Terrorism: More action less talk please

Some wag said that the acronym NATO stood for “No action talk only.” That is not really true. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation which has expanded far beyond the dreams of its architects, has acted quite decisively in the former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan, to mention just two instances.

NATO might not have bombed its own people (except in a few instances when casualties resulted from friendly fire) but it has certainly blasted others and bombed places back to the Stone Age. I was reminded of the cynical description of NATO while listening to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s response in parliament last week to Opposition leader David Cameron. Cameron was opening the debate on the Queen’s Throne Speech delivered earlier that day. Referring to the recent Mumbai massacre, Prime Minister Brown spoke of the transnational nature of modern terrorism and said that if the world is to fight terrorism that knows no frontiers, then countries have to cooperate more closely and help each other in that battle, or words to that effect. It is in this context that he said UK was ready to help India and had already sent Scotland Yard experts to assist in the task. He said that UK and India were already cooperating, suggesting that there is an ongoing exchange of intelligence.

That is how it should be, for modern terrorism is not insular in the sense that it is contained within the borders of one country. There are numerous examples of this. Relevant to Sri Lanka and India is the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE on Indian soil for which the Tiger leadership has still not apologized though it has called on Indians to forget the past. How easy it seems to absolve oneself of guilt! Globalisation has seen more than the expansion of world trade, the increased flow of capital and labour across frontiers. Terrorism has kept pace with globalization in other fields of human endeavour and so today terrorist organizations help each other by running or supplying arms, by passing on information and intelligence and learning from each other’s methodology so important in a technologically- crazed world.

If Gordon Brown is sincere in calling for the pooling of resources to combat the scourge of international and regional terror then UK would have been seen to take a more positive role in the pursuit of that objective. However Britain’s attitude and approach have been ambivalent at best. It is ready to introduce domestic laws that jurists and defenders of civil rights argue are a curtailment of civil liberties such as the attempt to increase sharply the number of days a suspect could be held in detention without charge. One could argue that the government’s approach is understandable given the fact that Britain has been subject to terrorist attacks in recent times, not by the IRA, but other home grown terrorists angered by UK’s role in the war on Iraq and by other grievances.

It has defended its approach and police actions on the grounds that the government has a duty to protect its citizens against terrorism, a sound enough argument and should be extended beyond Britain’s shores. While Britain preserves the right to fight terrorism as it thinks fit, it should also be ready to recognise those same principles, ideas and methods when other nations find themselves in even worse situations. The problem is that Britain is selective in whom she cooperates with and how it uses its own laws to crack down on some and not others. If Prime Minister Brown’s words in parliament are to be meaningful then British action in combating terrorism and helping others to do so needs to be even handed and across the board.

Unhappily that is not what Britain does today. It will act domestically even at the risk of infringing long held beliefs and principles. It will help other countries if it serves Britain’s national interest or the countries faced with terrorism are close allies such as US or emerging super powers and economic giants such as India. Yet when it comes to small countries such as Sri Lanka, which is of no strategic interest to Britain and is of marginal interest only as a former colony and a member of the Commonwealth, it insists that it must act within the constraints of the law. That alas is diplomatic chicanery. If Britain was so concerned with the application of the law then it should do two things. It must not allow the violation of its own laws and should not violate domestic and international law when it suits her and condemn others for perceived violations.

Consider the UK Terrorism Act 2000 under which the LTTE is banned as a foreign terrorist organization. Whether this was done as a result of lobbying by Sri Lanka or whether Britain actually saw it as such or both, it is outlawed even today. The law states, among other things, that the display of signs and symbols of a banned organisation, its glorification by word or deed, the raising of funds for it and such like constitute an offence. Yet year in and year out this happens at the LTTE’s commemoration of Heroes’ Day which itself is a glorification of those who sacrificed their lives for the cause espoused by the LTTE. What is more, the Tiger leader’s address that justifies the suicide bombings and the use of violence in pursuit of that cause is aired in gross violation of the British law.

But does the British government that speaks so eloquently and vociferously about fighting terrorism do anything about the blatant violation of its own laws? What compounds this Nelsonian farce is that governing party MPs such as Keith Vaz and Virendra Sharma participate at these events as they did a few days ago without a murmur from Brown’s party or government. Surely it cannot be said that they are unaware that the law is being broken.

The supreme irony is that Britain that seems so concerned about respecting the law and adhering to it strictly is not averse to breaking its own laws and international laws.

Britain is a signatory to the international Convention Against Torture. But that has not stopped the country which piously preaches to others about respect for human rights and civil liberties from aiding and abetting the CIA to fly out terror suspects to countries where torture is known to be practised so that they are outside the jurisdiction of US courts and can be incarcerated for days without end to obtain information by whatever means. Not only have British airports been used for these notorious rendition flights, but UK has helped arrest and hand over suspects to US for rendition. Britain’s clandestine role and that of Germany, another incessant preacher on human rights, have been documented in several investigations conducted in Europe.

If the Gordon Brown government is sincere in what he said and is not engaging in the historic British game of waiving the rules when convenient, then it should support the proposal to hold a Commonwealth ministerial conference on terrorism as proposed by Sri Lanka. It cannot continue to play the dual role of the hare and the hound.