“Terrorist acts cause crisis, provoke outrage, fray community ties, and undermine faith in our democratic institutions…” (Brian Jenkins).

The Lusignan Massacre will stand out as one of the most bizarre moments in Guyana’s history. And amid the aftermath of these gruesome executions of 11 innocent persons, including 5 children, we are witnessing petty politicians jockeying to position their agendas; the Opposition’s political grandstanding as staging a walk-out from the National Assembly; the Opposition’s statement that there is no security plan in its parliamentary Motion when there is a plan currently being implemented; the Opposition’s constant bitching over the Joint Services’ activities under ‘Operation Restore Order’; and the main Opposition’s refusal to acknowledge that Buxton is a safe haven for criminals.

Two weeks ago I started to write about domestic terrorism in Lusignan, and indeed, with implications for the entire country. I made the point that terrorism, according to the International Terrorism and Security Research (ITSR), is recognised as being political, psychological, and deliberate.

The Lusignan killings were intended to create a political effect through inducing racial discord and destabilising the country; to tear down the status quo. The terrorists killed the innocents in Lusignan, all of whom were strangers to the terrorists. Then, last week I addressed the issue of what the terrorists want from the media.

Today, I want to start off by ascertaining what any government would want from the media. Perl of the Congressional Research Service notes the following: (1) a government would want the media to promote its agenda and not the terrorists’ programme; (2) a government would want the media to deny publicity to the terrorists; (3) a government would want the media to image terrorists as criminals; (4) a government would want the media to help restore calm; (5) a government would want the media not to present disinformation from terrorist allies, sympathisers, and others of that ilk.

Right now, the Guyana media and the main Opposition seemingly refer to the Lusignan slaughter as the work of ordinary criminals who may have justification for such killings; and so their use of justification negates any perception or possibility that the Lusignan Massacre is the work of terrorists.

Such misapprehension, the media latently could be aiding terrorists by virtue of not seeing them as terrorists, but as ordinary criminals. Terrorism differs from ordinary criminality because it targets special populations, applying the standard of collective liability (Turk).
I want now to merely present only a few other aspects of what we know about terrorism, drawing mainly from the work of Austin Turk, University of California, Riverside.

It’s clear that the Lusignan terrorists used the massacre to manipulate public opinion, in order to advance their political goals; killing mainly Indians and children helped to strengthen their capacity to manipulate such public perceptions. How so?

You see bringing an ethnic dimension to the slaughter would certainly provoke emotional outbursts; we saw protesters expressing their anger; and then racial discord between Indians and Africans was the logical accompaniment to this anger, producing in its wake a psychological end product, that is, terror (fear and intimidation).

And so when fear and intimidation take over, the terrorists’ capacity to manipulate public opinion becomes stronger; racial discord under such conditions is more likely to happen. But the Guyanese people continue to take a firm stand against racial discord.

In addition, the violence unleashed through terrorism has little to do with poverty, unemployment, inadequate education, and other indicators of deprivation; the violence in Lusignan was clearly a political option that the terrorists exercised; a political option that included destructive violence.

Turk notes: “Terrorist acts are political, rarely involving psychopathology or material deprivation” (Turk). Terrorists tactically and strategically apply violence in the process of championing their political cause. And so there cannot be any justification for the Lusignan Massacre on grounds of marginalisation or even discrimination…TO BE CONTINUED.