POLITICS: Sri Lanka Seeks Global Action Against Terrorism

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 23 1998 (IPS) - Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, whose country has been racked by separatist violence for 14 years, is seeking collective international action to fight the “scourge of terrorism.”

Kumaratunga told reporters Tuesday that she strongly favours an international conference on terrorism – a proposal backed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Such ideas have been been kicked around for several years, but have remained bogged down at the United Nations because delegates have failed to reach consensus on defining “terrorists” and “freedom-fighters.”

Kumaratunga warned the U.N. last year that effective international action against terrorism was being frustrated “through sterile philosophical debate about the nature of terrorism.”

“That philosophical debate is no longer necessary,” she says, particularly in view of the spread of terrorism to the far corners of the globe. “I am sure the international community is now capable of separating the terrorists from the freedom fighters.”

She singles out the Palestinians as freedom-fighters and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as a legitimate political organisation.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is fighting for a separate nation state in northern Sri Lanka, has claimed common cause with the PLO, the African National Congress (ANC) and the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO). Both the ANC and SWAPO fought successful battles against the former white minority regime of South Africa.

But Kumaratunga says that “the LTTE’s claim to be a liberation organisation is an insult to organisations such as ANC and SWAPO, which courageously struggled against minority rule, racism and oppression, and with equal courage, negotiated the creation of a democratic, non-racial states…”

Last year the United States formally declared the LTTE a “terrorist organisation” clamping down on its activities and banning the entry of LTTE activists into the country.

Kumaratunga says a negotiated settlement remains open if the LTTE “eschews terrorism and its bloody call for a separate state…Nowhere in the world is there a terrorist organisation like the LTTE which kills civilians and forcibly recruits children transforming them into human bombs on suicide missions.”

Kumaratunga says her government is firmly committed to redressing ethnic grievances peacefully through political discussion and negotiations in which the leaders of all ethnic communities, political parties and other groups participate.

Last year the 185-member General Assembly unanimously adopted a new U.N. Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. Sri Lanka was the first country to sign the convention followed by the U.S., Britain, France and Germany, among others. But only 30 of the 185 member states have signed the convention, which needs 22 ratifications to become international law.

As of last week, no country has ratified it.

Kumaratunga says adoption of the convention has been a considerable moral victory for the international community in its fight against terrorism.

“Sri Lanka is hopeful that all states will speedily take steps to implement the necessary domestic legislation, aimed at giving effect to the commitments made in the convention, in order to ensure that terrorists are neither provided safe haven nor permitted to raise funds, within the borders of one state to sustain terrorist activities in another state,” she adds.

In his address to the General Assembly Monday, U.S. President Bill Clinton called for collective international action against terrorism which “should be at the top of our agenda.” He listed several “common obligations” on the part of the international community, chief among them, “to give terrorists no support, no sanctuary and no financial assistance.”

In the context of the recent terror bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton called on all member states to act together to step up extradition and prosecution, and appealed to them to sign all global anti-terrorist conventions. He also wanted member states to promote stronger domestic laws and control and manufacture and export of explosives.

Tracing the causes of terrorism, Clinton said, “We must also acknowledge that there are are economic sources of this rage as well.

“Poverty, inequality, masses of disenfranchised young people are fertile fields for the siren call of terrorists and their claims of advancing social justice. But depravation cannot justify destruction, nor can inequity ever atone for murder. The killing of innocents is not a social programme.”