Lecture 11: Left-Wing Groups

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Lecture 11 Left-Wing Groups

• Left-Wing (often Marxist/Communist) Terrorist
  Groups

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Historical Context/Events

• Cold War, Soviet commitment to spread of
  Communism
• De-colonization conflicts, including
• French in Southeast Asia, Algeria
• U.S. in Southeast Asia
• British in East Africa
• Successful revolutionary movements in Asia, Latin
  America, etc.
• Mao Tse-tung and China in the 1940s
• Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam in the 1950s, 1960s,
  1970s
• Fidel Castro and Cuba in the late 1950s/early
  1960s
• Latin American civil wars
• South Africa, Palestinian territories, Northern
  Ireland conflicts
• Modern European terrorism emerged in the 1960s as
  an extreme reflection of left-wing activism

Mao Tse-Tung
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Frantz Fanon

• Wretched of the Earth (1961) Western powers
  have dehumanized non-Western people by
  destroying their cultures and replacing them
  with Western values
• The masses suffer a perpetual identity crisis,
  forced to deny their heritage. They can follow
  only one course of action guerilla warfare
  revolution (achieving freedom is inherently
  violent)
• Terrorism had a specific purpose to terrorize
  Westerners and their followers into submission
• Urban terror was to create mayhem, and all
  terrorism was to be excessively brutal to
  communicate fear.
• Fanons guerrilla model thus uses terrorism as a
  strategy and deviates from typical guerrillas who
  try to build a military force

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Ernesto Che Guevara

• Argentine Marxist traveled throughout Latin
  America and became convinced that the regions
  economic problems were caused by capitalism,
  neo-colonialism and imperialism, with the only
  remedy being world revolution.
• Published his lessons learned from success in
  Cuba (w/Castro) of ousting the Batista regime
• Foco theory of revolution
• Vanguardism by cadres of small, fast-moving
  paramilitary groups can provide a focus for
  popular discontent against a sitting regime, and
  thereby lead a general insurrection.
• Popular forces can win a war against the army
• Immediate Action It is not necessary to wait
  until all conditions for making revolution exist
  the insurrection can create them
• The countryside is the basic area for armed
  fighting must mobilize and launch attacks from
  rural areas

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Carlos Marighella

• Authored Liberation of Brazil, and Mini-Manual of
  the Urban Guerilla
• Practical guides for terrorism
• The basis of revolution is violence
• All violence could be urban-based and controlled
  by a small group of urban guerillas
• Two phases of Urban Guerilla model 1) violence,
  and 2) give that violence meaning
• The terror campaign must be accompanied by a mass
  movement of revolutionary sympathizers, to
  provide peripheral support for terrorists
• A campaign of revolutionary terrorism in an urban
  setting can be used to destabilize government
  power
• A terrorist campaign will force the government to
  reveal that repressive nature, thereby alienating
  the public
• Governmental repression is the goal of terrorism
  at this stage.

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Common Strategy Tactics
Strategy Armed violence against the capitalist
state Provoke government into repressive
response, antagonize population

• Common Targets
• Symbolic targets
• Policemen
• Lawyers
• Judges
• University professors
• Politicians
• Union leaders
• Industrialists
• Military/security facilities

• Common Tactics
• Armed robberies
• Operations against the military (snipers,
  planting mines, etc.)
• Kidnapping (for attention and coercive
  bargaining)
• Selective assassination (snipers, letter bombs,
  etc.)
• Indiscriminate attacks in public places
• Lots o bombings . . .

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Other Common Themes

• Prominent role of academics, intellectual elites
• Sendero Luminoso University of San Cristobal de
  Huamanga (Abimael Guzman)
• Red Brigades University of Trento (Renato
  Curcio, Mara Cagol)
• Red Army Faction Free University of Berlin
  (Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof)
• 17 November Athens Polytechnic

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Other Common Themes

• Common reasons for the decline of left-wing
  terror groups
• Intellectual elites who controlled the movement
  got older and lost their ability to connect with
  increasingly younger student activist audiences.
• Impatient leaders, members led to mistakes,
  counterproductive violence
• Alienation of target audiences (instead of
  mobilization) undermined political objectives
• Left-wing movements became more specific,
  focusing not only on certain political behavior,
  but on particular causes (e.g., ELF, ALF, Monkey
  Wrench Gang spiking trees, arson attacks,
  lumber mills, etc.)
• Government actions and improved police tactics
  certainly contributed to the decline of left-wing
  terrorism in the U.S. and Europe

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Summary
Focused on fundamental, systemic change

• Groups influenced by revolutionaries in other
  countries
• Domestic, Marxist, some state support
• Armed violence against the capitalist state
  provoke over-reaction

• Mao Tse-Tung

Frantz Fanon
Carlos Marighella
Ernesto Che Geuvara
Mao the guerilla should be likened to a fish in
the sea - Peoples War Che a small dedicated
cadre of fighters can create the conditions for
popular revolution (cult of martyrs?) Fanon
political violence is a necessary instrument of
liberation Marighella urban violence will
systematically inflict damage on the
authorities (and)the people who dominate and
exercise power
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Left-Wing Terrorist Groups

