COMMENTARY: Atlanta bomb can't extinguish people's Olympic spirit

by Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the August 3, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

The racist arson attacks on Black churches, the bomb that killed 19 GIs in Saudi Arabia, the explosion that downed TWA Flight 800 and now the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta that killed two people and wounded more than 100 - all these tragedies have combined to raise the nation's consciousness of terrorism.

Not so many months ago, law enforcement officials were quick to conclude that any bomb attack was the work of "foreign terrorists." The bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building April 19, 1995, with the death of 168 men, women and children ended that.

Arrested were two white males, Timothy McVeigh and his cohort, Terry Nichols, both veterans of Operation Desert Storm, both connected to the Michigan armed militia. They are now standing trial in Denver.

Decent people can't fathom the mentality of criminal psychopaths who plant bombs knowing they will kill and maim innocent people. Yet there is a growing understanding that there is method in this madness, that terrorism is an instrument used by reactionary forces to preserve their hold on power.

Terrorism creates a pretext for policies of repression, government curbs on civil liberties and a climate of mass fear. Fascist-like politicians have always considered violence as a weapon of choice and have employed agent provocateurs to commit acts of terror. North Carolina's racist Sen. Jesse Helms two years ago warned President Clinton not to visit his state-viewed at the time as a veiled assassination threat.

The Rev. Larry Hill, pastor of the Mathew-Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, whose church was destroyed by arson told this reporter recently, "This is a tactic of intimidation to spread fear and division among us." It is an old story, he added. In the south, terror was always used to keep people away from the polls on election day.

The executive board of the United Steelworkers issued a resolution (see page 5) which warns that the church arson "hearkens back to some of the worst hatred in our modern history." adding, "forces at work in our economy fuel these crimes. With so many American and Canadians losing ground economically, the search is on for scapegoats. Some public figures are using debate on many issues - crime, welfare, public education to name a few - not to solve problems but to stoke the racial and ethnic divisions." This was a clear allusion to GOP extremists like Patrick Buchanan and Newt Gingrich.

Skipp Porteous, national director of the Institute for First Amendment Studies in Great Barrington, Mass. which does research on right-wing extremism, told the World, "When the federal building was bombed in Oklahoma City, I thought to myself, 'This is just the beginning.' My fears then were that terrorism would become as common here as it is in Europe and the Middle East."

White supremacists, he said, are driven to fury by the spirit of friendship of the Atlanta Olympic games just as Hitler was enraged when Jesse Owens rained on his "Aryan superman" parade at the 1936 Berlin Olympics."In the Atlanta games, again, the white supremacists want only 'Aryans' to win," Porteous said. "But this is a very friendly coming together of athletes of all nations. Medals are being won by people of all races and nationalities."

Morris Dees, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., also warned that the recent surge in terrorist incidents is the work of domestic Klan elements or other violent white supremacists bent on destabilizing the nation.

In the strenuous efforts to avert a terrorist attack on the Olympics, it appears that a fox was hired to guard the henhouse. The FBI is questioning an AT&T security guard in the Atlanta bombing, the same man who first reported finding the knapsack with the bomb. Now investigators think he may have planted the bomb. Similarly, the Clinton administration has brought in the CIA to investigate the recent terrorist incidents - an agency dripping with blood from its covert terrorism all over the world.

There may be an increase in the terrorist attacks as the election campaign heats up and right-wing extremists, sinking in the polls, grow more desperate to insure a low voter turnout.