Terror (fromFrenchterreur, fromLatinterror "great fear",terrere "to frighten"[1][2]) is a policy ofpolitical repression andpolitical violence intended to subdue political opposition. The term first appears in theReign of Terror, arevolutionary violence during theFrench Revolution,[2][3] which also gave rise to the termterrorism.[4]
Before the late twentieth century,the term "terrorism" in the English language was often used interchangeably with "terror". The term "terrorism" frequently refers to acts by groups with a limited political base or parties on the weaker side inasymmetric warfare, while "terror" refers to acts by governments.
Charles Tilly defines "terror" as a political strategy defined as "asymmetrical deployment of threats and violence against enemies using means that fall outside the forms of political struggle routinely operating within some current regime", and therefore ranges from "(1) intermittent actions by members of groups that are engaged in wider political struggles to (2) one segment in the modus operandi of durably organized specialists in coercion, including government-employed and government-backed specialists in coercion to (3) the dominant rationale for distinct, committed groups and networks of activists".[5] According to Tilly, the term "terror" spans a wide range of human cruelties, from Stalin's use of executions to clandestine attacks by groups like the Basque separatists and theIrish Republican Army and even ethnic cleansing and genocide.[5]
State terrorism is a particular concept for a type of political terror that is characterized as terror perpetrated by governments against their own citizens or other states.
Revolutionary terror, also known as "Red Terror", was often used by revolutionary governments to suppresscounterrevolutionaries. The first example was theReign of Terror during theFrench Revolution in 1794.[6] Other notable examples include theRed Terror inSoviet Russia in 1918–1922, as well as simultaneous campaignsin the Hungarian Soviet Republic andin Finland. In China,Red Terror in 1966 and 1967 started theCultural revolution.
Counter-revolutionary terror is usually referred to as "White Terror". Notable examples are the terror campaignsin France (1794–1795),in Russia (1917–20),in Hungary (1919–1921) andin Spain. Modern examples of counter-revolutionary terror includeOperation Condor in South America.
The Hague-basedInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) foundStanislav Galić, theBosnian Serbcommander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of theArmy of Republika Srpska (VRS),Radovan Karadžić, thePresident of Republika Srpska, andRatko Mladić, Chief of Staff of VRS, guilty of terror as acrime against humanity, among other crimes, for their role in theSiege of Sarajevo during theBosnian War, and sentenced them each tolife imprisonment.[7][8][9]
In the Galić judgement, the ICTY found that the term "terror" refers to an attack or targeting of civilians or civilian property not justified by military necessity, its only objective being spreading extreme fear among civilian population. It was declared a violation of theLaws or Customs of War (Article 51 of Additional Protocol I to theGeneva Conventions of 1949). Thelegal defense of Galić argued that the defendant cannot be convicted of terror due to the ruleNulla poena sine lege, but the Tribunal found that the first conviction for terror against a civilian population was already delivered previously in July 1947 by a court-martial sitting inMakassar in theNetherlands East-Indies, during theIndonesian National Revolution, and was therefore applicable.[10]
Finally, the wordterrorist. It is rooted in the Latinterrere, "to frighten," and the-ist was coined in France to castigate the perpetrators of theReign of Terror.