Terrorism and semantics

It was a cliché of the 1960s, the great age of decolonisation, that one man’s freedom fighter was another man’s terrorist. That duality had earlier produced the possibly apocryphal story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt declaring in 1939 that Nicaragua’s dictator Anastasio Somoza “may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch!”

All that came to mind listening to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s spirited demand at the United Nations for the Comprehensive Conven-tion on International Terrorism drafted in 2002 to be finalised. As the victim of repeated attacks, India is understandably anxious for a global arrangement to criminalise all forms of international terrorism and deny terrorists, their financiers and supporters access to funds, arms, safe havens and political patronage. But Nawaz Sharif’s speech also recalled that 1960s contradiction. Despite claiming to suffer terrorist attacks, Pakistan’s Prime Minister left no one in doubt that he regards people who kill, bomb, maim and destroy in Jammu and Kashmir as freedom fighters.

Hyperbole enjoys a hallowed tradition. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I during which Britain exalted terrorism to an instrument of state policy, thereby setting a global precedent. The British foreign office’s Arab Bureau employed T.E. Lawrence to instigate and lead a secessionist revolt against the Ottoman Empire under cover of archaeological excavations. Lawrence’s guerrillas harried the Turkish Army, sabotaged the strategic Hejaz railway Ottoman troops used to control rebellious Arabs, captured Aqaba port and attacked Damascus and other Turkish garrisons.

Whatever pieties politicians of many hues might mouth in many tongues in New York, no government will surrender the right to mount similar campaigns against perceived adversaries. Indian allegations of Chinese abetment of Naga rebels were matched by China’s charges of Indian complicity in American-sponsored operations in Tibet. If Pakistanis suspect India’s Research and Analysis Wing is active in Balochistan, Indians are convinced the troubles in Jammu and Kashmir are the handiwork of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The “foreign hand” — the phrase Indira Gandhi made notorious — is everywhere.

That’s why UN members can’t agree on a blanket ban on terrorism. They have agreed to measures to protect diplomats, prevent hostage-taking, curb financing and to a raft of laws regarding terrorism in the air, at airports, at sea and even on continental shelves. Groups of countries like Saarc, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organisation of American States, the Islamic Conference, European Union, Arab League and Organisation of African Unity have taken protective steps. But talks on the comprehensive convention Mr Modi wants remain deadlocked over definition. No one can or will spell out what distinguishes a “terrorist organisation” from a “liberation movement”.

There are other complications. Chhattisgarh has demonstrated how gory internal terrorism can be. Critics of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act accuse the Indian Army of terrorism in Manipur. British forces were similarly blamed in Northern Ireland, as American troops were at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Some speak of “state terrorism”. Carlos Diaz-Paniagua, UN coordinator of negotiations on the proposed convention, says an instrument of criminal law cannot permit any ambiguities. It must respect “legal precision, certainty, and fair-labelling of the criminal conduct — all of which emanate from the basic human rights obligation to observe due process”. It cannot be a political definition.

This isn’t the only will-o’-the-wisp India is chasing. Manmohan Singh recalled at the UN last year that 25 years earlier Rajiv Gandhi had denounced nuclear deterrence as the “ultimate expression of the philosophy of terrorism, holding humanity hostage to the presumed security needs of a few”. He then proposed a three-stage process of total disarmament to create a nuclear-free world under a universal non-discriminatory regime. It would have been heresy to repeat in India the whispers abroad that Gandhi might not have championed the ideal of disarmament so fervently if the existing nuclear regime hadn’t been discriminatory.

Atal Behari Vajpayee remedied that in 1998, but governments, like people, need ideals to follow. Leaders must also inspire domestic constituencies and earn the admiration of the global community. Those twin obligations demand many rhetorical flourishes in the pursuit of unattainable goals. So far as protection against terrorism goes, however, the answer lies less in an unenforceable international convention than in practical vigilance.

In many ways Israel is not a model member of the global community, but it triumphantly demonstrates that self-help is the best help. A country under constant threat cannot afford to be squeamish: it can survive only by taking the law into its own hands.

The writer is a senior journalist, columnist and author