The sensible answer is that, on the contrary, rather than helping to restrain terrorism, the PTA actually helped to create even more hardened terrorists of ordinary Tamils caught between the Tigers and the State. Now, in an atmosphere of peace, we have the government scrambling to expedite the release of PTA detainees on sustained lobbying by Tamil political parties and the phased out release of political prisoners following withdrawal of charges against them by the Attorney General. The whole, in effect, is a classic example of how terror begot terror and ultimately, how ineffective the whole process became.

The impotency of such counter terror processes in restraining the nucleus of terror itself, which Sri Lanka exemplified until very recently, is now being reflected on a global scale in the flippantly styled war against terrorism. In its mid week column this week, Cat's Eye (in the island) draws attention to the injustices that are being perpetrated against Al Qaeda suspects detained by the United States government in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, quoting concerns expressed in this regard by Amnesty International recently. The issue regarding Guantanamo Bay is very simple; should suspects detained in Guantanamo be denied all basic rights of life and liberty that are available as a matter of course to detainees in terms of international human rights law and indeed, available to individuals detailed in US prisons? These include the right to humane treatment, the right to be informed of the reasons for the detention and to be able to challenge the lawfulness of the detention, the right to a fair trial, the presumption of innocence, access to lawyers and the right to communicate with family and friends. All these rights are being denied to the detainees at Guantanamo.

This column stresses the fact - along with Cats Eye - that the applicable rationale for this denial is profound in its injustice; the detention centre is outside US jurisdiction therefore depriving the prisoners of rights available to criminal suspects under US law and also depriving them of prisoner-of-war status as the US is not formally at war with any country. As a result, international humanitarain treaties such as the Third Geneva Convention and other provisions of international humanitarian law are not applicable to the detainees.

The Executive Branch of the United States government has also declined to extend prisoner of war status under the Third Geneva Convention to the detainees, without submitting the issue for determination by a competent tribunal or otherwise ascertaining the rights and protections to which the detainees are entitled under US domestic or international law. The detainees remain therefore entirely at the unfettered discretion of the United States government, effectively as shadow aliens, stripped of all identity and rights.

Inevitably, among them are innocents who have not been involved in any terror activities, some of whom have been released after a period of intense interrogation and abasement. Like in Sri Lanka and the case of the PTA therefore, one cannot but ask whether maintaining detention centres such as Guantanamo Bay will help to decrease Islamic militant fundamentalism in the world or increase it? The answer to this question is unfortunately all too easy.

Inevitably also, the voices that speak out against such counterproductive terror processes are far too few. As in Sri Lanka when the Supreme Court expressed concern regarding the working of the PTA and indeed delivered judgements that brought home a measure of relief for detainees, strong dissents have been heard not so much from the American courts as from the British judiciary which has - in the voices of members of the senior judiciary - declared that the practices of detention at Guantanamo bay are inimical to international human rights standards.

One must also not forget the March 2002 decision of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to grant 'precautionary measures' in the case of the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay - urging the US to determine the status of the prisoners by a competent tribunal and afford them the rights that correspond to that status. Most notably, in the absence of a clarification of the legal status of the detainees, the Commission considered that the rights and protections to which the detainees may be entitled under international or domestic law cannot be said to be the subject of effective legal protection by the State.

The Inter American Commission on Human Rights is mandated under Article 106 of the Charter of the Organization of American States with the task of supervising member states' observance of human rights, including the United States.

Interestingly, the Commission - in coming to its finding - has affirmed the fact that when persons find themselves within the authority and control of a state (where a circumstance of armed conflict may be involved), their fundamental rights may be determined in part by reference to international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law. Thus, where it may be considered that the protections of international humanitarian law do not apply, such persons remain the beneficiaries at least of the non-derogable protections under international human rights law.

The Commission categorically stated that no person under the authority and control of a state, regardless of his or her circumstances, is devoid of legal protection for his or her fundamental and non-derogable human rights. These rights applied to the Gauntanamo Bay detainees regardless of their legal status. It was on this basis that the Commission ruled that a competent court or tribunal, as opposed to a political authority, must be charged with ensuring respect for the legal status and rights of these detainees.

For those caught up in the vicious consequences - and deaths- that terrorism brings about, domestically or globally, it is far too easy to succumb to the hysteria of saying 'forget about rights; bring on the torturers." Sri Lanka has already learnt the perils of such hysteria. For once, it would be fruitful if the United States learns about how not to wage war against terrorism from us.

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