Revenge killings, from Pakistan to Palestine to Papua New Guinea

He killed nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11 2001, earlier this month we killed him, ten days after that his followers attacked recruits at a paramilitary training center in Pakistan, killing 80 men.

“We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident,” said a Taliban spokesman.

The men who lost their lives in this revenge killing were part of the Frontier Constabulary, an ill-equipped force that has been given the challenging task of confronting Pakistan’s Al Qaeda element. The group receives US funding. The men had just completed a six month training and were about to go on break. They were gathered at the training center’s main gate and were in the process of filing into minivans for the return trip home to their families, many bore gifts. They were in high spirits, said one recruit. Some were seated inside the vans, others were still loading luggage atop the vehicles. The two suicide bombers wore explosive vests packed with ball bearings and nails and detonated their devices one after the other. At least ten vans were destroyed, showering the scene with shards of metal, glass and blood. “I cannot forget the cries of my friends before they died,” one 21 year old survivor told reporters.

LEARN ABOUT THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF GRIEF

And if he truly does not forget, will he too seek vengeance? Will there be another blast sometime in the not too distant future, and more bloodshed? Revenge may be sweet, but it is also bitter and bloody and as of late, an increasingly common topic in the news.

In Libya, the bound and gagged bodies of Colonel Qaddafi’s internal security officials have been turning up in morgues as well as ditches on the side of the road. Many people suspect rebels may be settling old scores. In the past several decades numerous Libyans were jailed without trial, others died in prison or were murdered outright by the government. Many people still remember the killing of a Benghazi man named Mohamed al-Hami in 1996, after murdering him security forces reportedly crucified him then paraded his body around the city in the back of a pickup truck. “The killings,” noted a New York Times article from last week, referring to the gagged and bound bodies turning up across the country, “appear to be rooted in revenge.”

Last Sunday in East Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets on mourners attending the funeral of a 16 year old Palestinian boy said to have been shot in the stomach by a Jewish settler during a dispute. As mourners marched to a mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, they chanted, “God is greatest” (Allahu Akbar) and “With our blood and our soul, we shall sacrifice for the martyr.” In an attempt to quell the possibility of revenge, Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd. Israel has been on high alert for vengeance killings recently, last week marked the 63rd anniversary of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

READ ABOUT MULTICULTURAL, OR “ADAPTIVE” FUNERALS

Revenge killings take place in the US too. Earlier this month in New Orleans, a 26 year old named Derrick François knocked on the front door of his good childhood friend, Chandrick Harris, whose mother answered the door. She didn’t think twice about letting Derrick in. He proceeded to her son’s bedroom and shot him dead. It was revenge; just the day before, Derrick’s younger brother was murdered by a man he believed to be connected to Chandrick.

One of the most incredible stories of revenge comes from a 2008 New Yorker article by anthropologist Jared Diamond which tracks a complex case from the highlands of Papua New Guinea. It began when a pig from one tribe trampled through a garden belonging to someone from a rival tribe. When the garden owner demanded compensation the pig owner refused, so he assaulted him. The epic revenge saga that followed lasted over four years and left 17 people dead. Diamond juxtaposes this story with that of his late father-in-law, a Polish Jew named Jozef whose entire family was killed during World War II. When Jozef returns as a soldier to his village he is led to the man who had been in charge of the group that killed his parents. Handed a pistol and encouraged by those around him to seek revenge, Jozef cannot bring himself to do it, an action he regretted till the day he died: “Every day, still, before going to sleep, I think of my mother’s death, and of my having let her murderer go.”