As a young professional who tasted his first experience of multilateral diplomacy as the first secretary on India’s two-member delegation to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) from September 1981 to 1984, I realized very early on that almost every nation views global issues through the prism of its narrowly defined national interest. This sobering realization only grows as one moves up the ladder. I have served in various capacities at UN since 1981, including as India’s permanent representative to the UN both in Geneva (2002–2005) and New York (2009–2013), and can attest to the power play that plays out in these corridors. In fact, one need not look too far back to find an example of high-political drama at the UN—the recent India-UK face-off to get a judge nominated at the International Court of Justice provides ample evidence of the same.
Perhaps the most political of all bodies at the UN is the Security Council for there is clear advantage in sitting around the famous horseshoe table.
One of my eternal regrets has been my inability to persuade decision makers in New Delhi on the need to take Security Council reform more seriously. In all such discussions over the past decade or so, the cautious or the risk-averse bureaucrat succeeded in playing on the fault lines of a less than fully focused political class. Add to it our loss to Japan in 1996, in the election for a non-permanent seat membership representing Asia, which led to delusional thinking within the ranks of the Indian bureaucracy, culminating in specious arguments such as, permanent membership will come without a veto, that it would be a ‘second class’ membership.
I was deputed as India’s permanent representative at the UN in 2009 to organize India’s campaign for non-permanent membership. Our win by a record margin (186 votes out of 191) and the subsequent membership in the council for the years 2011 and 2012, has played a significant part in bringing about some change in this mindset back home.
Ultimately, it is only when the Indian bureaucrat realizes that, in the larger scheme of things, even a long term non-permanent membership would be infinitely superior to the present situation, will any reform proposed by India hold weight at this global forum. Else, we will have to wait again, albeit for a shorter time period (ten years since India is up for membership again in 2021), 75 to get our rightful place on the Security Council.
To end this section on a more positive note, I have good reason to believe that with Prime Minister Modi’s first term in office concentrated on domestic transformation, as witnessed through the various flagship programmes, a concerted Indian push for expansion and reform of the United Nations Security Council will most definitely come in the second term.
CHAPTER 6
The Politics of Terror
‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorist.’
—President George W. Bush, 21 September 2001 1
Just twelve days after the worst terror attack in the history of the United States, President George W. Bush, addressed a joint session of Congress where he laid out the terms and conditions of what came to be known as the ‘War on Terror’.
His speech has largely shaped the post-9/11 narrative on terror across the world. The admission that the United States of America was no longer safe from terror attacks perhaps had the most far-reaching impact on world affairs, since the ill-fated Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour during World War II.
* * *
Nowhere is the delusional streak in policymaking more evident than in the manner in which governments deal with the issue of terrorism. This has been so for a very long time. And this continues to be the case even today.
I have had the privilege, perhaps more appropriately described as a challenge of nightmarish proportion, to deal with issues of terrorism upfront on at least three occasions in a long professional career spanning over four decades. On each of these occasions, I felt a strong need to de-hyphenate facts from fiction and to reorient the thinking of those responsible for decision-making. The evolution of the terrorist threat has been deeply influenced by delusional thinking and consequently flawed decision-making. The manner in which governments—individually and collectively—have responded to, and are continuing to respond to, this challenge has come to pose nothing short of an existential threat to mankind.
Let us start with two recent examples: the so-called victories over the dreaded, hydra-headed monster called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS or ISIL, and the liberation of Raqqa and Mosul.
In a statement issued on 20 October 2017, on Raqqa’s liberation from ISIS, the US State Department, inter alia, said:
‘In January, ISIS was actively plotting terrorist attacks against our allies and our homeland in Raqqa. Nine short months later, it is out of ISIS’s control due to critical decisions President Trump made to accelerate the campaign. Over the last seven months, millions of people have been liberated from ISIS’s brutal rule and working with our partners on the ground we are setting the conditions to enable people to return home.’ 2
‘ISIS’s cruelty and barbarity cannot be overstated. ISIS is deliberately and consistently using civilians as human shields and leaving behind mines to maim and kill children and other civilians seeking only to return to their homes or schools. The barbaric nature of ISIS’s tactics left many scars and we are supporting stabilization efforts in liberated areas to help these communities heal.’ 3
‘ISIS’s loss of Raqqa does not mean our fight against ISIS is over. The Global Coalition will continue to draw on all elements of national power —military, intelligence, diplomacy, economic, law enforcement, and the strength of our communities—until all Syrians have been liberated from ISIS brutality and we can ensure that it can no longer export its terror around the world. The Coalition will continue its relentless campaign to deny ISIS safe haven anywhere in the world, and sever its ability to recruit, move foreign terrorist fighters, transfer funds, and spread false propaganda over the internet and social media. We are confident that we will prevail and defeat this brutal terrorist organization.’ 4
ISIS is the first terrorist group that has demonstrated the ability to hold territory and run its own version of an administration, collecting taxes and dispensing justice. That it was able to do so with the tacit acceptance and, in some respects, the enthusiasm of the population it governed rang alarm bells in the West and its partners—the governing regimes in North Africa and West Asia. To that extent, the liberation of Raqqa, like the liberation of Mosul earlier in July 2017, represents a major victory in the fight against ISIS in several respects.
