set of demands or conditions that the terrorists insist upon" (2003: 71). J. Bowyer Bell adds the dimension of goals or targets to the definition, noting that, "The practitioners of terror can largely be categorized on the basis of their aspirations" (1975: 8). Thomas B. Thornton, however, discounts the terrorists' goal, stating that terrorism consists of "violent ... behavior ... designed to generate fear in the community" (1964: 71—91). Paul R. Pillar further organizes the concept of terrorism into five essential elements: premeditation, political motivation, noncombatants as targets, clandestine agents, and the presence of a threat (2001: 14—15).

Martha Crenshaw argues that terrorism is defined by the actions, targets, and chances of success involved. Crenshaw distinguishes between revolutionary violence and terrorism, defining the latter as "socially and politically unacceptable violence aimed at an innocent target to achieve a psychological effect" (1983). However, as Jonathan White notes, this method allows the dominant political power to define terrorism (2003: 9). Griset and Mahan acknowledge the difficulties in defining terrorism as well, stating that it is often difficult to differentiate between terrorism, guerrilla warfare, conventional warfare, and criminal activity (2003). Daniel E. Georges-Abeyie concurs, noting that, "no distinct break exists between terrorism and guerrilla warfare" (1983: 72). Yesliofat Harkabi supports the interconnectedness of these forms of terrorism, stating that, "terrorism is an outgrowth of guerrilla warfare, which is perhaps the oldest form of warfare" (1985: 19); however, the various definitions of guerrilla warfare "are consistent in that they define guerrillas as small groups who engage in unorthodox attacks on the state or its military apparatus" (Gonzalez-Perez 2006: 314). Terrorists, on the other hand, target not only authorities, but also civilian populations in an effort to generate chaos and fear (Mao 1961: 41—4; Osanka 1962: 1, 25; Paget 1967: 14—15; Porzecanski 1973). Thus, terrorists commonly utilize guerrilla tactics, but guerrillas do not necessarily engage in terrorism, or politically motivated violence against noncombatants.

Edward Herman extends the definition of terrorism to include state repression as a form of state-sponsored terrorism, arguing that corrupt Latin American regimes have created more misery than any other form of terrorism (1983). Michael Stohl agrees, stating that terrorism is used more by national governments than by any non-governmental actors (1988: 20–8). Harkabi explains this phenomenon, noting that terrorism

may become a mode of operation by governments as a form of covert warfare or surrogate warfare. As wars become increasingly difficult to launch, states may choose to weaken their opponents either by launching clandestine terrorist operations or by instigating terrorism by supporting local terrorists in their adversary's territory.

(1985: 21)

Laqueur counters that government repression differs significantly from terrorism in that repression is a long-term phenomenon while terrorism is an immediate and comparatively short-lived crisis (1999: 5—6), and that since September 11, 2001, "the essence of terrorist operations now is indiscriminate attacks against civilians" (2004: 58). Laqueur also notes that the Cold War perceptions of terrorism as solely a leftist phenomenon, or a consequence of poverty, have been largely discredited (2004: 50). Because the forms of terrorism are so varied, and may share few common traits, "perhaps the only characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism always involves violence or the threat of violence" (Crenshaw 1983). Alex Schmid analyzes these divergent perspectives and offers an amalgamation of their common elements, concluding that terrorism is an abstract concept and as such can have no single correct definition (1983: 70—111).

In fact, there is not a consensus on the definition of terrorism within the international community, nor even among the institutions of the US government. Since 1983, the US State Department has defined terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience" (US Department of State 2000). The Federal Bureau of Investigation does not limit its definition to attacks on noncombatants, or even government or military personnel, as

A terrorist incident is a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, in violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state, to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

(Terrorist Research and Analytical Center 1995)

The Counterterrorism and Threat Assessment Warning Unit of the US Justice Department's National Security Division defines terrorism in accordance with the US Code of Federal Regulations as "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (1998: 28 C.F.R. Section 0.85). The US National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals does not even require a political objective as it finds that, "Terrorism is the threat of violence and the use of fear to coerce, persuade, and gain public attention" (1976: 3).

The United Nations (2005) has tried to define terrorism to the satisfaction of its many member states for years. Its predecessor, the League of Nations, defined terrorism in 1937 as, "All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public." While the UN strongly condemns all acts of terrorism, its members have been unable to agree upon a single definition due to the fact that certain definitions might impugn one state or another. The working definition proposed to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime by A.P. Schmid in 1992 reads,

Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought.

(United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2005)

Clearly, as the Counterterrorism and Threat Assessment Warning Unit's annual publication, Terrorism in the United States, states, "There is no single, universally accepted definition of terrorism" (1998). Laqueur agrees, explaining that, "no definition of terrorism can possibly cover all the varieties of terrorism that have appeared throughout history" (1977b: 7). At least three books devote entire chapters to defining terrorism (Hoffman 1998; Tucker 1997; White 2003). In the interest of moving beyond the definitional debate and creating a common and practical definition, this study adopts a definition based on the views of Laqueur, Jenkins, White, Sterba, Kapitan, Herman, Stohl, Griset, and Mahan. Terrorism, then, is the use or...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of acronyms
• Introduction
• 1 Domestic and international terrorism
• 2 The Americas: new women in a new world
• 3 Asia: freedom birds and water buffaloes
• 4 Africa and the Middle East: behind the veil
• 5 Europe: discontent on the continent
• 6 Conclusion
• References
• Index