MANY national leaders have stood before the UN and made statements and claims coloured by their own partisan perspectives. The UN is now less a forum for accurate, objective presentation of facts. On the other hand it provides an opportunity to nations to plead their case in the court of international opinion. But seldom, though, there have been an address before the UN as divorced from reality as that by President George Bush last week.

The overall theme of the speech was Iraq, and how wonderful things are there now that the US-led coalition has removed Saddam Hussein. There was a pitch for other countries to play their role in continuing Iraq’s progress towards democracy and prosperity. And there was renewed American commitment to the ‘war against terror’ launched after 9/11. Virtually every sentence contained either a denial of reality, a manipulation of the facts, or an outright lie.

‘The regime of Saddam cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction.’ This assertion came just days after the same speaker admitted that there was no connection between the ousted Baghdad regime and the attacks of 9/11. How could Saddam have ‘cultivated ties to terror’, i.e. to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Their brand of fundamentalist Islam was diametrically opposed to the secularism of the Ba’ath Party, and to Saddam’s suppression of religious sentiment within Iraq.

The irony is that the old regime, through its brutal application of force, ensured that terrorism could never raise its head in Saddam’s Iraq. It is a very different story now that he is gone. Iraq has become the newest and most hospitable breeding ground for terrorism in the Muslim world. The combination of US occupation, administrative incompetence, political vacuum, non-existent security and popular discontent have opened the country up to Al Qaeda and its cohorts. It wasn’t Saddam Hussein who cultivated ties to terror, the ouster of the Iraqi dictator did that.

As for building weapons of mass destruction, it takes some gall to say that in the face of what has happened since Bush last appeared before the UN General Assembly. Despite months of scouring not a single WMD was found. The intelligence ‘findings’ about Iraqi uranium purchases from Africa were discredited. There were the publicly expressed views of Hans Blix and others with much greater expertise in the field, that Iraq did not possess any WMD. Then there were statements by ‘freed’ Iraqi weapons scientists that Iraq’s weapons had been destroyed long ago.

Any jury weighing up the evidence for and against Iraqi WMD would take seconds to decide ‘Not guilty’. But George Bush returned a ‘guilty’ verdict. And he steamrollered on:: ‘Because a coalition acted to defend the peace, and the credibility of the UN, Iraq is free, and today we are joined by representatives of a liberated country.’

‘A coalition acted to defend the peace.’ Since when has waging war against a country that was neither displaying aggressive behaviour nor was in a position to be aggressive (thanks to years of crippling sanctions), a defence of peace? [For that matter since when has an alliance of two and a quarter partners — the US, Britain and Australia — been a ‘coalition’?] George Bush’s so-called defence of peace entailed hundreds of bombs being dropped on Iraq; thousands of innocents being killed, injured or made homeless; and dozens more continuing to die at the hands of unaccountable American soldiers.

‘Iraq is free.’ Pre-9/11 definition’s of ‘freedom’ include notions such as deciding one’s own fate, making choices and decisions. They do not include the word ‘occupation’. Only in a post-9/11 world could the Iraqi people be ‘free’ at the same time as living under US occupation. As for their ‘representatives of a liberated country’, since when have figures appointed by an occupying power been an expression of popular will? Especially when those figures are themselves chafing for greater self-rule? Washington’s justification that Iraqis still need the guiding hand of Paul Bremer is demolished by the all too obvious shambles that he and his predecessor have made of running Iraq.

In terms of utter falsehood and the gall needed to make it, Bush’s assertion about Iraqi WMD took some beating. But he managed it when talking about the UN. As well as the coalition fighting for ‘the credibility of the UN’, according to George ‘there was, and there remains, unity among us on the fundamental principles and objectives of the UN.’

The fundamental principles and objectives of the UN, as eloquently enunciated by its secretary-general, include the understanding that: ‘when states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.’ Unilateralism and non-UN mandated military offensives have no place in the multilateralism and collective security that are at the heart of the UN concept. Far from preserving the principles and objectives of the UN, America’s war on Iraq, to quote Jacques Chirac, put the world body ‘through one of the most grave crises in its history.’

