State Crime or Targeted Assassination

Written laws in general are entities that serve visible agendas. Visible agendas that generally serve an idea that, some so-called democratic nations want to project. But in reality, the borderline is very fine, between the proclaimed liberal democracies and the autocratic regimes, which in the logic of state crimes, use the same tactics of intimidation, crime, and extreme punishment often unjustified, that some have qualified collateral damage.

The principle of international justice for all, to which all member states of an organization such as the United Nations are bound, has always been dismantled by the so-called democratic states, creating caste systems, such as the U N Security Council which gives the right Of veto, to a handful of members who have been ruling world affairs without sharing or alternation for more than 50 years, Or worse, by the refusal to ratify treaties, such as the one establishing the International Criminal Court, which until now has not been indorsed by the leader of Western democratic doctrine, the United States. This legal vagueness is the blood dripping butcher's apron, which allows white-necked rogue states, to carry out illegal activities when it comes back to political assassinations, which in the rule remain repressed by the provisions of international criminal law. It is important here, to remember that, any extra-judicial execution, is a crime punishable by law. There is no legal vacuum, that can justify a state doing justice by deciding to execute an alleged criminal, for one cannot be a judge and a party. The current situation is so problematic, that it can be clearly stated that, there is an unhealthy and palpable will of some states, to evade the law. Drone killings are making no less innocent victims, as the exactions of troops from an army of southern hemisphere rebels, which are sometimes sponsored by the same white-collar rogue states. Here what is defended is not simply the lives of the innocent victims or the presumed culprits but above all the principle of fair justice which cannot be applied by the belligerent parties

Prior to the entry into force of the International Criminal Court, logically, some States had the right to track down alleged perpetrators of crimes against their citizens or interests, to bring them to justice even in their countries. For example, France in the 1970s initiated the process of searching for and putting away, the perpetrators of attacks on the St Germain drugstore in 1974 and the assassination of two police officers in 1975. Even If the alleged perpetrator Ramirez Illich Carlos had claimed these murders, his claim in doctrine does not exclude the judgment of a qualified court in the matter.

However, the political will of the French government of the Seventies will be lacking. The president Giscard d'Estaing putting a soft pedal on the file so he would not displease some eastern European and Middle Eastern states, with which France had big strategic and economic interests, like Hungary, Syria, Iran or even Libya of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, with whom French had contracts for the sale of weapons and the purchase of oil. Countries where Carlos found sanctuary at least once.

In 1981, the election of François Mitterrand to the presidency of France, will change the situation, as the fall of the Berlin Wall, which will allow Carlos to be let loose by the states, that up till then supported him. He was spotted by the CIA in Khartoum in 1992 two years later, on August 14 , 1994 he was abducted by the French spooks. While undergoing a medical operation in a hospital in Khartoum, he would be put on sedative and sent to France, where he will be tried and sentenced to life imprisonment

Homicide operations are part of the policy of the States, which have always assassinated for what has often been presented as the superior interest of the Nation.

The first state to be noticed in this targeted assassination strategy, was Israel, which even before the beginning of its existence, had engaged in a policy of targeted assassinations of former Nazi criminals, beginning in 1946. At the same time, the Hebrew State Has not often hesitated to make the powder speak, against the Westerners whom they considered to be a danger to their interests. On July 22, 1946, Israeli agents laid down a bomb at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed in the southern wing, the British military command and the Mandate secretariat, killing 91 people, including 28 British, and 41 Arabs.

2 years later In September 1948, Zionist terrorist groups assassinated UN special envoy, Count Folke Bernadotte, simply because, he had demanded the return of the Palestinian refugees expelled from the territories seized, for the establishment of the nascent state of Israel.

Bernadotte, advocated a total demilitarization of Occupied Jerusalem, and blamed Jewish forces for their "aggressive" behavior in the Holy City.

This tendency of assassination would continue once the state of Israel established. The decision to assassinate, was made secretly in a small cabinet under the Prime Minister's presidency. Golda Meir in the 1970s, was the first to initiate the liquidation of Zionist opponents, not to avenge some of the acts committed against the Zionist state, but to dissuade those whom she considered to be the enemy of Israel. From then on, the Mossad and its hard wing will kill Palestinian activists, or Iranian scientists to prevent them from developing a nuclear weapon that would call into question the nuclear hegemony of the Hebrew state in the region. While the Hebrew state has often sent, hundreds of members of the Palestinian resistance into the other world, it is no less true that it often experienced bitter failures, caught hand in the bag.

In 1997, several Israeli agents entered Jordan, with false Canadian passports. In the middle of a street in Amman, they managed to inject a mysterious poison, into the ear of Khaled Mechaal, an influential member of Hamas. Alas, the operation fails, thanks to the intervention of the bodyguards of Mechaal, who manage to apprehend two members of the commando. The case triggers a serious diplomatic crisis between Jordan and Israel, and arouses the fury of the Canadian authorities, who openly protest the use of official documents of their country, although Canada has always tacitly supported the policy of apartheid in the occupied territories like its American neighbor. The situation forces Benyamin Netanyahu, prime minister of the time, to a humiliating mea culpa. The sheepish Israelis provide the antidote to the poison, which saves Mechaal life, they are also forced to release several Hamas prisoners, including Sheikh Yassin, the historical founder of the movement. The head of the Mossad of the time, Danny Yatom, is forced to resign.

