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| 09 October 2004 | Saturday | 23 Shaban 1425 |
UN SC adopts anti-terror resolution: Pakistan insists on definition
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8: The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Friday for a Russian-initiated resolution that seeks to expand the prosecution and extradition of terrorist groups and individuals, including Chechen militants.
But after challenges from Algeria and Pakistan, Moscow's UN Ambassador Andrei Denisov considerably softened the original text in an effort to get the 15-0 vote. The original Russian draft recommended a UN blacklist of individuals, groups and entities involved in terrorism, who would be subject to an asset freeze, an arms embargo and expedited extradition.
Currently such penalties apply only to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The final text creates a working group to consider such measures without mentioning the blacklist. Resolution 1556 "calls upon states to cooperate fully in the fight against terrorism, especially with those states where - or against whose citizens - terrorist acts are committed".
The resolution asks states to "deny safe haven and bring to justice' any person who supports or participates in the "financing, planning, preparation or commission of terrorist acts".
The anti-terror proposals were first announced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a speech to the UN General Assembly last month, after a spate of attacks by Chechen fighters, including the bombing of two airliners and the Beslan school siege.
On Friday, Mr Denisov said the council had to make certain that all terrorist acts against civilians were a crime 'and should be given the harshest punishment' particularly in light of blasts on Thursday in three Egyptian Sinai resorts.
The measure also attempts to define terrorism or 'criminal acts,' something that has eluded the UN General Assembly for years in trying to draft an omnibus treaty on the subject. While Mr Denisov insisted that the resolution was not coming up with a new definition, other diplomats said the text took a big step in that direction.
LEGITIMATE RESISTANCE: Algeria and Pakistan, the two Muslim countries on the Security Council, opposed any wording that would exclude 'legitimate resistance', the main obstacle that faced the General Assembly also.
"While we all agree that acts against civilians are terrorist acts, there is no similar consensus on what are the rights of people struggling against foreign occupation," said Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram.
According to UN diplomats, Algeria and Pakistan had difficulty accepting the text, saying that 'including against civilians' could be construed to include attacks on military targets, running the risk of classifying even national liberation movements as terrorist acts.
They finally came to back the text with the assurance of other diplomats that as far as the resolution is concerned, it would essentially apply to acts against civilians.
"The key is paragraph three, which states quite clearly that intentional attacks on civilians should be punished," said the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth.
The resolution calls on nations to punish "criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public, intimidate a population or compel a government or international organization to do or abstain from doing any act" that would be an offence in existing treaties and protocols.
Such acts, it says, "are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature".
The resolution is co-sponsored by Spain, Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Romania. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov argued that targeting only Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Security Council resolutions showed a double standard.
"Those who slaughtered children in Beslan and hijacked air planes to attack America are creatures of the same breed," he said. Without naming countries such as Britain, Qatar or the United States, which have given asylum to Chechen militants, he rebuked nations for playing 'geopolitical games' with the fight against terrorism.
The resolution also establishes a work group made up of members of the council, which will propose practical measures to take against persons associated with terrorist activities, other than those already defined by a committee on sanctions against Al Qaeda and the Taliban put in place by the United Nations after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.
The resolution also proposes the establishment of "an international fund to compensate victims of terrorist acts and their families ... which could consist, in part, of assets seized from terrorist organizations". -Agencies
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