As for the ‘credibility of the UN’, the American president seems to be confused. The credibility of the UN depended not on American military action against Iraq, but on the UN’s defiance of the US and its ability to prevent military action. Though it failed on the latter, the UN can be proud of its opposition to the US and its refusal to give in to Washington’s bullying. President Bush also seems to have forgotten that France, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, and Germany were unequivocal in their condemnation of his policies. So much for ‘unity’.

Looking to the future, Bush told his audience that a new UN Security Council was going to ‘expand the UN’s role in Iraq’. Just as the assembled leaders and diplomats started picturing a UN-led administration in Iraq, he added: ‘The UN should assist in developing a constitution, training civil servants, and conducting free and fair elections’. Note that the price the UN will have to pay for these great privileges is sending international troops into Iraq to be killed instead of the Americans, and pumping in funds for Iraqi reconstruction.

“The primary goal of our coalition in Iraq is self-government.” All those hundreds of millions across the world who thought the US was going into Iraq to control its oil supplies, or to cow the neighbouring Arab and Iranian states, or to deflect criticism over the war in Afghanistan, or to boost the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes and George Bush’s poll ratings — were clearly wrong, then. The United States is spending billions of dollars (not to mention sacrificing dozens of its soldiers — an unforeseen cost of war) simply to boost democracy in Iraq.

‘Now Iraq needs and deserves our aid, and all nations of goodwill should step forward.’ Iraq needed international aid when its people were suffering and dying because of international sanctions. Iraq needed help when it was attacked by the American military machine. Iraq does still deserve help — no one can deny that — but was George Bush really thinking of the Iraqi people when he spoke about the need for aid? Is it not infinitely more likely that he was thinking of American soldiers, the American budget deficit and his own rapidly diminishing chances of re-election? America certainly does need help in Iraq — but it certainly does not deserve it.

George Bush did not get a standing ovation from the General Assembly after his address — but he should have. Not for the views and agenda he laid out, but for the total lack of hesitation and embarrassment with which he presented his bag of half-truths, distortions and lies. That was some performance.

THE annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank attended by finance ministers and central bank governors of 184 countries has ended in Dubai without a fanfare. The usual gathering of anti-globalization protesters against the rigid IMF policies was not in evidence in the UAE city as they were seen in western cities such as Washington, Seattle and Rome in the past.

The two-day meeting affirmed support to the economic principles and policies for which the developing countries have been clamouring during the last 30 to 40 years. The meeting noted the disappointment of the developing countries over the outcome of the ministerial meeting of the WTO at Cancun and gave support to their demands for lowering the high tariff on agricultural products in the rich states, particularly the US and Europe.

The meeting also called for increased aid from the developed countries to the developing countries to speed up their economic development and reduce their increasing poverty.

But giving support in principle to such economic goals is one thing and working actively in that direction another. The much needed political will is lacking as the failed Cancun meeting showed with the West making no real efforts to scale down its billion dollar a day agricultural subsidy to its rich farmers.

The Dubai meeting laid tremendous emphasis on the continuation and strengthening of the structural reforms in the rich and poor countries alike. In the case of the US, the meeting called for a sharp reduction in the balance of payments deficit of over 500 billion dollars.

When it comes to South Asia with its 1.4 billion people, the World Bank is pleased by the economic growth of five per cent of the GDP during a decade; but it is now settling a far higher goal — eight to nine per cent growth. The World Bank believes South Asia is poised to achieve such a goal and make a new attack on poverty by further boosting economic growth and vigorously removing the constraints to new growth targets.

The Bank says “South Asia is a region of 1.4 billion people but also home to 40 per cent of the world’s poor. Over the last decade the South Asian countries have achieved sustained levels of GDP growth and made progress in both economic reforms and social development. However measures of human well-being in South Asia remain a profound challenge.

“The region has the world’s highest illiteracy rate of 45 per cent and one-third of the world’s maternal deaths. Nearly half of the children under the age of five are malnourished and environ- mental degradation, inadequate infrastructure and social exclusion are among the obstacles to human development.”

What the Bank says about South Asia as a whole is also true of Pakistan particularly in respect of literacy and health care and nourishment of the young. The Bank now wants Pakistan to make rapid progress and is ready to step up its annual aid from 600 million dollars on an average to one billion dollars. Simultaneously it wants the conditions for giving aid to Pakistan to be faithfully fulfilled.

