Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

142 • DEMOCRATIC FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINEto their politics or for purposes of political expediency. Mass murderis the indiscriminate killing of any person or group of people by agovernment. Democide and each of its components can be viewed asexamples of state terror, whether the killings are accomplished byregular armed forces or by irregular militias or mercenaries. Rummelpresents persuasive statistics to argue that democide, rather thanwarfare or nonstate terrorism, has been the leading cause of death bypolitical violence over the last 100 years. The results of Rummel’s initialresearch were published under the title “War Isn’t This Century’sBiggest Killer,” in the 7 July 1986 issue of the Wall Street Journal, inwhich Rummel determined that democide was directly responsible forover 169 million human deaths in the 20th century as opposed to only35.6 million deaths due to the direct effects of warfare. As of May2005 and after having reviewed more than 8,000 documents, includingmany released only since 2000, Rummel revised the democidetotal for the 20th century upward to 262 million deaths, over six timesas many as were killed by the direct effects of warfare.DEMOCRATIC FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALES-TINE (DFLP). The DFLP is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist guerrillaorganization and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) memberthat advocates the creation of an independent Palestinian state on theWest Bank and Gaza Strip. It also advocates revolutionary workingclassstruggle throughout the Arab world as part of an internationalanti-imperialist and anticapitalist revolution but has limited its ownuse of armed struggle or terrorism to achieving the independent Palestinianstate. The DFLP was formerly supported by Libya and SouthYemen while its major state sponsor was Syria; however, the DFLPlost Syrian support when it refused to join the Syrian-sponsoredNational Salvation Front in 1987. Since then the DFLP has triedto limit its dependence on any external sponsors. DFLP membersreceived Soviet training and Cuban aid and are believed to have hadcontact with the Sandinistas.The DFLP was born out of a division between extreme leftists andPan-Arabists within George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberationof Palestine (PFLP). This factionalism escalated to armedclashes in Amman, Jordan, during February 1969 until al Fatahintervened, recognizing the breakaway leftists as a group separatefrom the PFLP. Until August 1974 the group was known as the