Vivek Katju

Ex-Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs

PARTICIPATING in a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) dialogue on terrorism, organised at India’s initiative on December 15, US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland stated, ‘Last year, the world faced more than 8,000 terrorist incidents, across 65 countries, killing more than 23,000 people….’ These chilling statistics present that terrorism is a recent scourge, and India has been a sufferer of cross-border terrorism for at the very least three many years. It was subsequently acceptable for India to make counter-terrorism a major theme of its membership of the UNSC for its two-year time period that concludes at this month’s finish.

More and extra international locations are actually exhibiting sympathy with the necessity to deal with the ‘root causes’ of terrorism.

To profile the significance India attaches to counter-terrorism, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelled to New York to preside over the December 15 UNSC assembly on ‘Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts’. He invited ‘high level’ representatives from the UNSC member states — usually he would have despatched invites to his counterparts — to the assembly. Ireland was represented by its overseas minister whereas some others, together with Britain, despatched junior ministers or senior officers. The lukewarm response to Jaishankar’s invitation was a sign that whereas all main powers assert the significance of eliminating terrorism, they’ve actually moved on to different points regarding worldwide peace and safety. Consequently, for these powers, the salience and profile of the terrorist menace of their safety calculus has diminished.

Jaishankar stated in his speech, ‘Terrorism is an existential threat to international peace and security. It knows no borders, nationality or race and is a challenge that the international community must combat collectively’. Sadly, the presidential assertion issued by the council, which was initiated by India on November 29 (and didn’t have a clean passage), comprises parts which reveal the ‘ifs and buts’ that now govern the worldwide struggle towards terrorism. One clear proof of the downgrading of the terrorism as a menace is offered within the presidential assertion: as a substitute of endorsing Jaishankar that terrorism is an existential menace, it calls it ‘one of the most serious threats to international peace and security’. Also, whereas Jaishankar known as for terrorism to be fought collectively by the worldwide group, the unhappy reality is that every one international locations comply with a segmented method in direction of it.

At a conceptual stage, India has by no means wished to enter the ‘root causes’ of terrorism. It has believed that concept to be a slippery slope which might result in the justification of terrorism. However, it’s clear that increasingly international locations are exhibiting sympathy with the necessity to deal with ‘root causes’. This was mirrored in Irish overseas minister Simon Coveney’s assertion. ‘The most effective way to tackle terrorism is to prevent it in the first place… we know that communities affected by conflict, poverty, inequality, poor governance and human rights violations are more vulnerable to radicalisation and recruitment’.

The presidential assertion doesn’t straight enter this contested enviornment. It does, nonetheless, emphasise the necessity to comply with humanitarian legislation and a ‘whole of government and society’ method to fight it. Thus, the worldwide group is now asserting that terrorism can’t be eradicated by power alone; that points regarding human rights and justice and financial and social improvement should be taken under consideration to fulfill its problem. It might be prudent for India to notice how worldwide pondering on terrorism has shifted throughout the previous twenty years. Fortunately, the necessity to cease the stream of funds and weapons in addition to the free motion of terrorists continues to be emphasised by the worldwide group and is mirrored within the presidential assertion.

This shift in pondering is little question a consequence of the larger assurance within the West of its means to stop main terrorist assaults towards its pursuits. In the rapid aftermath of 9/11, the West paid scant consideration to human rights points that are actually being more and more related to stopping terrorism. It sought to crush terrorism with using power and dismissed the demise of harmless folks as collateral injury. This was most vividly seen in Afghanistan. This reveals the hypocrisy on the coronary heart of the worldwide system the place the main powers by no means observe what they preach when their nationwide pursuits come into play.

There was yet one more facet of the presidential assertion which revealed a shift in India’s place. On December 9, the council accredited Resolution 2664 by a vote of 14-0; India was the one nation which abstained. This decision, in accordance with a UN media launch, ensures ‘that the provision, processing or payment of funds, other financial assets or financial resources or the provision of goods and services necessary to ensure the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance or to support other activities that support basic human needs are permitted and are not a violation of the asset freezes…’ put in place by the UNSC or its sanctions committees. Hitherto, such points had been dealt on a case-by-case foundation. Now, the council created a basic mechanism in order that peculiar folks didn’t undergo on account of sanctions imposed towards terrorist teams or regimes. India’s reservations stemmed from the truth that such carve-outs typically benefited the terrorist teams or organisations that they had morphed into, typically with official help similar to in Pakistan.

However, the presidential assertion ‘reaffirmed’ the decision and famous that member states ‘when designing and applying methods to counter the financing of terrorism (need) to take into account the potential of those measures on exclusively humanitarian activities’. India clearly went together with this formulation and, therefore, it might have been higher for it to go together with the decision and spell out its misgivings in an ‘explanation of vote’ assertion as a substitute of abstaining. This wouldn’t have been in battle with the goals of the No Money for Terrorism ministerial assembly it hosted in November. India has to keep up its anti-terrorism actions to defend nationwide safety, nevertheless it should again it up with good diplomacy.