UN sidelined as Bush's rock band rocks the world

NEW YORK - Sri Lanka, which has almost single-handedly battled terrorism over the last decade, is no longer standing alone. Or so it seems.

The deadly attacks on New York and Washington two weeks ago — with an estimated 6,333 people from over 60 countries missing or presumed dead — have suddenly placed terrorism high on the international agenda.

The United States, which ironically has been a consistent opponent of a longs-tanding proposal for an international conference on terrorism and which has failed to ratify the last two UN conventions against terrorism, is clearly on the warpath.

Addressing a joint meeting of Congress Thursday, President George W. Bush gave an ultimatum to the international comm-unity: "Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd couldn't resist the temptation of pointing out that Bush, who during his election campaign could not name the leader of Pakistan and also mistook the Taliban for a rock band in a South Asian disco, has now been called upon to deal with both.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff has little or no choice: if he is to surive politically, he has to either pick the US or opt to go with the Taliban government in neighbouring Afgh-anistan which shares with Pakistan a 1,500 mile border of rugged terrain.

And he has opted for the former — and from Pakistan's point of view — the lesser of the two political evils judging by the strong anti-American sentiments in the country.

Russia, which is fighting a separatist movement in the predominnatly Muslim breakaway province of Chechnya, has proposed a new international organisation to fight terrorism.

Britain, which virtu-ally ignored the prese-nce of the LTTE on its home soil, wants to intensify its crackdown on funding for terro-rism.

And the 189-member UN General has suddenly decided to advance its date to discuss an agenda item titled: "Measures to combat international terorrism".

The Assembly, which last week was forced to postpone indefinitely its annual highlevel meeting of world leaders because of security risks in New York, is slated to hold a three-day meeting on terrorism beginning October 1.

Meanwhile, the UN's Adhoc Committee on Terrorism, chaired by Rohan Perera, Legal Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is scheduled to meet October 15-26 to discuss two new conventions: one agai-nst nuclear terrorism and the other a comprehensive treaty on terrorism incorpor-ating some of the key elements of the existing 12 conventions.

Since everybody is suddenly in a hurry to fight terrorism, the scheduled date for this meeting is also likely to be advanced.

A call made last week by the US for an international coalition to fight terrorism has evoked strong backing from Western nations but lukewarm support from developing coun-tries. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the largest and most powerful of the Arab nations, told Cable News Network (CNN) that he would not join such a coalition unless it was under the aegis of the United Nations.

At several press conferences at the UN last week, French President Jacques Chirac, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Secretary-General Kofi Annan were peppered with a single question: Do you think the US should seek Security Council authorisaton for any possible military action?

All of them diplm-atically ducked the question.

So far, both the Security Council and the General Assembly have passed resolutions condemning the terrorist attacks. But no more.

Chirac would only say: "The United Nations has already done a great deal. There are about a dozen international conve-ntions against terrorism which have been implemented by the United Nations."

But he argued that the United Nations was still the best forum to "mobilise our energy for eradicating terrorism."

Whether that view will be shared by the United States remains to be seen.

Although Bush made it clear that his war against terrorism is not a war against our "many Muslim friends and "many Muslim Arabs", there were several incidents of hate crime in the United States last week.

Since most Ameri-cans are insular and cannot make the distinction between a Muslim and a Hindu, some of the turbaned Sikhs have been the victims of racial venom.

The ignorance, of course, also moves way high up to American TV networks. In the "Good Morning America" TV show last week, anchorwoman Diane Sawyer pointed out the number of countries and expatriates who had offered assistance to the US in its hour of need.

At least one psychiatrist from Sri Lanka had volunteered his services to the City of New York, she said.

At this point, her side kick Charlie Gibson retorted: "I hope they speak English there."