Definition of terrorism and its causes.

  

Date Posted: 10/3/2011 11:52:17 AM

Posted By: andileb  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 116

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There is no single accepted definition of terrorism and there is also no universally accepted definition of terrorists. The United Nations, has not come up or adopted a single definition of terrorism and therefore one needs to consider some of the definitions that have been adopted in international and national legal instruments. The international instruments comprise agreements such as the Montreal Convention For the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Civil Aviation 1972. [Montreal Convention] in this convention terrorism was defined as an act of aviation sabotage.

Another international convention also attempted to address terrorism is the Hague Convention For the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft''s: (The Hague Convention) the Act said “Any person who on board an aircraft in flight
(a) Unlawfully, by force or threat of force or by any other form of intimidation seizes or exercises control of that aircraft or attempts to perform such act or;

They were trying to define terrorism by using the word “unlawfully, or by use of force, seizing or exercising control of an aircraft in flight.”The UK Terrorism Act of 2000 has a very long definition " … threat constitutes terrorism, serious violence against a person, creates safety to the public..." The Uganda Anti-terrorism Act of 2000 states "Threats or use of force or violence against a group of people stand out in the definition." The United States Patriot Act attempts to define terrorism and the Kenyan Bill defines terrorism in very similar language.

From the definitions in the legal instruments, we can agree that an act of terrorism refers to the threat or use of violence in order to create extreme fear and anxiety in a target group so as to coerce them to meet the political, religious or ideological objectives of the perpetrators.

Causes

of terrorism

A terrorist must indeed have a reason and in many cases the motive is political.

There are situations where some people flee countries for political havens, political turmoil.

There are also cases where terrorist attacks are carried for transportation purposes.

Mentally insane persons have also played their role in advance of terrorism.

Ideological antagonism is one of those factors that force people to carry out terrorist activities such as those who believe in capitalism and other in communism.

Ideologies can either be political or religious.

Criminal reasons include cases where criminal escaping from one country to another hijack airplanes or are for purposes of personal material gain.

Terrorism activities have been on the rise especially in the coast of Somalia this is necessitated by pirates activities.

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