UN sidelined in global war against terrorism


	December 18, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

UN sidelined in global war against terrorism
By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK - When the United States began military action against Afghanistan in October, it assigned the United Nations a supporting role in its war to root out terrorism.

In the weeks before, the 189-member General Assembly and 15-seat Security Council had issued strong condemnations of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and agreed to cooperate in the global war against terrorism, essentially leaving unchallenged the notion that Washington would lead this fight. This might have been a lapse or the result of sympathy with the victim of devastating violence. In any event, its shortcomings would become readily evident in short order.

By the time Washington launched its air and missile strikes, it had brushed aside the world body's qualms, stating flatly that it was acting in self-defense and therefore did not need Security Council authorization to wage war on terrorists. Thus, the primary UN role so far has been to preside over the formation of an interim government in Kabul - even this, however, mostly under the watchful eyes of the United States. The United Nations also has been entrusted with the task of leading the global effort to rebuild Afghanistan - expected to cost more than US$5 billion initially.

However, the key UN assignments fail to go beyond this. A proposed peacekeeping force for post-war Afghanistan will not be a UN blue-helmet operation but a multinational effort led by British troops, albeit with Security Council authorization.

The strain of marginalization is showing.

After the initial bombing of Afghanistan, Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that military strikes would only undermine the international coalition against terrorism. But the United States went ahead all the same. By last week, Annan took to repeating earlier cautions against extending the US war to Iraq once Washington is done with Afghanistan. "My position on that has been clear: I don't think it would be wise and I should not advise it," he said.

Member states, meanwhile, have kept up a steady campaign of calling on the United States - directly and indirectly - to play by the world body's rules.

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain said last week that it is necessary to continue to act under the umbrella of the United Nations. "Terrorism has become a universal issue and had to be handled as such," he said.

Ambassador Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla of Cuba said any use of force against terrorism would require "explicit and previous authorization of the Security Council, as provided in the UN Charter" and challenged US assertions that the existing two resolutions on Afghanistan suffice to provide such authority. Rodriguez Parilla further accused the United States of using its veto in the Security Council in a "selective and capricious" manner to condemn only some forms of terrorism while preventing international action to protect Palestinians from "state terrorism" by Israel. "The Security Council has been pushed to give legal support to hegemonic and arbitrary decisions by the ruling power, which violates the UN charter and international law, and trespasses on the sovereignty of all states," he declared.

Washington has scoffed at the charge and is supported by the British, whose ambassador here, Jeremy Stock, has argued that debate over definitions of "terrorism" and how this differs from "freedom fighting" is unnecessary because "what looks, smells and kills like terorrism, is terrorism".

Nevertheless, even Stock has acknowledged that actions can be characterized as terrorism "for metaphorical and rhetorical force".

"This is a highly controversial and subjective area, on which, because of the legitimate spectrum of viewpoints within the United Nations membership, we will never reach full consensus," he added.

Indeed, the urgent need for a definition of "terrorism" has split the United Nations even though it already has 12 conventions dealing with various aspects of terrorism, including hijackings, hostage-taking and bombings. Despite the world's preoccupation with terrorism, inability to agree on what exactly this is led last month to member states' failure to pass a 13th convention - the omnibus "Comprehensive Convention Against Terrorism", described as the mother of all anti-terrorist conventions.

Chiefly, the United States refused to accept the argument that the Islamist group Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are fighting against Israeli occupation of their respective lands. Washington also has rejected the argument that continued Israeli military attacks on Palestinians' home and offices are acts of "state terrorism".

Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh of India - a country that has failed to win US military support in its fight against "terrorists" in Kashmir - took a swipe at Washington when he complained last month: "You cannot say terrorism is bad terrorism when it occurs in New York and good terrorism when it occurs elsewhere."

Such indignation aside, the world body has had to content itself with drumming up more signatures and ratifications for the existing conventions.

In contrast, the United States has continued to move boldly on several fronts: pressuring governments to freeze financial assets suspected of being tied to potential terrorists; introducing broad and profound domestic curbs on the rights of immigrants, foreigners suspected of terrorism, and US citizens; and providing increased economic or military aid to countries such as Pakistan and Oman in exchange for their cooperation.

For all this activity, US President George W Bush can no more "rid the world of evildoers" than he can stock it with saints, said Arundhati Roy, a prize-winning Indian author and prominent public advocate. "Terrorism is transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke, Pepsi, or Nike," Roy said. "At the first sign of trouble, terrorists pull up stakes and move their 'factories' from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multinationals." At any rate, she added, "terrorism is the symptom, not the disease".

This is a sentiment that resonates with Annan, who from the outset has urged attention to what he calls the "root causes" of terrorism, including injustice and inequality. What success the United Nations will have in pressing this agenda in the coming year remains to be seen.

(Inter Press Service)