In a letter written by John Wall, World Bank representative in Pakistan to the economic affairs secretary Waqar Masud, the former expects Pakistan to fulfil 24 of the conditions for the aid, which are very comprehensive. If the conditions are not fulfilled, the aid will be less and its release slow and Pakistan’s economic progress far below its potential.

Finance minister Shaukat Aziz agrees that a much higher rate of economic growth than the average of five per cent is essential and an eight to nine per cent growth appears to be an attractive goal. That is more like what China achieved, and India is wanting to realize.

A far higher rate of economic growth is essential to improve the lot of Pakistan’s population of 140 million which is growing at 2.5 per cent annually. They have to be educated, taken care of medically and provided employment. All that makes tremendous demand on the resources of the poor state. In the absence of adequate steps in that direction poverty has been increasing and malnutrition becoming more common.

Higher economic growth along with a steady increase in productivity is the panacea for Pakistan’s economic problems and increasing social tensions. In fact, that is the solution for most developing countries.

And that has been stressed now at the third Tokyo international conference on development by the Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi after announcing a billion dollars grant-in-aid for the poorest countries in Africa. He said without economic growth poverty cannot be reduced. Japan would place particular emphasis on efforts to improve agricultural productivity.

Both are the needs of Pakistan and that has been stressed by the World Bank and finance minister Shaukat Aziz. But along with higher economic growth and increase in productivity, particularly in agriculture, there has to be distinct improvement in distributive justice so that the rich do not monopolize the new wealth as well, as they control the levers of power in the state. In Pakistan, as in the past, the levers of power are now in the hands of the feudal class. And if the armed forces have the ultimate power, they too have major landed interests in the country. No wonder poverty has been increasing in recent years despite the efforts of the international aid agencies to reduce poverty and the pervasive human misery.

Pakistan needs more food to meet the needs of its 140 million people. We need more food to meet the needs of the 45 per cent undernourished people of the country.

High productivity has to increase not only the output of wheat and rice but also other cereals including minor crops like grams and pulses as well as oilseeds.

Protein starvation is a widespread problem in the country and is the cause of poor production of the workers. Livestock development has to be promoted in a big way, such as through corporate farming, which has been with us more as a slogan than a productive reality.

Fisheries need better organization and promotion instead of our fishermen being confined to the coastal waters, while foreigners profit by the deep-sea fishing. Fishing disputes such as between Sindh and Balochistan should be avoided. Poultry farming, too, needs to be organized in a more scientific and systematic manner so that violent fluctuation in prices can be avoided.

In a country in which 50 per cent of the people depend on agriculture we need to re-organize and develop thee sectors not only to meet the needs of the people but also export more and earn far more. What we earn through the export of fisheries now is a nominal amount while countries with smaller coastline than ours earn far more through exports.

Higher productivity is the only way out in agriculture as additional land available for cultivation is limited. And water is scarce and often ill-used. Large parts of Balochistan could be used for cultivation as well as parts of the deserts of Sindh and Punjab if more water was available. However steps are now being taken to increase the water supply through new dams and canals.

The tragedy of water in Pakistan is said to be more of its misuse and waste. Seventy per cent water is misused resulting in heavy water-logging and extensive salinity. Along with lining the canal to prevent seepage and leakage, a more scientific system of water use has to be promoted.

All that may be too much to be expected of the half literate farmers and the feudal lords who do not want to put back much of the money they earn through modern farming. They have large families to support who live it up to keep up with the feudal traditions.

Agronomists deplore the slow pace of modernization of agriculture in Pakistan including mechanization and use of modern technologies. Much has not been done to promote the use of modern bio-technology in agriculture which can increase the yield in a big way. When it comes to industrial production and increase in productivity many industrialists tend to conceal their real output in order to pay less taxes and duties and even lower electricity bills. Sometimes the under-reporting is to avoid the due share of other members of the family.

Lowering the taxation and better vigilance on the part of the taxation authorities are reducing under-reporting of the output. That should be improved steadily. But higher productivity in the industry needs more educated workers and better trained managers instead of the sons and relatives of the owners.

