Pakistan & the anti-terrorist coalition:

Self-determination & terrorism

Contributing Editor Dr SHIREEN M MAZARI examines the crucial difference between a liberation struggle and terrorism.

Pakistan’s commitment to the anti-terrorist coalition being built by the US has been made for all the right reasons — not only because we ourselves continue to suffer from terrorist acts but also because our national interests demanded such a commitment. Unfortunately, so far Pakistan seems to be the only state paying a heavy price for this commitment, especially in terms of the economic instability that has increased as a result of our having become a frontline state. And the worst is that most of this could have been avoided had the West cared to see the repercussions of their “advisories” of alarm given to their citizens and businesses here.

With the mass exodus of foreigners and their businesses, accompanied by cancellation of export orders and foreign airline operations, Pakistan’s economic structures are being destabilized. It is as if we are the targets of the “war on terrorism” despite the fact that there is no tradition of any Western individual ever being attacked for political reasons in this country — even at the peaks of the anti-American groundswell here. Symbols of Western governments like the American Embassy, USIS and British Council may been attacked but never individuals.  In fact, an American is probably much safer walking the streets of Pakistan than a Pakistani doing the same in the US these days! Not that some of our own institutions are helping given the panic they are creating — for instance PIA with its “war risk tax” and “fuel charges! How an airline can charge fuel charges outside of the fare is rather absurd but then PIA is a saga of absurdities.

The point is that all this lifting of sanctions and assistance, inflows will be of little use if the economy crumbles as it seems to be doing with this deliberately created “isolation” of Pakistan that is going on presently. Unless, of course the intent of the West is to destabilize the economy to such an extent that it would require massive external interventions and, therefore, a long-term extensive dependency. How far the West has considered the political fallout of this economic instability is questionable but if political resentment is fuelled by economic hardships it will be a lethal combination for the progressive forces within Pakistan as it will provide additional ammunition to the obscurantists and other extremists.

Another problem that continues for Pakistan is the efforts by India to somehow throw Pakistan out of the loop of the anti-terrorist coalition. Since Agra, India has been suffering from a diplomatic trauma, which has only become more aggravated in the wake of its failure to get Pakistan denounced as a terrorist state, following the events of September 11. Instead, with Pakistan a critical player in the present international coalition against terrorism, India has had to watch from the sidelines. Thus, learning the lessons of history from its colonial master Britain (which is suspected of deliberately setting up the sinking of the Cunard liner the Lusitania in May 1915, in which 139 Americans died, to bring in the US on its side in World War I), India has sought to create incidences to embarrass Pakistan and undermine the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination. And given the anti-terrorist focus of the international community, presently India has sought to exploit the situation. It is in this light that one needs to look at the suicide bomb attack outside the Srinagar Assembly Hall. After all, in the past India has undertaken such acts through its renegade Mujahideen groups in an effort to discredit and delegitimise the Mujahideen’s struggle for self-determination in Occupied Kashmir. Interestingly, India has focused such incidents to seeking US attention — hence the Chittisinghpora incident (massacre of 35 Sikhs) was timed with the visit of Clinton to South Asia and the present incident has been timed with Jaswant Singh’s visit to the US at a time when the US was getting deeply engaged with Pakistan. The judicial inquiry that followed could not link the Mujahideen to the Chittisinghpora incident and India then refused to reveal the full report despite pleas by human rights groups like Amnesty International.

Even the hijacking of the Indian Airline’s plane in December 1999 was highly questionable — especially the fact that the Indians were so adamant to link Pakistan to the incident that they allowed the plane to refuel at Amritsar without even attempting to stop it, so that it could go to Afghanistan and thereby they could then create a link between Pakistan and Taliban “terrorism”. When the extremely cautious behaviour of the Taliban undermined this Indian ploy, they released Maulana Masood Azhar ostensibly on the demands of the hijackers. Strange how no hijacker was ever seen after the incident ended and the Indians took all the passengers back under the protection of Jaswant Singh! Now the present incident in Srinagar is being linked to Maulana Masood Azhar’s organization Jaish Mohammad! The drama of the “hijacking” which followed the Srinagar attack has finally exposed India’s dubious intent.

However, Pakistan needs to be more proactive in not only stressing that struggles for self-determination are a legitimate part of international relations but also that terrorism should not be linked to any religion. Otherwise, we should be talking of Christian and/or Catholic terrorism, Hindu terrorism, and Jewish terrorism. And such a framework would leave out the critical problem of state terrorism. For all these reasons, it is Pakistan’s patience that is being sorely tested — especially since the ignorance of the West continues to make them so gullible in the face of India’s Machiavellian designs. It is almost reminiscent of the manner in which the British made the Indians fight on their side in the First World War — with an ignorant Indian population totally gullible to Gandhi’s exhortations. And just a factual titbit for those ignorant of the realities of South Asia:  Out of the 251 incidents (including the Srinagar incident) of suicide terror attacks, 160 are linked to Tamil terrorists (no link to Islam here!). How many in the West know the extent of the link between India and the Tamil terrorists?

