LONDON May 4: Britain has the IRA. Italy s home-grown terrorists called themseh< s tl»e Red Brigades. In Germany it was the Red Anny Faction reports AP

With mixed success. European governments have been cracking down on home-grown terrorists lor decades

As US President Clinton pushes for anti terrorist laws in response to the Oklahoma City bombing and America confronts domestic terror, civil rights activists and security experts in Europe caution that tougher laws aren t always the lies, weapon

"The key to defeating paramilitary groups of any kind In a democracy is to Isolate them and to help the communities In which they operate," said Andrew Puddephatt

leader of the British civil rights group Liberty

Introducing a climate of repression into an open society that would be a heavy prke to pay for a very uncertain

Security experts say the key to preventing attacks is effee Live spying which Clinton en visages in seeking greater powers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct wiretaps and infiltrate Ame rica s right wing underground armies

Supporters of this policy note the great difficulty Japa nese police have had in collecting information on sus pects in the subway gas attacks in Tokyo and other cities. Police there are barred from operating electronic surveil lance or working undercover

But without pinpoint knowledge about groups with clearly identified goals security-sweeps can be heavy-handed operations that create sympathy for the targets.

In 1974. Britain tries to come down hard on the Irish Republican Army after it killed 19 people and wounded more than 180 in pub bombings in Birmingham England

Facing torrents of public-anger Parliament the follow ing week passed the Preven tton ot Terrorism Act, giving police powers to interrogate suspects for up to a week without warrant or legal repre sentation.

Eleven people including some of the first arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act — served sentences

up to 16 years in prison before being acquitted on appeal.

While tough measures have crushed some groups, like the Red Brigades in Italy and the Red Army Faction In Germany, groups such as the IRA in Northern Ireland have thrived from governmental overreac -lion and oppression.

Widespread arrests and searches, and the abolition of jury trials, fueled sympathy and recruits and exposed Britain . to international criticism.

"Ireland is a very small place with seme fairly identlfi able terrorists said Col Andrew Duncan, an anti-terrorism expert for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies

"America, by contrast, is an enormous country with a fairly unidentifiable fringe of

extremists. So it doesn't matter how many FBI agents you deploy Intelligence is the key." he said.

Spain, which has no specific anti-terrorist laws, un dermlned support for the Basque separatist group ETA by returning power to local politicians.

Italian authorities locked up thousands of people without trial as part of a successful programme to extinguish the left-wing Red Brigades, but also adopted tactics to sow dissension within terrorist ranks

After the Red Brigades killed 85 people in Bologna railway station in 1980. police offered reduced sentences or even freedom to Red Brigade turncoats. The same approach is now being used to under-

mine the Sicilian Mafia.

In Germany, authorities long have had powers to outlaw groups and to Imprison members for up to 15 years. Such laws have been used against the burgeoning neo-Nazi movement since 1993

In America. Duncan said, it's too soon for large-scale action against an ill-defined en emy within

Groups like the Michigan Militia are gun clubs. They're not a recognised government paramilitary group and they're not yet considered terrorists, so it s a difficult situation." said Duncan.

"The more you accuse them of being terrorists and make a fuss of Infiltrating them, ihe more they will become what you accuse them of." he said