The country needs better industrial intelligence. That may become possible following the reduction in taxes and increasing vigilance of the taxation staff. Because of the inflow of goods from abroad, particularly China, at very low prices, the Pakistani industrialists are being forced to increase their efficiency, produce more at low prices and improve the quality of their products.

Many of the problems in the industrial sector spring from the fact that most industrialists or their families own 60 to 90 per cent of the shares of their companies. So the minority share holders are not able to check the abuses of the majority share holders and they get outvoted at the annual meetings.

Such company chiefs do not want to be members of the central depository system of Karachi Stock Exchange and keep their shares there for fear of being found out that they own an overwhelming number of shares, which may be objected to by the securities and exchange commission.

If the industrialists avoid documentation so do the big traders to avoid taxes, particularly the sales tax as the business figures of the Liberty Market, Bohri Bazar and the Islamabad markets show.

While Pakistan, like other developing countries, complains, that the western countries do not transfer their technology to it, scientists in Pakistan are blaming their own industry for not making use of research to improve their productivity or their products. The industrialists do not want to be inventive or adaptive in this crucial areas.

But the fact remains that there is no way out for Pakistan except obtaining higher economic growth along with a steady improvement in productivity while the population growth is controlled. There is no short cut in this area .

LAST week, Bush received a scornful reception at the United Nations that symbolized the world’s growing dismay over his administration. Not since Nikita Kruschev pounded his shoe on the speaker’s rostrum has a major leader so embarrassed himself and his nation before the world body.

In his UN speech, Bush again claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ‘ties’ to terrorism. Only days later, US intelligence teams that scoured Iraq for four months reported no traces of weapons or terrorism links — the pretext used by Bush and his neo-conservative handlers for unprovoked war against Iraq.

The White House was left choking on its own grotesque lies.

Incredibly, vice-president Dick Cheney, a prime architect of the Iraq war, actually claimed recently that Iraq still had mobile germ labs, though the US and British inspectors debunked this phoney claim last June. The ‘special’ intelligence network created by neo-conservatives in Washington and Israel is still apparently feeding disinformation to America’s leadership. It staggers the imagination that Cheney is so ill informed. How isolated from reality are he and the president?

Yet none of this has stopped the White House and its pro-Israeli neo-conservative string-pullers from raising new alarms about Iran’s nuclear programme and issuing threats of war against the Islamic republic. A crisis with ‘nuclear armed Iran’ will be an excellent way of boosting Bush’s declining popularity before the 2004 elections. If Iran does not work out, then Pakistan offers another handy bogeyman. The phoney claims, promoted by Pentagon neo-conservatives, that Pakistan was supplying North Korea with nuclear technology was the first salvo in the upcoming scare campaign about Pakistan.

Cheney’s bizarre behaviour came only days after Bush finally admitted Iraq was not, as most Americans were misled to believe, behind the September 9, 2001 attacks on the US. No wonder world leaders gave Bush the cold shoulder, and even usually timid UN secretary-general Kofi Annan warned against ‘dangerous acts of unilateralism,’ a pointed reference to the bellicose Bush administration.

Unfortunately, many Americans still do not understand how gravely White House has damaged the nation’s once noble reputation. Recent polls show that even among the traditional best friends abroad, America is no longer regarded as a champion of freedom, democracy, and human rights, but, increasingly, as a hegemon bent on imperial domination and exploitation.

America’s most precious and proudest asset, its moral reputation, has been gravely damaged by White House. The only positive note: rising anti-Americanism is largely associated in the eyes of non-Americans with the persona of George Bush, a man who incarnates almost all the negative stereotypes foreigners hold of the Americans.

Bush’s blinkered core supporters simply don’t understand or don’t care to know what the rest of the world thinks of their nation, which, since 9/11, has wrapped itself in a cocoon of anti-foreign feeling and self-righteous rage.

The White House’s mouthpiece media, led by Fox News, have simply blanked out world opinion and endlessly chorused administration war propaganda.

A fascinating March study of network TV news by New York’s fairness and accuracy in media shows how Americans were misled into war by outrageously biased programming on Iraq.

The Fair’s analysis found: 76 per cent of all TV commentators on Iraq were current or former government officials. Only six per cent of the commentators expressed scepticism regarding the need for a war — when 61 per cent of the public favoured more time for diplomacy and inspections. On the four major TV networks, less than one per cent of the sources were identified with anti-war groups.

Over two-thirds of the commentators were from the United States, 75 per cent either current or former government or military officials. The small number of foreign commentators mostly came from nations, like Britain and Israel, backing Bush’s war policy.

In short, the major networks, under White House prompting, beat the war drums and blatantly excluded commentators with contrary views, presenting a distorted account of world events. No wonder so few Americans understand what is going on abroad, how the outside world really sees them, or why America has so many enemies overseas.

The ‘citizens of the old Soviet Union suffered the same information isolation. Like the Americans since 9/11, they were force-fed propaganda disguised as news and deprived of all knowledge of the real world around them.

Back to reality. Bush’s UN speech was another attempt to mislead the Americans into believing the horrid mess in Iraq — entirely the creation of George Bush and the extremist neo-conservatives.

French President Jacques Chirac proposed that the US hand over Iraq to the UN. But Bush, still lusting for Iraqi oil and fearful his family foe, Saddam Hussein, would return to thumb his nose at him, foolishly scorned this wise proposal. Bush is praying that his hit teams will assassinate Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein before next year’s elections. But even that may not save Bush from the growing anger of defrauded Americans who are slowly realizing that Mr Bush’s Iraq war was a political version of the giant Enron financial swindle. — Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2003.

LAST week, Bush received a scornful reception at the United Nations that symbolized the world’s growing dismay over his administration. Not since Nikita Kruschev pounded his shoe on the speaker’s rostrum has a major leader so embarrassed himself and his nation before the world body.

In his UN speech, Bush again claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ‘ties’ to terrorism. Only days later, US intelligence teams that scoured Iraq for four months reported no traces of weapons or terrorism links — the pretext used by Bush and his neo-conservative handlers for unprovoked war against Iraq.

The White House was left choking on its own grotesque lies.

Incredibly, vice-president Dick Cheney, a prime architect of the Iraq war, actually claimed recently that Iraq still had mobile germ labs, though the US and British inspectors debunked this phoney claim last June. The ‘special’ intelligence network created by neo-conservatives in Washington and Israel is still apparently feeding disinformation to America’s leadership. It staggers the imagination that Cheney is so ill informed. How isolated from reality are he and the president?

Yet none of this has stopped the White House and its pro-Israeli neo-conservative string-pullers from raising new alarms about Iran’s nuclear programme and issuing threats of war against the Islamic republic. A crisis with ‘nuclear armed Iran’ will be an excellent way of boosting Bush’s declining popularity before the 2004 elections. If Iran does not work out, then Pakistan offers another handy bogeyman. The phoney claims, promoted by Pentagon neo-conservatives, that Pakistan was supplying North Korea with nuclear technology was the first salvo in the upcoming scare campaign about Pakistan.

Cheney’s bizarre behaviour came only days after Bush finally admitted Iraq was not, as most Americans were misled to believe, behind the September 9, 2001 attacks on the US. No wonder world leaders gave Bush the cold shoulder, and even usually timid UN secretary-general Kofi Annan warned against ‘dangerous acts of unilateralism,’ a pointed reference to the bellicose Bush administration.

Unfortunately, many Americans still do not understand how gravely White House has damaged the nation’s once noble reputation. Recent polls show that even among the traditional best friends abroad, America is no longer regarded as a champion of freedom, democracy, and human rights, but, increasingly, as a hegemon bent on imperial domination and exploitation.

America’s most precious and proudest asset, its moral reputation, has been gravely damaged by White House. The only positive note: rising anti-Americanism is largely associated in the eyes of non-Americans with the persona of George Bush, a man who incarnates almost all the negative stereotypes foreigners hold of the Americans.

Bush’s blinkered core supporters simply don’t understand or don’t care to know what the rest of the world thinks of their nation, which, since 9/11, has wrapped itself in a cocoon of anti-foreign feeling and self-righteous rage.

The White House’s mouthpiece media, led by Fox News, have simply blanked out world opinion and endlessly chorused administration war propaganda.

A fascinating March study of network TV news by New York’s fairness and accuracy in media shows how Americans were misled into war by outrageously biased programming on Iraq.

