The New Nation - Internet Edition

Ameen Izzadeen

ANOTHER 9/11 anniversary and another terror tape. The horror of all terror is the eternity of the war on terror. When will it all end and when will the world see lasting peace with all human beings irrespective of their differences in identity co-existing in harmony? A utopian dream, it may seem. But dreaming of peace is certainly beter than dreaming of war or waging war.

How and when we can achieve at least a semblance of that utopia is a big question. President George W Bush and those who prosecute the war on terror in various theatres across the globe may say that their war is for peace and, therefore, just

But how will this so-called just war end? President Bush has said the war will not end in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is an open-ended war and it continues. "By a combination of creative strategies and advanced technologies, we are redefining war on our own terms," said Bush days after he ordered his troops to launch what history has already recorded as the illegal invasion of Iraq.

There is no guarantee that the war on terror will end when Bush leaves White House. War is a big business, as the latest Osama bin Laden tape has rightly pointed out It merely serves the interest of the US corporations. Bin Laden is not the first person to say that A majority of the peace loving people across the globe see that But a majority of Americans choose not to see it probably because they benefit from it - at least in trickle-down form.

Theodore A Couloumbis and James H Wolfe in their book 'Introduction to International Relations: Power and Justice' (Prentice Hall, 1990) identify economic imperialism as one of the causes of war.

They say: "The struggle to capture new markets or to control new sources of raw materials drives governments, acting at the bidding of captains of industry, to embark upon imperialist ventures that invariably results in armed conflict In such situations, governments serve merely as agents of commercial interests and fail to represent recognised national interests."

Those who have taken up arms against the United States are simply playing into the hands of corporate America. That is what captains of capitalism want I strongly believe Al Qaeda and similar groups are highly infiltrated by agent provocateurs. Since the infiltration is so meticulous, doubts arise as to whether Bin Laden himself or his closer advisors are agent provocateurs.

Study the contents of the latest tape and they are exactly what Bush and neocon capitalists want Bin Laden to say.

The war on terror which the United States is waging appears to be a big sham. It is true that terrorism has become one of the most pressing problems facing humanity today, overshadowing issues such as poverty, disease, illiteracy and environmental degradation.

Nobody knows who will be the next victim. We could be in a plane to be hijacked and rammed into a building. We could be in the vicinity of a vehicle that explodes. We could be a collateral damage when bunker-busting daisy cuters are dropped from F-16s or a nuclear bomb from a B-52. Terrorism is so grave a problem that it cannot be left to the United States alone to tackle it

It requires a universal approach. This reminds us of the United Nations' efforts to hammer out a comprehensive convention on international terrorism. For more than a decade, the experts have been meeting in New York. In 2002, veteran Sri Lankan diplomat Rohan Perera who heads the UN Working Group told me in an interview that the draft was ready and it was now left to political leaders to give impetus to the document

However, he identified three thorny issues, over which there was disagreement among states. They were: the legal definition of terrorist, the relationship with terrorism and anti-colonial and national liberation movements and state terrorism.

Five years later, the situation remains the same - the draft is ready but there are still disagreements on the three thorny issues.

The United States and other western countries may have business interests in the war on terror. But Sri Lanka, a country affected by terrorism, has taken a keen interest in making the UN comprehensive treaty a reality. It wants all the nations to come on board to fight terrorism and it rejects the notion of one's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

Successive Sri Lankan governments have been unable to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam because of direct and indirect international support the group enjoys. That is why Sri Lanka wants the draft convention to plug all possible loopholes in the existing conventions. It wants the treaty to make an individual or a group which commits an act of terrorism responsible whether the cause is just or not One cannot plead that his act is connected to a just cause, even if it is connected to a freedom struggle. But the major drawback of international efforts to deal with terrorism is the non-availability or non-recognition of a mechanism for aggrieved parties - for instance, the Palestinian freedom fighters, the Kashmiri groups and Sri Lankan Tamils - to present their cases and find justice. Freedom struggles turn violent only when the doors of justice are closed.

(Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo )