Clarifying terror once and for all

Terrorism is as old as humankind but the world is yet to come out with a universally accepted and binding definition of this unsettling phenomenon. So bamboozling is this mind-numbing thing that even the UN has either shied away from the challenge of defining it or has chosen to keep the question open, may be out of fear of triggering a Babel of Voices over the issue, which would prove more confusing and confounding than enlightening. However, such evasiveness is proving very costly, as modern international political history proves, and the earlier there is an international consensus over the definition of terrorism, the better, we believe.

Although a widely accepted definition of terrorism or that of its perpetrator, the terrorist, is continuing to, apparently, defy the human's defining capability, most people recognize terror with the least difficulty when they see it. When Sri Lankans began to be exposed to the ghoulish and gruesome doings of the LTTE, for instance, from the early nineteen eighties and beyond, they did not require any guidance whatsoever on recognizing terrorism for what it was. Mangled and dismembered human bodies in the hundreds lying in pools of blood among buildings and vehicles ripped apart by bombs, villagers savaged beyond recognition by marauding Tigers and left to be consumed by fierce flames enveloping entire settlements and garishly scarred and disfigured once sleeping women and children, are just a few of the inhuman excesses of the LTTE, that remind us of what terrorism is all about. Although it has apparently proved so difficult to put into words, even the most simple-minded would define terror as the taking, harming or maiming of human life for a political purpose.

It could be defined so simply. Yet, the international community has chosen to veer away from this task, for some seemingly unaccountable reason. Nor has it gone on to enshrine this definition in the Charters of the world, which have contributed substantially towards enriching International Law and the Rule of Law. Ascertaining the reasons for this evasiveness would itself constitute an important area of research in international politics. Nevertheless, the point needs to be made that if the world is in need of a viable definition of terrorism it could easily acquire one and incorporate it into both international and local law.

As the Lankan state is currently arguing, if the UN Charter had the services of a simple and clear definition of terrorism, fighting terror and defusing it would not be proving so arduous an undertaking. There would not be any ambiguities in any quarter about the concept of terror and fighting it concertedly and collectively would have proved comparatively easy. As Minister Dulles Alahapperuma recently pointed out, if terrorism had been incontrovertibly and clearly defined and incorporated into the UN Charter, the international community would not be in the dilemma of denouncing the LTTE's terroristic practices and of white-washing the Tigers as a 'disciplined' militant organization.

These issues should impress on the world's hegemonic powers in particular, the heavy drawbacks in adopting the dual-faced policy of 'running with the hare and hunting with the hound' in international politics. The end in no way justifies the means. Human life anywhere and in whatever circumstances is sacred and needs to be revered. Human life cannot be offered at the altar of political causes, grandiose or otherwise. However, the state possesses a legitimate coercive capability which could be put at the service of national security and defence.

Today, the Darusman Report is exerting a most divisive impact on Lanka's relations with sections of the international community. One of the chief reasons for this state of affairs is the inability of the states of the world to arrive at a consensual definition of terrorism. If the world had named and shamed groups, such as the LTTE, as terrorists long ago, the phenomenon of terror would have been well under control and set-ups such as the LTTE would never have raised their ugly heads.

However, sections of the world community allowed such invaluable opportunities to slip through their fingers by unendingly splitting hairs over how terrorism needed to be defined. On the part of some big powers, these seeming lapses were self-serving. This is because it was in their vital interests to back organizations and states which were very clearly terroristic in nature.

Accordingly, definitions on terrorism were delayed indefinitely. There could not be any quibbling on this issue any longer. Violence and terror could in no way be justified. Democratic principles and practices are the sole means to power and these rules need to be sacrosanct.