UNGA session facing up to real issues

In the post-cold war period the world has seen the unchallengeable pre-eminence of the United States and its doctrine of pre-emption demonstrated in the Iraq war and through consequent marginalisation of the UN system. The stated aim of the Anglo-US war, inter-alia, was to ensure security of the international community through anticipatory self-defence. Meanwhile political context and dimension of the definition of security has undergone changes. Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans in his book Cooperating for Peace described not just collective security but three other ideas of security -- common, comprehensive and cooperative. "Common security" is defined by the need for commitment to joint survival working cooperatively to maximise inters- state dependence. "Comprehensive security" is demonstrative of the new perception of global issues being multi-dimensional and acknowledgement of not just political but also those of economic underdevelopment, trade dispute, human rights abuse, environmental degradation and terrorism. "Cooperative security" embraces the aspects of both collective and common security while capturing the multi dimensionality of security (Global Policy and the United Nations Security Council Gaya1999,2001).

Addressing the current UN GA President Bush did not offer any additional justification for the Iraq war. But he warned the international community of the great divide " between those who seek order and those who spread chaos; between those who work for peaceful change and those who adopt methods of gangsters; between those who honour the rights of men and those who deliberately take the lives of men, women and children without mercy or shame. Between these alternatives there is no neutral ground". He admitted that "some of the sovereign nations of this assembly disagreed with our actions". Yet he felt that those actions were necessary for the collective security and for the advance of human rights. Stating that the primary goal of the US in Iraq was the establishment of self-government for the Iraqis reached by orderly and democratic process, President Bush invited the UN to "contribute greatly to the cause of Iraq self-government… (and) in assisting in developing a constitution, in training civil servants and conducting free and fair elections". Referring to proliferation of WMD he called on UNSC to adopt a new anti-proliferation resolution which would criminalise proliferation of WMD, enact strict export control consistent with international standard. President Bush's call for UN help perhaps denotes the realisation of his administration that while wars can be won unilaterally peace has to be achieved through multilateral cooperation. As president Chirac told the UNGA "multilateralism is the key, for it ensures participation of all in the management of world affairs. It is a guarantee of legitimacy and democracy, especially in matters regarding the use of force or laying down universal norms". He reiterated the centrality of the UN not only in the case of Iraq but for the maintenance of global peace and security. Though French confrontational position on the use of Anglo-US unilateral use of force has been considerably toned down; it is unlikely that France will remain a by-stander if the US were to resort to unilateral conduct in foreign affairs. This belief is based on President Chirac's agreement to the possibility of a UN multi-national force to be commanded by the "major troop contributor" i.e. the United States. In the case of Russia, President Vladimir Putin unequivocally stated that "only the direct involvement of the UN in the restoration of Iraq will give its people the chance to control their future themselves". He totally endorsed the need for the effectiveness of the UNSC which in his words "in the Security Council a concrete mechanism exists of coordinating political will. It is a mechanism to protect the national interests of the most diverse nations. And through this to protect the interest of the entire international community". In the same vein, UN Secretary General Kofi Anan found in the argument favoured by "counter-restrictionists" on article 51 of the UN Charter that the reference to the "inherent rights" in the article indicated that the Charter's framers intended for the continuation of the broad pre- Charter customary right of anticipatory self-defence, "a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last fifty yeas". He was concerned that if the "counter-restrictionists" logic were to be adopted it would set precedents that would result in the proliferation of unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without justification. Kofi Anan announced his intention to set up a body of eminent persons to examine the current challenges to peace and security and recommend ways as to how the UN could face those challenges.