The Fair’s analysis found: 76 per cent of all TV commentators on Iraq were current or former government officials. Only six per cent of the commentators expressed scepticism regarding the need for a war — when 61 per cent of the public favoured more time for diplomacy and inspections. On the four major TV networks, less than one per cent of the sources were identified with anti-war groups.

Over two-thirds of the commentators were from the United States, 75 per cent either current or former government or military officials. The small number of foreign commentators mostly came from nations, like Britain and Israel, backing Bush’s war policy.

In short, the major networks, under White House prompting, beat the war drums and blatantly excluded commentators with contrary views, presenting a distorted account of world events. No wonder so few Americans understand what is going on abroad, how the outside world really sees them, or why America has so many enemies overseas.

The ‘citizens of the old Soviet Union suffered the same information isolation. Like the Americans since 9/11, they were force-fed propaganda disguised as news and deprived of all knowledge of the real world around them.

Back to reality. Bush’s UN speech was another attempt to mislead the Americans into believing the horrid mess in Iraq — entirely the creation of George Bush and the extremist neo-conservatives.

French President Jacques Chirac proposed that the US hand over Iraq to the UN. But Bush, still lusting for Iraqi oil and fearful his family foe, Saddam Hussein, would return to thumb his nose at him, foolishly scorned this wise proposal. Bush is praying that his hit teams will assassinate Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein before next year’s elections. But even that may not save Bush from the growing anger of defrauded Americans who are slowly realizing that Mr Bush’s Iraq war was a political version of the giant Enron financial swindle. — Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2003.

IT was romantics like Paul Gauguin who seduced the world into believing that tropical islands are palm-fringed paradises where people are nicer and more innocent than elsewhere, but they did have help from the ‘small is beautiful’ crowd. Surely, they murmured, much of the ugliness and cruelty of mass societies comes from their sheer scale. So let us consider a few small islands.

Start with the Maldives: 1,190 low-lying coral atolls in the Indian Ocean, with about 300,000 people scattered around 200 inhabited islands. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who has been in power for 25 years, wants another term, but young Maldivians have decided they’ve had enough. In two nights of violence last weekend (20-21 Sept), mobs of youths burned the Election Commission’s office, the High Court, and several police stations in Male, the capital.

“Most of the people in the mob were people with serious police records,” claimed Gayoom, but someone using the name ‘Rosa’ e-mailed a very different account to the BBC website. “I have seen many people being hauled in off the streets in Male by the police....The police had cameras during the riots and there were cameras in the buildings that were attacked. My friends last night saw two men being hauled out of their shops and thrown into police vans just before curfew started. I have also seen many young men being arrested, not hardened criminals as the government claims.”

Gayoom has done a good job of raising living standards in the Maldives: ten per cent annual growth for the past twenty years. An average income now nearing $2,000 a year is not bad for a chain of barren atolls which live exclusively off tourism, fishing and trade. The price, however, has been arbitrary arrests and long jail sentences for government critics. So the younger generation, having benefited from the education their parents could never afford, has turned against the all-powerful patriarch who has outlived his usefulness. Just like anywhere else.

Gayoom will win next month’s referendum and get his sixth term: this is just the first outburst of resistance in the Maldives. Things have gone much further in the Solomon Islands, 4,000 miles (6,000 km) to the east, where a five-year civil war between the Isatabu, the dominant population of the main island, Guadalcanal, and immigrants from the neighbouring island of Malaita has already devastated the country. Hundreds of people have been killed in fighting between rival militias, schools are shut, there is little water or electricity, and export earnings have fallen 80 percent in five years.

A multinational force led by Australian troops arrived in the Solomons in late July, but it has not yet managed to disarm the militias. Last week the shaky truce was threatened when Selwyn Sake, commander of the Isatabu militia for the capital, Honiara, was found dead and mutilated in his car. The 465,000 people of the Solomons speak 70 different languages, and the prospects for a lasting peace deal must be reckoned as slim.

