Targeted killing

Jul 25, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The recent chilling revelations of two professional assassins have brought to the fore the fact that assassinations and targeted killings have become a stable feature of Guyana’s socioeconomic landscape.
Targeted killing is the premeditated killing of an individual by a state organization or institution outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield. Targeted killings were employed extensively by death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Haiti within the context of civil unrest and war during the 1980s and 1990s. Targeted killings have also been used in Somalia, Rwanda, and in the Balkans during the Yugoslav Wars. And by the United States, as with the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, and Osama bin Laden. Targeted killings have also been used by narcotics traffickers. (Wikipedia)
Whereas, an Assassination is defined as the deliberate killing of a ‘prominent person’ usually for payment; an assassination may be prompted by religious, political, ideological, military, financial or motives of ill will. It is an act that may be done for financial gain, to avenge a grievance, from a desire to acquire fame or notoriety, or because of a military or security services command to carry out the homicide. Both targeted killings and assassinations are sometimes carried out by state organizations or their affiliates.
JUSTIFICATION
Murder is not morally justifiable. Self-defence may be argued if the victim has knowledge which may destroy the resistance organization if divulged. Assassination of persons responsible for atrocities or reprisals may be regarded as just punishment. While killing a political leader whose burgeoning career is a clear and present danger to the cause of freedom may be held necessary. But assassination can seldom be employed with a clear conscience.
CLASSIFICATIONS
The techniques employed will vary according to whether the subject is unaware of his danger, aware but unguarded, or guarded. They will also be affected by whether or not the assassin is to be killed with the subject hereafter, assassinations in which the subject is unaware will be termed “simple”; those where the subject is aware but unguarded will be termed “chase”; those where the victim is guarded will be termed “guarded.”
If the assassin is to die with the subject, the act will be called “lost.” If the assassin is to escape, the adjective will be “safe.” It should be noted that no compromises should exist here. The assassin must not fall alive into enemy hands.
A further type division is caused by the need to conceal the fact that the subject was actually the victim of assassination, rather than an accident or natural causes. If such concealment is desirable the operation will be called “secret”; if concealment is immaterial, the act will be called “open”; while if the assassination requires publicity to be effective, it will be termed “terroristic.”
Generally speaking, unless one is a highly prized assassin who works independently, one usually has a specific shelf life depending on the types of assignments carried out; once you would have worked on six high profile projects, common sense dictates that you should be gotten rid of; because if you are convicted for any of them, a domino effect will ensue and implicate dozens of people.
This is the dilemma that all current whistleblowers in Guyana face. Without a doubt, the killing of Ronald Waddell and Courtney Crum-Ewing were clearly assignations, and explains one reason why we have been having so many execution-type killings as of late, the objective being to silence the assassins before they start talking.
Clairmont Featherstone

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