Words getting in the way of U.N. defining 'terrorism'
Political connotations make it hard for all to agree on language
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 14, 2005
LONDON – You can get tough on it, declare war on it, root it out at its source or pursue it to the farthest corners of the planet. But one of the most difficult aspects of terrorism, it turns out, is simply defining it.
As the world observes the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leaders are opening a three-day summit at the U.N. today on how to reform the 60-year-old institution, and one of their most urgent tasks will be confronting global terrorism. But in order to fight it, everyone needs to agree on what terrorism is, diplomats and other analysts said.
"The United Nations have been working on this issue of trying to find a definition for terrorism since the early '80s," said Maged Abdel Aziz, Egypt's permanent representative to the U.N. "It failed," he added, because of the heavy political connotations attached to many of the words that some governments tried to insert into the text.
A U.N. anti-terrorism committee this week recommended defining terrorism as any act intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or noncombatants and intimidate a population or coerce a government or international organization.
The wording has been controversial because some definitions are perceived by Arab or Muslim nations as biased toward Western or Israeli viewpoints. Others are deemed by Washington and other Western powers as too broad or watered-down to have any real meaning.
"There is some general agreement in the different definitions usually proposed," said John Collins, a professor at St. Lawrence University in New York and co-editor of Collateral Language, which examines the rhetoric of war.
Common elements include attacking civilians, generating fear in a population and committing violence for political or ideological motives.
"The problem is that virtually all of these elements are present in any kind of political violence, including war," he said, and therefore such definitions can apply equally to the actions of Western governments or obscure Middle Eastern guerrilla groups.
"The tendency is for those who talk the most about terrorism to do so in a way that benefits their own agenda," Mr. Collins said. "In my view, it's almost impossible to define terrorism in a fair and meaningful way without implicating past and present U.S. policies."
Sir Adam Roberts, an Oxford University professor of international relations, said defining terrorism is an "unavoidably political" exercise "in the sense that those who do it [commit terrorism], in almost all cases, find some other term to describe what they do and reject the label 'terrorist.' "
Even some attacks by American revolutionaries or by Jews fighting for independence before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, however they were justified at the time, could be defined as terrorism, he said.
U.S. divided on language
Even within the U.S. government, there are significant differences about how terrorism should be defined. The FBI, for example, says terrorism is "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
The State Department, which compiles an annual list of international terrorist groups, defines the term as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience."
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, proposed last month in a letter to other envoys that less attention be placed on defining terrorism than on coming up with "a nonexclusive list of actions that would amount to terrorist acts" punishable under international law.
Washington objects to parts of a proposed 40-page declaration being prepared for the U.N. General Assembly, which states that "the targeting and deliberate killing of civilians and noncombatants cannot be justified or legitimized by any cause or grievance."
In his letter, Mr. Bolton recommended limiting the sentence only to terrorist acts to ensure that it "does not address military activities that are appropriately governed by international humanitarian law."
Analysts say the sticking points arise for U.N. negotiators when words such as "unlawful" and "noncombatant" creep into the definition. Whose government determines when an action is unlawful? Who constitutes a noncombatant?
The U.S. regards off-duty or unarmed U.S. military personnel as noncombatants and maintains that attacks against them can constitute terrorism, even in war zones.
The State Department contends that the guerrilla killings of four U.S. Embassy Marine guards at a restaurant in El Salvador's capital in 1985 or the suicide truck bombing that killed 241 servicemen in Beirut in 1983 both constituted terrorism, even though U.S. troops were deployed and engaged in combat in both countries when the attacks occurred.
Israel regards Arab attacks on armed Jewish settlers as terrorism but does not regard attacks by Jews on unarmed Arab civilians as terrorism. Egypt regards the bombing in July of two hotels in the resort city of Sharm el-Sheik as terrorism. But Egypt, along with other Arab nations, is reluctant to universally condemn all attacks on civilians, arguing that the motivations and causes should be considered.
"Terrorism isn't difficult. It is a pervasive fact of human existence," Mr. Roberts said. "But the biggest difficulty is this absurd argument about the causes of terrorism, which has gone on in the U.N. for years. In my opinion, it's completely ridiculous, this argument, because plainly terrorism does have certain types of causes ... but equally plainly, there's a need for a political response."
Mr. Abdel Aziz disagreed. "There are all kinds of differentiations and nuances that need to be reflected in any kind of agreement" on the definition, he said.
"That doesn't mean any backtracking on our position that any attacks on innocent civilians are terrorism and should be avoided," he added. "But this is limited to innocent civilians. You can't say that civilians or settlers carrying guns and occupying others' lands are innocent civilians."
Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, clashed with Israel's court system this month over the definition of terrorism. He labeled a Jewish soldier a "bloodthirsty terrorist" after the man killed four unarmed Israeli Arabs on Aug. 4 in protest over the withdrawal of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Sharon sought aid for the victims' families under an Israeli law that grants lifetime compensation to the victims of terrorist attacks.
But a court ruled that the killings were not acts of terrorism because, under Israel's definition, terrorism covers only attacks by "organizations hostile to Israel." Because the killer was Jewish and Israeli, his actions were not hostile to Israel, the court ruled.
An Israeli Arab member of Parliament denounced the ruling as racist, and Mr. Sharon called for Israel's legal definition of terrorism to be changed.
E-mail trobberson@dallasnews.com
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