Go north-east just a few hundred miles (kilometres) to the tiny, lonely island of Nauru, and the ethnic complexity diminishes: most of Nauru’s 12,000 inhabitants at least speak the same language. But after European traders introduced guns and alcohol in the 19th century, there was a ten-year war between the island’s twelve major clans — and the clans are still at war, in a way, though these days they play the game out through more or less democratic politics. The resulting chaos is so great that Nauru is now on its fifth president since January.

If oil is the curse of the Arab world and diamonds have been the nemesis of Sierra Leone, then fertiliser has been the downfall of Nauru. In 1899 prospectors realised that the whole interior of the 8-square-mile (21 sq. km) island was practically solid phosphate, and strip-miners began to transform the island into a moonscape. Eventually the local people got their hands on the revenues, and became for a time the richest people of the Third World — but now the phosphate is nearly gone, their investments have melted away through bad management, and they are at each other’s throats.— Copyright

TERRORISM has become a major problem. It poses a serious threat to international peace and security. The invention of lethal and sophisticated weapons and their possession by the terrorists, coupled with their ability to employ new methods and techniques to perpetrate the acts of violence have made terrorism much more frightening and worrisome.

An act or threat of violence, irrespective of its motives or purposes, that occurs for the advancement of an individual or collective criminal agenda and seeks to create an environment of fear is not permissible in a civilized society. However, the terrorists are always driven by reasons of their own esoteric understanding of the world around them.

The United Nations, concerned with the increase in acts of terrorism, which endanger the lives and well-being of individuals, as well as peace and security of all states, has adopted a number of resolutions and conventions to fight it. In these resolutions and conventions, the UN has emphasized the need for intensifying the fight against terrorism at the national and international levels and strengthening international co-operation on the basis of the principles of the UN Charter and international law.

In the wake of September 11 carnage in the United States, the UN reaffirmed its commitment to jointly fight international terrorism. Pakistan, being a responsible member of the UN which always played a pivotal role in combating the menace of terrorism, joined the international coalition to fight terrorism. It took a vow, with determination to root out terrorism, extremism and militant tendencies and adopted wide-ranging measures to rein in domestic as well as international terrorism.

Pakistan firmly believes that unless the root causes of terrorism are identified and addressed, the fight against this menace cannot be won. The use of violence by individuals, groups and states to achieve their objectives, legitimate or otherwise, is defined as terrorism. It seems that the word ‘terrorism’, with its present connotation has lost its meaning, particularly in the post-colonial era. In some parts of the world the monster of neo-colonialism has raised its ugly head. It is, therefore, necessary to evolve a just and comprehensive definition of terrorism, a definition that would distinguish it from the peoples’ struggle for national liberation, a right that is recognized by the UN and is the cornerstone of international law. Needless to say that the principle of self-determination and maintenance of international peace and security are inseparable.

Despite the international community’s resolve to fight terrorism, there is a consensus that the war against terrorism should not transgress the internationally recognized human rights, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and upheld by a number of important conventions. In its resolution, adopted on December 18 last year, the UN General Assembly also reaffirmed that the states must ensure that any measures taken by them to combat terrorism comply with their obligations under international law and are not incompatible with the UN resolutions and decisions on human rights.

In June last year, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism. This convention also enunciated that anti-terrorist initiatives must be undertaken by the member states in compliance with their existing obligations under the international law, including the international human rights law.

The premeditated US-led attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, ostensibly to suppress terrorism in these countries, have already caused deaths of thousands of innocent civilians as a result of the indiscriminate bombing by the coalition forces. Other massive human rights violations are also of frequent occurrence there. Thus, the United States, in particular, is in material breach of the Inter-American Convention. President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption, enunciated and invoked by him to invade Iraq, has already been found devoid of legal or moral force by the international jurists.

Regrettably, in the aftermath of September 11 sacrilege, which the Muslim world condemned as a perversion and betrayal of the Islamic teachings and values, a sinister campaign has been launched by the forces inimical to Islam, equating this religion with terrorism. They have, however, completely ignored the fact that in many parts of the world, the fundamental rights of the Muslims are being suppressed ruthlessly by denying them their right of self-determination and through other machinations. Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya are some of the glaring examples of the deprivation of these rights.