To dispel the ‘caliphate’ from its proclaimed physical boundaries needs to be welcomed. That is the point, however, where sober introspection should start. Both Raqqa and Mosul were completely destroyed, millions were displaced and the bulk of the ISIS fighters fled. The sleeper cells, the mined areas and the booby-trapped buildings that remained will only add to the devastation. A more relevant question that needs to be asked is: Do we have a realistic assessment of the extent of the collateral damage caused by the so-called ‘liberation’ of these two strongholds? The millions displaced are unlikely to be welcomed in the West. The lack of civil liberties in the repressive regimes in the region will continue to provide encouragement and succour to the fleeing fighters. Even if they cannot re-establish the caliphate, it is entirely possible that they will add to the number of the invisible but growing army willing to undertake lone wolf attacks in different Western cities or, for that matter, elsewhere. The victors of the military action in Mosul and Raqqa themselves admit:
‘ISIS’s loss of Raqqa does not mean our fight against ISIS is over.’ 5
The effort, in retrospect, was:
. . . to deny ISIS safe haven anywhere in the world, and sever its ability to recruit, move foreign terrorist fighters, transfer funds and spread false propaganda over the internet and social media. 6
None of the above requires the holding of territory either in or through a caliphate. In today’s day and age, all these functions can and will continue to be performed by individuals or g
roups over the Internet.
The threat from ISIS may just have become more serious.
Prior to the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 when nineteen terrorists associated with the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States, mainstream opinion in the United States and Western Europe viewed terrorism as someone else’s problem. And because terrorism had thus far not targeted innocent lives in the West, perceptions and analyses tended to be anchored in a theoretical and philosophical construct that overlooked the fact that a terrorist takes away the most fundamental right of all—the right to life.
In the seventeen years since (2001), the global terror machine has witnessed exponential growth, governments have invariably dealt with and responded to the immediate threat and often employed methods that, over an extended period of time, have exacerbated the problem.
Let me, however, first recount the three occasions when I had to deal with issues relating to terrorism. These experiences shaped my attitude in the most fundamental way.
The first: As a young political officer in the High Commission of India in Colombo, between December 1984 and March 1988, I was assigned duties that required me to maintain contact with Tamil terror groups in general and with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in particular. The second: When I was the Deputy High Commissioner of India in London, between 1999 and 2002, I saw jihadi terror networks working the liberal democratic system and taking advantage of the freedoms on offer. Finally, as the permanent representative of India to the United Nations in New York, I had the privilege of representing India on the Security Council in 2011–2012, presiding over the council in August 2011 and November 2012 and chairing the Security Council’s Counter Terrorism Committee in 2011–12. The Security Council’s Counter Terrorism Committee was established in pursuance of the UNSC Resolution 1373 following the terror attacks in New York on 9/11.
The council is the designated agency in the multilateral system to deal with threats to international peace and security. It is the body designated and authorized to make a determination on whether a particular development does indeed constitute a threat to international peace and security. Having determined that, it alone has the authority to authorize counter measures, or the ‘use of force’, euphemistically called ‘all means necessary’.
On each of these occasions, starting from the mid-1980s to the present, a period spanning over three decades, I was alarmed by the international community’s inability to come to terms with the basics of international terrorism.
Let me explain. There are several enduring and abiding myths about terrorism:
That it is umbilically linked to abject poverty
That it is linked to, or largely anchored in, a particular religion
That if only the state could provide good education and jobs, we would be in a position to wean youngsters away from violent extremism and radicalism.
The above are only illustrative. As with other generalizations, the perceptions listed above reflect and capture only a limited segment of the folklore and simplistic understanding of the reality that constitutes today’s hardcore terrorism. Equally, they represent the view of the commentator or analyst and, at best, only a myopic and subjective characterization of an event or occurrence. Most often, the characterization is time and context specific.
Terrorism was listed as one of the sixteen thematic issues identified by the Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM) for its study of the functioning of the multilateral system, anchored in the United Nations, on its seventeenth anniversary. The multilateral system in and around the United Nations periodically establishes independent commissions to seek a focused review of the dominant concerns/themes. Such a commission has the advantage of in-depth examination without the procedural encumbrances of the UN and the tyranny of experts. Such commissions are invariably headed by a former head of state/government.