• Action Directe (France)
• Sendero Luminoso (Peru)
• 17 November (Greece)
• Weather Underground (United States)
• Tupamaros (Uruguay)
• Japanese Red Army
• Red Army Faction (Germany)
• Red Brigades (Italy)
• Mujahedin-e-Khalq (Iran)
• Popular Revolutionary Army (Mexico)
• Nepal Insurgents (Maoists)
• United Freedom Front (United States)
• 25 April Movement (Portugal)
• Revolutionary Movement of Tupac Amaru (Peru)
• Irish Nationalist Liberation Army (IRSP
  militants)
• Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Colombia)
• May 19 Communist Organization (United States)
• Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International
  Conspiracy (United States)
• Others . . .

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Red Army Faction/Baader Meinhof

• West German leftist group founded in 1968 and
  active until 1998 most core members were
  university students, led by Andreas Baader and
  Ulrike Meinhof
• Lots of bombings and armed assaults against
  police, U.S. military personnel and journalists
• Assassinated several important individuals,
  including Germanys Supreme Court President
  Gunter von Drenkman (1974)
• Airplane Hijackings and Kidnappings (e.g., Hans
  Martin Schleyer) not for ransom but to coerce
  release of group members from prison

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Red Brigades (Brigade Rosse)

• Italian Marxist-Leninist terrorist group founded
  in Milan in 1970 and active until the late 1980s
• Much larger than RAF (up to 1,500 by the end of
  1970s)
• Centralized structure with at least 6 local
  columns (cells or branches)
• Mostly bombings, kidnappings to demand ransoms
  and the release of its comrades from prison
• Aldo Moro, former Prime Minister
• U.S. General James Dozier, Deputy Chief of Staff
  at NATOs Southern European land forces

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Action Directe

• French group, established in 1979 active less
  than 10 years
• Major bombings,
• 1982 attack on the World Bank European
  Headquarters
• 1984 attack on the European Space Agency
• 1985 attack at the officers club at the
  Rhein-Main U.S. Air Force Base
• Assassinations
• French General Rene Audran (1985)
• George Besse, the Chairman of Reneault (1986)

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Weather Underground

• U.S. group extreme militant splinter of Students
  for a Democratic Society (anti-Vietnam War
  movement on college university campuses)
• Originally called Weathermen but later changed
  their name to The Weather Underground
  Organization (WUO)
• Robberies, jailbreaks and nearly two dozen
  bombings throughout the early and mid-1970s
• New York City Police (1970)
• National Guard Armory (1970)
• U.S. Senate buiding (1971)
• Pentagon (1972)
• U.S. State Department (1975)

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Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

• La Violencia, the 1948-1958 Colombian civil war
• 1964, FARC launched as armed wing of Colombian
  Communist Party
• 1960s and 1970s, collected revolutionary taxes
  from landowners and peasants to raise money
• Imposed taxes on narco-traffickers in exchange
  for the use of land for cultivation, labs,
  landing strips
• Manufactured own military equipment and weapons,
  including mortars and landmines
• Today its violent activities revolve much more
  around the fight to maintain control over part of
  Colombias drug trade

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Sendero Luminoso

• Maoist group established in 1969 as militant
  outgrowth of the Peruvian Communist movement
• Occupied villages, established revolutionary
  governments, and trained members in guerilla
  strategy and the use of firearms and explosives
• Car bombings, kidnappings and political
  assassinations attacked the U.S. Embassy,
  Peruvian political officials, schools, police
  stations, middle class neighborhoods, and Limas
  banking center
• Imposed taxes on businesses and individuals in
  occupied villages Became increasingly involved
  in the Peruvian cocaine trade in the Upper
  Huallaga Valley

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Communist Party of India-Maoist

• aka Naxalites, established 2004
• Seeks complete overhaul of the Indian government
  in order to establish a Communist society
• Imposition of taxes on villages and village
  officials
• Estimated over 10,000 fighters
• Worlds 1 kidnapping group in 2010
• Ideological resonance among poor, rural
  indigenous communities in northeast India

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Other Left-Wing Groups

• Communist Party of Nepal
• Purbo Banglar Communist Party of Bangladesh
  (PBCP)
• Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN)
• Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)
• Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
  (PFLP)
• Japanese Red Army
• Irish National Liberation Army

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Conclusion

• For more, see
• Global Terrorism Database Profileshttp//www.star
  t.umd.edu/start/data_collections/tops/
• National Counterterrorism Center
  Profileshttp//www.nctc.gov/site/profiles/index.h
  tml
• Most left-wing groups failed to achieve their
  objectives
• Some transformed into legitimate participants in
  the official political processes of their
  countries
• Others moved away from emphasis on left-wing
  Marxist ideology and more toward criminal
  objectives

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Questions?