The United States is also one of the founding countries of terrorist tactics, well before the events of September 11, 2001. The history of targeted assassinations, as well as the financing and clandestine support for terrorist brigades by the US is long, and macabre. It dates to the Vietnam War. The Americans have perpetuated these tactics in the sponsor of terror in Latin America. John Negroponte who served as deputy secretary of state under Barack Obama, was "the man of the situation." As ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, Negroponte played a leading role in overseeing the Honduras-based Contras of Nicaragua and in the control of death squadrons of the Honduran army. During the reign of General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, the military government of Honduras, which had the craze of killing dozens of political opponents using the death squads, was a close ally of the Reagan administration. The Americans in these same years, will train and sponsor the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, in the terrorist attacks against the Soviet occupation of the country.

Between 2004 and 2005 the Americans will put the same dishes of the death squads, to the taste of the day, in Iraq. And once again John Negroponte, will be in charge. Sent by the State Department to Iraq in June 2004, he will contribute to the policy of assassination, thus privileged by the American army which, despite the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein, was stuck in a resistance of the insurgents, that was not foreseen. In January 2005, the Pentagon confirmed that it was planning to train commandos of Kurdish and Shiite fighters, to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency. US and Iraqi forces were sent to kill or kidnap leaders of the insurgency, including in Syria, where they believed some were hiding.

In Eastern Europe the KGB, whose reputation is still very sulphurous (has killed more in western novels than in real) in the West, was not in lace, having been lethal in the assassination of several dissidents who dared to pass to the West and above all terrorizing terrorists Who were hurrying to undermine the interests of the USSR. In October 1985, the Alpha Group wing of punitive operations of the KGB was sent to Beirut while Lebanon was torn by war. The Kremlin had been informed of the kidnapping of four Soviet diplomats by the militant group, the Islamic Liberation Organization (a radical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood). A kidnapping that was interpreted as retaliation for Soviet support for Syria's participation in the Lebanese civil war. However, as the Alpha group landed in Beirut, one of the hostages had already been killed. Thanks to a network of KGB agents, the hitmen of the alpha group identified each of the perpetrators involved in the crisis and began to take them including members of their families as hostages. In accordance with the standards of Soviet policy which prohibits any negotiations with terrorists, one of the hostages taken by the Alpha Group, was emasculated and sent back to the militants before being killed. The warning was clear: others would follow, unless the remaining hostages were released immediately. The tour de force gave the desired result, and for a period of 20 years or so, no Soviet or Russian officials were taken captive until the kidnapping and murder of a staff member of the Russian embassy in 2006 in Iraq.

The targeted assassinations, over the years have become sophisticated, but have not lost any of their lethal character. Extra-judicial executions, most often carried out by the army or by intelligence services, outside of conflicts areas or battlefields, are Increasingly being conducted by drones, and from countries such as the United States, where the president no longer takes the trouble to consult the parliament when he decides to murder based on information which are sometimes erroneous, individuals accused of terrorism.

Since 2004 the expeditious methods of drones, in Pakistan alone killed more than 2680 people. If many suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda Taliban members died during strikes by these remote-controlled devices, several innocent victims, who were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time had lost Their lives. The drones are also spreading deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. The use of "targeted killings" has grown considerably, under the very democratic presidency of Barack Obama, who never hesitated to seek parliamentary permission to assassinate, including US citizens. During his term, every Tuesday he sent to the death the alleged enemies of America, a tradition that did not stop with the Trump administration.

However, the application of the technique of local terrorism, using human agents has continued in Syria. Since March 2011, the United States and its allies, have carefully planned and supported the formation of death squads and the incursion of terrorist brigades to fight the Bashar al-Assad regime. Paradoxically the socialist France of Francois Hollande, country where the death penalty no longer exists since 1981 ordered the greatest number of summary execution of suspected terrorists more than any other French government; Especially against the AQIM in Africa, and in the Middle East against the French citizens who had joined the ranks of jihad in Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq.

In this odious trade of proxy death, Africa is not left behind, even if here the opponents of political regimes, of some dictators often supported by the same Western forces, are the ones feeling the storm. Political assassination practices, dating back to the period of independence in the 1950s have seen major African independence figures such as Patrice Lumumba from Congo, Felix Moumié and Oum Nyobe from Cameroon pass the weapon to the left, in Plots conceived by colonial forces. The trend continued until the 1990s.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western powers maintained the pressure of dilatory maneuvers, to keep Africa in their sphere of influence. This was the case in the series of killings perpetrated by the regime of Paul Kagame of Rwanda to silence voices that spoke openly of its role and that of its American pimps in the Rwandan genocide. In Cameroon, the disappearance of a long-standing opponent of the regime in Yaoundé made headlines a few years ago. Guerandi Mbara, who had taken part in the coup attempt against Paul Biya, on April 6, 1984, would have disappeared in a conspiracy to assassinate him, by the regime's security forces, assisted by western barbouzes in 2014. The rhetoric justifying the targeted assassinations remains the same. The security of the State, or for the higher interests of the Nation. However, when the interests of a State, are in fact the interests of the small groups who conduct wicked policies contrary to the interests of the people, it is fair to say that criminals remain criminals, regardless of the clothes they wear to commit their crimes.

Hubert Marlin

Journalist