As the secretary general of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM), headed by Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, I had the privilege of being personally associated with the drafting of the ICM’s discussion paper. 7 Some of the analysis that follows draws on my inputs for that exercise.
It is surprising that even decades after the international community faced the scourge of terrorism, some people continue to spread the enduring and abiding myth that terrorism is linked to abject poverty. If this were true, the parts characterized by abject poverty should have been the epicentre of terrorism. It’s possible that poor and uneducated youth can be more easily attracted to a contrived narrative and used as cannon fodder to perpetuate acts of criminality and terrorism. However, analyses show that in each of these cases, other factors and considerations have played an equally, if not more, decisive role to create the terror machine. Targeted provisioning of funds, lack of civil liberties, the role of a pernicious state, which has used terrorism as an instrument of policy, and a variety of other factors emerge through such analyses. Terrorism has found fertile recruiting ground not in sub-Saharan Africa or the other least developed countries of the world but in countries of West Asia, Pakistan and elsewhere. It is not that poverty is not an important factor. However, when a holistic study is undertaken, one which includes all the factors/issues at play, the pattern that emerges is one in which poverty has been a small and most certainly not the decisive determinant for the growth of terrorism in West Asia.
The second proposition, that this has something to do with religion with a finger pointing at one religion, merits careful discussion. If Islam alone had something to do with terrorism then the most populated Islamic countries in the world—Indonesia, India and Bangladesh—should have been the epicentres of inspiring, witnessing and exporting terrorism. Instead Al Qaeda, ISIS, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed are nurtured in a specific political environment where a variety of factors play on religion as the background factor. Like poverty, religion alone cannot provide a sufficient explanation and by no means be construed as the important and decisive determinant.
And finally, the widely repeated assertion that if states could provide good education, there would be a greatly reduced desire for potential terrorists to join the jihad and commit acts of criminality. I wonder how easily this somewhat over-simplistic view finds acceptance. This overlooks the fact that some of the world’s most notorious terrorists have had the benefit of the best possible education. Like poverty and religion, education, and the kind of education imparted, might play a small role in the larger narrative that begets an individual to follow an extremist value system, but a response which only looks at this aspect is handicapped from its very inception.
Many factors drive and sustain today’s terrorism. In essence, it is a phenomenon that stems from a constellation of fault lines. Imbalances caused by exclusionary, unaccountable and ideologically based governance should be the starting point for an analysis. Inequitable distribution of resources and new and emerging forms of geopolitical power rivalries that are reshaping the trajectory of these imbalances and their outcomes provide the second set of viable explanation. Deft use of web-based communication technologies, including social media, has made it possible for terrorist organizations and organized crime networks to make inroads into disgruntled and marginalized communities and rally them on the basis of social injustices and grievances created by these imbalances. Marginalized youth have been a prime target. Armed non-state actors who hold territory, command resources and engage in highly lucrative illicit economic activities have made these youth their primary recruits.
Multilateral efforts, primarily under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council, have provided various forms of capacity development support and other measures to strengthen member states’ domestic counterterrorism initiatives. However, certain ambiguities inherent in these measures and in their uneven implementation have provided a convenient pretext for some to pursue double standards in the fight against terrorism. Facto
rs like the ‘siloed’ approach to the problem and the inability to agree on a universal definition of terrorism have further hampered these efforts.
The notion that the fight against terrorism can be won primarily by military force, law enforcement measures and intelligence operations is losing currency. The debate has slowly turned to the need for a comprehensive and long-term approach, rooted in political and socio-economic strategies that encourage social inclusion, political participation and quality, as well as bottom-up strategies that address root causes at the national level.
Defining Terrorism
The United Nations—and the multilateral system more widely—remains deadlocked when it comes to a universal definition of terrorism. Because of the challenges posed by the lack of a universally accepted definition, the current framework of international law, although prohibiting terrorist acts in multiple forums, is not capable of addressing the full scope and the evolving nature of the terrorist threat.
The norms governing the use of force by non-state actors have not kept pace with those pertaining to states. This is not so much a legal question as a political one. Legally, almost all forms of terrorism are ‘prohibited by one of twelve international counterterrorism conventions, international customary law, the Geneva Conventions or the Rome Statutes’. 8 The fifteen major legal instruments and additional amendments addressing terrorism that exist within the UN system are listed in Annexure 1.
It remains elusive—if not impossible—for the United Nations to achieve the same degree of normative strength concerning non-state use of force as it has concerning state use of force. Lack of agreement on a clear and well-known definition diminishes the normative and moral stance against terrorism.
Delusional Politics Page 15