Refugee camps a breeding ground for terror

Updated September 17, 2010 12:13:43

Suicide bombing attacks have become a weapon of choice among terrorist groups because of their ability to cause mayhem and fear.

Between 1981 and 2006, 1200 suicide attacks constituted 4 percent of all terrorist attacks in the world and killed 14,599 people or 32 percent of all terrorism related deaths. The question is why?

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Riaz Hassan, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Sociology, Flinders University in Adelaide, author of "Life as a Weapon: The Global Rise of Suicide Bombings"

HASSAN: Invariably the most important factor is the presence of endemic conflict in the country, which pitches the state against non-state actors who are seeking some kind of solution to either territorial problem or political entitlements dispossession and that conflict remains unresolved for long time and over a period of time, then groups that are aggrieved begin to use various tactics the beginning, protesting, organising politically and eventually they resort to weapons like suicide bombing. So the most important factor which gives rise to suicide bombing is the presence of an intractable endemic conflict in zones in places where suicide bombings have occurred and in my study, I have focused on five such sites and they are Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Palestine and in the last 25 years 90 per cent of all suicide bombings occurred in these countries.

LAM: So is that the common thread in all these five countries that you studied that people feel they have nowhere else to turn and they are using suicide bombings as a weapon of last resort?

PROFESSOR RIAZ HASSAN: That's more or less is the situation. There are variations in each of the five sites. In Sri Lanka, it is the political entitlements, dispute or political entitlements between Tamils and Sinhalese. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is essentially dispossession of seeing people feel they have been dispossessed of certain power arrangements and similar in Iraq, whereas Israel is territorial conflict, so there are certain variations, but essentially, these variations do not detract from the general point that I have made. It is the presence of endemic conflict, which results in large scale displacement of people into refugee camps and also incarceration of people who are regarded as insurgents and the treatment of insurgents in the prisons and as well as the insurgents treatment of the state actors.

LAM: What about the individuals themselves? What drives them to make this ultimate sacrifice, if you like, for their cause and indeed, are these individual choices or have the been brainwashed by group societies into taking this drastic action?

HASSAN: Very few. The evidence that I have suggest that the recruitment, the participation in suicide bombings is a very carefully orchestrated process and it is also very carefully evaluated by the individuals. I think the general point, basically my study argues that the brainwashing hypothesis really does not stand up to scrutiny.

LAM: So these individuals are actually intelligent thinking individuals who make a very conscious choice?

HASSAN: Again it varies from country to country. But for example, in the case of Sri Lanka and Palestine, Iraq and I think it applies also to Afghanistan and Pakistan. By and large these people have above average education, they are single male, most of them, and they come from not poor backgrounds, but relatively sort of lower income, middle class, and some of them actually quite well do to background and almost all of them have been educated in secular schools. And, they are not psychologically impaired. There is no evidence that they are they are mad, psychologically impaired, that they are morally deficient. It is a weapon of the organisation in which individuals are asked to participate, and very often the other motives which lie behind are politics, humiliation, revenge, retaliation and sometimes altruism.

LAM: Riaz Hassan, is the character of suicide bombing changing - for instance, are women becoming increasingly involved?

HASSAN: It depends on the countries where suicide bombings have occurred. For example, in countries where women participate in public affairs more, then there is evidence that women actually also participate in suicide bombing. For example, in Sri Lanka, about 20 per cent of them or a least a sizable number of them are women in Pakistan and Afghanistan hardly any. In Chechnya, almost half of them. a quite substantial number of them are women. So it depends on the role of women in the society in which the conflict is taking place. The women have greater public profile, a role in public affairs, then they participate more so than in other places. But a large majority of suicide attacks are carried out by men, by young men.

LAM: In security terms, are there effective ways for governments to address this phenomenon, to fight suicide bombings?

HASSAN: Well yes, the whole point of my study was to provide some insight as to what we can do in order to protect public from the scourge of suicide bombing. But I think if we just take two things, try to get rid of the refugee camps and institute policies to treat individuals in prisons with certain degree of ... ot to violate their human rights.

LAM: When you say try to get rid of the refugee camps, you are not suggesting, for instance, the Afghan refugees who are being so slowly processed in Australian camps, that if they do get out, they might go on to become suicide bombers?

HASSAN: No, I am suggesting that the refugee camps are the breeding grounds of recruitment, are the main centres of recruitment of suicide bombing and I am not suggesting the refugee camps in Pakistan or the Afghanis or the refugee camps of Palestinians, refugee camps of Sri Lankans, of course the conflict has now ended there but it has not disappeared. I am talking of the refugee camps which have resulted from large scale displacement of people,

LAM: Such as in the occupied territories in the Middle East.

PROFESSOR RIAZ HASSAN: That's correct. In the countries where conflict is taking place.