Last Friday was the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War 2, in which fascism had threatened world peace. But today, the threat of terrorism, domestic and international – which represents just as much danger to mankind as did fascism – confronts us. The nature of “terrorism”, however, has changed over the centuries since it was introduced, and has led some social scientists to adopt a definition based not on criminality, but on the fact that the victims of terrorist violence are most often innocent civilians.
In the recent riots in the wake of the death of 11-year- old Adrianna Younge, the police used our laws on domestic terrorism to attempt to return peace to our land, after the demonstrators had burnt vehicles and buildings, robbed supermarkets, blocked roads, and robbed innocent citizens to influence the Government. The Opposition PNC/APNU has demanded an immediate end to what it describes as the Government’s “abuse” of Guyana’s anti-terrorism legislation, and for those arrested to be released.
The use of violence against innocent citizens to achieve political aims was given a name – domestic terrorism – not simply to talk about it, but to do something about it. Terrorism’s points of commonality with the older violent crimes, and the growing viciousness of the latter, facilitated by the spread of increasingly lethal weaponry, has forced authorities to treat the phenomena with the seriousness they deserve. Laws have been drafted to better warn transgressors and arm law-enforcers, law enforcement agencies have been reorganized, and new ones have been created to engage the new lawlessness. Units of the traditional armed forces were authorized to cooperate with the traditional anti-crime bodies.
Like Guyana, the US had experience with domestic terrorism for decades, but did not put it on its front burner until after the catastrophic Sept 11th horror. After this tragedy, one of their first initiatives was to pass the USA PATRIOT Act. It extended the old definitions of domestic terrorism (e.g. “premeditated and politically motivated violence targeted against a civilian population”) so as to give greater flexibility to the law enforcement agencies: “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws …(if they) …appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion”. It has closed many loopholes used by criminals to evade the reach of the law; but, more importantly, it has given permission for the widest possible cooperation by all the organs of the state to come together to wipe out domestic terrorism.
In 2002, Guyana passed its own law on terrorism: The Criminal Law (Offences) Amendment Act 2002 (CLOAA 2002), in order to deal with terrorist threats that had exploded here.
A terrorist act is defined as follows: “Whoever with intent to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of Guyana or to strike terror in the people or any section of the people does any act or
thing by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances or inflammable substances or firearms or other legal weapons or poisons or noxious gases or other chemicals or by any other substances (whether biological or otherwise) of a hazardous nature or by any other means whatsoever, in such a manner as to cause, or likely to cause, death of, or injuries to any person or persons or loss of, or damage to, or destruction of property or disruption of any supplies or services essential to the life of the community or causes damage or destruction of any property or equipment used or intended to be used for the defence of Guyana or in connection with any other purposes of the Government of Guyana or any of its agencies, or detains any person and threatens to kill or injure such person in order to compel the Government or any other person to do or abstain from doing any act, commits a terrorist act.”
As the Attorney General responded to the Opposition, this law is most appropriately used to deal with the criminal acts being committed to influence the Government’s policies. He said, in fact, Caricom is considering adopting our approach.
