AVELINO, FERNANDEZ, SAN JUAN, TIZON BAJ 3 – 1DGROUP 2 HANDOUTS

Terrorism, Government, Media by Luis V. Teodoro

Introduction: Orphans of the Cold War

The use of violence for political and other aims – once thought by the unimaginative to be the distinctive characteristic of the Cold War era – has not passed into history with the end of superpower rivalry.

During the Cold War certain groups claimed adherence to either bloc when pursuing their trends through violent means.

There are governments that have historically used terrorist methods disguised as legitimate military action to further their global policies.

State terrorism, though not a new concept, had previously not received sufficient publicity to be of common knowledge.

Of even more uncommon knowledge – among other reasons because the paucity of media coverage – is the use of international terrorism to further the foreign policy aims of dominant states.

Current Trends

Though difficult to define, terrorism’s means are immediately recognizable, among them being hostage-taking, kidnappings, assassinations, bombings, and hijacking against individuals or groups of individuals who usually have no direct connection with the perpetuation of the grievances the terrorists claim to harbor.

Terrorism is used by powerful countries to continue their image of strength among other countries to achieve foreign policy aims.

In the “new world order” characterized by the dominance of one superpower, armed groups with often legitimate grievances accountable to no one except themselves have proliferated, their autonomy making them more difficult to detect, and penalize.

Anonymous terrorism is obvious terrorism for which no one claims responsibility. Another developing trend id the increase in the number of attacks against

journalists and other media practitioner

State Terrorism

A small terrorist group has proliferated; of equal concern to all people interested in the realization of a more peaceful world is continuing use of terrorist methods by dominant states against other states. For this, media news flow over much of the planet being blind, often willfully, to the terrorism of their own states.

Of equal interest to Filipino journalists should be terrorist attacks on members of their profession by unnamed groups, including agents of the state – which in fact happened during both the Marcos and Aquino governments, when military and police units initiated terrorist acts, including assassinations against media practitioners as well as the leaders of mass organizations to further antidemocratic ends. In the Marcos period, however, these attacks were certainly tolerated, if not encouraged, as a matter of state policy.

The word “terrorist” is used to describe their enemies. No one is beyond the terrorists reach.

Terrorism: A definition

Terrorism has been defines as a form of politically motivated violence committed by a small group of people or even by individuals to influence the behavior particular audience.

In the words of the Russian anarchist Bakunin, terrorism is “propaganda by deed”, intended to terrorize that wider audience into immobility, retreat, surrender, or a change of attitude and policy, the terror it inspires proceeding from the randomness and irrationality of attack.

Terrorism is in short form of communication and has a message that it seeks to convey.

In relation to the media, the world is the terrorists’ stage, thanks to media.

Guarantees from terrorists

It was media's commercial interests as much as their capacity to operate freely and safely that was primarily at stake. The private character of media ownership in the Philippines became even more pronounced in the proliferation of TV and radio stations as well as newspapers that followed the fall of the Marcos dictatorship.

There is a scramble for circulation and ratings, and therefore competition for scoops and exclusives as well as the most dramatic stories.

The very nature of the media enterprise helped too. Terrorist acts are almost always developing stories. A coup attempt characterized by indescriminate acts of violence, requires follow-up stories which usually take the form of interviews with the personalities involved, as well as search for background material.

While media were using the coup plotters as much as they were being used, the kind of coverage media extended the latter was also a defensive means.

The relative weakness of the Aquino Government (the late Pres. Cory Aquino) was in no position to provide media the guarantee. Their policy was let media fend for themselves, without benefit of either government coercion or protection, a policy it claimed was for the sake of press freedom.

Media organizations knew that under the circumstances only such groups as RAM could guarantee their safety and capacity to operate freely. Death threats were received in which the message was that no one was safe, and no one at least of all the government, could guarantee their safety.

The former Marcos military officers were far more threatening than the NPA. Thus was the NPA described as "marginalized" in media accounts that celebrated RAM stalwarts as reformists, complete with photographs that showed them about to jump out of airplanes with pythons draped over their shoulders.

Contrary to what is now conventional wisdom, only a few media practitioners in the latter years of the Marcos period were to deviate from the uniform loyalty of mainstream media practitioners to the Marcos agenda. Regime opponents were labeled as terrorists and criminals, while the regime itself was portrayed as rational, generous and representative of majority interests as well as enjoying the wide support of the citizenry.

Media acquiescence to the Marcos agenda was partly due to convenience not ignorance, which made it all the more reprehensible. But it was also based on fear, the demonstration effect of the arrests of media people as well as the repression of others being still fresh in their minds even many years after.