Hence, Pakistan needs to form a consensus amongst its Muslim allies regarding the necessity to maintain a clear distinction between self-determination and terrorism, because now there is a renewed interest in evolving some international convention on terrorism — a goal which has so far evaded the international community, despite there being many treaties dealing with specific acts of terrorism like hijacking and the taking of hostages. As the world focuses on terrorism, it is tending to ignore a basic principle of international law — that of the right of self-determination. Yet, the international community needs to realize that while the principle of self-determination may have lost its allure in the post-decolonisation era, it still remains a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens). This norm (of self-determination) is not only a part of customary international law but is also enshrined as one of the principles of the UN as laid out in Article 1:2 of its Charter. Self-determination is seen within the context of people fighting against colonialism, foreign occupation and to enforce international commitments made to them by the United Nations. The strength of the self-determination norm is such that international conventions dealing with terrorism have always acknowledged and distinguished between struggles for self-determination and acts of terrorism. For instance, the International Convention against the taking of hostages (came into force June 1983) clearly states that the Convention “shall not apply to an act of hostage-taking committed in the course of armed conflicts ... in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on principles of International Law...”(Article 12).

In a similar vein, the Convention on Terrorism adopted by the OIC, in 1999, also confirms “the legitimacy of the rights of peoples to struggle against foreign occupation and colonialist and racist regimes by all means, including armed struggle to liberate their territories in compliance with the purposes and principles of the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations”(preamble).

In fact, within the present system of international law, norms and principles of international relations, no international treaty can be valid which contradicts prevailing peremptory norms of international law. This has been most clearly enshrined in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), which states:

“A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purpose of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.”

The reason for stressing the international legal position relating to self-determination struggles is that there is a growing trend to undermine the validity of such struggles or, worse still, to try and bring them into the ambit of anti-terrorist actions. While international politics may well be primarily a case of “might is right”, nevertheless states need to point out the legality or otherwise of the action of other states. Civil societies in different states also need to know the legality or otherwise of their countries’ actions. At present, there is also the imperative to understand the centrality of the principle of self-determination to international law because given the present anti-terrorist coalition that is building up, the moves for an international convention on terrorism are going to reach a conclusion much sooner than would otherwise have been possible. The UN is presently studying a number of drafts on terrorism, including the one adopted by the OIC, which has been presented on behalf of the OIC. There is also an Indian draft, which in its present form would be invalid in terms of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties since it does not distinguish the principle of self-determination. Unless the norm of self-determination is preserved, the fight against terrorism will become devoid of international legality.

While most legitimate struggles for self-determination have sometimes had to resort to violence against civilians — a violence that is accepted as legitimate within international law as illustrated above —the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination is unique in that the Kashmiri Mujahideen have focused their military struggle primarily against military targets and those representing the Indian state. Efforts by India to link the Kashmiri Mujahideen struggle to acts of violence against civilians has failed and in the end it is the Indian forces and the renegade groups they support who have been identified as the real culprits.

Unfortunately, the Indian state has not been so careful and has conducted a campaign of state terror in Occupied Kashmir. Which brings up the whole issue of defining terrorism to include state terrorism. At a very basic level if one refers to political terror — to distinguish it from pathological terror — as “the use or threat of use of violence against small numbers to put large numbers in fear” (the victim and target being distinguished and the former being symbolic) so that fear is manipulated and terror is used to affect political behaviour, then many states are guilty of indulging in terrorism. Whether it is the use of rape as a weapon of war by the Indian state in Occupied Kashmir or bombing civilians in states whose leaders are considered “rogues”, in order to terrorise them into removing those leaders, these are acts of state terrorism that must be dealt with in any all-encompassing convention on terrorism. After all, if terrorism is to be fought comprehensively, then all acts of terror must be condemned. Terrorism cannot be fought with retaliatory terrorism. The present international coalition against terrorism with its diverse components can and should be strengthened to deal with the whole spectrum of terrorism — be it sub-national, transnational or state terrorism. That is the only way for the international community to make a meaningful start to its fight against this menace.

Equally important is the issue of looking at the causes of political terror. What drives states, individuals and groups to commit acts of terrorism in which so many innocent civilians are killed. The hatred, discrimination, anger and frustrations that engulf the world today need to be focused on at least as much as missile defence which cannot defend against the real threats facing states today. Globalisation has a negative fallout at multiple levels and this has to be understood and addressed.

Finally, the fight against terrorism also has to deal with the issue of harbouring terrorists. This requires a major rethink by the developed world of its asylum policies where many wanted terrorists from developing countries are sheltered under the guise of political asylum. There has to be one standard for all and there can be no distinction between terrorists who are “kosher” and those who are not.

At the end of the day, the problem of terrorism highlights the dilemma of states today — especially the powerful ones: The choice of observing international norms or of opting for political expediency.  Power has tended to undermine respect for international law and the norms it puts forward. Now the limitations of that power are clearly visible. We need to develop a new respect for international law, which has evolved out of human experience, and the bitter lessons humankind learnt over the centuries.