Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

lxx • INTRODUCTIONExamples would include the Tonton Macoutes of the former “PapaDoc” Duvalier regime in Haiti, used to terrorize political opponentsof the regime. In Nicaragua under Sandinista rule, the turbas divinas(divine mobs) and Iran’s hezbollahi street mobs are also examples ofstate-directed and state-controlled terror groups.Revolutionary Actors: They use terrorism to overthrow a regime orto force a regime to change fundamentally how it conducts its publicbusiness, or else to establish a new state within the territory of an existingstate. Although nationalist insurgents seeking to secede from anexisting nation-state appear to pursue a more modest goal than thosewho seek an overall sociopolitical transformation within that nationstate,both nationalist secessionists and self-styled revolutionaries areseeking fundamental changes in the status quo, which is basically theessence of revolution. Radical socialism and radical nationalism maynot resemble each other in substance, but if the goal that each strivesto achieve is so radically different from the existing state that realizingit requires the end of the current state, then each would be equallyrevolutionary.An example of this can be found in the relationship of two groups, theRevolutionary People’s Liberation Party (DHKP), formerly known asDev Sol, and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia(ASALA), with respect to the existing Turkish Republic. The formerwould overthrow its current regime to establish a Marxist-Leniniststate within the existing Turkish borders. The latter would establish anew Armenian state within the eastern one-third of the modern Turkishstate’s territory. Both are counted as “revolutionary” groups since eachseeks an absolute transformation of the existing status quo in Turkey,one redefining the social and economic system within Turkey and theother redefining the scope of Turkish jurisdiction and sovereignty overterritory and nationalities.Entrepreneurial Actors: They are the transnational terroristgroups that have achieved a degree of group identity, making themautonomous from any given nation-state. While Wilkinson andSchultz count ethnic nationalist terror groups as representing formsof subrevolutionary terrorism, under the classification system used inthis text they would be considered examples of revolutionary groupsrather than entrepreneurial groups. In effect, entrepreneurial groupseither hire themselves out for service to various regimes on a contractbasis or else pursue an agenda of limited goals distinct from any