The Islamic world wholeheartedly adheres to the objectives enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the Muslims like the adherents of other religions, have every right to protect their dignity, religious identity and other fundamental rights. To call their just struggle terrorism is untenable. It is feared that in the foreseeable future the Islamic world may face much more serious and daunting challenges. It is, therefore, necessary to identify those challenges and draw a joint strategy to meet them with perseverance and sagacity. The idea is not to seek an anti-West solidarity but only to safeguard Islamic world’s legitimate interests and secure its rightful place in the comity of nations.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

TERRORISM has become a major problem. It poses a serious threat to international peace and security. The invention of lethal and sophisticated weapons and their possession by the terrorists, coupled with their ability to employ new methods and techniques to perpetrate the acts of violence have made terrorism much more frightening and worrisome.

An act or threat of violence, irrespective of its motives or purposes, that occurs for the advancement of an individual or collective criminal agenda and seeks to create an environment of fear is not permissible in a civilized society. However, the terrorists are always driven by reasons of their own esoteric understanding of the world around them.

The United Nations, concerned with the increase in acts of terrorism, which endanger the lives and well-being of individuals, as well as peace and security of all states, has adopted a number of resolutions and conventions to fight it. In these resolutions and conventions, the UN has emphasized the need for intensifying the fight against terrorism at the national and international levels and strengthening international co-operation on the basis of the principles of the UN Charter and international law.

In the wake of September 11 carnage in the United States, the UN reaffirmed its commitment to jointly fight international terrorism. Pakistan, being a responsible member of the UN which always played a pivotal role in combating the menace of terrorism, joined the international coalition to fight terrorism. It took a vow, with determination to root out terrorism, extremism and militant tendencies and adopted wide-ranging measures to rein in domestic as well as international terrorism.

Pakistan firmly believes that unless the root causes of terrorism are identified and addressed, the fight against this menace cannot be won. The use of violence by individuals, groups and states to achieve their objectives, legitimate or otherwise, is defined as terrorism. It seems that the word ‘terrorism’, with its present connotation has lost its meaning, particularly in the post-colonial era. In some parts of the world the monster of neo-colonialism has raised its ugly head. It is, therefore, necessary to evolve a just and comprehensive definition of terrorism, a definition that would distinguish it from the peoples’ struggle for national liberation, a right that is recognized by the UN and is the cornerstone of international law. Needless to say that the principle of self-determination and maintenance of international peace and security are inseparable.

Despite the international community’s resolve to fight terrorism, there is a consensus that the war against terrorism should not transgress the internationally recognized human rights, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and upheld by a number of important conventions. In its resolution, adopted on December 18 last year, the UN General Assembly also reaffirmed that the states must ensure that any measures taken by them to combat terrorism comply with their obligations under international law and are not incompatible with the UN resolutions and decisions on human rights.

In June last year, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism. This convention also enunciated that anti-terrorist initiatives must be undertaken by the member states in compliance with their existing obligations under the international law, including the international human rights law.

The premeditated US-led attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, ostensibly to suppress terrorism in these countries, have already caused deaths of thousands of innocent civilians as a result of the indiscriminate bombing by the coalition forces. Other massive human rights violations are also of frequent occurrence there. Thus, the United States, in particular, is in material breach of the Inter-American Convention. President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption, enunciated and invoked by him to invade Iraq, has already been found devoid of legal or moral force by the international jurists.

Regrettably, in the aftermath of September 11 sacrilege, which the Muslim world condemned as a perversion and betrayal of the Islamic teachings and values, a sinister campaign has been launched by the forces inimical to Islam, equating this religion with terrorism. They have, however, completely ignored the fact that in many parts of the world, the fundamental rights of the Muslims are being suppressed ruthlessly by denying them their right of self-determination and through other machinations. Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya are some of the glaring examples of the deprivation of these rights.

The Islamic world wholeheartedly adheres to the objectives enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the Muslims like the adherents of other religions, have every right to protect their dignity, religious identity and other fundamental rights. To call their just struggle terrorism is untenable. It is feared that in the foreseeable future the Islamic world may face much more serious and daunting challenges. It is, therefore, necessary to identify those challenges and draw a joint strategy to meet them with perseverance and sagacity. The idea is not to seek an anti-West solidarity but only to safeguard Islamic world’s legitimate interests and secure its rightful place in the comity of nations.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.