J L Koul Jalali
India has urged UN member Sates to shed their procrastination and conclude a comprehensive convention against international terrorism. It has expressed concern that the world body has neither agreed on a common definition of terrorism nor laid down a coordinated policy to tackle and root out the global scourge. Second Secretary in India`s Permanent Mission to the UN Dinesh Setia told the UN General Assembly that inability of the world body to address the most dangerous scourge casts doubts on its relevance to discharge its obligations under the United Nations charter.
Way back in 1986 India had proposed a draft document on the comprehensive convention on international terrorism at the UN but it has not been implemented because of lack of unity on definition of terrorism among the member states. Let us take a view of how this procrastination by the World body has affected security of the world. When India proposed this draft,apart from recurring terrorist acts, Pakistan had been also planning to perpetrate cross border terrorism in the then Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier, after erstwhile Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 ,Pakistan had joined US effort to dislodge erstwhile Soviet forces from Afghanistan. In the process Pakistan turned into a conduit for supply of US arms and equipment and money for equipping and training students from Afghan refugees in Pakistan named as Taliban to dislodge erstwhile Soviet forces from Afghanistan. With some of these funds and equipment Pakistan also created Taliban Islamic Movement to acquire leverage in Afghanistan vis-a-vis India. But to foster its own geo-political and other interests in the area, US appeared to connive at the ulterior motives of Pakistan. In the process with the then Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden already present in the area and declaring Jihad against West, Pakistan with its calculated use of terrorism as a tool of its state policy itself turned into hub of terrorism from where most of the terrorist crimes in the world originate. During subsequent decades, amidst repeated heinous and gory terrorist incidents, world appeared to be veering round the Indian point of view that the menace of cross border terrorism needs to be tackled effectively at international level. Addressing the fifty fourth session of UN General Assembly in September,1999, the then US President Bill Clinton urged the members of UN General Assembly to meet the challenges posed by terrorism with serious, deliberate and disciplined concern and effective co-operation. The UN Security Council also passed a resolution to this effect. This prompted an article by this writer “International Drive To Fight Terrorism” published on 2.10.1999 but this was not actually to be so.
Hardly any action was taken to counter terrorism effectively.
Repeated dastardly terrorist acts continued to rock the world and terrorism assumed deadly proportions turning it into a serious global problem. Barbaric terrorist attacks in America on World Trade Centre and Pentagon on 11.9. 2001 gave a big boost to Jihadi terrorism. Their ranks were swelled and like Al-Qaeda they too targeted west for hurt and perceived injustice. Terrorist attack on Mumbai on 26.11.2008 was a big eye opener in India. By 2015 terrorism had assumed wide-spread deadly proportions. It also turned into a oft recurring global scourge when twelve persons including journalists of Paris based weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were shot dead by Jihadi terrorists in their office in January,2015. More than a million demonstrators including leaders of forty countries joined rally in Paris to condemn the dastardly incident. Earlier to this barbaric incident, terrorists killed a hundred and fifty persons including one hundred and thirty students of an army school in Peshawur in Pakistan. In Nigeria, Boko Haram Jihadis murdered thousands of persons. ISIS too had been indulging in barbaric actions every now and then apart from continuously being on the look out to expand its territories and field for barbaric actions. In most of the barbaric terrorist acts women and children too were mercilessly targeted and that too in the name of religion. In another article “TERRORISM GLOBAL PROBLEM NOW” by this writer published on 28.1.2015 the widespread proportions assumed by terrorism were highlighted. While in Delhi as Chief Guest on Republic day two days earlier, the then US President Barak Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi again called for joint efforts to deal with terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Toeba, JEM, D. Company and Haqqani network. They again told Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of 26.11.2008 Mumbai attacks to justice and eliminate all forms of terrorism emanating from Pakistan. Contrary to this Mumbai attack perpetrators continue to enjoy state patronage in Pakistan.
Obviously failure of the world body to find a common definition of terrorism and conclude a comprehensive convention against it has only added to the woes facing the mankind. It has also given a free rope to countries like China which has no qualms even in turning Pakistan, the epicentre of terrorism into an ally and is not averse to coming nearer to fundamentalist and radical regime in Afghanistan. This further strengthens the case for urgent reforms and restructuring the world body to sensitise it about requirements of the present day world beset with problems like epidemics, climate change, piles of nuclear, biological and other weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and other matters and issues threatening even survival of mankind. It also lays bare the need for World Parliament which alone can tackle the dangers facing mankind in a more effective manner.
( The author is former IIS officer and accredited freelance journalist/Producer)
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