Media acquiescence

Media can be as guilty of serious ethical and professional offenses when they serve the interests of terrorists governments as when they allow themselves to be used by non-governmental terrorist groups.

Offenses include; a.) the fundamental one of failing to provide accurate, unbiased information to act on matters that affect their lives, b.) being part of antihuman enterprises, and c.) the use of weapons and mass destruction against unarmed and defenseless men, women and children.

Pacific News Service editor Walter Truett Anderson called the relationship between media and terrorism "a deadly love affair" referring to the tendency of US media to extensively cover the terrorism of non-governmental groups and there is ample evidenve to prove that the coverage of such terrorists acts.

Anderson added that medja should cut back on the sensationalistic reportorial orgies that accompany acts of terrorism that bring so little information to the public yet cooperate so enthusiastically with the terrorists' agendas. • US media is more enthusiastic to support for US state terrorism.

According to Chomsky, US media actions as "collusion (with the US government) in this act of large-scale terrorism.

Media and Government

Media and Government don’t belong together, for they have different intentions.

Media:

Committed to search and disseminate facts. Truth-telling is a commitment to which governments, including those that claim

adherence to democratic ideals do not necessarily subscribe

Governments:

They are not neutral entities, but represent the interests of groups dominant in society.

Often functions in the service of limited political, economic, and other interests.

Government and Terrorism

Governments’ decisions and interests are mostly affected by social and political movements.

If shown that they compromise elite interests, it results to terrorist attacks combating the said movements.

In defense to those interests, governments condemn any act of terrorism Governments usually describe their opponents as terrorists

Terrorists and rural-based guerilla (Political Terrorism 1989)

Terrorism:

Make a precise distinction between combatants and non-combatants. Usually avoid attacking the armed opponents, preferring instead to commit acts

of violence against unarmed civilians. Urban phenomenon Violence is not terrorism because it not way to convey message.

Rural-based guerilla

Wage war against weakly deployed government forces, and either by design or accident inflict some civilian casualties along the way.

Rural phenomenon.

The nature of terrorism is not inherent in the violent act itself. One and the same act can be terrorist or not, depending on the intention and the circumstance.

Acts of war:

Acts of violence that serve a clear military purpose in themselves, or are committed against the armed forces of the perpetrators’ opponents.

Terrorist acts:

Acts committed primarily to send a message

Deliberately seek unarmed non-combatants as victims in order to reinforce their message of terror.

Usually committed by small, loosely organized groups accountable to no other political authority except themselves, and without any clear social base even among those sectors of society they often claim to be fighting for.

Media reporting terrorism:

Not easily assimilated. Crucial to both the formation of public opinion and public decision-making. Consequence of misleading reporting in a country of conflict makes the

achievement of peace much more problematic than it already is to begin with.

What governments want the media to do?

Media’s active portrayal of terrorists as criminals Media’s active cooperation in preventing terrorist access to wider audiences To portray governments as rational and representative of society’s best interests Media assistance in the apprehension of terrorists.It has problems in places where press freedom is guaranteed.

To prevent media from furthering terrorist goals as a byproduct of vigorous and free reporting, Raphael F. Perl of U.S. Congressional Research Service proposed:

(1) Financing joint media/government training exercises;(2) Establishing a government terrorism information response center;(3) Promoting the use of media pools;(4) Promoting voluntary press guidelines; and(5) Monitoring terrorism against media.This is not successful both in US and Philippines.

Governments should guarantee media safety:

This is to preserve press freedom. This invites less media skepticism and a little more respect.

A government who cannot guarantee safety of media will invite media practitioners to seek those guarantees from their own news sources.

Regime terrorism

Terrorism from government against Filipinos. There is more media skepticism of government in here. Claims of human rights violations as a consequence of this terrorism are either

surely exaggerated, or the invention of “marginalized” insurgent groups. Reporting incidents under this has been either minimal, shallow, or blatantly

biased in favor of government.

To accurately and faithfully report these incidents:

Enhancement of media practitioners’ outrage, and sense of history and justice as indivisible components of the ethical and professional imperatives of the media professions.

Requires a reassessment of where media’s allegiance resides: whether in governments or in the people they claim to represent.

What Filipino media practitioners lack:

Information, which is ironic for professionals whose practice, depends upon it.

Government and media should stay clear of each other – their relationship in the reporting of terrorist incidents as well as of other forms of conflict should remain firmly adversarial and mutually skeptical.Media has the responsibility to educate themselves in a world of increasing complexity in which things are often not what they seem, but in which information has never been as crucial to the inhabitants of this planet, including that part of it known as the Philippines.