Thoughts from London - By Neville de Silva
Two anti-terrorism laws in two years. My, my. It seems that Britain has suddenly woken up to the danger of terrorism.
Actually after years of foot dragging and despite the fact that the IRA was still cocking a snook at the Brits, ceasefire or not, former Home Secretary Jack Straw finally got the Terrorism Act 2000 passed and it became operational early this year.
Now Straw's successor as Home Secretary, David Blunkett has rushed through another bill which is doubtless a reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Blunkett came in for plenty of flak in the House of Commons last week for introducing legislation that violated fundamental rights and the European Convention of Human Rights.
Though some Labour Party MPs gave Blunkett hell, the bill went through the second reading as easily as Chandrika Kumaratunga goes through a Rupahavini interview.
Under the new bill which is expected to become law by Christmas the latest, the government can hold terrorist suspects without trial for indefinite periods as long as their cases are reviewed every six months. Wide powers are given to the Treasury, Customs and Excise Department, Inland Revenue, police, courts and the Home Secretary to clamp down on potential terrorist activities in the UK.
It seems as though the British Government has suddenly abandoned its great commitment to the rule of law, to fundamental rights and the principles of natural justice.
Had a Third World country contemplated such laws, western governments and their well- funded civil society activists would have castigated that country and demanded that it be ostracised from civilised society.
How can civilised society tolerate the transgression of such basic norms of decent human behaviour? How can society agree to locking up people without any trial, without any evidence being presented in public?
Yet when the British Government does so in the shape of David Blunkett, applauded with great enthusiasm by the Tory opposition, especially its leader Iain Duncan Smith, how is one to react except with the cynicism that satirists such as Alexander Pope reserves for those who speak with forked tongue: "Like Cato gave his little senate laws/ and sat attentive to its own applause" or words to that effect.
For years now, nations round the world have been drawing the attention of the British Government to the presence in this country of persons who have participated or acquiesced in terrorism. They are not only persons who have foreign nationality but those who are British citizens. Admittedly these suspects may not have committed any acts of terrorism in the UK, but several have done so in their own countries or been parties to them by association.
Having done so, many of them sought asylum in this country as they did in others, some of them on strong evidence that their lives were in danger and others on flimsy or concocted evidence.
Having come here, they have continued their contacts with the original terrorist organisations to which they belonged, some times collecting funds for that or front organisations by both legal and illegal means, or else engaging in dubious activities.
The British Government, in a mood of righteous indignation or Christian charity, allowed some of these people who sought shelter here to do as they pleased provided they did not violate British laws.
That was basically the argument held out whenever foreign governments asked that Britain extradite or act against those who have committed terrorist acts in their own countries.
While sheltering them from the rigours of the law at home on the grounds these asylum seekers and immigrations had done no wrong here, the UK government turned the other cheek as some of those living here engaged in criminal activities- extortion, robbery, arson and even murder as terrorist groups and individuals fought for position and power in their new havens.
Now suddenly when their own citizens have become victims and their own country is found to have been the breeding ground for terrorists, they cast aside all the old moral values and righteous arguments they once claimed were intrinsic to the functioning of democracy and the rule of law.
Now they cheer themselves hoarse that the full force of the law will be brought down upon the heads of any who dare threaten this country. They are now ready to intern suspects and virtually throw away the key. This government is ready to seek exception from provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and dismiss with a cursory wave of the hand, objections by human rights bodies and legal circles.
Had these same or similar laws been introduced by developing countries faced with terrorism and the indiscriminate killings and destruction that are an essential part of terrorism, the full weight of political and diplomatic pressure would have been brought to bear against them.
Such developing countries would have been castigated as oppressive and authoritarian, undemocratic and draconian.
But these very critics, when faced with fearsome terrorist assaults, adopt the very laws they blithely condemned in others and righteously defend them as necessary to protect civilisation.
Had the UK and oth
ers listened when the world warned them of the dangers of terrorism years ago and urged them to adopt laws that would circumscribe the activities of terrorist organisations and their acolytes such as fund raising, the British Government would not be cackling now like a hen about to lay an egg.
It is now talking about freezing accounts of terrorists organisations and their sympathisers. Whitehall must be joking if it really believes that years after making such noises, it still expects organisations such as the LTTE to keep their millions in banks or financial institutions in London.
At the first hint of trouble those monies would have been pulled out and deposited elsewhere in the numerous commercial enterprises the LTTE runs round the world. Another fundamental fault in tackling terrorism is the lackadaisical approach of the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police that is mandated with implementing the terrorism laws.
They seem to have had no interest in gathering intelligence and conducting investigations even when evidence has pointed to illegal activities by or inside terrorist group. What more can one expect from a police force such as Scotland Yard when its own press office frankly admitted to me that it had never heard of the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers, one of the 21 organisations banned by the British Government. Today the British authorities go hunting Muslim groups because of September 11. Let them remember that there are many other terrorist groups living here and they can hardly achieve their goal of eliminating terrorism by targeting only the Muslims as they are now wont to do.
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