Terror victims unite in quiet war on terrorism
Source: etaiwan
Victims of terror attacks and their families could become a powerful
tool for states' attempts to combat future attacks, according to an
organizer of a conference bringing together those who suffered injuries
and loss from terrorists.
"When victims of terror attacks are
recognized, cared for and respected, they can be a force in their own
right and be a useful tool to states fighting terrorism," said Guillaume
Denoix de Saint Marc, head of the French Association of Terrorism
Victims.
He spoke as hundreds of terror attacks victims from
around the world are in Paris for the 7th International Congress of
Victims of Terrorism, which ends Saturday.
Those that unleashed
horror on those attending the three-day meeting include an alphabet soup
of terror groups from around the world: from ETA in Spain, to
al-Qaida's affiliate in North Africa and FARC in Colombia.
Denoix
de Saint Marc said the gathering "gives the victims a chance to speak,
not to hear them cry but to show the strength of life."
Those
gathered want their voices to reach youth tempted to take a radical path
and ensure that attacks that have struck them and their families are
not forgotten.
Esther Saez was riding a suburban Madrid train to
work on March 11, 2004, when bombs ripped through her carriage. The
attack was one of the four blasts on passenger trains in the Spanish
capital that day, which killed 190 people and wounded 1,800 others.
Saez was badly wounded, spent a week in a coma, had three heart attacks and initially could not remember her two children.
"We
must go beyond pain," Saez said. "We can't accept that terrorists
create dead survivors. We must live ... or the terrorists win."
Making
the face of the victim visible, and their personal accounts of attacks
public, may help educate youth to the horrors of terrorism and combat
their temptation to join radical movements, Denoix de Saint Marc said.
Testimony
from several victims underscored another problem faced by those
affected: the need for a quick access to expensive hospital and
psychological treatment, and the vast differences from
country-to-country, with Israel providing quick aid to all victims of
terror attacks and Colombia making little available.
Cherifa
Kheddar, head of the Our Algeria association, said it is vital to align
medical, psychological and social benefits for terror victims in
countries hit by terrorism. In most countries nothing is in place, she
said.
Kheddar, who lost two siblings in the 1990s to Islamist
extremists, also said that it is important to keep the memory of those
who died alive.
"We don't want vengeance," she said. "This combat
against forgetting gives society the means to justify its fight against
barbarism," she said. Terrorists must know, "You gave death but you
didn't destroy life."
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