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The current UNGA session has afforded an opportunity to the developed countries, particularly P-5 of the UNSC, to examine how far they have moved away from Wilsonian idealism of collective security bringing world peace as no state wanted to re-experience the horrors of war. If Bush doctrine of pre-emption is to stay then one has to accept the premise of shifting state sovereignty from Gareth Evans' assertion that "the sovereign state remains the basic unit in international affairs and is so recognised in the UN Charter" to the shift of sovereignty from a primacy of state to a primacy of collective global security. Eminent political scientist James Rosenau and former head of policy planning of the US State Department Ambassador Richard Haas agree on the inconstancy of nation-state sovereignty. Ambassador Haas further argues that for a nation to retain its sovereignty and inviolability it has to follow a universally accepted code of conduct not only internationally but also towards its own people in order to avoid humanitarian intervention as in Kosovo. Perhaps this inconstancy of nation-state sovereignty goaded Kofi Anan (while addressing the current UNGA) to state that the UNSC needed to consider how it would deal with the possibility that individual states might use force preemptively against perceived threats. He urged the UNSC to begin a discussion on the criteria for an early authorisation of coercive measures to address certain types of threats e.g. terrorist groups armed with WMD.

Bush administration's apparent tilt towards multilateralism may have several reasons. Firstly, Anglo-US aggression on Iraq is now a thing of the past and the world has more or less acquiesced in the fait accompli. Except for sporadic Iraqi resistance the global disquiet over the total disregard of the UN has not found any concrete expression of resistance. Another reason could be Franco-German-EU realisation that irreversible fracture of transatlantic relations would not serve Western interests as they have more in common economically and politically than they have differences. Russian impotence coupled with Putin's pragmatic policy has reassured Bush administration that Russia can not put up a credible opposition to any aberrant US conduct in international affairs. Another reason could be that Bush administration finds the ultimate terrorist the Al-Qaidain Jessica Stern's (of Harvard Kennedy School of Government) terminology as the "protean enemy" to be extremely elusive. Despite setbacks CIA Director George Tenet assessed that Al Qaida would continue to remain dangerous for the next two to five years. Jessica Stern finds Al-Qaida's capacity to constantly evolve and its willingness to adapt its missions to be truly remarkable and surprising. According to western intelligence Al-Qaida, a Sunni organisation is now cooperating with Hezbollah, a Shia organisation. Besides al-Qaida is believed to be mixing and training with disparate elements ranging from Marxist Colombians to white supremacists to Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organisations. Jessica Stern, however, admonishes the US administration for too often ignoring the unintended consequences of its actions, disregarding for example, the negative message sent by neglect of Afghanistan and the chaos in post war Iraq (The Protean Enemy Jessica Stern Foreign Affair July/ August 2003). Bush administration, therefore, needs the cooperation of the international community, particularly of the Muslim world in order to eliminate this protean enemy.

That no degree of real or perceived injustice can justify terrorism is to state the obvious. In order to cut the Gordian definitional knot of terrorism, AP Schmidt, a terrorism expert, had suggested in 1992 to the UN crime branch that if the core of war crimes deliberate attack on civilians, hostage-taking and killing of prisoners was extended to peace time, one could simply define terrorism as "peace time equivalent of war crimes". Recently Kofi Anan addressing a Conference on Fighting Terrorism, its abhorrence notwithstanding, urged the international community "to try to understand this deadly phenomenon" and not to ignore "that the decision to resort to terrorism is unrelated to the political, social and economic situation in which people find themselves". He warned that military force alone can not defeat terrorism.

However grotesque it may appear a band of terrorists have been trying to mask their despicable acts under the cloak of a clash of civilisations. In the words of historian Bernard Lewis; "we are facing a need and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilisations, the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present and the world wide expansion of both" (The Roots of Muslim Rage The Atlantic Monthly September 1999).

The attempts by some to ascribe terrorism to a particular faith are not only erroneous but also harmful to its practitioners. Terrorism, in the name of religion, has been practiced by many faiths from time immemorial. One faith against another, intra-faith terrorism in the form of one sect against another, one denomination against another, one church against another church, one caste against lower caste, fundamentalists against liberals -- all these are historical sagas and are still in the making. The current session of the UNGA has been made well aware of these duplicitous efforts by some quarters. Secular attack on terrorism regardless of the faith they appear to practice zealots and IRA were born long before al-Qaida descended upon the world and understanding the root causes that drive sane people into insanity are likely to give more dividend than parochial persecution of a particular group or blind partisan support of a people who have long ago crossed the threshold of any need for security.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is former Secretary and Ambassador